An odd diversion in Hamburg: the water symphony. Yes, there's a public park that features a humongous water fountain that accompanies recorded music. They claim to have an organist from the Hamburg symphony sitting at the "Water Organ", plus a "Musical Colorist" who controls the lighting. What it really seems like is some random spurts of a gigantic amount of water, with completely arbitrary colored lighting. You get about an hour of this to the tune of creaky renditions of Beethoven's and Wagner's greatest hits pumped through shrill and tinny speakers. Usually the noise of the water drowns out the music. It's a summer evening event, free for the whole family. Much anticipation is in the air. Vendors lurk about, selling sausages and beer. Junkie girls hawk glow sticks. All of this in a typically German public park: not one blade of grass out of place. Bourgeois idyll only shattered by the monstrous radio tower (has a revolving restaurant on top) lurking over the park.




Then comes...what? Sunset recedes, tinny music blares from speakers concealed in trees, excited voices - children and old fogeys of all ages - reduced to murmur (a dull roar, as dad used to say) - then.......this...




Bombastic bursts of water. Clear/blue/red/green/yellow/orange/purple lighting, ad infinitum. People take photos of it, tremendous, intermittent bursts of wild applause for no discernible reason, much oohing and aahing, excited pointing at some particularly IMPRESSIVE (again, not discernible) burst of aquatic flame.




Dear Lord, it's........Triumph of the Will as staged by Andrew Lloyd Weber in Bayreuth! Saccharine bombast, unrelenting kitsch!




I think: 1) See, Christianity is a veneer. This is so.......pagan. 2) In a degenerate sense. 3) Will Valkeries and Vikings burst out of a glacier soon? 4) Why are they taking so many photos of this? 5) The world is mad, completely insane. 6) I understand nothing.




Remember the conclusion of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life? Heaven turns out to be a Las Vegas lounge.....for eternity. Perhaps THIS is the Nordic version: Valhalla is an eternity of spectacle via plumbing, chintzy lighting and tinny Wagner.




Afterwards I say nothing. I am amused and astonished. Finally I'm asked what I thought of it all. Sarcastically I say, "I wonder what drought-stricken Ethiopians would think of all the wasted water." (To be fair, most of the water must get recycled.) As an answer I receive such a German answer; I never in a million years would have thought of it: "They would appreciate it as we do, because it is a religious celebration of the aquatic element."