The Great Dionysia urban celebration wended its way through the city of Athens in early April, so the par

allel timing is just about right for spring to be sprung in San Francisco. And the modern equivalent has no shortage of sacred vessels of liquid (kegs-on-wheels), beautiful Bacchae (young women in spandex dancing wildly), mythological theater (people dressed as super heroes and "Where's Waldo"), priapic exaggeration (men with stuffed Speedos or artificial phalluses), and the always essential satyrs (naked men-of-a-certain-age). A few minimally dressed rotund, over-indulged looking men were in the running for the god of revel himself.
This is the third year I've watched the event with an eye to costume themes, trends, zeitgeists, and modes of ecstatic celebration--and there's no doubt that it was less exuberant than the two preceding years. There was a definite effort made by the sponsors (ING) to tone things down--their advertising tag-line was "Register, Respect, Revel"--but there was a relative reservedness that seemed to come from the participants themselves. Which isn't to say things were tame, just less elaborate than usual. Still, there was plenty to take in. The usual college-age demographic were well represented, hooting and hollering in clusters, beer-bonging and staggering, dancing and groping. I didn't see a lessening of the naked men over 50; they thronged the crowd in abundance, blithely swinging in the breeze and taking in the sites. I idly wondered out loud why it was these older gentleman that felt the need to be naked in a crowd, and a city chick next to me launched into a complicated, forceful socio-political explanation of pride, body, power, and statement. Personally, I think it's a lot simpler.

Some mature dudes just get a thrill from being naked in public. Which is all the more appropriate--they are the goatskin-clad Satyrs amongst the faun-eyed college boys and bikini-top-wearing urban nymphs!
There were far less large-scale floats then the last two years. Last year there was an orgy of rolling pirate ships, viking ships, and mobile Tiki bars that carried costumed people, blared music, and were general show-stoppers. I saw a few pirate ships this time around, but they were small affairs in comparison. The "Pirates of the Caribbean" films were fresher in people's minds then, and dozens of Jack Sparrow's served as avatars of Dionysus. Thespis, the legendary "first actor" of ancient Greece, is thought by some to have taken his troop of dancers in a ship-form wagon to perform in other cities--the wagon representing the stories of Dionysus as having arrived on mainland Greece by ship. It's thought that these floats were also used in the Great Dionysia procession to carry the high priest. What more appropriate high priest of the new revels than Johnny Depp's mincing, slurring, louche pirate?

Fitting nicely into the spring/rebirth leit motif, the last two years have brought out mobs of people dressed as bees and butterflies, chickens and eggs. This year there were even more chickens, oddly: full chicken costumes, multiple groups in chicken hats, and a group in chicken hats with an animal rights message (their banner read "Say No To Plumping"). The egg theme always carries over to the human reproductive realm, and their are usually several variations of sperms and eggs. This year I saw several young men celebrating the Rites of Spring dressed as sperm, with one pair pulling a giant red paper mache ball, which I believe was an egg. My favorite examples from last year and the year before: one person dressed as an ovum, jogging, being followed by several people as sperm running after him making breast stroke motions and chanting "I could be the one! I could be the one!"; and another group wearing white swim caps and carrying a banner that read "Fallopian National Swim

Team."
The devotees of priapus this year included a man in a full giant penis costume, a guy with a plastic bone sticking out of his underwear, and armies of guys who had padded themselves in one way or another, like the suggestively padded costumes of Greek comic actors. One fellow with some sort of artificial appendage had brief congress with a blow-up sex doll that was tied to a young woman, to the cheers of the crowd.
Today I observed all the usual perennial costumes, including Elvises (Elvi?), mobs of "Where's Waldos," Roman toga groups (some with french bread and lettuce attached to be Caesar Salads), Wonder Woman, Super Man, Cat Woman, bunnies, pink Genies, Trojan soldiers, Smurfs, Simpsons characters, stewardesses, men and women in bride's dresses, cows, costumes with blow-up dolls, cavemen, running of the bulls in Pamplona costumes, Flintstones, car costumes, Wizard of Oz characters, Devo, lots of Burning Man style day-glo disco getups, and an inor

dinate amount of nearly naked people wearing adult diapers. There are no goat sacrifices to Dionysus at the Bay to Breakers but, as there were today, there are usually multiple blow-up sex toy sheep tossed around--and they probably don't survive to the next day. And this time around, there were all manner of swine-flu pig incarnations offered up. So close enough.
The Greek Dionysian festivals featured comedies that satirized and touched on events and figures of the day, and similarly the Bay to Breakers is usually a stage for commentary and current cultural preoccupations. There seemed to be a little less topical action this time around then in previous runs. The dominant theme this year was of course, Swine Flu, and there were multiple pig floats and pig props. But it was strangely non-political overall, with less creative satire. Last year featured many polygamist women in dowdy dresses and several Amy Winehouses with bloody ballet slippers, Hillary Clintons, Barack for President floats, there were men with gas pump nozzles stuck to their butts, and a Hanjin Cosco Busan boat float with drunk sailors. Several odd themes emerged this year: more groups of Crayola Crayons, many more then the usual number of gnomes in pointy hats, and a steady stream of people dressed as bananas or wearing banana hats. Why?! The other odd theme

was flamingoes: multiple groups in flamingo hats and full flamingo costumes. One lively group of flamingo boys was accompanied by a sailor girl in a naughty nautical getup--not sure how she fit into their story. There were at least two men who looked like pagan "Green Men" in green costumes covered in leaves, and far more vegetables in general, including two women wearing skirts and bras out of actual Swiss chard. There was one large group looking sweltering in giant fruit costumes. I saw several groups of men dressed as pieces of bacon for some reason (whereas last year there was a plethora of people dressed as "pigs in a blanket"). The food and vegetation theme of spring outdid the skewering current events and pop culture angle. However, there was a group of guys wittily dressed as Face Book pages (their heads in illustrated cardboard boxes), wh

o were running around frantically asking to Friend people.
As I headed back home, I saw a guy in a devil costume having a quiet chat with a fireman in his truck--they color coordinated nicely. I didn't see any police until the end, when the last of the stragglers were moving up Fell Street. They were just watching, and didn't seem too concerned with anything. From what I observed, the event was peaceful and feel-good.
People drank to excess, danced and pranced, rubbed up against strangers (like the topless woman in the picture above, who spontaneously did a little number with a "Pharaoh" on a float), acted out fantasies, celebrated procreation, became heroes and myth figures, became forces of nature, made personal statements, and generally let loose. The celebrants of ancient Greece would not have felt out of place, and Dionysus is likely gratified by the day.