You know, sometimes if you just started out to make something up like this, you wouldn’t be able to do it. Things that make perfect sense in other cultures just don’t compute in ours.
For example, apparently in the area of Catalan, which is in the northern part of Spain, the Nativity scenes for the Christmas season includes a little something extra. Somewhere in the traditional Catalan nativity scene, often over to the side, a small additional figure is included called a Caganer.
Caganer, roughly translated to English, means defecator and that is exactly what the statue is, a reproduction of someone taking a dump. Obviously, everybody is entitled to their own religion and beliefs and their way of celebrating but for me nothing says Merry Christmas as much as a lawn gnome dropping a Yule log just north of baby Jesus.
To make this even more bizarre to my white bread sensibilities, you can buy caganers of famous people, such as soccer players, infamous world figures and politicians (last two categories probably substantially overlap). So, you guessed it, you can get a caganer statue of such luminaries as Bush, the lesser and Pau Gasol, the pro basketball player. Apparently you could also get one for Osama bin Laden but this particular web site must have sold out due to popular demand.
One of the interesting parts of the Bush caganer is that he is carrying a globe of the world under his arm as he squeezes off a loaf. It would be more accurate if he was depicted shitting on the world.
Kind of makes you feel festive, doesn’t it?
For example, apparently in the area of Catalan, which is in the northern part of Spain, the Nativity scenes for the Christmas season includes a little something extra. Somewhere in the traditional Catalan nativity scene, often over to the side, a small additional figure is included called a Caganer.
Caganer, roughly translated to English, means defecator and that is exactly what the statue is, a reproduction of someone taking a dump. Obviously, everybody is entitled to their own religion and beliefs and their way of celebrating but for me nothing says Merry Christmas as much as a lawn gnome dropping a Yule log just north of baby Jesus.
To make this even more bizarre to my white bread sensibilities, you can buy caganers of famous people, such as soccer players, infamous world figures and politicians (last two categories probably substantially overlap). So, you guessed it, you can get a caganer statue of such luminaries as Bush, the lesser and Pau Gasol, the pro basketball player. Apparently you could also get one for Osama bin Laden but this particular web site must have sold out due to popular demand.
One of the interesting parts of the Bush caganer is that he is carrying a globe of the world under his arm as he squeezes off a loaf. It would be more accurate if he was depicted shitting on the world.
Kind of makes you feel festive, doesn’t it?
2 comments:
oh my god that's just the kind of movement I don't need...no wonder everyone's always getting offended by nativity scenes!
Where's the cup?
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