that i'm posting blog entries at 10pm on a saturday nite ... its that i have to be at work till midnite or so to be chaperone for a private party in the gallery ... seriously ... no, really ... comon guys ... fine ... im sittin at home in my boxers with a half eaten carton of oreos on my lap, a beer in one hand and 3 tapes of the x-files ready for viewing! nah ... i wish though ....
anyway
heres 2 links i thought worthy
chicagoans and anyone who has seen the movie "wayne's world" is familiar with "eight car pile-up" or "the spindle" ... prolly without even realizing it ... the statue stands proud and tall in Berwyn's Cermak Plaza Shopping Center, berwyn, IL ... (which, for the record is no where near Aurora, IL (wayne's hometown) oh, and also for the record, Aurora, Il is not a suburb of chicago) ... well, long story short, they're tearin the damn thing down ... which sucks (though some people rallied against it) ... on a personal note, that statue, and in fact that very mall carries a strong nostalgic weight with me ... you see, behind that very mall is where The Feast takes place every year, so i have been traveling to fair Berwyn since i was 1 years old, and just the sight of its dilapidated stores and awesome (though thoroughly run down) public art brings a really warm feeling to me ... what is the The Feast you ask ? its an awesome catholic (with heavy pagan [read: old world]) traditions! its the Maria Santissima Lauretana di Altavilla Milicia Feast!
so as the stories goes ... a long time ago near the town of Altavilla Milicia, Sicily, a painting washed up on the shore ... a painting of st. francis prayin to the virgin mary holdin a little baby jesus (i searched everywhere on the interwebs for this painting, but couldn't find nothin) thinking it was a sign of good luck, fishermen from altavilla who were near the shore grabbed it ... however, some people from near by village also claimed ownership over it (i mean, the painting had to have been dropped from heaven ... right?) ... so they decided to settle it the only way sicilians know how ... that's right ... they made a huge boat with wheels and had their oxen pull it in a game of tug-o-war (take THAT sicilian sterotype!) ... so, yeah, as should be obvious, our village won, and hazah! from that time forth we have this feast honoring the virgin mary (how the catholic church gets away with this kinda idolatry, ill never know) ... it's actually a really great time, full of food vendors, carnival games, the sicilian marching band of chicago (which i almost joined back in HS), rides, live entertainment, little girls dressed up like angels and strung out over a crowd 20 ft up who chant prayers in italian (2 of my cousins were those girls one year back in the 80s), giant floats with a copy of the painting on it carried by members of the society ... the works! ... of course its nothin like what it used to be (at least according to my pops) when it was held in chicago-proper in an entirely italian community (i think down near 16th street?) where scantly a word of english was heard, and ONLY italians attended ... of course, that was 50 years ago also when immigrant communities were still extremely tight knit ... anyway, that was a tangent ... it's really a shame that there's absolutely no web presence for this rich/storied organization ... hmmm ... maybe i should do somethin about that ... here's the best i could find ... its a video about italians coming to chicago, but all the footage of guys in red do-rags carrying something huge is from our feast ...
anyway
here's 1500 filipino inmates re-enacting MJs "thriller" in unison
Aug 4, 2007
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2 comments:
If you are looking for some more information on the traditions of Maria Santissima Lauretana, you could go to http://www.madonnamilicia.it/
That site will tell you all about it.
thats's not how the story went down. there was no other town that wanted to claim it and there was no building of a boat to bring it up. the boat u speak of is the vada
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