Faszination Feuerwerk

Fireworks are fascinating. Why do so many people seem enthralled by a spectacle filled with color and sound, and then are suddenly gone with nothing left except some smoke and litter on the streets?

A confession right up front: I’m not a big fan of fireworks. They can be annoyingly loud, are definitely environmentally unfriendly, and painfully remind me of life as ephemeral, evanescent, fleeting. After all the colors and shapes appear, they almost immediately disappear.

von Rhein in Flammen zu Kölner Lichter

Everyone has experienced one of the kinds of fireworks sponsored, organized, created by cities, organizations, large groups often with musical accompaniment. Rhein in Flammen in Koblenz has been around in some fashion for the last 300 years – if you believe the friendly smiling sources at Rheinland-Pfalz Tourismus. Kölner Lichter is a lot lot more recent, the first one occurring just after the turn of the millennium and just before I moved from Koblenz to my skyscraper home.

I can remember my first experience of the Kölner Lichter in its second year of existence. I’d heard about it through the local press along with the common belief that anything occurring more than once in Cologne automatically becomes a tradition. I must’ve been tired because I was already dozing in bed when fireworks over the Rhine woke me up. They were nice, but I remember thinking nothing really any more special than the Rhein in Flammen fireworks I’d seen a few times in Koblenz. I fell asleep again but then was awakened later at night by another fireworks display. The bursting lights lit up my mirrored bedroom walls and got me out of bed. From the balcony I was wowed by a spectacular show and vowed then not to pass it up in future.

We began to throw parties each year on the second Saturday in July since our view was „the only one“ where you could see the entire spectacle from beginning fireworks in Porz hours before the main light, fire, music combo near the cathedral just before midnight.  We would turn up our radio real loud so everyone could hear the musical accompaniment.

I’d planned to celebrate my retirement with one last Kölner Lichter party in 2024, but the effects of the pandemic and economic considerations have so far prevented any new Kölner Lichter since July 2019. None of us at the party then would’ve imagined it would be the very last.

Lichtermeer am Silvester?

I can also clearly remember my first New Year’s Eve in my small apartment on the 17th floor with cathedral view. There were probably fireworks that evening, but I was far too occupied with trying to run multimedia elements of Encarta, a CD-ROM encyclopedia, on my computer to notice much. Local residents around me were no doubt setting off fireworks.

so weit das Auge sehen kann

A year later I had moved up to the duplex with vast vistas of almost 300 degrees. We can follow sunrises upstairs throughout the entire year, with the sun rising directly in the middle of wall of glass in summer and then moving slowly to the right so that if we stand at the large windows and look sharp right we can just see the sunrise at the winter solstice. We can almost see Düsseldorf if we crane our necks to the extreme left, and we can glimpse the silhouette of the Siebengebirge and parts of Bonn to the extreme right.

Downstairs you can see the summer solstice sunset if you stand close to our glass wall and look as far right as possible. Around the winter solstice the sun sets near the chemical park in Knapsack. Craning your neck to the far left you can glimpse the slightly ominous science fiction lighting of the huge petroleum factories in Wesseling. When you swing your view to the right, you can see the huge coal power stations in Niederaußem still belching clouds of smoke and pollution. Environmentally friendliier are the ever expanding forests of wind turbines not only on the Sophienhöhe plateau – the world’s largest artificial hill if you believe Wikipedia –  but expanding all over the countryside and all the way to the not visible but easily imagined borders of Luxemburg, Belgium, and Holland.

We like to think we have the only duplex in Germany with sunrises and sunsets every single day of the year and the solstices just visible from a certain point – like Stonehenge.

erste Silvester Party

The party I’d planned for my first New Year’s Eve in my much loved new condo fizzled. „Otto“ (whom readers know from the fairy-tale post companion to the retirement party) was disappointed that dinner turned out to be frozen pizzas. I abandoned my guests for a midnight walk to the bank to be able to withdraw my very first euro bills, which I’d been anticipating eagerly both as coin and bill collector and as überzeugter Europäer.

Some of the assorted guests were heavy smokers and liked loud music. After they shut down my stereo by turning up the volume a bit over maximum, they brought their own portable boombox. I ended up unplugging it and then throwing out most of the guests. It took „Otto“ years before he was willing to spend New Year’s Eve again with me.

normale Silvesters

In the years following I spent some New Year’s Eves at friends‘ places. In later years family obligations meant New Year’s in France and Belgium – where we enjoyed the wonderful peace and quiet. No private fireworks or obnoxious Böller in these places.

After enough times abroad and in other German cities like Hamburg or Düsseldorf, where we made our way through broken glass and drunken hordes to reach our hotel, I finally managed to persuade Roberto and his sister’s family to spend New Year’s Eve here.

Lichtermeer and Nasen platt gedrückt

We’d had our evening meal at a restaurant and came back then around 10 p.m. Roberto turned on Spanish television. The entire country – and expats abroad – share the tradition of a celebration live from the Plaza del Sol in Madrid and then swallowing 12 grapes, one per clock bell gong signifying 12 midnight and also the months of the coming year. (The grape industry came up with the idea a century ago so they could sell excess grapes.)

Around 11 p.m. Roberto asked me when the official fireworks would start and was incredulous when I told him there were no official fireworks at all. At least we can all watch Spanish TV together, he said. Around 11:30 the first bursts of color started and one by one the family members turned their heads away from the television towards our transparent walls.

Long before the 12 gongs started on Televisión Española parents and two kids were standing with mouths open as slowly the entire sky turned into a sea of colors. They ran upstairs and were astounded – no matter where they looked, all the colors of the rainbow and more, dozens of different kinds of fireworks, some small and near the ground, others arching into the air, no longer midnight dark but dazzling.

And the spectacle continued on and on, as far as you could see, northwards towards Düsseldorf and the Ruhr, eastwards past Bergisch Gladbach, southwards down the Rhine towards Bonn, westwards to the Benelux horizon and beyond.

Thousands of individuals spending lots of money, polluting the air, making horrific noises that no doubt scared both wild animals and pets, but that barely bothered us, almost as high up as the cathedral, which was now slowly disappearing behind a curtain of smoke and Feinstaub. We were too distracted to think of possible injuries people suffered each year but simply stood in awe until around 1 a.m. the last few rockets burst into color here and there. And of course we were much too late eating our grapes.

Warum nur einmal?

Why haven’t we repeated this jaw-dropping experience more often? Limited vacation times, so any long-distance journeys usually lasted from before Christmas until after New Year’s. And then the pandemic stopped for a few years the large waste of money on fireworks and the injuries, but also interrupted the communal spirit of celebrating in families and with friends. I can understand the sense of tradition that some families must have in lighting up the skies and can vaguely remember shooting off a few fireworks in my American backyard as a kid.

But we’re part of a majority here who think that private fireworks should stop. It only takes making the sale and purchase illegal. Other countries are far more progressive and environmentally friendly. If indeed enough people really want a light show, what about the city planning a show using reusable drones?

So we’re hoping for positive changes sooner or later.

Und warum jetzt und nie wieder?

And now an ultimate New Year’s Eve party? One last time for us to immerse ourselves in a Lichtermeer on all sides that begins long before midnight and lasts a good while afterwards. As if the entire world was putting on a fantastic light show just for us who live high enough to safely enjoy it all.

And it’s better feeling a bit guilty at least together with friends enjoying the spectacle. And even if this tradition continues, we most probably won’t be here for New Year’s Eve again but will be trying out life in other places.

Auch aus diesem Grund besonders freuen wir uns darauf, mit Euch noch einmal im Lichtermeer zu baden!

P.S. You might be wondering where the graphics are in this blog entry. No visuals with the topic is Lichtermeer? First of all because even a professional photographer who showed up years ago for one of our Kölner Lichter parties wasn’t really able to capture the experience.

But we can show you Sophienhöhe or Siebengebirge, the Bayer sign, most of the Cologne Rhein bridges and lots of church towers, Knapsack und Niederaußem if you arrive early enough – or stay until after sunrise.

If you were hoping for some artistic  examples of fireworks that don’t disappear in smoke, you can find many with a click. If you think of Van Gogh when you think „fireworks“ and „paintings“ (as I do), many originals are just a excursion away from here in some of the Dutch van Gogh museums. But to see the most famous The Starry Night, you’ll need to go to New York’s M(useum)O(f)M(odern)A(rt).

P.P.S. For those who might want to say: „If you’re not planning on being around anymore on New Year’s in your beautiful place, could we maybe use it without you both?“ Well…. maybe. We can talk about it at the party this New Year’s Eve 😉 …