Fallas!

7 March 2020 - Fallas, Valencia's berserk end-of-winter festival, which officially started on Sunday and lasts two weeks, is more and more making its presence felt in our lives.

Every day at 2 p.m., the mascletás, the much-loved "noise fireworks" shatter the peace of siesta. (Much loved by a segment of the Valencian population; we know some locals get out of town at this time of year because they can't stand the noise and chaos.) We're about a 20-minute walk from city hall square where they let the mascletás off, but we can hear them here very clearly. It sounds like you're in a war zone. And they last almost ten minutes.

In the past few days, it's not just the city-run mascletás. Shops all over town, including specialty pirotécnica shops that are only open at festival time, are selling fireworks. I noticed the other day that the shop around the corner that sells pool cues and other billiard supplies is also now stocking fireworks. 

Mostly, they're selling the kind "bangers" we loved as kids but that are no longer sold in Ontario because they're so dangerous. Kids here, and adults too, buy them and let them off in the streets, where they echo off the buildings. As I sit writing this at a little after 1 p.m. on a Saturday, a couple go off in the streets below every few minutes, some of them ear-piercingly loud. (A little later, we figured out why there seemed to be so many going off very near us. There's an entrance to a blind alley across the street where they like to let them off, presumably to get the amplification from sound bouncing off the tightly surrounding buildings.

When the craziness reaches its peak in the approach to the final night - and well before that too - mischievous kids will light firecrackers and throw them at the feet of unsuspecting adults, or at their friends. I was walking behind a scruffy-looking teenager the other day. He was on his own. I watched as he casually flung a little firecracker into the terrace in front of a building he was passing, and heard it pop. When I drew level with it, I noticed there was a motorcycle parked there. Was he trying to see if he could set off a really big explosion?

There are of course more benign aspects to the festival. Pretty lights are strung up across streets, including ours, and lit at dusk. We were disappointed to read that a famous music-and-light show on Calle Cuba, several blocks from us, will not be mounted anymore. Too bad. We saw it a few years ago and it was spectacular. The organizers could not guarantee a safe escape route for the hundreds who often attend, no doubt partly because so many of the narrow streets in the neighbourhood are blocked off for Fallas - so the city shut it down. 

Churro stands have also sprouted everywhere, not just at the train station where they appeared first. They do a brisk business. In other parts of Spain, churros - twisted tubes of sugary, deep-fried dough, often dipped in chocolate - are a staple morning snack. Here, they are particularly associated with Fallas. You can get them at other times, but the city only licenses the stalls to set up in the days leading to Fallas. The stalls are brightly lit - sometimes blindingly - at night. Music stages are also set up in some blocks that have been shut off to vehicular traffic - again, including the next block up on our street.

Churro stand and lights on Calle Literati Azorin

And barriers are erected and traffic blocked at corners where they're going to build "failures," the sometimes huge painted styrofoam and wood sculptural tableaux. "Failure" is one of several English translations of fallas we've seen. Others are "flaw" and "fault." (We saw all three used in one obviously machine-translated text.) We think it may refer to the off-cuts of wood from carpentry shops and joineries that were burnt in bonfires as part of early end-of-winter celebrations in Valencia. 

The crazy thing is that scores of the carefully crafted modern-day "failures" erected around the city by community groups are burnt on the last night - March 19, St. Joseph's Day. It casts a pall of smoke across the city. Some that are funded by rich sponsors such as Amstel and Mahou, the Spanish beer maker, reportedly cost hundreds of thousands of euros. Karen just read something that quoted a figure of €8 million-plus for the total value of the "failures" built for the festival this year. Perhaps fortunately, we will not be here for this final madness.

The other night, Karen and I noticed that some of the big pieces of the fallas to be erected in  city hall square had been delivered and were lying on the ground, awaiting crews of artisans who will assemble and finish them. Then yesterday, we walked over into Ruzafa and saw that pieces of the always huge and elaborate fallas at the corner of Calles Cuba and Literati Azorin, sponsored by Mahou, were being unloaded from a lorry. The pieces always come from the workshops wrapped in clear plastic. The fun is to try and guess ahead of time, as the thing is being unpacked and assembled, what its theme and content will be. There is almost always a satirical narrative - often lost on foreigners. We know the Mahou fallas will feature busty female figures - pretty much de rigeur - in historic costumes of some kind, and circus animals. Beyond that, no clue.

Plastic-wrapped piece of fallas at corner of Calle Cuba and Literati Azorin

We think Louis is going to love the "failures." They are basically three-dimensional caricatures, and many feature animals and cartoonish human figures.

Speaking of Louis, we're going to see him tomorrow (now today), and his mummy and daddy. They're coming to stay with us for a week. In fact, we'll all be leaving Valencia together next Saturday. So soon.

So what have Karen and I been up to the past few days? Not much. 

On Thursday, I ran in the late morning. Then in the afternoon, we walked a lo-o-ong way out into the suburbs to see the Museum of the Fallas Artists. It took over an hour to get there. 

Suburban street art spotted on trek to Fallas Artists Museum

It's one of two Fallas museums in town. We saw the other, sometimes referred to in tourist literature as the "official" museum, years ago. The one we went to on Thursday is in a slightly down-at-heels section of the Beniclap neighbourhood that houses a lot of workshops of Fallas artists and co-operatives. For this reason, the enclave is officially designated the City of the Fallas Artisans. The museum is run by the Fallas Artists guild and is in the same building as its headquarters.  

We would have ridden bikes, but there was another "wind disruption" and the very stiff breeze would have been right in our faces. We'd bike back.

Fallas Artists Museum: 2018 winner - subject unknown

The museum includes a display of small versions of fallas from years past - called ninots - including some going back to the middle of the last century. Each year, one fallas is selected as the overall best, and that one alone is spared the crema, the ritual burning that consumes the others on March 19. So the ones at the museum are the best or at least among the best of their year. The older ones are, not surprisingly, less sophisticated than the more recent. The more recent ones, on the other hand, have more the look of Disney characters.

Fallas Artists Museum - Christians and moors, date unknown

Fallas Artists Museum: slightly racist 2016 winner - the "submerged" economy

There is also a partly-constructed full-size fallas in a stairwell that demonstrates the construction methods - or at least the methods used at one time. This one has a frame of wooden planks, covered with tiny strips of wood about a half-inch by a half-inch, bent over and around and tacked to the frame. The plank frame is still used but much more of the construction now involves carved or molded styrofoam.

Fallas Artists Museum: full-size fallas demonstrating construction methods

The museum displays also include design drawings and sketches, some fairly primitive, some almost works of art on their own. 

Fallas Artists Museum: homage to fallas artist Salvador Dali

One interesting thing learned at the museum: Salvador Dali, the great surrealist artist, participated as a Fallas designer one year. In 1954, he was commissioned by an organization called La Comisión El Foc to create an out-of-competition fallas that was "planted" in city hall square. It had a bullfight theme and appears to have featured a giant head of Dali himself.

1954 fallas designed by Salvador Dali

The bike ride home along Valencia's superb system of bike paths was quick and easy - especially with the wind at our backs. I think we were only forced to go on the sidewalk for about three blocks of our 6-kilometer route, the rest was on bike paths fully separated from motorized traffic. This is the way it should be done everywhere.

Yesterday was a down day, a little coolish, not a lot of sun. We did a shop at Consum, ate in the late afternoon, then went out for a wander in the early evening. We headed first to city hall square to see if there was any  progress on assembling the fallas there. There was not. We looped back through Ruzafa to see the state of play there. No sign at that point of fallas, but there were lots of lights lit and churro stands blazing.

Pieces being unloaded at site of Mahou fallas at Cuba and Literati Azorin

Today, Saturday, I ran again. We went to shop at the Mercadona in Ruzafa but first walked up to buy bread at our favourite bakery across the street from where we stayed last year, and check out the corners where we knew there would be fallas. It was then we saw the pieces of the Mahou tableau being unloaded. Such excitement! Lots of people milling about, peering at the pieces as they were unloaded.

Plastic-wrapped piece of Mahou fallas at Cuba and Literati Azorin

Our corner has been partly blocked off. Tables and chairs were set up in the road - which means there was probably going to be a big paella feast for the neighbourhood at some point in the weekend. (We missed it.)  There is also a stage set up, from which we are now hearing very loud, bass-y music - mingled with the pyrotechnic explosions. My head is beginning to ache. 

And it's only about 5 0'clock. Oh dear! 

Later Saturday, with crazy music blaring from the bandstand at our corner, and the pop-pop-crash of firecrackers going off, we ventured out to see what was going on. The corner was milling with neighbourhood folk, many in the blue crested fleece jackets of the local Fallas association. The paella lunch or dinner was evidently over since the chairs and tables were stacked away neatly. Now it was party time. 

Dancing in the street - a few doors from our apartment

There was a crush of dancers in front of the grandstand, hopping around to what sounded like revved-up Spanish-style oompah - lots of brass, very fast, crazy shouted singing. Little boys were letting off fireworks on one corner, lighting them with long smoldering ropes, then flinging them away to snap across the pavement, or at someone's feet.

Boys playing with firecrackers at our corner

We wandered down Carrer de Matias Perelló, the major east-west street at our corner. There was another little neighbourhood group partying a few blocks further on, but it was much more subdued. We decided to walk further into Ruzafa. The eight- or ten-square-block area at the heart of Ruzafa is Fallas central. Two of the biggest and most elaborate "failures" are planted there a block apart, one sponsored by Mahou, one by Amstel. 

Lights on Calle Sueca

Those corners, both of which have multiple outdoor cafes, were swarming with people. Everybody was out - old, young, families with toddlers and babies. The cafes were packed. The corners are lit with daylight-bright floods. The streets running away from them are hung with lovely coloured lights and dotted with blazing churro stands. The Mahou fallas had unloaded earlier in the day when we were there. Now we discovered that some of the pieces of the Amstel "failure" had been delivered as well. At both corners, people were milling about, peering at the plastic-wrapped pieces, trying to figure out what they were about.

Pieces of Amstel fallas at Sueca and Literati Azorin - is that Fidel?

Karen and I meandered about for a half an hour and then walked home. Our corner was still the loudest, by far. The amplified bass from the bandstand was horrendous. It was early yet, though. The music and crashing of fireworks carried on until ten, when the music ended. Then it was just fireworks. At a couple of points, we rushed out to the terrace because we could see coloured rockets going off somewhere nearby, but they were short displays and we missed most of them.

Lights on Calle Puerto Rico

Churro stand on Calle Sueca

We could hear firecrackers going off long into the night. One long clatter woke us from a dead sleep at one point. I still heard the odd pop and crash when I woke sometime after 4 a.m. And there were brief Sunday morning mascletás at 8:30 a.m. 

These people are crazy! And we've invited our family into the craziness! What were thinking?