Tomato Wars

Today is the day of the Spanish tomato throwing festival... it's called 'La Tomatina'.
Well, according to Answers.com, it is.
It also tells me that the tomatoes are mostly 'over-ripe', which I'll interpret as being almost rotten. Which is quite as good as rotten, really, once it's been splattered all over the streets and your hair, and it's 95 degrees out in the Mediterranean summer sun.

It's interesting that bad artists/musicians get rotten food thrown at them. In a world where parties and gatherings usually involve the host providing food of some sort for the guests, and where giving food to others is culturally a sign of caring, throwing food at a singer is one sign of utmost disregard for their work onstage.

Food is almost always something that brings people together. Families to the dining table, friends to the corner restaurant, white collars to the business lunches. Yet, this is a prime example of another use of food. The Tomatina in using food as a sort of weapon in this huge food fight, and the throwing of rotten vegetables at bad performers as an indication that the audience is not enjoying the show, at all.

Albeit, people are still gathering together to throw tomatoes at each other, so the food is still bringing everyone to one place. And perhaps all the people that throw rotten food at onstage performers have some sort of club as well. I know I wouldn't go to the trouble of bringing rotten food to performances just to throw onstage in case I disliked the performance. Or maybe it's all fake, and I've watched too many cartoons.