The annual burning of the snowman was yesterday. We went down there, but I never ended up taking any pictures of the festivities. It probably looked very similar to last year’s. It was a great day with an enormous turnout and we weren’t in the mood to fight through it all so we just plopped down at a sidewalk café a few blocks away and contented ourselves with just hearing the exploding head. It only took about 10 minutes for the head to explode this year, which indicates we are in for a hot summer. No groundhogs predicting seasons here, folks,
The real action this year though came a couple days before the big event when the snowman was stolen from the garage it was being built in. Check this out:
The group, calling itself the "1. Mai – Strasse Frei" (loosely translated as Retaking the Streets on May Day), claiming responsibility for the theft, saying the 3.5-metre tall snowman "had had enough of putting its head on the line for capitalists".
Hilarious. These guys are pretty hardcore if they think Sechseläuten has a capitalist feel to it. Unless you count the makeshift tents that dare to sell drinks, snacks, and balloons. Seriously, it would only take a couple drum circles to go along with all the costumes and they could just call it The Burning (snow)Man. In fact, the entire event has historical roots with the spring equinox when the church bells would chime at 6 o’clock for work to stop. Telling someone when they have to stop working isn’t a real capitalist idea last I checked.
The drum circle reference was because this whole thing reminded me of that hilarious South Park I saw the other day where the hippies invaded with a “jam band music festival” to fight against the Corporation.
Hippie 1 – Right now we’re proving we don’t need corporations. We don’t need money. This can become a commune where everyone just helps each other.Hippe 2 – Yeah, we’ll have one guy who like makes bread and one guy who like looks out for other people’s safety.
Stan – You mean like a baker and a cop?
Hippie 1 – No. No. Can’t you imagine a place where people live together and like provide services for each other in exchange for their services?
Kyle – Yeah, it’s called a town.
