Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Goth Week 2010

Every year, around Pentecost, darkness gathers from the far-reaches of the netherworld to settle in Leipzig.  This otherworldly phenomenon the locals call Goth Week (only probably in German).  Sal and I traveled to this lovely city to visit our fellow ex-pat friends, get out of London for a bit, and...well....
...stare at the Goth People.

I can't believe this, but the above photo is the ONLY ONE I TOOK of the Goth People.  With all the leather, black, metal, spikes, goggles, devices, lace, masks - - I think I was just too shocked to click.  I mean, if you haven't seen Goth Week, you just don't know how it's going to get to you.  YOU JUST DON'T KNOW, man.

I don't even know where to start.  There was this guy (??) who came out of a Beer Garden pavilion who looked like he stepped out of the gimp scene in Pulp Fiction.  There were zombie goths.  Vampire goths.  Pretty goths.  Sado-masochistic goths.  Punky goths. '80s hair goths.  Science goths.  Even anime-looking goths, with cute black hearts and pandas and...And the leather.  SO....much....black...leather....and some of the coolest knee-high boots I have ever seen.  Black lace umbrellas, carried by ladies who could've walked out of Tim Burton's head.

Even if you don't make it to Leipzig for next year's Goth Week, come sometime when it's grey and cold, break out that pair of tight leather pants your partner is ashamed you still own, and slink around the cobblestone streets a while.  You'll pass architecture frozen in Gothic and Baroque, and sausage stands, and accordion-playing street musicians.  And as you crane your neck to the sky to find the top of the spiraling tower of St. Thomas Church, you'll understand why Bach stuck around so long in this moody, soulful city.  (And I hope you pop in the church to pay your respects, as he's supposedly buried inside.)

Oh! Leipzig.  I hope it isn't Goth Week 2011 before we get to see you again.  (But just in case, I'm going boot shopping...)

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