This totally works: takes the pee out of pissed-off.
The cat peed right where my head curls while sleeping in the fetal position on my single bed. How did she know to do it there? And what was she trying to say to me? Wasn’t it I who scratched her ears when she came-a-purring? I did not deserve this.
I spent the rest of the day learning French words for baking soda (bicarbonate de sodium) and peroxide (the more challenging translation peroxyde). My mood darkened and frustration settled in. I wanted to just sleep off the rest of the day – definitely not dress up in white and violet to visit a weird carnival in a little town 60km away.
This is not from Pezenas, but helps with the imagery.
Lucky for me I couldn’t reach Boris. Boris is from Pézenas, France, on the ancient Roman road from Rodez to Saint-Thibéry; a small 8,000 person town that hugs a medieval centre with tiny wrapping streets and alleys. The town is home to Boby Lapointe (pronounced dangerously close to “boobie” which got a giggle from me), a famous 1950/60s French singer. It also housed the famous l’Illustre Théâtre, the influential troupe of Molière (France’s Shakespeare) in the mid-1600s. This little town, like many around France, boasts a lively festival as well – a charivari. And had I reached Boris that afternoon, hoping to cancel because I was a cranky wuss, I would have missed one helluva night.
The charvari, an Occidental version of a carnival, didn’t start until 9pm. We sat in a small picturesque square waiting, every once in a while a group of buzzed teenagers passing through with plastic bottles full of spirits to take the edge off the cool night. You were to dress in white and violet, Pézenas’ colours, with the understanding that these clothes weren’t finishing the night without flour/wine/shaving cream/blood on it. Whatevs.
Yes, a man with a BabyBjorn squeezed my ass.
Yes, this post is sounding much like a travel piece, but I assure you that it is not. I want to bring your attention now to the angle most interesting to readers from around the world: sex. I mean community. Sure, it would be easy to compare charivaris to their boring Canadian counterparts, but that wouldn’t serve our purpose. No, friends, I’d like to talk more about the very nature of having a festival, a carnival, a celebration. I asked a bunch of locals about the origins of the charivari and most of them told me it was something to do with the beginning of spring, but they were kind of vague. The origin ended up being a distant reasonunimportant. In its place was the tradition and familiarity of it all. Every year before Mardi Gras the town gets together, young and old, children and white haired perverts (I’ll tell you about that in a minute) and they romp in the street following the drum/flute/shaker band of Pagans dressed in horns and furs. And remember how I said these streets were tiny? This ended up being important for the mosh pit. When I say mosh pit, I’m talking about rugby players and little girls smashing against each other in drunken revelry with their uncles and cousins as the music crescendoed to feverish pitch. The origins of raves, I’m convinced.
Totally not Pezenas. Picture white and violet clothes and fire in asses.
I was pushed and punched by 60 year old women dressed in spastic dresses and painted faces, grabbed by teenybopper boys, surely drunk, and squeezed by young 30-something fathers with their populated BabyBjorns. People fell. People laughed. Tempers would flicker but never burst. It wasn’t about safety or the fear of being sued. It was your neighbour and you in the street letting off some serious steam and being the better for it. It did go far, but never too far.
One of the traditions, unbeknownst to the international travellers who joined Boris, was the feu cul. Yes, French speakers out there, that does mean fire ass. The mid-fervour dance featured a circle of townspeople with torches gesturing the flame in the other’s ass. Why? I never quite understood. Unimportant! So the seasoned charivari-goers carried vegetables and poke…ahem…your ass as you danced through the tiny streets. Or just grabbed them in a very penetrating way. Surely a lawsuit would follow in a Canadian context, but for the more lassez-faire peeps of Pézenas, this was just play. Unabashed and uncensored. This type of carefree partying is, well it’s human goddamn it! More doing, less thinking.
This one actually is Pezenas, feels like Pezenas
My point: fun is tremendously important for community. Brining generations together is important. Dancing together is important. Tradition is important. Sticking things in each other’s asses is important.