Unthinkable Wings

*Finish organising word nets for section of thesis
- on a related note, work out why, exactly, wordle isn't working for my computer, and fix it (I do actually have a semi-legitimate academic use for this, it's not just playing!)
*Trail out to teacher training college, extract interesting sounding article from volume of feminist theology (and how much do I hate the local library policy of not duplicating holdings across institutions? It's one thing not buying several copies of volumes for department libraries down the hall from each other, but when you need to travel half an hour by tram to use the library of a university you're not even a member of...)
* Re-wax Grönland jacket and hat
* Give brief presentation on Barlaam and Josephaat manuscript; explain how the Buddha ended up becoming a Christian saint.
* Wash Scout uniform and sleeping bag inner
* Book flight home
* Work out what I did with those blank CDs, and burn some files
* Cancel Spiegel (which has had some headdeskily daft articles recently, anyway, including the latest Batshit Insane Theory that Goethe was having an affair with Anna Amalia rather than Charlotte von Stein†, cancel internet contract
* Sharpen knife
* Sort out tent issue, given that I now can't borrow the one I was going to
* Attempt to prevent assassination of Charidisch prince (OK, this is an RPG goal rather than a real one)

... I have the strong feeling I've forgotten something


† Because C von S wasn't intellekshul enough, apparently. I would counter (a) Goethe seems to have had a habit of wanting people to show off to (b) C v S may not have been as intellectual as Anna Amalia, but the evidence of his wife suggests that Goethe didn't primarily go for academic competence in a woman (c) assuming he'd dumped the Dowager Duchess to run off to Rome, how likely is it that he'd have been allowed back to Weimar on rather improved terms?

Thanks to a kind friend, or strictly speaking, to her mother, I've got a box's worth of space to send back to the UK, which has allowed me to send off the books I don't strictly need. It's a slightly odd combination (and I suppose it's not surprising that people keep thinking I study theology.

... as it's known in this part of Germany (or to be strictly accurate, in as far as is possible without IPA, Schmotzgr Dunnschteg, or vowels to that effect) today, that is, the last Thursday before Lent, and the real start of Fasnet/ Fasching/ Karneval. In other parts of Germany it's known as 'Weiberfasnacht' (Women's Carnival), otherwise known as the night when well-conducted men hide in terror of having their ties cut off by hordes of drunken women. In Freiburg, it mostly seems to centre on witches.

The Alemannic Fasnacht is a different beast to the jolly affair further down the Rhine - it's more obviously about driving away the dark, more obviously pagan*. People who are members of the various fools' guilds wear traditional costumes which often involve rather frightening wooden masks (though for me, the scariest ones are the elegant Baroque type associated with Fasnacht at Rottweil over on the Neckar. This is almost certainly Doctor Who's fault). A lot of the other traditional fools's costumes look like they're made out of leaves or feathers - actually it's felt - and there seems a clear iconographic link to the Wild Man who symbolises choas and untamed nature in south west German art. Possibly the Green Man fits in there somewhere too. After all, Carneval isn't just about chasing away the dark or cheering yourself up before Lent starts: it's about letting off steam so that an ordered society can continue to function. Possibly it's the opium of the people - or was - society isn't ordered enough for it to matter as much as it did.

Under the cut, a few photos, though I came on the proclamation of the start of carneval and the exaltation of the powers of darkness (pretty much in so many words, though if you think you're going to summon the devil using the formula 'hocus pocus', you're going to have a long wait) and had very littlepower left in my camera, so they're not brilliant. Still, it's a strange country out there....

* Especially in Basel, where as a result of being Calvinist they celebrate it on the first Monday of Lent - starting at 4 AM.

( To the pictures! )