Can the Gävle Goat get through to the end of 2020?
November 26, 2020 3:22 AM Subscribe
It is that time of the year, it is tweeting and it is reborn! Through webcam, see the 2020 Gävle Goat being constructed and guarded. After last year (larger goat survived, smaller goat did not), the Wikipedia page details the various attacks on (both) Yule straw goats over the decades ("2005: Burnt by unknown vandals reportedly dressed as Santa and the gingerbread man, by shooting a flaming arrow at the goat"). Some previously on MetaFilter: 2017, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2009.
I am firmly of the opinion that guarding the Goat is tantamount to guarding democracy.
What a world we could be living in, if only the arsonists could have used their evil genius for niceness.
posted by flabdablet at 4:53 AM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
What a world we could be living in, if only the arsonists could have used their evil genius for niceness.
posted by flabdablet at 4:53 AM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
I am noticing a disturbing lack of trebuchets here. They could ignite it from half a mile away, instead of these namby-pamby flaming arrows.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 5:24 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by halfbuckaroo at 5:24 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
The objective was to attract customers to the shops and restaurants in the southern part of the city. On the first Sunday of Advent 1966, the huge goat was placed at Castle Square in Gävle. Since then, the Gävle Goat has been a Christmas symbol placed in the same spot every year. Today he is world famous. The Gävle Goat is the world’s largest straw goat and made it to the Guinness Book of Records for the first time in 1985.
It's just another tourist trap. so now I, too, am on Team Burn It Down. Admittedly it is a more attractive trap than many, and I have no wish for anyone to be harmed in the building or destruction of said goat. But now it is nearly as traditional to vandalize the goat every year as it is to build it in the first place. There is no way that will stop unless the folks responsible somehow get caught.
If it had never been burned down, I would be appalled by the very thought. But now, after years and years of goat bonfires, this fiery spectacle is not going to stop of its own accord. Who has the marshmallows?
posted by Bella Donna at 5:43 AM on November 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
It's just another tourist trap. so now I, too, am on Team Burn It Down. Admittedly it is a more attractive trap than many, and I have no wish for anyone to be harmed in the building or destruction of said goat. But now it is nearly as traditional to vandalize the goat every year as it is to build it in the first place. There is no way that will stop unless the folks responsible somehow get caught.
If it had never been burned down, I would be appalled by the very thought. But now, after years and years of goat bonfires, this fiery spectacle is not going to stop of its own accord. Who has the marshmallows?
posted by Bella Donna at 5:43 AM on November 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
The goat’s ultimate fate is to burn. Though if everything goes as planned, this will be in a municipal waste incinerator, once it has been dismantled, alongside dirty diapers and used takeaway plates.
Wouldn’t it be more fulfilling if, at the conclusion of Christmas festivities, the goat was officially set alight where it stood, its flames giving light in the winter darkness, and its destruction clearing the way for the rebirth of the new year?
posted by acb at 6:06 AM on November 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
Wouldn’t it be more fulfilling if, at the conclusion of Christmas festivities, the goat was officially set alight where it stood, its flames giving light in the winter darkness, and its destruction clearing the way for the rebirth of the new year?
posted by acb at 6:06 AM on November 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
The goat’s ultimate fate is to burn.
Why burn it when it could instead end up mulching many, many productive and delicious garden beds? Who wouldn't love to eat tomatoes infused with the spirit of the world's largest straw goat?
This obsession with pointless, spectacular destruction is why we can't have nice things.
posted by flabdablet at 6:21 AM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
Why burn it when it could instead end up mulching many, many productive and delicious garden beds? Who wouldn't love to eat tomatoes infused with the spirit of the world's largest straw goat?
This obsession with pointless, spectacular destruction is why we can't have nice things.
posted by flabdablet at 6:21 AM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
The Goat, as a symbol of the year past and as a symbol of our potential future, both needs to burn and not to burn; we need a Goat for burning and a Goat for yearning.
Either two Goats, I say, or else make it into a sport - the Goat gets built and one team is assigned to protect it while another team works to set it ablaze, and for the month of December the world watches and possibly participates. A Hunger Games type situation, where only a straw Goat is at risk.
posted by nubs at 6:47 AM on November 26, 2020 [11 favorites]
Either two Goats, I say, or else make it into a sport - the Goat gets built and one team is assigned to protect it while another team works to set it ablaze, and for the month of December the world watches and possibly participates. A Hunger Games type situation, where only a straw Goat is at risk.
posted by nubs at 6:47 AM on November 26, 2020 [11 favorites]
You want to burn down a straw goat to symbolize the year just gone? Fine. Go build your own goat. Burning somebody else's is just rude.
posted by flabdablet at 7:08 AM on November 26, 2020
posted by flabdablet at 7:08 AM on November 26, 2020
Nubs sums it up for me. I am obsessed with that goat and cannot decide if I want it to save or burn.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:12 AM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:12 AM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
You want to burn down a straw goat to symbolize the year just gone? Fine. Go build your own goat. Burning somebody else's is just rude.
Noted football coach Bill Parcells used to say "You are what your record says you are." If the goat burns every year, or nearly so, then it's a Burning Goat.
to everything burn burn burn
there is a gavle burn burn burn
and a time for goat burning
under heaven
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:25 AM on November 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
Noted football coach Bill Parcells used to say "You are what your record says you are." If the goat burns every year, or nearly so, then it's a Burning Goat.
to everything burn burn burn
there is a gavle burn burn burn
and a time for goat burning
under heaven
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:25 AM on November 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
I was staying at a Scandic hotel a few Decembers ago and they had half a dozen mini Gavle goats decorating the lobby and my first thought was not "How cute and Christmassy!" but "Someone is going to burn this hotel down."
They were pretty cute and Christmassy, though. I wonder if they survived.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:13 AM on November 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
They were pretty cute and Christmassy, though. I wonder if they survived.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:13 AM on November 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
If someone breaks the webcam, then for most of the world the goat will exist in a state of superposition, both burned and not burned.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:16 AM on November 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:16 AM on November 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
Why burn it when it could instead end up mulching many, many productive and delicious garden beds?
Ironically, because it's doused with fire retardant to prevent it from being accidentally or deliberately burned. You probably don't want that leaching into your vegetables.
posted by acb at 8:16 AM on November 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
Ironically, because it's doused with fire retardant to prevent it from being accidentally or deliberately burned. You probably don't want that leaching into your vegetables.
posted by acb at 8:16 AM on November 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
All I know is that we started blowing Aztec Death Whistles, and everything went to shit. Obviously, we need to make a giant sacrifice. That's just science.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:55 AM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:55 AM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
The Goat, as a symbol of the year past and as a symbol of our potential future, both needs to burn and not to burn...
Perhaps it should be placed in a sealed enclosure with an ignition system controlled by the random decay of an atom, existing in a superposition of burnt and not burnt until the enclosure is opened.
posted by TedW at 9:00 AM on November 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
Perhaps it should be placed in a sealed enclosure with an ignition system controlled by the random decay of an atom, existing in a superposition of burnt and not burnt until the enclosure is opened.
posted by TedW at 9:00 AM on November 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
It should get intubated for 2020.
Then set on fire.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 9:04 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Then set on fire.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 9:04 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
I feel like I post this in every goat thread, but there's a song about all this: The Refreshments: The Billy Goat.
posted by hippybear at 9:13 AM on November 26, 2020
posted by hippybear at 9:13 AM on November 26, 2020
I assume the goat has a hollow space inside where one can stuff all the people who really aren't needed for the new year
posted by The otter lady at 11:13 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by The otter lady at 11:13 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
The goat’s ultimate fate is to burn.
Gävle Goat is Chekhov's Gun irl.
posted by mcrandello at 11:21 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Gävle Goat is Chekhov's Gun irl.
posted by mcrandello at 11:21 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
To look into the eyes of a goat is to see Evil, pure and simple, from beyond the Eighth Dimension! For them all is to be devoured. The rubber torn from expensive cars. Cans. Piles of random paper. Fenceposts. All Must Be Devoured.
Goat-burners walk their lonely path, saving us all from the horrors of the Goat Dimension.
posted by aramaic at 11:44 AM on November 26, 2020
Goat-burners walk their lonely path, saving us all from the horrors of the Goat Dimension.
posted by aramaic at 11:44 AM on November 26, 2020
Ironically, because it's doused with fire retardant to prevent it from being accidentally or deliberately burned.
Years ago, I remember reading an article about how they didn't want to use flame retardant because it made the goat less pretty.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:36 PM on November 26, 2020
Years ago, I remember reading an article about how they didn't want to use flame retardant because it made the goat less pretty.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:36 PM on November 26, 2020
The Goat, as a symbol of the year past and as a symbol of our potential future, both needs to burn and not to burn; we need a Goat for burning and a Goat for yearning.
There are two goats. The main Gävle Goat, which is the bigger of the two, and the smaller Natural Science Club goat across the square.
Normally I am content with just one goat going up, but this year we need a hard, yank-the-cable-from-the-wall reset, so both must burn.
This obsession with pointless, spectacular destruction is why we can't have nice things.
The burning of the goat is the last defiant act against the slow death of true pagan midwinter ritual. Losing the blood price to the return of the winter sun is one that I personally am fine with, but a symbolic burning is an absolutely appropriate substitute and the Goat is a prime target. Especially in light of the deliberate commercial consumerist jollification of the holiday that sucks every bit of actual meaning into a seething maw of avarice and can only spit out hollow mockeries of ritual. Like right now I'm having a slow sad discussion with my family about not paying $15 bucks to have a picture of my kids sitting 1.5m away from a total stranger in a red suit and fake beard, surrounded by fake snow, deep in the heart of a fucking shopping precinct, because that's some tradition that's worth hanging onto in these plague times apparently.
The Goat is an old Scandi tradition of home and hearth turned into a capitalist lure to draw people to the shops in the coldest part of the year. It needs to burn. It needs to provide that catharsis.
The Burning of the Goat is a Nice Thing, and the battle between the Flame and Midwinter Darkness is something worth celebrating, no matter who wins.
posted by Jilder at 5:29 PM on November 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
There are two goats. The main Gävle Goat, which is the bigger of the two, and the smaller Natural Science Club goat across the square.
Normally I am content with just one goat going up, but this year we need a hard, yank-the-cable-from-the-wall reset, so both must burn.
This obsession with pointless, spectacular destruction is why we can't have nice things.
The burning of the goat is the last defiant act against the slow death of true pagan midwinter ritual. Losing the blood price to the return of the winter sun is one that I personally am fine with, but a symbolic burning is an absolutely appropriate substitute and the Goat is a prime target. Especially in light of the deliberate commercial consumerist jollification of the holiday that sucks every bit of actual meaning into a seething maw of avarice and can only spit out hollow mockeries of ritual. Like right now I'm having a slow sad discussion with my family about not paying $15 bucks to have a picture of my kids sitting 1.5m away from a total stranger in a red suit and fake beard, surrounded by fake snow, deep in the heart of a fucking shopping precinct, because that's some tradition that's worth hanging onto in these plague times apparently.
The Goat is an old Scandi tradition of home and hearth turned into a capitalist lure to draw people to the shops in the coldest part of the year. It needs to burn. It needs to provide that catharsis.
The Burning of the Goat is a Nice Thing, and the battle between the Flame and Midwinter Darkness is something worth celebrating, no matter who wins.
posted by Jilder at 5:29 PM on November 26, 2020 [6 favorites]
There are two goats.
It is not a tradition of Gävle Hangers-on, it's the Gävle GOAT. Singular.
Where is the Scandi precision, has 2020 torn us all asunder?
posted by rhizome at 5:52 PM on November 26, 2020
It is not a tradition of Gävle Hangers-on, it's the Gävle GOAT. Singular.
Where is the Scandi precision, has 2020 torn us all asunder?
posted by rhizome at 5:52 PM on November 26, 2020
Well, they have 2 goats because they want a backup goat in case the first one is burned. It's not one designated "we keep this one alive and we set this one on fire on December 31." Maybe they should officially do that?
Then again, at this point I bet we'd have rogue people who'd still set them all on fire anyway.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:07 PM on November 26, 2020
Then again, at this point I bet we'd have rogue people who'd still set them all on fire anyway.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:07 PM on November 26, 2020
Where is the Scandi precision
Radical neo-paganists burned it down.
posted by flabdablet at 6:30 PM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
Radical neo-paganists burned it down.
posted by flabdablet at 6:30 PM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
> Why burn it when it could instead end up mulching many, many productive and delicious garden beds? Who wouldn't love to eat tomatoes infused with the spirit of the world's largest straw goat?This is a straw-goat attack.
This obsession with pointless, spectacular destruction is why we can't have nice things.
posted by runcifex at 1:16 AM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
:baleful_glare:
posted by flabdablet at 8:49 AM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 8:49 AM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]
The burning is a whole lot more interesting than a big, dull, commerce goat. I'm on team burn-it-to-the-ground. Hopefully in a creative way that doesn't have a chance of hurting anybody. The effort needs more giant anthropomorphic wolf puppets wielding giant torches, if you ask me.
The people building it may have thought they were constructing an art object. They're actually making the easel.
posted by eotvos at 12:44 PM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
The people building it may have thought they were constructing an art object. They're actually making the easel.
posted by eotvos at 12:44 PM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
Metafilter: a whole lot more interesting than a big, dull, commerce goat.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:33 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:33 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
Of course, the following year after the burners triumph and the other side concedes, the official goat burning will be ticketed and sponsored by the Gävle chamber of commerce, and will quite possibly have a musical performance before it and a has-been celebrity doing the countdown to ignition. And so, the cycle renews itself.
posted by acb at 4:52 PM on November 27, 2020
posted by acb at 4:52 PM on November 27, 2020
You burn people are heartless. Read his Twitter every day and see that he is cheery and optimistic and stalwart. He was devastated when someone attacked his little brother last year. We really need him to make it this time, this year of all years.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:35 PM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:35 PM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]
I visited the goat (both goats, and briefly sat on the much smaller one until some burly security guys started shouting in Swedish) a few times last year. The first visited was almost as soon as they had put it up, just in case it was quickly burnt down. Security was tight, but not insurmountable if you had e.g. a drone loaded armed with a molotov cocktail on a timer.
The second time, later in the winter and with the goat still standing, was with my Stockholm barista who spent the time trash-talking Gävle (she had a point; from my brief visits the city had few redeeming qualities and is in some ways a Swedish version of Wolverhampton). Having said that, very usefully the goat is mere seconds away from the well-stocked public library. But I doubt I'll see it again, even when I return to Sweden.
posted by Wordshore at 1:13 AM on November 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
The second time, later in the winter and with the goat still standing, was with my Stockholm barista who spent the time trash-talking Gävle (she had a point; from my brief visits the city had few redeeming qualities and is in some ways a Swedish version of Wolverhampton). Having said that, very usefully the goat is mere seconds away from the well-stocked public library. But I doubt I'll see it again, even when I return to Sweden.
posted by Wordshore at 1:13 AM on November 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
> Security was tight
I can attest to this. if you tweet the 🔥 Fire Emoji in the Goat's twitter feed a few times, the Goat blocks you.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:51 AM on November 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
I can attest to this. if you tweet the 🔥 Fire Emoji in the Goat's twitter feed a few times, the Goat blocks you.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:51 AM on November 29, 2020 [5 favorites]
Goats are nice and they shouldn’t be burnt down 😔
posted by gucci mane at 12:52 AM on November 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by gucci mane at 12:52 AM on November 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
Well, the Goat made it to Christmas. We'll see if he can make it to New Years when he gets disassembled.
posted by hippybear at 2:00 PM on December 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 2:00 PM on December 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
The goat survived till Christmas?!?! AMAZING THIS YEAR. Maybe the party poopers couldn't bear to ruin it this year? Thanks for the reminder and update!
Four good things this year: Trump out of office, Pfizer vaccine, Moderna vaccine, Gavle Goat lives!
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:59 PM on December 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
Four good things this year: Trump out of office, Pfizer vaccine, Moderna vaccine, Gavle Goat lives!
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:59 PM on December 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
The goat survived till Christmas?!?! AMAZING THIS YEAR. Maybe the party poopers couldn't bear to ruin it this year? Thanks for the reminder and update!
I thought we were supposed to sacrifice the goat so that the sun comes up in the new year.
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:01 PM on December 25, 2020
I thought we were supposed to sacrifice the goat so that the sun comes up in the new year.
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:01 PM on December 25, 2020
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Get on it, Swedish arsonists.
posted by Jilder at 3:39 AM on November 26, 2020 [13 favorites]