Step Up To Life

Zozobra 2009

Raar! Fear me, for I am Zozobra. Raaar!

Yesterday Nozlkoff and I took the #516 train to Santa Fe, and after two hours arrived in the rainy capital for the burning of Zozobra. For recent relocaters, troglodytes and people reading this from the Lesser Antilles, Zozobra is an 85 year-old Santa Fe tradition where the effigy of gloom is tortured and burned.

I’d never been, but always thought I would enjoy the strange spectacle.

It was OK.

Santa Fe natives naturally seemed more into it than the others. I fancied the part where they actually tortured and burned the puppet, but standing in a baseball field, packed in like salty little fish, sustaining a substantial contact high while listening to Beatles covers and ... waiting ... is not my idea of fun.

The important thing I did take away from this experience, however, is Step Up to Life by Elmer Murdoch, an glossy, informative booklet about the “pure spiritual milk” of Jesus. Delicious.