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Happy Alevromoutzouromata!

alevromoutzouromata

Yup! Yesterday was Alevromoutzouromata already! We missed it. Although, you know, once you get to Underpants Day, you know Alevromoutzouromata can’t be far behind.

Alevromoutzouromata is Greek for “people throw flour at each other.” Kidding? Der Spiegel says nein. People of the little village of Galaxidi in Greece celebrate the end of Carnival and the beginning of Greek Orthodox Lent by dancing and throwing 3,000 pounds of colorfully dyed flour at each other. The day is known, brain-hurtingly, as Clean Monday. (Click for pictures).

It all got started, quoth the Tourist Bureau, at the beginning of the 19th Century, when the Ottoman occupiers (read: killjoy Muslims) forbade the celebration of Christian holidays. In protest, the men of Galaxni painted their faces with ash and danced solemnly in the village square on the Monday before Lent. And then when the Muzzies were gone, it was all, like, ‘FOOD FIGHT!’
penisfestival
Weird? Pff! Not even the weirdest Clean Monday celebration on the Island of Greece. That would have to be the Penis Festival of Tyrnavos. There, once a year, you may dress up like a winkie and eat things that look like peens, drink strong beverages from tallywhacker-shaped cups through straws shaped like weiners, stir the spinach soup with unthinkable utensils and sing songs about boners.

I knew about this one. One of my roommates in art school was Greek — a city girl from Athens. She described how her family drove across the island one year on Clean Monday and unwittingly drove into the middle of Peckerfest. In a convertible.

Traumatized for life, poor girl. “Huge penises! They were…all around the car. Pressing against us…dancing…singing…waving things. Oh, it was horrible!”

Despite the timing, this is an explicitly Dionysian festival — another big fat Olde Worlde religion mash-up. Let us hope Galaxidi and Tyrnavos never get together for this one.

Comments


Comment from Matt
Time: August 19, 2008, 12:48 pm

Words cannot express how creepy that is…


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: August 19, 2008, 12:49 pm

Babelfish doesn’t think Alevromoutzouromata means anything at all, even when you break it up into probable chunks.


Comment from Muslihoon
Time: August 19, 2008, 1:16 pm

All I could find is:
αλεύρι (alevri) -> αλεύρο (alevro, changed probably for grammatical reasons); means “flour”

[Edit: I said I couldn’t spell it. I found the spelling: it’s probably “μουτζουρωματα”. But I’m unable to translate it, and I have no idea how it’s broken down grammatically. Might be a conjugated verb. In at least one instance, this word was used to describe the festival Her Ladyship is writing about.]


Comment from XBradTC
Time: August 19, 2008, 1:44 pm

Can we get Russia to skip Georgia and maybe invade Greece?


Comment from Allen
Time: August 19, 2008, 1:45 pm

That’s deeply troubling, in a spastic with laughter sort of way. I had to sit through a meeting trying not to laugh thinking “honk, honk.”


Comment from dogette
Time: August 19, 2008, 1:55 pm

Disturbing. And yet titillating.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: August 19, 2008, 2:16 pm

Just think if someone had spiked the flour with powdered Viagra, or similar stimulant……

I really don’t see the Limey’s doing something like the flour festival, although, during WW2, the department of ungentlemanly warfare DID go have agents spiking Nazi condoms with Tarantula hair (which, as some of you may know, was the original iching powder……). Gives a whole new meaning to the term “French Tickler”….. 🙂


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: August 19, 2008, 2:17 pm

BTW, would the height of the Penis festival be an appropriate time to call your boss a prick?


Comment from Jill
Time: August 19, 2008, 2:20 pm

That guy looks just like the man who waits on me every week at the bank drive through.

And it also brings to mind Monty Python’s ‘Fish Slapping Dance’.


Comment from Allen
Time: August 19, 2008, 2:42 pm

Jill, I hope your pepper friend and the bank guy are not one and the same. That might give me some serious whiplash.


Comment from Jill
Time: August 19, 2008, 2:57 pm

Allen – absolutely not.

🙂


Comment from Jill
Time: August 19, 2008, 2:59 pm

I wonder if this squeaks…

http://www.owensworld.com/funnyimages/files/dogdildo_big.jpg


Comment from Allen
Time: August 19, 2008, 3:06 pm

Oh jeebus. First they honk, now they squeak. Y’all are killing me. 🙂


Comment from Throwing Stones
Time: August 19, 2008, 4:00 pm

Ok, now bring me back to the real world…lol


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: August 19, 2008, 4:07 pm

Jill, I wonder what Yoda the cat would say…..

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/08/19/article-1046684-025653A200000578-232_468x699.jpg


Comment from LemurKing
Time: August 19, 2008, 6:58 pm

Jill – ditto what Allen said. I had to stop laughing and focus long enough to close the window before my daughter came around. “Why’s daddy choking and crying?”

“Nevermind, pumpkin, nevermind.”


Comment from Jill
Time: August 19, 2008, 8:23 pm

Alright. I’ll behave.

🙂


Pingback from Daily Pundit » Greeks Whistling Dick-sie
Time: August 19, 2008, 10:25 pm

[…] a Penis Festival would help…. Submit to Stumbled Upon! -Bill Quick comment on this […]


Comment from LemurKing
Time: August 19, 2008, 10:40 pm

Oh, Jill… NEVER behave! “Boring” and “Weasel” should never be in the same post.


Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: August 19, 2008, 11:15 pm

OT: Weas, I got the coins I ordered for the boy today. I underestimated the awesomeness of a bag full of foreign coins. I’m thinking about dumping him so I can go through them and keep them for myself.

It’s probably easier to just buy myself a bag, of course…

Anyway, back on topic. As a heterosexual female, I naturally like penises, but I just don’t see myself having much fun at that festival. Go figure…


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: August 20, 2008, 7:28 am

Did you get the big burlap bag, the full kilo? Oh, man…it’s magic. Your brain refuses to accept that none of it actually worth anything…it switches you right into full-on little kid mode.


Comment from JuliaM
Time: August 20, 2008, 8:16 am

“Despite the timing, this is an explicitly Dionysian festival — another big fat Olde Worlde religion mash-up.”

Wow! At least we Brits are keen to disguise our phallic symbols with ribbons ‘n dancin’ ‘n stuff… 🙂


Comment from Pupster
Time: August 20, 2008, 9:37 am

Sorry, but most of the folks at the flour-flinging-festival don’t look like they are having a very good time. Skip the flour, keep the wine and gyros there, Costaki.

“Huge penises! They were…all around the car. Pressing against us…dancing…singing…waving things. Oh, it was horrible!”

Throw in ‘texting’ and ‘applying makeup’ and it sounds like my morning commute here in central Ohio.


Comment from Jill
Time: August 20, 2008, 10:13 am

LK, but what about ‘weasel’ and ‘boring’, as in ‘weasel boring’.

“Yep, me ‘n the guys went weasel boring this weekend, but the wells kept drying up on us.”

🙂


Pingback from Clean Monday? Penis Festival?!? | Cold Fury
Time: August 20, 2008, 2:58 pm

[…] this is just weird. Category: Heh &#9830 […]


Comment from Muslihoon
Time: August 21, 2008, 1:22 pm

Concerning religious stuff, this post by Noreen of Emerald Bile is hilarious!
http://emeraldbile.blogspot.com/2008/08/taking-baton-from-st-john.html


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Time: October 14, 2008, 12:20 pm

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Time: October 10, 2015, 8:36 pm

[…] speaking “desperate clinginess” if you’re not a desperate clinger yourself, and a bit on some Greek holidays that involve throwing flour around, and wading in amongst penises (not at the […]

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