The Time I Cut Off Faltings' Necktie.

From Novemeber to March, the cities of Rheinland-Westfalen enter the fifth season of the year: Karneval. Through the season the reveling gathers momentum, and it all culminates with a huge blowout parade on Rosenmontag, which falls on March 4th this year.

And one very special night of Karneval commemorates the first organized feminist movement of the region. Almost 180 years ago, the washer women of Beuel, who'd had just about enough of cleaning the beer-stained breeches of the patriarchy, stormed city hall and demanded equality. While equality may still have been a way's down the road, this committee of outspoken women did begin a festive tradition of a women's Karneval night, called "Weiberfastnacht" which always falls the Thursday before Rosenmontag.

Banks are closed, schools are on holiday, and a washer woman princess is elected to lead a parade through town. Everybody, young and old, dresses up in costume and makes a wild day of it -- and we at Max Planck were no exception.

One particularly fun tradition of Weiberfastnacht is that women run around town cutting off men's neckties -- a whimsical tradition which smacks of something slightly more sinister. After substantial goading by my fellow MP'ers I summoned the courage to stage an attack on the necktie of Gerd Faltings, a celebrated mathematician and director of the Institute. I wish I could say it was easy, but the truth is that he ran from me. And I chased him. I may have even enlisted a second postdoc to corner him at the coffee machine. I think this ranks number one on my list of scariest encounters I've ever had with a Fields Medal winner.

Tradition also dictates that the woman owes the man a kiss after cutting his tie, but I'm afraid I demurred. I'm so sorry Dr. Faltings, I just couldn't bring myself to do it -- it just felt far too disrespectful. Now I just need to figure out how to work this one into my CV...

Just kidding. Obviously.

The rest of the day unfolded in style. We went to the parade in Beuel where washerwomen dressed in shopping bags dresses danced through the streets.

The afternoon found us under a bridge in the storage garage of Beueler Stadtsoldated-Corps, which had been transformed into a mega-dance-party, complete with Volksmusik, grown men dressed like chickens, and all the beer in the world.

As a feminist, Weiberfastnacht was all I could have hoped for and more. As a mathematician, let's just say I didn't exactly produce any publishable results today.

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