morbid and provincial humor

Although Halloween has started to catch on bit by bit here in Spain over the past few years, it's still not widely celebrated. In a country deeply entrenched in its own traditions, a holiday involving dressing up as a hooker witch or a zombie pirate takes a while to catch on. Go figure.

Still, every year there seem to be more signs that it's catching on, with the occasional jack-o'-lantern or costume in the stores. Not surprisingly, it seems especially popular with young kids. Yesterday evening in the street, for example, I passed one little boy with his father, talking excitedly about Halloween and costumes and candy.

His father's response? "Escolta, tot això és dels americans." (Listen, all that stuff is for the Americans.") Fair enough; I mean, it's a logical conclusion, given that Halloween started with the Celts and was carried on by the Romans. To my ears, though, it has the same ring as an American dad telling his son, "Cinco de Mayo? We're not celebrating that. That's for the Mexicans." I guess multiculturalism just isn't everyone's thing.

To be fair, though, there already is a holiday on this week's calendar: Todos los Santos (All Saints' Day), when people visit the graves of deceased relatives. Maybe Halloween is just a little too gaudy and irreverent to be celebrated before such a solemn day. Then again, one of the typical treats eaten on Todos los Santos is called "huesos de santo", or "saint's bones": tubes of marzipan shaped like bones with a sweetened egg yolk cream for the marrow. So, just to summarize: cannibalism? Good. Dressing like movie characters? Bad.

Finally, to wrap up a post about death and national character, a joke, told to me by a Catalan, involving Catalans and death. Catalans have a reputation as the Scots of Spain, being notoriously careful with money and opposed to anything going wasted:

Un vell català entra en l'oficina del periòdic, amb una mirada molt trista. El dependent li diu "bon dia senyor, en què puc ajudar-lo?"

"La meva esposa acaba de morir," diu el vell, "i volgués publicar un avís."

"Per descomptat, senyor. Em pugui dir que text Vè. voldria posar?"

"Montse ha mort," contesta l'home vell.

El depenent mira a l'home i li diu, amb molta condolença, "perdona, Senyor, però es cobra per línia, amb un mínim de dos. Si hi ha qualsevol cosa que vostè volgués afegir, hi ha espai de sobres."

El vell Català pensa durant un minut llarg, i de cop i volta li ocorre.

"Montse ha mort. És ven Fiat Punto"

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An old Catalan man walks into a newspaper office, wearing a sad expression. The clerk says to him, "Good morning sir, may I help you?"

"My wife has just died," he says, "and I'd like to publish an announcement."

"Certainly, sir. And what would you like the announcement to say?"

"Montse has died," replies the old man.

The clerk looks at the man and says, with much sympathy, "You know sir, the price of the announcement is the same for up to two lines of text. If there's anything else you'd like to say, you have room to spare."

The old man thinks for a long minute, and then it comes to him.

"Montse has died. Fiat Punto for sale."