Karnivorous Behavior

For what seems like ages now, I’ve been struggling to write something of substance about Karneval. The party-to-end-all parties,¹ that raucous din that consumed the city with costumed bedlam for almost a week, surely I needed to write about that.

For me, Karneval fell flat. Karneval is party without purpose, festivity following no particular event or cause demanding celebration. For five straight days, Cologne brimmed with merrymakers drinking themselves silly with what sometimes seemed to be desperation. I’m told Karneval originated as a last hurrah before the Lenten season began. It was, I can only assume, an attempt to load oneself with such a vicious hangover that the puritanical proscriptions of Lent would be seen as a sweet relief rather than a restriction.

For the most part, Cologne today is a Catholic city in name and skyline only. The beginning of Lent does not herald teetotalling so much as the mixing of pain-relief medications. So what was everyone celebrating? If the desperation to eek every last drop out of those days did not come from the approach of Lent, then where? Given the maturity² of the average partier, I find myself entertaining depressing theories about German denial: a generation rejecting a two-fold truth: 1) Eventually, youth passes you by; and 2) after a certain age, no one pulls off the drunk tooth-fairy look. The spectacle was, on the whole, a little sad. It reminded me of a theme party in Claremont, but less fun, and with more anonymity, rain and wrinkles.

I suppose at this point a disclaimer is in order. I had fun at Karneval, and my negative opinion on Karneval only developed later. Like everyone else, I looked forward to it. I assembled a pirate costume from odds and ends and a few accessories bought for pocket change on the street.³ I went to parties and watched the parade. But a celebration is meant to… well, celebrate something. Karneval is the quintessential party qua party. I just prefer having cause for my revelry.

Take Meagan’s last visit. She arrived off the plane terribly sick, so rather than castle-hunting along the Rhine, as planned, we spent the weekend recuperating. Though we took in some sightseeing⁴, most of the weekend was spent on my couch.

I haven’t been that happy in ages.

Celebration is good. But the desperate groping for happiness uprooted from cause, well, I’ve found it wanting. If you want to enjoy Karneval, by all means visit Cologne, or Essen or Rio or Venice or any of the other cities where the festivities at this time of year are famed. But bring your friends. They’re what’s worth celebrating.

So much for Karneval. Next time: Dvořák.

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¹Well, until after Lent, anyway.

²Biological, that is.

³Actually, my costume has yielded a lot of compliments. I don’t know how I feel about near-universal consensus that I look better in a bandana, buckles and breeches than I do in modern clothing. Probably just further evidence, alongside the stodgy timbre of this post, that I was born in the wrong century.

⁴Including the hospital. Calm down – she’s fine, now. I had fun, actually. I’d never been in an ambulance before.

Oh, Right -- This Is What Working Feels Like

As of today, I am two weeks through the third and final phase of my program here in Germany. My internship¹ proceeds apace, and I am enjoying it immensely. My friends know I thrive on stress, though not always with much grace or stoicism. I prefer activity, even stressful levels of it, to lethargy. Thus I had looked forward to once again being truly busy.

Somehow, though, I had forgotten that with being busy comes... well, being busy.

Hence the pause since my last post. My job has me writing almost constantly. I have found little energy for blogging after writing for nine straight hours at work. On the plus side, I have managed to find even more respect for certain bloggers who've kept that pace for some time now. My next topic will be Karneval... but not yet. That pandaemonium of pageantry has aligned itself in constellation-like fashion with a few other events in my life, which I will be tackling collectively in the near future. Don't worry: I won't be assaulting you with any rambling diatribes just because Europe's getting all serendipitous on me.

For now, let me just say this: Cologne has a Karneval rallying cry, "Kölle Alaaf!" Hearing that everywhere made the whole event sound like some sort of call to a jovial jihad.

Stay tuned.

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¹I use that term loosely. The responsibility and feeling of satisfaction are decidedly job-like. The pay... well, not so much.

Recent Reflections on a Sensitive Subject

Outside my window, Karneval season kicked into high gear today. While Cologne's Karneval is particularly famous, the holiday is celebrated far and wide, including in Munich, where it is known as Fasching. Though Karneval technically began months ago, heavy-duty merrymaking only commences in the days prior to Lent. Munich had one of its first major Fasching festivities, a parade, this past Sunday. The parade caused a storm of controversy in the press because it conflicted with -- and drew attention from -- International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

This blog has been almost silent until now about this particular period in Germany's history. That was deliberate. The Holocaust is an immensely complicated topic, and the current German political climate regarding the Holocaust is equally intricate. I did not want to add needless blather to a knotty and emotionally charged dialogue.

At this point, I have some thoughts to share. The topic of the Holocaust weighed on my mind in Munich last week. While there, I and the other participants of my seminar met with a high-ranking official of the Bavarian state government. He was obviously an intelligent, articulate man. He spoke fluidly and charmingly about Bavarian history and culture. He also made some very flippant remarks about the NS-Zeit.¹ At one point, he said that Bavaria is where all the "nice" elements of German culture come from, and that the negative elements -- here he actually listed the Holocaust as an example -- came from elsewhere.

The Nazis did not exactly enjoy overwhelming support in Bavaria, but it would be a lie to say the region opposed the Reich. Conversely, though it is an egregious exaggeration to claim Bavaria has "all of German's good culture," it certainly has its share. Bavaria birthed Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss; Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg; Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann. But it is also where the Nazi movement began in the early twenties.

I recognize that I tread on sensitive territory here. Especially dangerous is the drawing of inferences about modern Germans from historical lessons. The general rule, as I have seen it, is that contemporary Germans are exceedingly aware of their history, perhaps even haunted by it. The generation raised in the wake of World War II was taught, at home, at church, in school, to retain a sense of Schuldgefühl, a feeling of guilt for the sins of their country. Germans are by and large saturated with their history, and while this has occasionally created blowback, more often, I have seen it lead to a greater concern for human rights and a stronger belief in international cooperation.

As for me, from everything I have learned about the Holocaust, the only sure conclusion I have reached is that it was an immensely tragic and immensely complicated event. There is still much to be learned from the Holocaust. Some Germans have gone to great lengths to do so. We can learn from them as well.

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¹The most commonly used term among Germans today for the Nazi regime. NS-Zeit translates to the "time of national socialism."