Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Incomprehensible Carnival

The following account is not of a dream. It was real.

I want to begin by talking about the Muncy carnival. Muncy, in case you don't know, is my home town in Pennsylvania. The Muncy Carnival, proudly brought to you by the Muncy Township Volunteer Fire Department, takes place in the parking lot of a now-defunct gas station. If memory serves, which it usually doesn't, (Muncyians, if you're reading this, please feel free to corroborate or discorrorborate my story here) the Muncy Carnival had one ride, which I recall resembling the kind of cherry-picker used by the electric and gas companies, but, of course, rustier, partly broken down, like all of the Carnival Rides we all remember. That being said, I think that the Muncy Carnival is mostly about food: Italian Sausage, French Fries, Funnel Cakes, Meatball Sandwiches, etc. There may also be a few games and the occasional live country music band, perhaps a watered-down version of the first pop-country that comes to mind. Muncy, mind you, is a predominantly Protestant community.

Now let me tell you about what happened to us on Sunday, January 17.

I was awakened by the sound of a passing marching band near by. In a state of half-sleep, unsure whether I was awake or dreaming, I listened. The band began with a rousing March, which, however, about three-quarters of the way through, gradually dissipated as the members, apparently, lost their enthusiasm and gusto. It was as if, part way through their song they had decided that whatever reasons they had for marching and playing were not sufficient and that they should, well, just go home. Perhaps it was just a dream.


About five minutes later, the sound of yet another Marching Band. This time, they are clearly headed down our street. Alright. Now I know I'm not dreaming. I scurry down from the Terrifying Sleeping Loft (slowly, carefully, mind you. The ladder is not attached to the wall...), thrown on some clothes, grab the camera and out I go. Yes, they are all wearing "fancy dress," as the British say, or, you know, Weird Costumes as we say in the States.


After they had passed, I went back to gather Anne and the two of us headed off in pursuit. What we saw was that most of the town had broken down into factions, each sporting its own highly choreographed costume. The first group we encountered apparently thought it was Halloween. That one guy clearly thought I was taking HIS picture, which, of course, I wasn't.


We decided we would head to Vrijhof, one of the town squares. We weren't there very long when, once again, we heard the sound of an on-coming Marching Band. These folks were decked out in green, yellow and red, the official colors of the Carnival, apparently, as they had flags bearing these colors everywhere. You can see that this team is sporting a fabulous court-jester style.


At this point we decided to head to the Market Square (a different, nearby square) and sew what was afoot there. In retrospect, I'm glad we did because there we found clearly the best team of them all, who I dubbed "The Road Warriors." This is obviously the best group in the entire Carnival. I hope they won. This a touching shot of a road warrior holding his child road warrior.


At this point we were starting to get kind of hungry. Being in the market square and all, there were a number of booths set up selling things like, well, the Dutch version of Italian Sausages, Meatball Sandwiches, etc. We decided to grab a giant cone of frites from the frites place on the corner, which sells nothing but french fries with various condiments. We went the Euro classic, mayonnaise. Now, European, or at least Dutch mayo is quite different from what we've got out West: much thicker and richer, with the flavor of basically what amounts to the filling of a deviled egg. That's right, deviled egg. Between the two of us we managed to eat the whole thing. I can't imagine eating one of these cones by myself but I certainly saw plenty of people making the attempt. I guess the Dutch have a higher tolerance for, you know, "whoa fried" than I do.


We were under the impression, mostly from the huge stage that had been set up in the market square, that there would be live performances of some kind. This may very well have been the case, but by the time we had gotten our fries, consumed them, etc., they were clearly tearing the stage down. Apparently whatever performances there might have been were over. Things looked like they were wrapping up for whatever had been taking place here. But this raises a very interesting question: What the H#$%l was going on here? What's with these people and their crazy costumes? We agreed that the only solution was to accost some unsuspecting reveler and put them under the appropriate degree of interrogation. So, we stood around on the corner, looking, you know, kind of shady, waiting for a victim, I mean, passerby. We found a family, a woman, dressed up in, you know, some clown-like get up, with her kids, also in clown-like get up, and her husband, who apparently had no enthusiasm. "Excuse me. Sorry, but we don't speak Dutch. Do you speak English?" Clown1: "A little bit." K: "What's going on here?" Clown1: "Carnival." K:"What?" Clown 1: "Where are you from?" K: "New York." Clown 1: "You don't have Carnival?" K: "Uh, no. What is it?"


Carnival, as you may have guessed by now, is the same as other Carnivals celebrated in predominantly Catholic regions. On this particular day, the townsfolk were coming out to elect the "prince of the carnival," the person responsible for calling the shots during the REAL celebration. (Oh yeah folks, this was just a warm-up). And you guessed it, this is the very same celebration that signals the beginning of Lent, what we would know as Fat Tuesday and it lasts until Ash Wednesday. Unlike the American version, aka Mardis Gras, the Maastricht Carnival is supposed to be a family-friendly affair. Nonetheless, when the time comes next month, the bars will be open all night. (Lucky me. I live right around the corner from a bar... Maybe I can get some beads...). As of yet, I have no idea who, if anybody, was named "prince." I'm pretty sure it wasn't me.

So, Muncy, I say to you, where's your game, huh? Where are your ludicrous costumes and impromptu marching bands? Where are your feather boas, cross-dressing and flamboyancy? Where are your old men, spontaneously breaking out into song and dance? Perhaps the Muncy Township Volunteer Fire Department should take their cue from these people for next year and really get decked out. Take down your Cherry-Picker, close the shoot-the-water-gun-to-race-horses-game. Why, maybe even try a little mayonnaise on your fries... even if it does taste like a deviled egg.

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