Zozobra

Last night was the burning of Old Man Gloom, known as Zozobra. Zozobra was the creation of an artist in 1924 and it has now morphed into a huge celebration with Zozobra grown into the world's largest marionette at 41 feet tall. He is placed at the top of a hill above a baseball field and the baseball field is packed with 25,000 people of all ages. Zozobra is filled with people's thoughts of gloom and after the proclamation that he is gloom personified, the crowd yells to "Burn Him!!!" The lights suddenly go out and the crowd is illuminated only by glow sticks, flashing headgear (devils horns and rabbit ears, don't know why those two!) and cell phones. Suspense builds as dancers in white wielding flaming torches dance on the hillside. Fireworks flare up behind Zozobra and a band plays music with lots of electric guitar riffs. Zozobra begins to scream and moan waving his huge arms slowly and shaking his head. Finally his hands erupt in sparks and flames leap onto his side. His head erupts in sparks and flames and he is quickly consumed in a tower of flames until he collapses into a burning pile of scaffolding.

Surely there can be no gloom after that performance! To see a video of the burning visit http://www.kob.com/ (probably only available for a day or two) or homemade videos at http://utube.smashits.com/videos/bydate/zozobra-2008.html (probably more to appear today). Jake's camera died after one daytime photo unfortunately!