As I was saying: Last night the news was filled with pictures of grown men sobbing helplessly, their capirotes clutched to their chest. Because of the rain, their processions couldn't go out.

In happier Semana Santa-related news, the town of Corleone (yes, that Corleone) has just allowed its nazarenos to once again wear their capirotes during their processions. It seems that not too long ago, all that face-covering enabled certain, shall we say, rivals, to get close to one another, with the expected violent results. But now, Corleone is ready to show that it has transcended the past. At least its recent past. Because those processions date, after all, to the time when Sicily was part of Spain.

Another Reason I Know I'm Not Spanish

It's Semana Santa, and you know what that means: posters of agonizing Virgins and Christs plastered to every shop window. There are a lot of things I've come to appreciate about Semana Santa: the dark, soul-stirring music, the devotion that the men (and women!) who carry the pasos through the crowded night, the solemnity of it all, the 10-day vacation. But the delight and adoration that images of these suffering...can I say it?...statues excites, well, let's just say it's another thing I still don't get.