a break in one’s normal life. If you’re young and searching for what to do with your life it could be more. Growing up there’s just so much hopeful expectation in your life and so much less that you will accept as a given fact: you dream of becoming a famous actor, pop star, athlete, of making lots of money – you are waiting for exciting things to happen in your life! The Altstadtfest feeds into those expectations. This alien experience cannot be cleaned out of people’s minds as easily as the festival’s debris can be swept up. It is much like when your living room has been all dressed up for Christmas: the space maintains an air of mystery and excitement long-after the tree has been tossed and the candles have burned out. Before noon the next day, the stages and candy booths get packed up and carted off, the Palace of Rock is restored to a driveway, and the residents sweep away any debris left on their portions of the sidewalk. No more broken bottles, no puddles of puke, no lost wallets, broken lanterns or confetti litter the streets and sidewalks of Bad Laasphe. Come the morning, the festival is over. But although the streets bear no trace of this wild weekend, the perception of the town has changed. There is a promise of something greater, something more important than a new window decoration at the local shoe store that has been around for generations. I have a very strong memory of actually feeling disoriented in my little home town during the Altstadtfest. It seemed a different place with the unusual noise level, the different smells (beer of course, but also cotton candy, food from the various street vendors and so on) but mostly because of all those strangers around me. I would wander down all the little alleys I could find, which I would not have used or even noticed if it wasn’t for the special situation. These passageways might be narrower than a sidewalk and people store their garbage bins there, so under normal circumstances it would have felt like trespassing to walk between two houses – a private walkway rather than part of the public realm. I would remember these hidden passages after the festival was over. I would have memories connected to places that really had nothing to do with normal life in Bad Laasphe. In that way my perception of the town really did change: I could see more and I could see different things than I had experienced before. Come the morning, a secret is revealed: the seemingly unchanging streets of Bad Laasphe are actually avenues of possibility waiting to be discovered. – Bauer, Eberhard. Bilder aus Bad Laasphe . Leipzig: Stadt-Bild-Verlag Leipzig, 1997 Map: Bad Laasphe, Zentrum, Bad Laasphe: Bürgeraktionsgemeinschaft ‘Schöne Altstadt’ e.V. in cooperation with the Municipality of Bad Laasphe, Department 2, Building Services Festival Brochure: 33 Jahre Bad Laaspher Atstadtfest, 2011 (www.it.nrw.de/statistik/a/daten/amtlichebevoelkerungszahlen/ rb9_juni2011.html). Information und Technik Nordrhein-Westfalen, Bevölkerung im Regierungsbezirk Arnsberg, February 12, 2012. Newspaper: Julian Hinn / Björn Weyand. ‘Wie eine gute Suppe’ S iegener Zeitung , Siegen. (August 29, 2011): Wittgenstein edition, p.5.
lisa dietrich: 8am, the morning after
Probably. But the festival also offers a glimpse into the dreams of bored youth – to head to the big city with its noise, lights, anonymity and 24-hour bustle (although few ever do embark on this adventure). It is that feeling of something new and exciting and somewhat meaningful (since so many people participate in it) that often people associate with life in a big city. Growing up, this was certainly something I was expecting and looking forward to: that there would be something new to discover all the time. To some degree ‘the exciting city’ may just be an idealisation. From the perspective of the people attending the festival though I’m not sure it matters, since hardly anyone at the festival would actually ever have lived in a city and would be able to distinguish between cliché and reality. The important thing is that something is happening that is exciting, something new is happening where nothing new ever happens, so people are able to say: ‘See, Laasphe has something to offer, too!’ or alternatively: ‘Wow! I want more of this and I can’t get it here. I’m leaving for the big city!’ If you’re settled down, have a job and family in the area, the Altstadtfest is most likely just a distraction, top: not all residents hate the Altstadtfest.The inscription above the door reads “Before God we will go, if we pass His loyalty test. Built with God’s help by Johann Pilipp Weiss, master carpenter” above: looking East along Königstrasse (King street) the central spine of the old town. A man is cleaning his front steps. Stacked tables in the back- ground are waiting to be picked up.
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