I sometimes like to believe that my father is a master pyromaniac in the most docile sense of the word. The week before Independence Day, my brother and I would pile into the back of my father’s car and go for an hour and half car ride north to Wisconsin, where it is legal to buy firecrackers, but just not use them. I remember these times fondly, walking into makeshift tents set up alongside the highway lined with dozens of cardboard boxes overflowing with clown colored tubes with names like Bottle Rockets and Dragon Twisters. My dad would always break the bank that day, and like a kid in a candy store, he couldn’t say no to things that light up the sky and go BOOM!

But our revelry as a family lasted only one day of the year, while here in Catalunya, the Revetlla de Sant Joan, complete with enormous bonfires and imaginary beings, is characterized by a week long celebration of explosions. For approximately seven days, you hear nothing but the constant sound of warfare, until the night of June 23rd, when children, grandparents and people of all races and religions gather together to go absolutely flippin’ insane. Imagine walking through your local park, and literally having firecrackers come at you from every direction. Five year olds chucking small firecrackers at your feet, grandma lighting Roman Candles at a 45 degree angle, teenagers igniting bottle rockets directly at their buddies, smoke everywhere, and you, in the middle of it all, praying that you can just get to the other side of the 200 meter park without having your eye taken out.

Where does this complete chaos stem from? La Nit de Sant Joan, St …