Zozobra

Zozobra is a peculiarly New Mexican ritual that has been the climax of the Fiestas de Santa Fe every autumn since the mid-1920s: a deliberately creepy looking wooden effigy some three stories tall, embedded with fireworks, sparklers, and noisemakers is surrounded by pieces of paper on which locals have written their most bothersome inner secrets and pains to be destroyed by the purifying fire. Zozobra is a cathartic but undeniably strange blend of The Wicker Man, Mexican Catholicism. and heavy drinking, followed by the sort of local street fair that involves fried food on a st...