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San Fermin in Nueva Orleans is a festival that begins today and runs through Sunday. It is a homage to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain, which is also happening this week. If you can’t make it to Spain, you can run with the “bulls” this Saturday in New Orleans!
The event will replicate and pay homage to the world famous Encierro of Pamplona, Spain, aka The Running of the Bulls, only our bulls are members of New Orleans’ all-female flat-track derby team the Big Easy Rollergirls and select participants from other rollerderby leagues across the country!
Oh, and there will be a special appearance by a group of Elvises on wheels as well! Link -Thanks, John Brauner!
(Image source: Facebook)
To celebrate the summer solstice, over 8,000 paper lanterns were released over the city of Poznan, Poland. Link -via reddit
The Nederland, Colorado, Chamber of Commerce has been staging the Frozen Dead Guy Days annually for ten years. The name comes from the corpse of Bredo Morstoel, who died in 1989 and has been stored in dry ice in the area since 1993. The festival, which attracted 15,000 people this year, includes a coffin race, a parade of hearses, and more typical events as well.
Interim chamber president Blue Hessner says the chamber wants to sell rights to the event and concentrate on business development.
According to the Boulder Daily Camera, the event has become too expensive and the chamber believes an event company could do a better job.
Anyone interested in purchasing the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival should contact the Chamber of Commerce. Link -via Fortean Times
(Image credit: Frozen Dead Guy Days)
Places all over have different ways of celebrating the end of winter and the return of warm weather every year. What could be more fun than a spring-cleaning holiday that includes a water fight? That’s what’s happening in Thailand during Songkran.
On April 12th, old or useless items are thrown out of houses and burned to avoid bad luck, and on the 13th offerings are made to statues of Buddha at the local wat. The Buddha statues are then washed with perfumed water, and Buddhas from important wats are paraded through the streets where the crowds throw more water on them. The water-fight begins in earnest after this, with people dousing each other with buckets and super-soakers on the street.
See videos of Songkran and other spring celebrations at AnyTrip. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
(Image credit: Flickr user Wyndham Hollis)
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Think your tattoos are cool? Well, can they protect your from bullets and possess your body?
Oddity Central has a fascinating look at the Thai Wat Bang Phra Tattoo Festival:
Each year, tattooed devotees come to Wat Bang Phra temple, a place famous for its tattoo masters, to pay their respects to the art of Sak Yant, in a special ceremony known as Wai Khru. Attended by tens of thousands of people, the event becomes quite a spectacle when the animal spirit possessions begin.
At one point, a loud and frightening growl is heard from somewhere in that sea of people, but only foreigners seem to react to it. Then monkey sounds are heard, and people start running towards the temple – specifically towards the shrine of Luang Poh Pern, a respected tattoo artist who served at Wat Bang Phra – waving their arms in the air and yelling like crazy. They are in fact being possessed by the animals tattooed on their bodies. If they have a tiger tattoo, they start growling, if it’s a snake, they start crawling on the ground, but eventually they all start running like crazy toward the shrine.
Link (Photo: Paula Bronstein)
Every year, twins from all over the country gather in Twinsburg, Ohio to celebrate what sets them apart from those born by themselves. National Geographic was there earlier this month to document the festivities, in text and in five photo galleries, plus a memory game where you try to match sets of twins who attended the festival. Link
(Image credit: J. Kyle Keener/National Geographic)
The annual Keep Austin Weird Festival took place just last weekend in Austin, Texas. Who better to show us what it’s all about than Zach Anner? This is the third part of his Zach Anner Rolls Over Austin series; see parts one and two as well. -via Bits and Pieces
Friday night was the big finale of the month-long Fallas 2010 festival in Valencia, Spain. It is called the Cremà. Gigantic structure made for the occasion are burned with great joy.
I’ve often tried to explain La Cremà to friends who’ve never seen it, but it’s impossible. There aren’t words which can accurately convey the insanity of it all. You tell people it’s crazy, and can see what they’re thinking: “Yeah, I’m sure it’s very crazy. But crazy within reason”. No! You aren’t understanding! It’s really completely crazy! Such a thing shouldn’t be legal! The burning of these gigantic 3 story monuments in a densely packed neighborhood, with thousands of onlookers mere meters away, is a crazy thing and a terrible idea.
Over 700 constructions around the city are burnt within a few hours of each other, which makes you think that a tragedy is just a matter of time. But, there are experienced firefighters on hand, with a long history free of major accidents: a fact which is comforting but doesn’t completely erase the terror of La Cremà — the perfect end to Las Fallas, surely one of the world’s most unique and crazy events.
Link – via totalblogal
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Random Good Stuff.
7-year-old Wyatt Wilke was looking forward to entering his best sunflower in a competition at the Sunflower Fair in La Porte, Indiana.
“He loved growing his sunflowers,” said his mother, Cathleen Wilke. “Every year we talked about coming into La Porte for the Sunflower Fair, but we never got around to it. Wyatt really wanted to be part of the contest.”
That’s what they had planned — a day at the fair, to enter his sunflower. He was a healthy, constantly laughing boy — he loved school, where he was in the second grade, he loved horses, he loved his big brother John, with whom he shared a bedroom. The Wilkes lived in the tiny town of Hamlet, about 15 minutes from La Porte; Wyatt would look out the back window, watching for blue jays and cardinals.
“He planted his sunflowers in our garden,” Cathleen Wilke said. “He was so careful with them. A few weeks before the fair, there was a heavy windstorm that knocked his biggest sunflower over. He called to me: ‘Mom, it’s on the ground — my flower, it’s down.’ He was afraid it was ruined. But he managed to save it.”
But a bacterial infection struck Wyatt and he died in just a few days. His stunned parents realized the fair had started the same day he died and took Wyatt’s sunflower to the competition, just as he had planned. They had never been to the Sunflower Fair before.
They waited together as all the categories were judged. No one around them had any idea.
And then, through the loudspeaker system at the fair, the winner of his category was announced:
“First place. . .Wyatt Wilke.”
There is more to the story, but you’d better have your handkerchief ready if you go read it. Link -via Fark
