"Life in a Northern Town" *
Lothar
Call me Ismael… I was not sure if I could make
it this time. Why? We live in a state of
emergency in Germany during this time of the year. While the last Christmas
carols are in the air, the Christmas trees still in the living room and the
three wise men can been seen turn around the corner, another power is rising in
the southern half of Germany. Strange statures in disguise are moving in the dark
and light places, growing by numbers every week, and as their number rises,
productivity is going down on Mondays until it culminates on a long weekend
were the normal public live comes to disruption. The fifth season in Germany - It is Carnival.
It should be nothing special compared to other countries as it has its roots in
a Catholic tradition and they inherited it from some heathen culture rites
forcing out the winter and welcome the prolific season of springtime. The Catholic
Church recreated the structures as a preparation for eastern passion and the
suffering and death of Jesus Christ. As a kind of kick-off, people where
allowed to have some fun before the lent and this is where it all begins.
“Carne vale” – say Goodbye Meat for the six weeks before Eastern and
have some fun. For whatever reasons, Germany became a hotspot, and as we all
know, the Germans are very precise on what they are doing; in order to have fun
and be funny you need some regulations and some people guarding it. If more
than three Germans meet at one place with a similar idea, a club must be founded
immediately with rules, and a board, and all.
Therefore, thousands of carnival clubs and associations have resulted
all through the land their only purpose being to ensure that fun is being had.
Having fun in uniforms or with the uniform? The chaos of carnival has to
be organized and canalized into areas where it does no harm, except for broken
relationships, unwanted pregnancies and stuff like this.
It is always a bit ambivalent
here in Germany. In the early days, the uniforms where used to play tricks on
the authorities and the Prussian garrison in the mainly catholic Rhineland, playing
“Parading in the streets” and “Present arms” to show how stupid the Prussians
behave and to parody their behaviour …
The Prussians are long gone, their behaviour melted down in the flames of
war in the last centuries, and today the Cops
du Garde inherited not only Prussian Behaviour
but also their stupidity while re-enacting it at Carnival time and also during
the year. The rule of the Carnival is the same: whatever you do, if the council
of the Eleven (also wearing expensive uniforms) does not declare it as funny, then it isn’t.
The south is a bit different. Their ancient customs is based more on a
barbarian tradition; the battle and protection against the bad daemons and the demands
for a prolific year. The Black Forrest is not only famous for the watches but
also for their style of celebrating what they call carnival. Thousands of
people with ragged costumes wearing demonic wooden masks, inherited from the
Grand-Grandfather, playing tricks on the audience and the people in the streets,
rewarding kids with sweets and doing all kind of anarchic things – pure Chaos.
And so is the music. In general, they are using the same instruments as
everywhere and a lot of the musicians play in brass bands during the year. Not so
on carnival – the band is playing the same song, again and again, but in
different tunes and in a cacophony of tones. On one hand, because some of them
can’t play better than they do, on the other hand the music is the sequence of
the noise that was made to force the winter daemons out of the houses, barns
and stables. The deafening screaming noise should torture the daemons so that
they try to flee and than get burned in the brightness of the first spring
sunbeams. Today the daemons are an endangered species protected by environmental
laws and so in most cases the audience is being tortured and they are forced to
ease the pain. The result is uncontrolled
happiness and fun, lots of drinks and food.
The country is under siege for four days; economics succumbs. The Carnival in Cologne it is not as popular
as the Rhineland Carnival due to the better marketing and the power of a
“Global Player” in the cities.
Glad it is over next Tuesday, but again another opportunity will be
missed to bring back the chaos into carnival - perhaps you should call me
nevertheless – Ismael.
Title borrowed from a song by The Dream Academy
“Call me Ismael” H. Melville, Moby Dick. Chap1., p1.