Clothing?

Feb.7

Notes about Carneval-Fasching after experiencing five Carneval Celebrations in different parts of the world: In New Orleans, Mardi Gras( many times); the famous Carnival in Rio; Karneval in Mainz, Germany, when we were students; and now Fastnacht in South Germany in the university town of Tuebingen and in the  small town of Neckar-Zweihingen near Ludwigsburg. By pure coincidence we were treated to a fifth Fasching in the University town of Erfurt. To us, the local small-town Fastnacht was the most enjoyable and genuine: it was obviously prepared and produced totally by the initiative of the small town's people and their local clubs, not staged by professionals: "it was for the people and by the people".  

The well-known religious meaning of Karneval is "fare-well-to meat" (carne=meat; vale=farewell), the day preceding lent. But we could not find the original story of Fasching (a name which also indicates "fasting", but it's a ritual very likely having much older  roots); the "allemannische" Fastnacht in the Black Forest Region appears to have its roots in a pagan rite of chasing out the winter spirits and preparing the land for spring. Thus the horrifying carved masks to scare away the dark spirits, the brooms for clearing out winter.  To us, this small-town local recreation of the ritual was especially attractive because of its genuineness: the "parade participants" mingled with the spectators, some chased youngsters in the crowd, danced with old-timers like us. There was merry-making and joyfulness all around, and a reflection of the relief that spring was approaching.

I must recount one small incident:  Their 60+ area groups and bands were loosely organized and improvised freely. We were practically in the midst of the activities: some witches and goblins left the parade to play tricks on the spectators,they chased them, danced with them, grabbed the girls, frightened the kids chased onlookers with their brooms or threw candies or  confettie into the crowd. What impressed us was the attention given to the youngsters in the crowd. Most masques and costumes were home-made, thus looked ruff and thus wildly unique and colorful, but scary; bands sounded like local Hi-school bands except with the spirit of New Orleans;); some stepped out and kissed children, threw candies into the small crowd and often chased after people, playfully scaring them and chasing them with sticks and  brooms. The crowd participated enthusiastically and Ziggy danced several times and loved it. Some goblins "fraternized" with the children, spoke to them kindly and lifted their terrifying masks to show their real faces underneath, and soothed them with hard candies.

TV has nightly shows which are spectacular, professionally created carneval parties. These are professional spectacles with performances reminding of N.Y. Radio City Music Hall;  we watched a couple of nights, mostly for the music, but we were not at all touched the way these local celebrations have.

 Long elegant cashmere coats:  

We had always maintained that clothing, appearance did not matter to us. Now we found out how nice it felt to know to look good and respectable. We admitted that we had made a virtue out of necessity....

Estelle wrote:

Aspen is one of those most unusual American towns that has excellent public transportation though and it's free for senior citizens. 

We returned to Vaihingen more than a week ago and are pleased to be "home" for a while resting up for our next adventure with family and friends. Cousin Werner, our host, has given Richey to his 80th birthday a wonderful present: a 4 day trip to Weimar, the Goethe town, and Erfurt close by, both are historically and culturally important German towns.Of course we are excited about that tour and are looking forward to it. We will leave at the end of