The Fiesta de Santa Fe, celebrated annually since 1712, began Thursday night with the burning of Old Man Gloom before a crowd of 25,000.
Zozobra centers around the ritual burning in effigy of Old Man Gloom, or Zozobra, to dispel the hardships and travails of the past year. …
The effigy is a giant animated wooden and cloth marionette that waves its arms and growls ominously at the approach of its fate. A major highlight of the pageant is the fire spirit dancer, dressed in a flowing red costume, who appears at the top of the stage to drive away the white-sheeted “glooms” from the base of the giant Zozobra. …
Zozobra is a well crafted framework of preplanned and pre-cut sticks, covered with chicken wire and yards of muslin. It is stuffed with bushels of shredded paper, which traditionally includes obsolete police reports, paid off mortgage papers, and even personal divorce papers.
NewMexiKen deposited his gloomy thoughts in writing in the gloom box and I feel much better now that they’ve been burned along with the Zozobra. (It’s cheaper than a shrink, and probably as effective.)
This was the 84th burning of the Zozobra. The marionette was about 50-feet tall.
It doesn’t amount to much, but I’ve posted an album of 15 photos taken at the burning.