Sinterklaas and Alexander McQueen

Went to the Rhinebeck Sinterklaas celebration. It was filled with Art Photo opportunities and very jolly:








Rhinebeck is not a Dutch village, so I’m not entirely sure why they’ve adopted Sinterklaas. Rhinebeck was actually founded by German Palatines who, weary of the Thirty Years War and religious prosecution, succumbed to false advertising by British land agents some time in the late 17th century: You, too, can live a fabulous life in the New World!

Their homesickness is reflected in the village’s name. Rhine for the Rhine River, which the Hudson reminded them of.

They were not treated particularly well in the New World.

First, they were housed in a tent camp on Governor’s Island until slimy Robert Livingston, the patroon of the enormous Livingston patent, lured them north in exchange for the promise of a daily ration of a third of a loaf of bread and a quart of beer. Then they were put to hard labor making tar and pitch for the British Navy. They had no houses, and they were expected to grow their own food. The British decided this was a legal form of indentured servitude, but it wasn’t the deal the Palatines had signed up for back in Germany, so in 1712, they rebelled.

I seem to remember that many of them starved to death during the harsh winter of that year and are buried in a mass grave in a place now called Poet’s Walk. I can’t find any historical confirmation of that fact, though, so I may have made it up.

Anyway, Rhinebeck. Not Dutch.



If it wasn’t for Martin Luther, you would be celebrating Sinterklaas! It’s traditionally celebrated on St. Nicholas’s Eve, which falls on December 5, although these days, of course, the festivities are scheduled for the closest weekend.

I’m not entirely sure how gift-giving entered into the equation, since I think—although I do not know for sure—that New Year’s Eve was the traditional date for the exchange of presents in medieval times; but anyway, Martin Luther became absolutely infuriated that the primary gift giver in the Christian calendar was a jolly old guy in a red suit with a black sidekick. Clearly, the Christkindl is the only appropriate source of end-of-the-year largesse! So Martin Luther moved the date of the gift exchange to the Christkindl’s nativity, allegedly December 25 though as all good astrologers know, that birthday was really in late March.



Rhinebeck does a bowdlerized version of Sinderklaas as befits our “woke” times. No sign of St. Nick’s sidekick, Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) who carries a birch rod to lash at the ankles of naughty children as well as a big burlap bag into which he stuffs even naughtier children—to carry them back to Spain, which was evidently the worst place on earth if you were a Dutch burgher living in the 18th century.

Zwarte Piet may or may not be the same character as Krampus who is my very favorite Christmas superhero by far.

Krampus is very evil and demonic, and since he has cloven hooves and a lolling tongue, he probably harkens back to some Paleolithic fertility god, suitably routed and humiliated by the Christian sky god but still defiant:



I left shortly after the Starlight Parade began, thus passing up many more Art Photo opportunities. But it was really fucking cold—15° Fahrenheit!—plus this time of year, I am even more paranoid than usual about driving at night because deer.

Once home, I watched a documentary about Alexander McQueen.

I can’t even begin to describe how brilliant I think Alexander McQueen was. Everything that needs to be said about the bloody history leading up to the brutal and uncaring 21st century is right there in his fashion.

But one of the truly amazing things about McQueen is that he himself looked so ordinary throughout the greater part of his career. He eschewed those stylistic tics visual artists so often use to alert you: Genius on Board!

If you sat next to him on a train, you’d feel perfectly okay asking him for directions: