0:09

Hello. This is

0:11

a special episode. So

0:13

we're starting a little

0:15

differently. That's why

0:17

we didn't do the usual intro. Mr.

0:20

Ridenauer wants everything. Talk to

0:22

Tervy for this show because that's

0:24

kind of the theme of

0:26

his new book, which is what

0:28

this shows about. The

0:31

book is called a season

0:34

of madness, fools,

0:37

monsters, and marvels of

0:39

the old world carnival. And

0:41

it's available in the US on

0:44

May 6th and a bit later

0:46

internationally. But if you're

0:48

listening before then, it's

0:50

also available immediately via

0:52

pre -order. Okay,

0:55

I think that's it. So now

0:57

on to the show. Episode

1:00

140. the

1:03

unknown carnival. Absolutely

1:14

not. Absolutely not what the book is

1:16

about. So don't step up and get

1:18

it out of your head. This

1:20

is that other kind of

1:22

carnival that things celebrated in

1:24

Catholic countries in February or

1:26

March. And why

1:28

write about that? Because

1:31

of my interest in the

1:33

Krampus, the traditions are surprisingly

1:35

interwoven, which I'll get to

1:37

shortly. But back to this.

1:42

That's what many people seem to hear

1:44

when I say the word carnival, when

1:46

I tell them it's what the book's

1:48

about. At least here in

1:50

America, it's all that comes

1:52

to mind. And

1:55

it's sad, really.

1:58

Carnival is like a party to which

2:00

America has not been invited. Yes,

2:03

we have Mardi Gras, but

2:05

New Orleans is a world

2:07

unto itself, so that doesn't

2:09

translate nationally. There's

2:12

something discomforting about being left out

2:14

of the party, so we're wrong -footed

2:16

even in attempts to talk about

2:18

it. We're uncertain even

2:20

how to spell or pronounce

2:22

this carnival. Just

2:24

to be sure people know we're

2:27

not discussing tilt to worlds

2:29

and cotton candy We might decide

2:31

the word needs a more

2:33

international spelling and add an e

2:35

Change some vowels or say

2:37

it kind of funny if you're

2:39

speaking for instance of the

2:41

Italian carnival you can

2:43

say carnival a but Carnival

2:45

is perfectly good for

2:47

describing any of these festivities

2:49

in whatever the country

2:51

it's universal and more

2:53

than acceptable. And

2:56

here's how we got there. Because

2:59

America doesn't do the European Carnival,

3:01

and since the word was

3:03

just sitting there, unused, we

3:06

Americans decided to give it

3:08

a new meaning in the 1890s.

3:10

Carnival began to be applied

3:12

to traveling shows modeled on the

3:14

success of the 1893 Chicago

3:16

World's Fair, Specifically, the

3:18

central area of Midway,

3:20

collection of rides, games, and

3:22

sideshow acts, which they

3:24

christened the Midway Plaisance, giving

3:26

us another generic term,

3:28

Midway, along with the gratuitous

3:31

French Plaisance for Pleasure,

3:33

another example of

3:35

our tendency to arbitrarily

3:37

internationalize things. Maybe

3:39

the transient nature of those Midway,

3:41

set up one day and gone

3:43

the next, suggests it's something analogous

3:45

to Carnival, and it's fleeting season

3:47

of pleasures. Like

3:50

the celebration, the traveling shows

3:52

arrived in town annually at

3:54

roughly the same time, but

3:56

with certain unpredictable variations, just

3:58

as Carnival shifts slightly year

4:00

to year thanks to its date being

4:02

anchored to Lent and, by extension,

4:04

Easter. This

4:07

lack of a fixed date

4:09

also makes Americans uneasy about

4:11

Carnival. The arcane calculations

4:13

by which Easter is

4:15

set It's a relic of

4:17

pre -Reformation Europe. The kind

4:19

of thing our patriotic forefathers

4:22

would have decried as Romish

4:24

Popery. It's

4:26

one thing to submit to the

4:28

fickleness of movable feasts when it

4:30

comes with chocolate eggs and peeps,

4:32

but Lent is altogether different. A

4:34

bridge too far for most Americans. Though

4:38

Lent is ostensibly part of

4:40

all Christian traditions, its role

4:42

is minimal in Protestant churches,

4:44

leaving its most powerful legacy

4:46

in Catholicism. This

4:49

idea of the Catholic's penitential

4:51

starvation is un -American enough,

4:53

but to then proceed it

4:55

with a season of rapacious

4:57

indulgence does not really sit

4:59

well in a country founded

5:01

upon coolly, rational,

5:04

enlightenment ideals. But

5:09

we are a broad -minded nation,

5:11

so We make the effort to

5:13

squeeze in those foreign words from

5:15

Catholic culture. We've assimilated the

5:17

term Mardi Gras, but the whole

5:20

thing is to tangle up in

5:22

beads and breastflashing for universal application

5:24

and its use is restricted to

5:26

a single day after all. Besides,

5:28

we already have the British

5:31

equivalent, Shrove Tuesday, or

5:33

Shrove Tide for the days

5:35

before Tuesday. But

5:37

Shrove is just as foreign as the

5:39

French. being British disqualifies it

5:41

as her go -to term since

5:44

Britain doesn't really have a carnival. It's

5:47

sad, but eating pancakes on

5:49

Shrove Tuesday doesn't really

5:51

count. As

5:57

you will have guessed, this book will

6:00

be going off the

6:02

beaten path. Beyond festivities

6:04

designated by Latin -derived names,

6:06

we'll explore the Fasnachs

6:08

of Germany, the Zapusta,

6:10

of Poland, the Czech

6:12

Masopost, the Russian Maslenitsa,

6:14

and the Bulgarian Siena

6:16

Zaksena to name just

6:19

a few. Enough

6:22

about the word. What exactly does

6:24

this book cover? Our

6:27

itinerary will begin in

6:29

Italy, looking at Rome's

6:31

influence, then on to

6:33

Venice and finally Germany. You're

6:36

hearing chapter one. Next

6:38

is... Chapter

6:40

2 Sardine

6:42

vs. Sausage

6:44

Here I offer

6:46

a sort of overview examining

6:48

how the Church's imposition of

6:51

Lent shaped Carnival as well

6:53

as some artistic responses this

6:55

engendered along the way you'll

6:57

learn about butter letters and

6:59

the burial of the sardine.

7:02

Chapter 3

7:04

Ancient Roots Here

7:08

we look at Carnival's possible origins

7:10

in the traditions of ancient Rome, both

7:13

pre -Christian and post -Constantine,

7:15

most plausibly in the

7:17

New Year's celebration of

7:19

the January Calumns. This

7:21

holiday, distinguished by raucous behavior,

7:24

grotesque costumes, and mockery of

7:26

those in power, was eventually

7:28

absorbed into the medieval feast

7:30

of fools, which contributed many

7:32

elements to Carnival. We'll

7:42

stay in the Eternal City,

7:44

but move into the High Middle Ages,

7:46

when the Latin term carne navarre

7:48

is first attached to public games and

7:51

spectacles, animal sacrifices in

7:53

the form of bullfights and

7:55

pigs tumbled down hillsides, and

7:57

even more cruel and compulsory

7:59

foot races humiliating those on

8:01

society's fringes. Stuff

8:03

which doesn't really fit how we think

8:05

of Carnival today. But

8:07

almost as old and slightly

8:10

less brutal is the Roman

8:12

tradition of racing wild horses

8:14

through the city streets. It

8:16

survived into the late 1800s. In

8:21

which

8:23

we encounter equally barbaric customs

8:26

and blood sports worlds

8:28

away from those iconic images

8:30

of the city's romantic

8:32

and aristocratic carnival. Moving

8:34

into the early modern period, we'll

8:36

see the birth of Venetian masking

8:38

traditions and along the way, somewhat

8:41

more civilized entertainments, acrobatic shows,

8:43

regattas, religious processions, all unique to

8:45

Venice and its history, and

8:47

we'll see how the use of

8:49

masks was related to the

8:51

throwing of eggs filled with confetti

8:54

or things much worse

8:56

or much better. describes

9:04

the introduction in the mid

9:06

-14th century of the Carnival

9:08

Parade, including early floats,

9:11

the spectacular rolling hells, as

9:13

they were called, along

9:15

with the surreal costumes of

9:17

Nuremberg's Schenbach Lauf. The

9:20

appearance in medieval Germany of

9:22

the iconic carnival fool is discussed,

9:25

along with the figures associated

9:27

with traditions, evolution, and the

9:29

contemporary practices of German fool

9:31

skills. You'll learn

9:33

about the humiliating fool's books

9:35

and the things they do

9:37

with the perfumed calf's

9:39

tail in the city of

9:41

Rottweil. After

9:45

these first, roughly chronological

9:47

chapters have laid a

9:49

historical groundwork, the subsequent

9:51

chapters are thematic. Chapter

9:55

7 Good Luck Visits

9:58

in which we look at house visiting customs

10:00

in Germany and Eastern Europe.

10:03

Includes the Czech killing of

10:05

the mayor ritual and

10:07

the Polish folk play

10:09

The Execution of Death. In

10:18

which we explore the

10:20

plough and log -filling

10:22

rites of Germany, Austria,

10:24

Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland,

10:27

and Ukraine. Mock

10:29

weddings are discussed, including derisive

10:31

rituals binding together unmarried

10:33

young people and logs. And

10:36

my personal favorite, the

10:38

insanely chaotic Egitmon Festival

10:40

of Tarmine in South

10:43

Toul. Another

10:48

theme is monsters. Interspersed

10:51

throughout the book's second half

10:53

are chapters devoted to carnival

10:55

figures of a monstrous,

10:58

special, or otherwise

11:00

extraordinary nature. Chapter

11:03

9 The

11:05

Courant and the Plough Now,

11:08

nearly exclusively showcased in celebrations

11:10

in the town of Pew,

11:12

Slovenia, the Courant was

11:14

once part of a house visiting

11:16

tradition involving a magic plough that

11:19

imparted good luck and fertility. He's

11:21

recognizable by his voluminous

11:23

sheepskin tunic the ribboned

11:25

headpiece and mask with

11:27

dangling tongue. Which

11:37

introduces a Hungarian figure

11:39

also formally involved in

11:41

house visits, but now restricted

11:43

to public parades in the town of

11:45

Mohac on the Danube. He

11:48

wears a massive sheepskin coat,

11:50

horned hood, and comically fierce

11:52

wooden mask. and is armed

11:54

with a ratchet noisemaker. And,

11:59

with like bowl -pizzle, said to

12:01

convey fertility naturally, tradition

12:03

holds that the costume and

12:05

noisemakers are once used to drive

12:08

Turkish invaders from Mohac and

12:10

that Basques were once painted with

12:12

blood from slaughterhouses. Chapter

12:16

11. The

12:19

Kukeri. The

12:21

Bulgarian Kuker. plural

12:23

kukeri is perhaps the strangest

12:25

carnival figure of all, given

12:27

its bewildering variety of regionally different

12:30

forms. Performers representing

12:32

kukeri might wear towering headdresses,

12:34

costumes, and cloth masks

12:36

clustered with fringes, ribbons, beads,

12:38

and mirrors, or

12:40

appear ensconced in rustic

12:42

conglomerations of animal hides, horns,

12:44

skulls, tails, and feathers, sometimes

12:47

mounted in vertical configurations like

12:50

totem poles. Or

12:52

they might be nearly featureless

12:54

walking mound -like figures buried

12:56

in extravably long sheep

12:58

fur. All these variants may

13:00

be seen gathering in the Bulgarian

13:02

town of Panik for the Surva

13:04

Festival. In western Bulgaria,

13:06

Surva, beginning in January, blends

13:08

the festivities of carnival with

13:10

New Year's customs and celebrates

13:12

with house visits styled as

13:14

mock weddings. While in the

13:17

east of Bulgaria on Shrove Tuesday, Kukeri

13:19

perform folk play. the

13:21

plough ritual, destroying luck and

13:23

fertility on the community. The

13:31

Bears, awakening from winter's

13:33

hibernation, associates him

13:35

with that seasonal rebirth

13:38

celebrated by Carnival. In

13:40

the French and Spanish parodies, a

13:43

costumed bear becomes the hero of

13:45

folk plays, loosely enacted by the

13:47

communities in the Vale Spir region.

13:50

We also learned a bit about

13:52

magical Romani bear medicine and of

13:54

the particularly anarchic carnival celebrations in

13:56

Basque Country in which bears play

13:58

a supporting role. Describes

14:08

the unique carnival performances of

14:10

the Italian Islands Noires region,

14:12

where performers more often than

14:15

not cloak themselves in black,

14:17

and darkened in an exposed

14:19

flesh with burnt cork, and

14:21

acting mysterious at somber scenes,

14:23

often involving a control figure,

14:25

hurting, fighting, or killing

14:28

performers, representing beasts. Most

14:30

well -known are the Mamotons

14:32

of Mamiodas, hunched down

14:34

under massive loads of cowbells

14:36

and wearing black costumes, along

14:39

with grimacing angular masks.

14:42

Figures from roughly a dozen towns

14:44

are introduced, including the Colunganos,

14:46

dressed in green leaves and clattering

14:48

bones. Others who wear

14:50

goat or boar heads as hats,

14:52

and the Ayunod Oriodore, whose mask

14:54

is made from the pelvis of

14:56

a donkey, as seen on the

14:58

book's cover. Chapter

15:03

14 Killing

15:05

Carnival Appropriately

15:07

ends our tour providing a

15:10

wide -ranging look at the

15:12

mock executions and funerals of

15:14

figures embodying carnival, and

15:16

the relation of these customs

15:18

to German and Eastern European

15:20

traditions of driving out winter

15:22

or carrying out death, as

15:24

well as the burning of

15:26

the effigy of Muslimites by the

15:28

East Slavs. The drowning of

15:30

the effigy of Maidan and Poland

15:32

received special attention as a

15:34

genuinely pagan practice consistently documented back

15:36

to the century. The

15:45

preponderance of

15:47

Eastern European culture surveyed reflects

15:49

my interest in presenting the forgotten

15:51

carnival, not simply for the

15:53

sake of novelty, But because I

15:55

believe these countries offer the

15:58

best examples of an earlier form

16:00

of carnival's evolution throughout Europe,

16:02

specifically house -fitting customs, which

16:04

over time were supplanted and

16:06

standardized into a single municipal

16:09

parade. I

16:11

have neglected many larger parades, some

16:13

of which nonetheless have important

16:15

and interesting histories. The carnivals

16:17

of Cologne, Germany, Nice France,

16:19

and Basch, Belgium, are all

16:21

very old and significant, but,

16:23

like other omissions, didn't serve

16:25

the book's thematic or historical

16:27

narrative. At

16:30

least, that partially explains

16:32

my selectivity. But

16:34

there are other reasons. To

16:37

be honest, I

16:39

always considered carnival

16:41

a bit boring.

16:44

You may too and for

16:46

perfectly understandable reasons, but I've

16:48

come around and have high

16:50

hopes of helping like -minded readers

16:52

beyond this hurdle. Allow

16:55

me to first lay out some

16:57

of my own ugly prejudices. Perhaps you

16:59

share some of these sentiments. I

17:02

don't like plastic. I

17:05

don't like fluorescent colors. I

17:09

don't like crowds. There's

17:13

something soulless and plastic, but

17:15

all the most famous carnivals,

17:17

barring that of Venice, rely

17:19

on plastic. Fiberglass for the

17:21

construction of floats and sometimes

17:23

masks. Fiberglass is

17:25

no good at representing texture or

17:28

detail, so this is approximated through

17:30

the heavy use of airbrushed colors

17:32

that probably should have included airbrush

17:34

on my list, but I didn't

17:36

claim it was exhaustive. Fluorescent

17:38

colors perhaps don't dominate the palette

17:41

of every large carnival, but they

17:43

needn't. Even a moderate use of

17:45

fluorescent colors is enough to cause

17:47

a crippling distrust of carnivals across

17:49

the board. As for

17:51

crowds, this is universal with

17:53

any carnival of note, as well

17:55

as any unremarkable but large

17:57

urban carnival. It necessitates arriving

17:59

too early and taking too long to

18:01

get your ride when it's over. In

18:04

between, there's a lot of

18:06

standing, at least five deep, usually

18:08

more, and straining to see

18:10

over and around heads is plastic,

18:12

fluorescent, airbrushed, monstrosities creep by. All

18:15

while enduring a crowded numbness

18:17

in your feet and considering the

18:19

obstacles faced in negotiating a

18:21

path to a public restroom. There

18:23

is such a thing. Also,

18:27

no one likes marching bands. No

18:30

one. And

18:36

finally, a more

18:38

ideological issue. If

18:40

Carnival represents a

18:42

seasonal spree of madness,

18:45

is that best expressed in the

18:47

form of these large parades

18:50

with celebrants regimented into identical costumes

18:52

marching with fife and drum? It's

18:55

all a bit militant. It

18:57

feels miserably at the topsy

18:59

-turvy ideals of Carnival. The

19:06

sort of celebrations I've been describing

19:08

are not universal to Carnival. This

19:11

book focuses largely on smaller

19:13

scale festivities in smaller towns

19:15

and villages, in

19:17

part because these have received less

19:19

attention elsewhere, and in part because

19:21

they illustrate that earlier stage in

19:23

Carnival's evolution, but

19:25

also as a purely

19:27

aesthetic choice. In

19:30

these folk carnivals, costumes worn

19:32

or made by hand improvised

19:34

from hides, horns, and straw.

19:36

Faces are often blacked with

19:38

soot or hidden under wooden

19:40

masks with sheepskin hoods. Figures

19:42

wearing these costumes gather in

19:44

town squares and central streets

19:46

and village ins and halls.

19:49

But also visit homes and isolated

19:51

farmhouses, sometimes in groups no

19:53

larger than a handful. Such

19:56

celebrations generally exist alongside

19:58

much larger ones. In

20:01

these, participants from the Hinterlands come

20:03

together to demonstrate their local customs

20:05

in regional exhibitions. In

20:07

recent years, most of these have become

20:09

quite large, even drawing visitors from overseas.

20:12

But the style of celebration of

20:15

the costumes worn has retained

20:17

its original look, as the cultures

20:19

hosting these gatherings tend to

20:21

be more bound by tradition and

20:23

heritage. I'll

20:35

happily confess that my interest in

20:37

such things has grown side by side

20:40

with an interest in a genre

20:42

which only recently received a name, Folk

20:45

Horror. This probably

20:47

accounts for my predisposition to

20:49

focus on certain darker aspects

20:51

of Carnival and its history,

20:54

I notice this is quantitatively

20:56

evidenced in the text

20:58

discovering a telling frequency of

21:00

certain words, blood,

21:02

or bloody, appearing 25

21:04

times, pagan 24, and

21:07

the word devil showing up 43

21:10

times. In particular, the

21:12

chapters examining the roots of

21:14

Carnival in Rome and Venice contain

21:16

genuinely horrific elements, as mentioned

21:18

above. These are

21:20

not, however, sacrifices

21:22

offered to pagan gods, as imagined

21:24

in folk horror tales. The

21:27

paganism presented in this book

21:29

is comprised of a body

21:31

of rural superstitions and beliefs

21:33

that largely coexisted with Christian

21:35

practice, undifferentiated in the common

21:37

person's world, perhaps condemned by

21:39

more exacting Catholic or Orthodox

21:42

clerics. The

21:44

uncovering of pre -Christian roots and

21:46

carnival traditions, which might be expected

21:48

of this book, is very

21:50

difficult to prove, no matter

21:52

how often connections to Dionysus might

21:54

be suggested. In

21:56

the final chapter on

21:58

killing carnival, however, I

22:00

explore some Slavic customs which

22:02

possibly could be said to

22:05

derive from pre -Christian traditions. My

22:15

previous book, The Krampus and the

22:17

Old Dark Christmas, was

22:19

inspired in part by this enthusiasm

22:21

for folk horror, but also by

22:23

my interest in German culture, which

22:25

accounts for any disproportionate treatment German

22:27

customs in this book. When

22:30

I first encountered Krampus customs, I was

22:32

not aware to what extent they borrowed

22:34

from older carnival tradition. The

22:36

bells warred being a prime example.

22:39

Nor, to what extent, the predecessor of

22:41

the Krampus, the folkloric parish, itself

22:43

would be considered a carnival figure,

22:45

thanks to its association with the

22:47

Piphany on January 6. Many

22:50

aspects of both Krampus and

22:52

parish customs are common within Carnival,

22:55

throughout Europe, as far away

22:57

as Bulgaria and Greece, as we'll

22:59

see. In

23:01

this volume, you'll notice a persistent

23:03

emphasis on the interplay between carnival

23:05

traditions and those of the Christmas

23:07

season. Epiphany is central to

23:09

this as it's regarded both as the

23:11

end of one season and the beginning

23:13

of the other. At

23:15

times it may seem I'm

23:18

describing Christmas as when Eastern European

23:20

carnival carols are mentioned, or

23:22

in reference to snow still being

23:24

on the ground during many

23:26

of the festivities discussed. A

23:30

strange and fearsome

23:32

world. You

23:34

probably didn't expect Christmas in

23:36

your carnival. nor snow and

23:38

bloody sacrifices. The

23:40

book you're holding will push aside

23:42

all that festive fiberglass to

23:45

show you an unknown carnival, where

23:47

inflated pig bladders are commonly

23:49

carried by clowns, and clubs covered

23:51

in hedgehog spines are carried

23:53

by monsters. The blood of

23:55

costume bearers is drunk as wine, plows

23:58

are dragged over cobblestone

24:00

streets sawdust scattered as sea,

24:03

where masks are painted in blood and

24:06

bones wore in

24:08

costumes, where Basque men in

24:10

their underwear take sledgehammers to hold

24:12

cars, and Sardinians wail

24:14

over plastic baby dolls making

24:16

lewd jokes or push filled

24:19

with burning hair toward the

24:21

crotches of onlookers to induce

24:23

fertility. Carnival

24:26

can be very strange.