Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So I am so angry because we missed Stuart Pennington's
Speaker 1: World Championship Running of the Tubs again this year.
Speaker 2: Okay, so here's the thing I've always wondered about Stuart Pennington.
Speaker 2: Who is Stuart Pennington?
Speaker 1: You don't remember Stuart from college?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Stuart Pennington was this booster and this businessman from Hot Springs, Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and he was trying to figure out a fun way
Speaker 1: to bring more tourists to town. So I didn't realize this,
Speaker 1: but Hot Springs actually has some fun novelty events already.
Speaker 1: The shortest, Saint Patrick's Day Parade is I think their
Speaker 1: most popular. It's a ninety eight feet long. But anyway,
Speaker 1: building off that idea, he came up with the idea
Speaker 1: of this world Championship baptub race, and now it's named
Speaker 1: in his honor.
Speaker 2: You know, I actually vaguely remember this one from back
Speaker 2: in our Mental Flaws days, but I did always wonder, like,
Speaker 2: why race bathtubs?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question. Apparently Hot Springs has this
Speaker 1: beautiful section called Bathhouse Row, and it's full of spas,
Speaker 1: these like architectural gems that are built over the town's
Speaker 1: natural hot springs. They were built there in the eighteen
Speaker 1: nineties to nineteen twenties, and that's about the period where
Speaker 1: people are really getting into sanitariums. Anyway, the tubs are
Speaker 1: kind of an homage or almost a nod to the bathhouses,
Speaker 1: and the races sound really fun. Apparently, each team has
Speaker 1: to have five members, a captain, a bathtowel attendant, a
Speaker 1: b attendant, a soap attendant, and alofa attendant in size.
Speaker 1: They're the ones doing the pushing. Meanwhile, the captain steers
Speaker 1: the tub from inside, and all the attendants can only
Speaker 1: push with one hand because they have to hold on
Speaker 1: to their other item the whole race, whether that's the
Speaker 1: soap or the bath mat or whatever.
Speaker 2: I like all the specifics of this. This actually sounds
Speaker 2: pretty great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a hood, but there are also obstacles along
Speaker 1: the course, and the judges can make up rules on
Speaker 1: the fly. Also, you are free to bribe judges, and
Speaker 1: if you bribe the right ones, they'll let you pass,
Speaker 1: and if you bribe the wrong ones, they'll actually hold
Speaker 1: you up at various detours. The crowd really gets into
Speaker 1: the whole thing. You're encouraged to pelt teams with water
Speaker 1: balloons and water guns along the way. And there's one
Speaker 1: last rule. You can decorate the tub and dress up
Speaker 1: in any theme you want, but everyone has to wear suspenders, right,
Speaker 1: of course, that's the only logical anyway, Maybe next year
Speaker 1: we should get a team together, but apparently the town
Speaker 1: makes it really easy. They even provide stock bathtubs on
Speaker 1: wheels for you to decorate if you're inclined. But the
Speaker 1: fact that we missed Stuart Pennington's World Championship running in
Speaker 1: the tubs this year gave me major fomo, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure we didn't miss any other strange
Speaker 1: and important summer festivals. So why don't we dig in? Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and as always I'm here with my good pow
Speaker 1: mangash hot ticket here and sitting behind that big booth
Speaker 1: carving a giant slab. I think that is spam into
Speaker 1: a beautiful sculpture just in time for Spamfest.
Speaker 2: Mango. That's our pal Dylan. Can you see what he's
Speaker 2: carving over there.
Speaker 1: I think it's is it it like spam b Arthur.
Speaker 2: Or it looks a little b arthurish Margaret Thatcher, I can't.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure he's a big Golden Girls fan, so
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with b Arthur. But you're right, it's
Speaker 2: it's either way. It is very, very impressive, all right.
Speaker 2: So the weather is changing in New York. Mango now.
Speaker 2: I know that it is, was just there last week
Speaker 2: and it's finally getting to be summer. But here in Alabama,
Speaker 2: my kids have been off from school for a while now,
Speaker 2: so I'm curious when does summer vacation start for you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still a couple of weeks away. Kids in
Speaker 1: New York are basically in class until July, which is
Speaker 1: so hard when the weather is nice. Yeah. Actually you
Speaker 1: know this, But that year where we moved from New
Speaker 1: York to Atlanta, Henry, who was like seven at the time,
Speaker 1: was so excited for summer. He's really one of those
Speaker 1: kids who's built for camp and built for summer, and
Speaker 1: so he gets off school in July, and then we
Speaker 1: got to Atlanta and he had to be in school
Speaker 1: on August first, and I don't know when it dawned
Speaker 1: on him that he only had like a month of
Speaker 1: summer vacation, but he was so angry.
Speaker 2: I get it, he should have been. That's rough.
Speaker 1: But you know, since I have a few more weeks
Speaker 1: before our summer vacation really begins, this is kind of selfish,
Speaker 1: but I want to hear more about some of the
Speaker 1: weirdest summer festivals just in case we can sneak one
Speaker 1: in on the calendar.
Speaker 2: I like that. That's a good idea. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: I will jump in here, and I think I will
Speaker 2: start with the messiest festival that I can find. Now,
Speaker 2: some people might want to talk about Great Throwing Festival
Speaker 2: or that tomato tossing festival in Spain, But if you
Speaker 2: want real, real messiness, you're looking to do some international
Speaker 2: travel as well. You've got ahead to Boryong in South Korea.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know about getting dirty, but the international
Speaker 1: travel part of it sounds appealing, So why don't you
Speaker 1: tell me a little more?
Speaker 2: All right? So, Borjong is this town in the western
Speaker 2: coast of South Korea. But every July for two weeks,
Speaker 2: there's this giant mud festival there. Now, I know what
Speaker 2: you're thinking, this probably reminds you of the giant mud
Speaker 2: party that happened on the quad in college, which was
Speaker 2: a total disaster, although funny to watch, but it is
Speaker 2: nothing like that.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that mud party was the worst. It
Speaker 1: was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a bubble.
Speaker 2: Party, a bubble party, and all college kids love a
Speaker 2: good bubble party, I think, yeah.
Speaker 1: But then that machine malfunctioned and just spit out like
Speaker 1: tiny bits of soap, and it was raining, and it
Speaker 1: just turned into like a ridiculous mud wrestling pit. It
Speaker 1: was so gross.
Speaker 2: Yes it was.
Speaker 1: But I mean I assume at this mud festival people
Speaker 1: just get muddy, right, well.
Speaker 2: I mean that is part of the name. But you've
Speaker 2: got to remember this is no ordinary mud mango. We
Speaker 2: are talking premium South Korean mud here. Keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: I like that, so, so tell me a little more.
Speaker 2: Well, in the nineteen nineties, Borjong had fallen on hard times,
Speaker 2: and the beaches were kind of laughed at because the
Speaker 2: water was dirty with mud and it wasn't the sort
Speaker 2: of pristine thing you would travel for. Also, local manufacturing
Speaker 2: had shut down, and things for various reasons were pricey.
Speaker 2: But when the towns mayor read this report that Boryong
Speaker 2: mud was superior to other MUDs for skin care, he
Speaker 2: helped bootstrap this industry around it. Apparently the mud has
Speaker 2: these various nutrients and qualities that are beneficial for cosmetic care.
Speaker 2: And because Boryong mud Flats had mud all over the place,
Speaker 2: it turned into a real driver of business. And then
Speaker 2: slowly as the town wanted to glamorize this mud and
Speaker 2: the pr around it sort of just kept growing. It's
Speaker 2: art of this giant mud festival.
Speaker 1: What happens at the mud Festival.
Speaker 2: Well, it's for two weeks every July. Millions of people
Speaker 2: flock to the town. Seriously, millions of people flocked to
Speaker 2: the town for all sorts of muddy events. Now this
Speaker 2: is according to the official site. There's mud wrestling, mud sliding,
Speaker 2: mud swimming, and a muddy marathon which just sounds like torture.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's a full marathon. There's also
Speaker 2: something called a mud prison, which I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: that is. But best of all, if you show up,
Speaker 2: you can get free mud like they'll dollop it into
Speaker 2: your hands and it's yours. Mango like you can fly
Speaker 2: home with it. You can go home with it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you get to keep the mud. It's pretty amazing. Plus
Speaker 2: there's food, there's fireworks. I don't think either of those
Speaker 2: are made of mud, hopefully not. And most importantly it
Speaker 2: ends in a big K pop concert, which is just
Speaker 2: a blast. And because I know how finicky you are,
Speaker 2: there are also lots and lots of places to wash off,
Speaker 2: from jumping in the sea to water spouts everywhere. It's
Speaker 2: really this joyous of and the real promise is that,
Speaker 2: after all the mudtastic fun, which is a phrase I
Speaker 2: pulled from the official site, you are going to walk
Speaker 2: away with glowing skin, so sort of an added benefit.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the summer festival I like. It takes place
Speaker 1: in August. It's called the Burning of z Zobra or
Speaker 1: burns Azobra, and it's in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Speaking
Speaker 1: of which, have you ever hung out in Santa Fe
Speaker 1: or like spend time in New Mexico.
Speaker 2: I have actually never been to Santa Fe. You know,
Speaker 2: there's that group that I get together with once a
Speaker 2: year to just kind of make up our own half
Speaker 2: marathon somewhere, and Santa Fe has always been on the list.
Speaker 2: One of the things that scares us is the elevation
Speaker 2: there in terms of, you know, adjusting to that for
Speaker 2: a good run. But I've always wanted to go. I know,
Speaker 2: it's just beautiful there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we went last summer and it was
Speaker 1: like a wonderful and easy trip. And you know that
Speaker 1: writer Rachel Sime, she made a list for this friend
Speaker 1: of mine who was going on the trip, and it
Speaker 1: was just all these incredible things to do in New Mexico,
Speaker 1: and it was so wonderful between like the landscapes and
Speaker 1: the high in the food. So I've been evangelizing that.
Speaker 1: But back to Zazobra. The whole festival comes from this
Speaker 1: artist named Will Schuster, and this is way back in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four. I guess he and his friends formed
Speaker 1: this little club where you could only be a member
Speaker 1: if you could spin great yarns. So it's this like
Speaker 1: colorful group of characters and they decided to throw a
Speaker 1: big annual party. But at the end of it, they
Speaker 1: wanted something meaningful. So the names of Zobra, according to
Speaker 1: the festival site, means anguish, anxiety or gloom in Spanish,
Speaker 1: and the idea is that they wanted to create this
Speaker 1: giant's Zobra character. It started out just six feet high,
Speaker 1: but today it's a fifty foot high marionette, and they
Speaker 1: light it on fire at the end of the festival,
Speaker 1: and they keep it dancing through the flames, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, amazing because it's a marionette. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Instead of just lighting this big marionette on fire, everyone
Speaker 1: celebrating fills it with their worries. So some people will
Speaker 1: stuff old parking tickets in or paid off mortgages, or
Speaker 1: some people actually put their divorce papers in the pile,
Speaker 1: or you know a lot of people just write their
Speaker 1: anxieties and put it on paper and then you know,
Speaker 1: slip it in. And then this gigantic effigy of wood,
Speaker 1: wire and cloth goes up in flames. There's a whole
Speaker 1: ceremony and parade that leads up to the fire. But
Speaker 1: the idea is that you can leave your worries and
Speaker 1: get some relief from it all. Actually, this is a
Speaker 1: note that will Schuster wrote to his friend back in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four. After burning. It goes quote. After the
Speaker 1: flames consumed the effigy and the embers faded into the
Speaker 1: Starlit Santa fe Sky. We stood together, a group of unburdened.
Speaker 1: In the ashes of this effigy lay the worries of
Speaker 1: the past year, and from them we shall rise anew our,
Speaker 1: spirits ablaze with hope and renewal. Tonight we have not
Speaker 1: just witnessed a spectacle. We have participated in a sacred
Speaker 1: rite of purification, laughter, and rebirth. And I should think
Speaker 1: that could be a really great way to end the summer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's just is especially with that quote,
Speaker 2: that's pretty terrific there. All right, Well, there are plenty
Speaker 2: of things to get into before the end of the summer,
Speaker 2: including Maidens Fair, and once again, I'm going to go international.
Speaker 2: I think you can tell I've just sort of got
Speaker 2: this bug. I'm ready to travel here. But the Maidens
Speaker 2: Fair takes place on the third Sunday of July in
Speaker 2: the Gayina Mountains of Transylvania.
Speaker 1: And so what happens on Maidens Fair, Well.
Speaker 2: The Guina Mountain borders four regions that make up something
Speaker 2: like eighty villages. So for centuries the mountain has been
Speaker 2: this convenient meeting spot for trade and communication. And actually
Speaker 2: the location is supposed to be stunning, like there's this
Speaker 2: clearing about a mile up where you're basically touching the
Speaker 2: clouds and overlooking all these towns. And so since the
Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds, the festival mostly served as this huge market,
Speaker 2: but at some point Romanians realized that it was also
Speaker 2: a good way to match make, and they'd form ties
Speaker 2: with these other communities. There's also this legend about a
Speaker 2: magic hen the mountain is named for Guyina that would
Speaker 2: lay these golden eggs and once a year, newlyweds who
Speaker 2: were truly in love would receive an egg as a present,
Speaker 2: And according to one site, there is still plenty of
Speaker 2: these super locals who believe that the mountain is good
Speaker 2: luck and that a couple can only be happy if
Speaker 2: their wedding is done in the mountains clearing. Anyway, in
Speaker 2: modern times, there's much less matchmaking that takes place there,
Speaker 2: and it's really just this wonderful festival of Romanian culture.
Speaker 2: People dress up in these traditional clothes, they sell crafts
Speaker 2: and just kind of indulge in all these folkloric arts'
Speaker 2: It seems like a really pleasant thing to be at.
Speaker 1: And is it just kind of like a cultural affair
Speaker 1: or is there a party element to it too.
Speaker 2: No, definitely. In fact, there's this homemade plum brandy that
Speaker 2: the mountaineers in the area apparently love, and that's supposed
Speaker 2: to be pretty good as well, and there's lots of
Speaker 2: dancing and drinking. So it sounds like a great time.
Speaker 1: Oh I like that. Well, here's an international one that
Speaker 1: I think is pretty funny.
Speaker 2: Actually, I thought I was the one doing the international one.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and joining you. Now, I will not be
Speaker 1: traveling to this one this year, but it takes place
Speaker 1: on July twenty eighth and twenty ninth in Ferrano, Hokkaido
Speaker 1: in Japan, and it's a festival dedicated to the belly button.
Speaker 2: The whole thing is dedicated to the belly button.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So I was wondering why the belly button,
Speaker 1: and I guess Serano is the center of Hokkaido the
Speaker 1: same way you're a belly button is the center of
Speaker 1: your body. So they decided to celebrate its geography with
Speaker 1: a belly button festival. Nice. Apparently, in the late nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: town politicians thought that the people of Ferano needed something fun,
Speaker 1: like a summer festival and something to bring them together
Speaker 1: because apparently the population is really spread out over the region. Now,
Speaker 1: Hokkaido has tons of things that attract people in the winter.
Speaker 1: It's a northern Japanese island, so it's got skiing and
Speaker 1: hot springs, and I read this one tourist account of
Speaker 1: slurping on this delicious hot crab soup that's made in
Speaker 1: the winter, so they've got that as well. But Kerano
Speaker 1: needed a summertime activity aside from the cherry blossoms and
Speaker 1: the lavender fields, so they concocted this belly Button Festival.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, so we still haven't said yet though.
Speaker 2: What actually happens at the belly Button Festival is mostly
Speaker 2: a lot of belly dancing, but not not belly dancing
Speaker 2: in the way you might think. People paint funny faces
Speaker 2: on their stomachs, and then they carry these parasols and
Speaker 2: umbrellas to look like hats to cover their heads, so
Speaker 2: it looks like your stomach is this giant face of
Speaker 2: a cartoon character. And then they wear these clothes that
Speaker 2: have arms sticking out from the waist down. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I've got to show your picture is just so ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this is not at all what I
Speaker 2: pictured like these are so incredible, Like these are real.
Speaker 2: I just expect like somebody had taken a sharpie and
Speaker 2: drone on their belly button and then like made faces
Speaker 2: with its. These are amazing, mango.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's this insane parade and it's really fun and sweet,
Speaker 1: and the whole purpose is just to laugh and bring
Speaker 1: joy to people. Yeah, the first year of the festival
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine, only eleven people took off their
Speaker 1: shirts and painted their bellies. But these days the event
Speaker 1: draws four thousand dancers and anyone can join in, and
Speaker 1: the troops can win awards for best dances. But the
Speaker 1: weirdest part of the festival, and the thing I really
Speaker 1: still can't figure out, is this thing that all the
Speaker 1: sites seem to claim, they say, quote, the best part
Speaker 1: of the festival is the belly button themed food.
Speaker 2: I mean, of course I love belly button theme food,
Speaker 2: but what is belly button themed food exactly?
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Every site seems to talk about it,
Speaker 1: but you know, and I was thinking maybe it's like
Speaker 1: candy buttons or like uh, gummy suma wrestlers or something,
Speaker 1: you know. And the only reference I could find to
Speaker 1: the food was curry and noodles, which I guess just
Speaker 1: goes in your belly but doesn't seem particularly belly button themed.
Speaker 2: Wow, that is wild that I had never heard of
Speaker 2: that festival before. All Right, so how about for our
Speaker 2: last four Since such a significant number of our listeners
Speaker 2: are in the States, why don't we keep it domestic
Speaker 2: or at least to North America? What do you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I could do that, So so what are you thinking?
Speaker 2: Well, since we haven't done a music festival yet, how
Speaker 2: about the Underwater Music Festival and Big pine Key Florida.
Speaker 2: So this one is coming up soon. It's on July
Speaker 2: tenth of this year, so you'll have to make plans
Speaker 2: pretty quickly. But the festival was started back in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty five by Bill Becker, who worked for US one's
Speaker 2: radio station one oh four point one FM, and it
Speaker 2: was a way to do something fun and raise money
Speaker 2: to protect the coral reefs. So basically, the radio station
Speaker 2: encourages people to dress up then dive or snorkel as
Speaker 2: they pump music into the water.
Speaker 1: Does the music come through clearly? Like? What does it
Speaker 1: sound like? Well?
Speaker 2: Bill actually was doing an interview with a local website
Speaker 2: Florida Keys dot Com, and he was saying that sound
Speaker 2: travels five times as quickly in water as it does
Speaker 2: in air, and it comes from all directions, so you
Speaker 2: get this surround sound sort of this ethereal feeling from
Speaker 2: the music there. And of course all the music is
Speaker 2: water theme, so from playing the Titanic soundtrack to Yellow Submarine,
Speaker 2: they keep it all in that theme.
Speaker 1: And I'm guessing this a lot of Jimmy Buffett too.
Speaker 2: You nailed it, a lot of Jimmy and Buffet. But
Speaker 2: the other fun part of the festival is the costuming.
Speaker 2: So people dress up as rock stars and mermaids for
Speaker 2: their dives, and they're all sorts of punny underwater instruments
Speaker 2: from the trombone, fish and clambourines that artists make. It's
Speaker 2: actually really quite fun.
Speaker 1: And what about the fish, like, are they bothered by
Speaker 1: all this noise that sort of piped into the ocean.
Speaker 2: Apparently not. Some of the divers actually say that the
Speaker 2: fish to tend to shimmy in unison with the music,
Speaker 2: and that sounds fun to watch. But lots of animals
Speaker 2: come though, from turtles to manatees, and as Bill likes
Speaker 2: to point out, It's pretty special because quote, this is
Speaker 2: the only living coral reef off the coast of the
Speaker 2: continental United States that you can actually drive to. So
Speaker 2: he said, why wouldn't you want to join the fun,
Speaker 2: get in the water and enjoy this reef.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point that Bill's making. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to book my tickets tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Great, all right, So what else do we need to
Speaker 2: add to our calendar?
Speaker 1: Next? How about the sand firm In Festival in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: which is taking place July twelfth to fourteenth. I actually
Speaker 1: chose this one because I already talked about the running
Speaker 1: of the tubs, and I thought it'd be fun to
Speaker 1: talk about the running of the bulls Nueva Orleans style.
Speaker 1: The event is the brainchild of Mickey Henning, a local
Speaker 1: who saw someone in that all white red kerchief thing
Speaker 1: that runners in Pamplona ware and he saw that at
Speaker 1: Marti Ground. He thought, hey, why doesn't New Orleans have
Speaker 1: its own bull festival? So instead of real bulls, he
Speaker 1: put his bulls on roller skates. Henning found four hundred
Speaker 1: roller bulls, who are athletes from local roller derbies, and
Speaker 1: their dresses, bulls with little helmets with horns, and they
Speaker 1: line up and chase down fourteen thousand runners and then
Speaker 1: they whack them with his foam bat they have, or
Speaker 1: occasionally poke them with horns on their helmets. It is
Speaker 1: fun and total chaos, and you can end up with
Speaker 1: minor bruises, but as the tourist site promises, it's nothing
Speaker 1: a little food and drink can't fix. And there are
Speaker 1: other events that round out the weekend. There's a La
Speaker 1: Fiesta de Pantalonez, which is for some reason a festival
Speaker 1: of pants that first night, and an El pobre de
Speaker 1: me or poor Me event that final day when you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be nursing your hangover and your bruised bottoms. Also,
Speaker 1: there's a Hemingway lookalike contest for added fun.
Speaker 2: Oh I like that. That's a good, good addition there.
Speaker 2: All right, we've got two more strange festivals to get to,
Speaker 2: But why don't we take a quick break first?
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part time genius. When we're talking strange
Speaker 1: summer festivals, I think we've got a pretty strong list
Speaker 1: of things to do this summer will but what do
Speaker 1: you want to finish with?
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many wonderful festivals that don't exist anymore.
Speaker 2: There's the Cleveland Duct Tape Festival. There's the Friendship Festival
Speaker 2: that used to occur between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo.
Speaker 1: They're not friends anymore.
Speaker 2: They're friendly, but apparently bingo and slot machines used to
Speaker 2: fund the festival, and when the slots casino closed, people
Speaker 2: stopped playing as much bingo and that money that funded
Speaker 2: the Friendship I guess dried out. But it still feels
Speaker 2: like you could celebrate this border crossing friendship, don't you think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like there's still opportunity there. But what
Speaker 1: are you going to talk about instead?
Speaker 2: That was me buying time to decide which festival I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk about next. But all right, well, here's
Speaker 2: a festival that is still going strong, the fortieth anniversary
Speaker 2: of Mount Rainier's Slugfest.
Speaker 1: So what happens at Slugfest.
Speaker 2: Well, basically, it's a slug appreciation festival because slugs are
Speaker 2: good for the soil, and the Pacific Northwest takes pride
Speaker 2: in their giant slugs, especially the Banana slug, which is
Speaker 2: the best of the slugs. And this year the festival
Speaker 2: is on July twentieth and twenty first, but it is
Speaker 2: filled with slug like costumes where you can your own tentacles,
Speaker 2: and you have this slug hunt where you go on
Speaker 2: hikes to look out for the critters, and best of all,
Speaker 2: slug races where you're given a waterproof slug sack and
Speaker 2: you have to crawl on your bellies on a slip
Speaker 2: and slide to the finish line and then you can't
Speaker 2: qualify as finishing unless you have yelled snailed it.
Speaker 1: I feel like you just want to talk about that
Speaker 1: because you want to say snail nailed it. Well. I
Speaker 1: also picked an animal festival for my last entry, and
Speaker 1: it's called a Festival du Coachew, which takes place in Quebec.
Speaker 1: I guess this year it's August first to fourth. And
Speaker 1: I was totally intrigued because this is how an article
Speaker 1: and Vice described it quote, There's no elegant way of
Speaker 1: catching a pig. It's not a matter of speed or agility.
Speaker 1: You have to corner the beast and jump on it,
Speaker 1: plain and simple. At least that's what I was able
Speaker 1: to glean last weekend between mouthfuls of pork while watching
Speaker 1: the National Greased Pig Race and Saint Perpechu quebec An event,
Speaker 1: which is, depending on who you ask, either the ultimate
Speaker 1: celebration or humiliation of the humble pig. So I like that.
Speaker 1: I also loved this description of the grease pig racing,
Speaker 1: where quote, rural gladiators step into the ring with grease
Speaker 1: covered pigs in an attempt to drop it into a
Speaker 1: barrel in under ninety seconds.
Speaker 2: I like that time was there. So how did this
Speaker 2: pig festival start?
Speaker 1: Well, apparently the races started in nineteen seventy eight, and
Speaker 1: it came from locals remembering how when pigs would get
Speaker 1: loose at the local farms, especially in the rain, the
Speaker 1: employees would race around, slipping and chasing them and trying
Speaker 1: to pin them down, and that kind of inspired a
Speaker 1: town event, and it quickly grew into this massive festival.
Speaker 1: According to Wece the town only has like a thousand inhabitants,
Speaker 1: but over thirty five thousand people show up for this event. Apparently,
Speaker 1: even Celine Dion has played the festival. I will say
Speaker 1: that while greased pig races were a big draw for
Speaker 1: a long time, they stopped those over concerns of swine
Speaker 1: flew some years ago, which made animal activists happy, although
Speaker 1: they still serve pork at the events. I don't happy
Speaker 1: they could be, but the festival is more about barbecue
Speaker 1: music now and of course some pig meat and greets.
Speaker 2: Oh pig meet and greets. Is this where you get
Speaker 2: to meet the pigs or the pigs meet and greet
Speaker 2: each other?
Speaker 1: I think you get to meet Okay, that's very exciting.
Speaker 2: I might have to check this out. I feel like
Speaker 2: we covered a lot of great festivals and definitely ones
Speaker 2: worth trying to get out to in the next few years.
Speaker 2: But I have to say the fact that you expected
Speaker 2: I might know who Stuart Pennington was, and the weirdness
Speaker 2: of the Stuart Pennington running of the tubs, I think
Speaker 2: you win this week's trophy, Mango.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you. I'm serious. We should figure out how
Speaker 1: to enter because I've actually never been to Arkansas and
Speaker 1: I want to visit those hot springs. But from Will
Speaker 1: Dylan and me here at part time genius. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. We'll be back next week with
Speaker 1: the new episode. Oh and remember the reviews. Do you
Speaker 1: make us happy? If you want to rate the show,
Speaker 1: just write up your review on iTunes. And if you
Speaker 1: want to write it with memories, corrections, or just a
Speaker 1: little notice to say hi. You can always email pet
Speaker 1: Genius moms at gmail dot com. Our moms love to
Speaker 1: pass along the messages and they are wondering why you
Speaker 1: haven't written yet. Part Time Genius is a production of
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson
Speaker 1: and me Mongish Heatikler and research by our goodpal Mary
Speaker 1: Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by the
Speaker 1: wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show
Speaker 1: is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry,
Speaker 1: with social media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts
Speaker 1: and Viny Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.