KJZZ
Fall brings many traditions to New Mexico: the smell of roasting green chile, the sounds of high school football and the burning of Zozobra in Santa Fe.
"Old Man Gloom," a 50-foot tall puppet effigy, will be torched Thursday as part of La Fiesta de Santa Fe celebrations. The Santa Fe New Mexicandescribes his purpose:
As he blazes up, Zozobra takes with him hundreds, even thousands of symbols of bad luck that Santa Feans have stuffed inside him - everything from paid-off mortgages and old wedding dresses to memos of office problems or poems recalling sorrows.
The act of burning the puppet - which in previous years had been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest - represents a belief in catharsis through fire.
