The 20th of July

The 20^th of July is celebrated in Germany as the day when Graf von Stauffenberg in 1944 attempted to assassinate Hitler with a bomb in the "Führerhaupt-quartier Wolfsschanze". Hitler survived, not in great shape, but convinced that divine providence kept him alive to continue on his idiot mission.

  The same day, artists like Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell, Bazon Brock, and others had planned a happening in Aachen, a city in the northwest of Germany, to elucidate the public about the nature of this public holiday.
   We had to be there!
   Early afternoon we arrived in Aachen and assembled our tent in a nearby campground where we also left our sleeping bags. Then we went into town and looked for the “Technische Hochschule”, the location of the happening. Half an hour before it started we took our usual dose of DXM and when the doors opened we were the first ones in, and instantly got into a spirited conversation with a guy in the seat next to us. He turned out to be one of the artists and accepted our offer to participate by sending us backstage where Wolf Vostell was still looking for collaborators.
   The structure for this happening was the following: He had distributed hundreds of small toy-whistles to the audience, along with a leaflet of instructions. Whenever a blue light, mounted on a gas mask he was wearing, lit up, the audience was supposed to frenetically blow their toy-whistles and then slam the lid of the little ink-containers built into the desks.
   Eight young men, plus J. and I, stood on the stage with our back to the audience, our face to the wall, and whenever the audience made their cacophonous noise we fell, like being executed, to the floor which was covered with a layer of yellow powder. This was to show how a meaningless cue - the blue light - could instigate an, in itself harmless act, - the clapping and whistling – and would result unexpectedly in a bunch of people falling down in the distance.
   A great metaphor for fascism as a construct, in which the ignorant masses, just following orders, would, as a seemingly unrelated consequence, kill the undesired elements of society.
  We had stripped down to our jeans, because of the yellow powder, and after the audience had killed us a few times we were covered from head to toe with golden, yellow pigments. This, and the hot bright stage-lights, together with the effects of the DXM made us feel like we were gods on an Olympic stage acting on a higher existential level than them puny mortals.
   The puny mortals, on the other hand, were not to be ignored! Joseph Beuys, for whatever reason, was pouring sulfuric acid into a piano, accidentally splattered some, and burned a hole in one mortal’s tie.
   The athletic mortal stormed the stage and provided Beuys with a bloody nose. Beuys tried to keep him at bay by brandishing a rubber crucifix in front of him. It didn’t help, other mortals, yelling: “That’s not art!” flooded the stage and a healthy chaos ensued.
   Healthy, because instead of the artists protesting fascism, it was fascism protesting the artists! – But at least there was protest rather than acquiescence and obedience to the authority of the people on stage.
   J. and I were having a ball!
   Vostell had a naked window dummy backstage and we asked him if we could use it. He just nodded and kept sweeping the yellow paint, which had spread everywhere now, off the floor. We carried the dummy out onto the chaotic stage, instantly capturing the attention of the rabid audience and the press photographers.
   The doll was naked, after all!
   In a mock ceremony J. and I groveled and prostrated ourselves on the floor in front of our false idol. The audience was jeering, the cameras were flashing!
   Suddenly, the dummy fell – in slow motion – hitting the floor in a cloud of yellow dust. I crawled over and started to dry hump the slightly damaged doll.
   This was more than the audience could handle and luckily J. pulled me away and probably saved me from serious injury…
    Meanwhile, the official organizers had gotten hold of the microphones and ordered everybody to leave the auditorium. The happening was canceled!
    Not in our mind! We walked up to the microphone – and being half-naked and totally yellow seemed to give us some kind of authority, and they handed us the mikes. To their dislike we would repeat one sentence over and over like a hypnotic mantra until they shut the mikes off: “Don’t be manipulated by authority! Don’t be manipulated by authority!”
   Eventually the audience left and J. and I, still high as kites helped to clean up the mess. There were bundles of wheat decorating the auditorium that needed to be collected and taken to the trash. J. and I -- golden yellow messengers of the gods -- floating around with huge bundles of golden wheat in both arms, were a sight to behold!
    Our outrageous, but basically good-natured activities, had conquered the hearts and minds of the performing artists, and they invited us to an after-event party. We took a shower at the campground and arrived at the party where we were greeted like the ambassadors of the new generation they all were hoping for.
    Everybody gave us their address and we were invited to visit them at their home and when early in the morning we crawled into our sleeping bags, we were exhausted and totally blissed out.