Just wanted to share this with my wryting list. Here in Valencia, Spain, we are celebrating the Falles (Catalan) or Fallas (Castilian) festival from March 15 to 19. Although I'm a bit tired of all the noise after so many years of being exposed to it, still I find it interesting, and always wanted to write a short article about them, both for locals and foreigners, inserting my own ideas, comparanda, and pics. However, things take time, so maybe next year. So, I'm just sending a couple of links for those interested, and hope you'll find this festival of fire and noise, social satire, art and folk traditions of some anthropological interest. Some of you might find it reminiscent of other festivals in other parts of the world. It basically is a celebration of the spring equinox, where pagan and religious traditions have melt down ... but there is much more to it.
"It is thought that the Falles started in the Middle Ages, when artisans put out their broken artifacts and pieces of wood that they sorted during the winter then burnt them to celebrate the spring equinox." perhaps the most interesting sentence in the wikipedia link, but c'est la vie ... the wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falles and a link for downloading and listening to the firecrackers concerts/compositions archived in the website of our local tv station (radio televisión valenciana) http://www.rtvv.es/festes/falles.asp Over and out, Ana
