Festivus

"A Year of Fedstivals - A Guide to Having the Time of Your Life" by the editors at Lonely Planet books (total pages not numbered) $24.99

The editors have included a "Level of Participation" from 1 to 5. Running the bulls at Pamplona would be a 5 (or an 11 in my book.)

The writing is witty -- "The Spring Festival, China, offers lotus seeds and sticky rice to the Kitchen God to sweeten his mood and glue his mouth shut so that he can't report on the state of the giver's kitchen."

Some festivals picked at random:

Battle of the Wines - particpiation level 5 because the people of Spain's Rioja wine country load water pistols, supersoakers, gourds, buckets and old boots to drench each other with wine. Sounds a bit wasteful to me...

Hemingway Days Festival, Key West, July 17th - 20th Do not take a mood-altering drug before your visit as you will believe you are hallucinating the more than 150 Hemingway look-alikes. hemingwaydays.net

The Beer Can Regatta of Mindhi Beach, Darwin, Australia Contestants drink the beer and construct "boats" from the empties. beercanregatta.org.au

Burning Man, Gerlach,Nevada before and after Labor Day weekend. Warning: "Inhibitions are left at the gates." Apparently many goers seek an all-over tan. burningman.com