Meenzer Fassenacht, as it's known in the local dialect, is a really big deal around here. It was 3 weeks ago that Steffi, a fellow alto, asked if I was "inzwischen Fassenachterin geworden." From the beginning of February onwards, members of the Carnevalsvereine were active in the streets, with brass ensembles (natürlich) and "Zugplakettcher," little tokens sold to finance the annual parade. Endlich war es dann soweit… for the week leading up to Ash Wednesday, madness was loose in the city; at all times of day, men, women, and children could be seen in costume; bunting and colored paper and silly hats were everywhere. On Monday and Tuesday, the archives and city library were entirely closed! And because I could only answer "So, are you planning to see the parade?" with a stammered "Um… maybe… I probably should…" my choir director took pity on me and practically ordered me to join his parade-going posse. So, gathering my courage in both hands, I headed out (after finishing a conference paper draft in the early morning hours.) I reminded myself that my devoting an entire day to dressing up, admiring a parade, and subsisting largely on punch and popcorn is a textbook example of carnivalesque inversion. Photographic evidence below:
Der Rosenmontagszug is on time!
Ah, it wouldn't be a carnival without some good old-fashioned criticism of ecclesiastical excesses.
Some of Mainz's oldest carnival traditions: the clubs and the guards. (My landlord made a face when I told him about seeing the guards. "I don't like them. They're so… military." "Um, you know that they were founded as an antimilitary gesture, right?" I asked. "Mocking Napoleon? And the Prussians?" He made another face. "Still," he said, "all that marching.")
I'd always assumed that accounts of all Mainz being on the streets for Fassenacht were exaggerated, but… all of Mainz did indeed appear to be on the streets and in costume. The little butterfly in the arms of her dad the sea-captain was named Paula, and was quite the pet of our little parade-watching corner.
Schwellköpp! The swelled-heads are a Mainzer tradition too.
This "Feldapotheke" is carrying a giant bottle of champagne. Priorities!
It's the Zug Ente (Zug Ende.)
The Altstadt was partying too...
As was Voltaire.
The saying in Mainz is that Rosenmontag should make the cathedral shake a little... but never bring it down.
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