« 3,100 Reasons Why Not | Main | School Board »
July 27, 2006
Chico Palio
The good people behind Friends of the Arts, LearningChange, City of Chico Arts Commission, and many others have finally launched the Chico Artoberfest website.
Given LearningChange's involvement in designing the website, I'm not surprised it's easily navigable and looks fabulous.
The kick-off of this year's Artoberfest will be the first annual Chico Palio.
According to the Artoberfest website, "Palio is the name given in Italy to an annual athletic contest, very often depicting historical competitions and involving neighborhoods and communities."
"The most famous is undoubtedly the Siena Palio but there are hundreds of others throughout Italy and the surrounding countries. Once purely a matter of local rivalries, European Palios have now become events staged with an eye to visitors and tourists."
You can find more information about Siena's Palio in this New York Times article or in this Tuscany tourism site.
According to Friend of the Arts founder Debra Lucero, the Chico Palio concept came from Chico Velo's Ed McLaughlin.
I suspect McLaughlin's inspiration came from his own bike trips through Europe where he dresses like a horse while riding his bike. Okay, I'm making that up.
Chico Palio will be a race among teams dressed as horses. I'd like to see the entire 7-member City Council form a team. I can imagine quite a debate to decide who will be the horse's ass.
If they cannot decide, I will volunteer my end services as a former member of that esteemed body. But even then, I'm certain there will also be a debate over who should be the big horse's mouth.
This year the Chico Palio will take place around the City municipal city hall parking lot, but in future years organizers hope the spectacle will occur around the renovated downtown City Plaza.
I have a few issues to raise with organizers:
1. I hope the Chico Palio race is at least 3,100 miles around the same circuit [see previous day's "3,100 Reasons Why Not" blog for reference].
2. Since Ed McLaughlin came up with the idea for the Chico Palio and he was a strong opponent against Enloe's expansion at its existing location, I'm surprised the Chico Palio race won't be a race around Enloe where competing teams can clog traffic in the Avenues neighborhood.
3. Will teams continue to be allowed to dress up as horses on Halloween night in downtown Chico?
4. Lastly, the only part of Artoberfest that confuses me is whether I should capitalize the event as ARTOBERFEST. On the website and press releases, I've seen the word written in lower case and upper case. I'm always looking to find consensus or a middle ground, so I suggest ArToBeRfEsT, aRtObErFeSt, ARTOBerfest, or artobERFEST.
Today's Scrabble word is polio, an acute viral disease that sounds a lot like palio.
Posted by dan_nt at July 27, 2006 11:04 PM