Monday, September 10, 2007

Gino, any of your clan from Piobbico, Italy?

Italy's ugly club defies convention (from a 2003 article)
For this town - population 2,000 - is home to Italy's Club dei Brutti - or Ugly Club.

On the first Sunday of every September, hundreds of people gather in the main square for a rather unusual ceremony.

It is the annual Festival of the Ugly, in which the club's new president will be elected.
The head of a wild boar - the club's emblem - is mounted over a door. The club's crest features a reclining man smoking a pipe with the slogan: "Ugliness is a virtue, beauty is slavery."


Click on the logo to check out their official web site. (BTW, it will help if you can read Italian)



The newly elected President of World Association of Ugly People Roberta Iacobelli celebrates in Piobbico's town center, Italy, September 9, 2007. The members of the World Association of Ugly People elect their own president during the annual "Festival of the Ugly" held in the small town of Piobbico in the Marche region every September.

Somewhere it said that there are 20,000 members worldwide, I wonder if they're all Italian. I think there's a club that was founded in Poland that has thousands of members worldwide, I think it's called MENSA. (sorry, I haven't given Gino a hard time in a while, when I saw the pictures and story on this, I couldn't resist)

More Pictures



2 comments:

Gino said...

my people are from further south, and naturally among the most beautiful in all europe.

but i must correct you: the name of the polish club is not mensa.
it is menso.
i know, easy mistake to make if you belong to menso.
(menso? ask a mexican what it means)

thats ok.

Anonymous said...

I did better than that, I googled it. Next time we go to El Rancho Grande I'll ask one of the waiters what it means--I'll see if he's honest with a gringo.

Would mensa be the feminine dummy and menso be the male?