Starting early

It's an early Mardi Gras this year.  Now that I am an old and have seen enough Carnival seasons come and go, it's reasonable that by now I would have developed a preference for either the early or late schedule. I haven't.  And that's kind of strange because the two are such different sorts of affair you'd think the choice would be easy.

Do you want some time to recuperate from the Holidays before easing in to a new season of celebrating? Or would you rather just let the momentum carry you on through without having to find your sea legs a second time?  Would you like to spend more time outdoors just as the weather starts to turn nice? Or do you relish the opportunity to get some actual use out of that winter coat and gloves that often feel superfluous here in the sub-tropics? There's something to appreciate in either experience. It's best to just take it as it comes.

Regardless of where it falls in the calendar the whole thing does seem to pass more quickly the older one gets. I suppose there are good and bad points to that as well. But, as long as we're having an early season anyway, we may as well jump right in and make the most of the time we do have.



This is why we were looking forward to seeing the brand new Krewe of Loup Garou on Saturday.  Usually the few weeks between Epiphany and Krewe du Vieux are reserved for the more behind-the-scenes.. or at least club-centered activities; organization sponsored parties, balls and such. Loup Garou (a creature of the Irish Channel Neighborhood association) saw an opportunity to add a little street theater to that part of the schedule.



The organizers say they're modeling the new parade on what Krewe du Vieux or Chewbacchus presents. The idea is to gather a procession of individually managed "sub-krewes" of marchers each with its own theme. Anyone can join, although the pricing scheme is confusing. In practice, the inaugural Krewe of Loup Garou looked more like a second line than anything else. We caught up with it in front of the Balcony Bar.



It was a fairly small group of marchers, maybe 80-100 in all. The "sub-krewes," such as they were, weren't easily distinguishable from one another as the whole group pretty much moved together down the street making stops at a few sponsoring bars along the route.  I remember seeing a few of the early Chewbacchus parades before they got all super-cool and moved to Bywater. Those parades looked an awful lot like this.



There were a few rudimentary floats. The "Shady Characters" here were pushing a cart adorned with parasols.



These guys had a grocery cart.



The most cleverly themed group of marchers, I guess, were these guys.



They're dressed as the red bagged Advocate advertiser editions most of us find dumped all over the city sidewalks several times a week.  A lot of people consider them litter. It's an especially hot issue among a certain class of white people these days. And Krewe of Loup Garou is squarely in the sweet spot of that red bagger demo. Here's the "satirical" handout the red baggers gave us as they passed.



However interesting (or not) that might be to you, it was nice to see something new. We've already mentioned at least once this year (and are certain we will do so again) that what our increasingly tourist-centric Carnival desperately needs more of now are small-scale events presented for and by locals along individual, neighborhood-specific routes. For that reason alone, Krewe of Loup Garou is a welcome addition to the calendar.  But it was also a fun opportunity to get out of the house and get an early jump on the parade season before the early parade season had a chance to sneak up on us.

Carnival links: Flags and revolutions

Tattered Rex flag Uptown New Orleans 2006

• NOLA.com social scene reporter Sue Strachan has provided us a handy dandy "Guide to Mardi Gras flags" this week. It comes with a photo gallery of selected flags. It's not a complete list, of course. She's asking for submissions.


There are all sorts of Carnival organizations.  Some of them stage parades, some of them, are benevolent associations, some have open memberships, some are exclusive clubs.  Lots and lots of them have their own flags.

Strachan writes that these various flags can be seen together as the city's "10th flag."  


New Orleans and flags have had a long-standing relationship. Nine official flags have flown over the city: Spanish flag of Castile and Léon; white flag of Bourbon France; Bourbon Spain; French Tricolor; U.S. flag beginning with the 15 stars and stripes of 1803; the flag of Independent Louisiana; the Stars and Bars of the Confederate States of America;  the state of Louisiana flag; and the City of New Orleans flag.

During this time of year, we can add another to this list -- the Mardi Gras flag. (A concept I first saw described in an article by Edward Branley on the GoNola site.) Who created the first official flag of the Carnival season? None other than Rex, which also originated the traditional Carnival colors of purple (justice), green (faith) and gold (power). According to a representative, "In Mardi Gras' earliest days, large banners were used to promote Mardi Gras every year. By the late 1870s, Rex had created its own flag." And so a new custom began.

Of this city's 10th flag, there are many incarnations, with many people flying ones they find in local stores or online. Many of the krewes have their own designs, with their own rules on when to fly the them.


But, really, that's not quite it. Or, at least, lumping all the Carnival organizations's flags together into one thing is a little too "One City One Voice" for me.  Carnival is too many things to too many people for it to fall under one multi-flag.  Indeed, there are many flags among them that I'd rather not be associated with at all, thank you very much.

What's great about the epic civic pageant that is Carnival in New Orleans, though, is that every socio-political element owns its status, wears it on its sleeve and parades it around in the streets while everyone drinks and dances.  One very prominent such element happens to be the scions of 19th Century neo-Confederates.

As the oldest and proudest Carnival groups, they're the most likely to display their flags on their homes.  I've been noting them for a while now.  This is from a post from 2006 where I shared some flag pics.



Every year during Carnival the former kings (or their descendants) fly these flags at their homes. The bottom right of each flag denotes the year in which this particular king reigned. This flag belongs to Rex from 1983. (It hasn't been very well maintained)

That's the flag at the top of this post, BTW.  Anyway.. sorry to go on quoting myself but rather than rewrite the same point...


The Old Line Krewes are tied to a history of racial hatred and upper class arrogance that goes far beyond the 1991 anti-discrimination controversy. (A good book to start with here is James Gill's Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans ) But Carnival doesn't only belong to the rich. 

A goodly part of it does belong to the juxtaposition of rich and poor, though.  More on that in a bit.  In any case, I'm grateful to the neo-Confederates for indicating the locations of their homes with these flags. They help Steve Scalise know where not to accidentally give a speech.  Here are some of those flags.

Proteus flag prominently displayed above humble cottage



Here is the Downman mansion on St. Charles Avenue at Third Street.  These flags indicate two former Rex and a Comus in the family. (I think the Comus flag technically indicates a Queen of Comus since the identity of Comus himself is never made public.. just like the Grand Wizzard unless he decides to run for Governor.)

Rex stops here on Mardi Gras morning for a toast.  It's on the uptown bound side of St. Charles so the whole parade has to cross the street in order to accomplish this.  It always comes as a neat little surprise to the folks camped on the neutral ground there when they have to turn around.

This is a Momus flag.



Besides Comus, they are the only Old Line krewe to abandon parading rather than comply with the anti-discrimination ordinance.  Oh but they still roll anyway.  Their floats and members parade as part of the Knights of Chaos.  Privilege has its privileges.



• Here's a look at some of this year's parade food.  There's a map there as well as blurbs about each outlet by Todd Price.  More and more of the new wave of food trucks are entering the selection lottery now and so more of them appear alongside the regular carnie fare.


Of course there are always a few random vendors who show up regardless of license. This sign is from one such truck.






• Everyone is putting out their Carnival preview stuff.  Good news, mostly.


This is from Arthur Hardy writing in The Advocate. 


The Krewe of Isis, a mainstay in Jefferson Parish for more than 40 years, has no plans to change its name in response to current events in the Middle East.

Here is a welcome message from Boh Brothers.



Happy Fucking Carnival: pic.twitter.com/Ka9yf4t0We
— 504 Not Found (@Adrastosno) February 6, 2015







• Finally, here is a PDF of this month's Antigravity Magazine.  On page 18 begins a must-read article by Jules Bentley about social changes expressed through carnival. 


If you're familiar with Bentley, you'll recognize his usual weaknesses.  Always a perceptive, witty writer,  Jules sometimes throws in unnecessary straw men in order to set up his little one-liners. He just has to throw in the word "millenials" at one point. But one can be a plumb-ignorant egotist with no sense of history or politics at any age.  There's also a passage where he describes the Chewbacchus parade as a much more stereotypical herd of nerds than it is in real life. When you read Bentley, you have to shrug that stuff off a little in order to stay focused on his point, and he does have one.  But that's more work than a lot of readers are willing to do so his better points often get lost.

The heart of this article is a parallel he draws between the arrival of Comus in the 19th Century and the arrival of the latest wave of DIY organizations, most significantly the Sci-Fi themed Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus.  Bently observes in each case a kind of assertion of status laid out by a new class of wealthy arrival to the city.

This week's Gambit inaccurately stated that "Carnival has been celebrated in New Orleans since 1856.." Sounds like they've been listening to the Mayor of Mobile too much. 1856 was only the beginning of Comus.  There was Carnival in New Orleans before that.  Like today's Carnival, it revealed glaring social inequalities.


Mardi Gras as it existed through the first half of the 1800s was unruly, a day of social levelling in which the poor controlled the streets. James Gill, in his tremendous and tremendously enjoyable book, Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans , reminds us that for our city’s only partially obsolete hereditary ruling classes, “[the holiday’s] real significance lay in the annual reaffirmation of social eminence over merit.” Their Mardi Gras was grand— private balls and parties, removed from the hoi polloi. 

While the aristocrats were safely ensconced inside, the world outside became a more raucous (and threatening) scene.


In her terrific, deep-diving 2008 FSU PhD thesis, “Setting the Stage: Dance and Gender in Old-Line New Orleans Carnival Balls, 1870-1920,” Jennifer Atkins also aggregates a great deal of the better writing on Carnival’s class- conflict aspects, including Mikhail Bakhtin’s assertion that the collective voices of the oppressed raised during Carnival render the streets, even if temporarily, “a democratized space.” “In the process of asserting status and power,” Atkins writes, “protests from disenfranchised groups, though performed in the surrealistic carnival world, can be very real threats to society."   

Comus was, for its day, what today's tech industry might call an act of disruption. It was an end run around regulation for the betterment of a hegemonic class of elites.


If Carnival in the streets was to continue, its power must be put back in the hands of the already powerful. There was talk among the Creole aristocracy of cancelling Mardi Gras, but a group of Americans, showing the entrepreneurial spirit typical of their kind, came up with a better idea. These Americans—not Creoles, not New Orleanians or even Louisianians— created the first organized Mardi Gras parade with floats. Drawing from the work of English poet Milton, the first Comus parade had two floats. One featured Comus, an ancient god of festivity whom Milton cast as a deceiving necromancer, and the other featured the Devil. They rolled in open and unpunished defiance of the bans on masking and music-making. 

Comus took on some of the forms of popular Carnival... the outdoor music and masking.. formalized them, and in the process, sanitized them to a degree.

But they didn't obliterate it entirely.  The notion of Carnival as order overturned still persists to this day.  It may, in fact, be even more powerful than ever.

Last year, in a Lens op-ed CW Cannon argued that we may now be living in the "golden age" of Carnival specifically because of the more democratic and inclusive nature of what might otherwise be perceived as chaos.


Krewe du Vieux is quite conscious of itself not just as an insurrection, but also as a resurrection, an effort to recover from the anti-carnivalesque aspects of the 19^th century Uptown Carnival model. Their mission statement expresses this ambition explicitly: “We believe in exposing the world to the true nature of Mardi Gras — and in exposing ourselves to the world.” Since Katrina, Krewe du Vieux has been joined by several other downtown parading clubs — ‘ti Rex, Chewbacchus, Red Beans — each of which follows  the Krewe du Vieux model far more faithfully than the Uptown one, especially by keeping dues affordable.

But the ultimate expression of the carnivalesque instinct in our time is what happens downtown on Fat Tuesday itself. Here the line between spectator and performer is almost totally erased as thousands — whether costumed, masked or merely bystanders — converge in the streets in a utopian vision of mass civic participation. And on this day — if only for a day — we also witness New Orleans’ idealized sense of itself come down to earth to shape the city’s social reality.

But Bentley adds a twist to this that Cannon doesn't.  Bentley recognizes, in Chewbacchus, a deliberate.. almost commercialized.. turn away from the notion of social upheaval. 


Cybernetic Carnival seeks to appropriate e.g. the irreverence of Krewe du Vieux, reducing that Krewe’s incisive political and social satire to a directionless but consumer-attractive pose of “subversiveness.” Instead of engaging current events or the foibles of the powerful, Chewbacchus participants engage in a post-modern remixing of consumer culture: a Hollywood-film alien mixed with a burlesque dancer mixed with a robot from a Japanese cartoon.

 Just as Comus sanitized the "threatening" class conflict of 19th Century Carnival, so too does the emergence of Chewbacchus seek to blunt the satirical bent of modern Carnival.  So goes, Bentley's thesis anyway.  It's not as black and white as all of that in reality.

For one thing, this town is too small for us to identify rigid divisions between newcomers and natives or between hyper-insular social groups of any sort.  There's no actual "neutral ground" in the classic sense.  Hell, KDV even crossed Canal Street this year.  The truth is, everybody knows everybody.  And, unless you really are Comus, you probably move within several of the artificially conceived circles that Jules uses to illustrate his points. But that doesn't mean there isn't at least a bit of truth in them.

This week NOLA.com, home of the perpetual "Entrepreneur Week" ran a poll suggesting that Krewe Du Vieux's style of subversive satire might be... you know.. sooo Old New Orleans.. or something.  Chewbacchus may not actually be out to sanitize Carnival, but it looks as though someone at least hopes they are.

Anyway there are parades tonight. You may have heard about this. Probably not too much satire or gentrification involved in any those so relax and enjoy.

You know it's Carnival time when...

The Rex organization is suing somebody.

I, for one, am pleased

Aside from the pseudo-celebrity spectacle, I'm very interested in seeing what happens when the Kerns' and their elite clients' finances and business relationships are scrutinized in court. Call it a fishing expedition.

Would have been a fun episode of Intervention

Carinival aristocrats convene to smack the Kerns before they embarrass everybody. Wonder if any of them were worried about what might have gotten aired out.

Mid-Mardi Gras photo dump

It isn't hard to guess that while we're knee deep in Carnival season, you're not going to see much here other than occasional drunken exclamations and crappy photographs. Here's a bit of what's been going on the past few days.

Thursday's cancellations moved Muses to Friday meaning there would be four parades that night on what was still a cold and damp Uptown route.



Fortunately, I had time to prepare during the day so, Thursday night, I pulled another wild hog roast out of the freezer and brined it overnight. Here it is all dressed up with cumin, paprika, oregano, thyme, onions, garlic, potatoes, bacon... um... some other stuff.



Add a little beer and some lime and orange juice, throw it in the oven around 10 AM and come parade time, it should look like this.



That should keep the folks warmed and well fed as they trudge in and out from the cold and mud of a long evening of Carnival.



Hermes might be the prettiest parade of all. The floats are elaborately designed but not stuffy. They could pass as either a super-huge "old line" krewe or a super-artsy Superkrewe. I'm afraid my blurry night photography can be a little hit or miss. My best looks at Hermes were of the the signature float above, this blurry float,



And this blurry flambeaux carrier.



If it helps, keep in mind that my actual vision is usually about this blurry during the parade anyway so these shots are fair approximations of my memories of the event. Some of those border on the nightmarish such as when the Skeleton Krewe arrives at the head of Le Krewe D'Etat.



I was disappointed in both the Krewe D'Etat and Muses parades this year. They are known as two of the most witty and satirical krewes but I thought the theming was a bit uninspired Friday. D'Etat's political commentary was mostly driven by parting shots at Ray Nagin which, already, seem a little passe. There were some base celebrity gossip items (Tiger Woods, John and Kate) which strike me as irrelevant material. Finally, a few of the floats such as one depicting ACORN appeared to be informed mostly by the FOX News side of things. The Saints float featured a prominent representation of Tom Benson. I really despise this business of glorifying the owner in a triumph that really belongs to the players and to the city. But a lot of these krewe people tend to identify with ownership for the most part so I guess this was to be expected. On the bright side, I really enjoyed the Dancing Buddy Ds.



Muses' theme was "The Muses' Guide to Love and Romance" The floats were a string of trite "women be different from men" cliches that put me in mind of this Athenae rant about a similarly stereotype-ridden Dodge commercial. It's a shame to see the creative talents of these two Krewes so badly misused. Typically I enjoy both parades. I especially like the numerous marching clubs Muses incorporates into the procession. Here are the Camel Toe Lady Steppers,



The Pussyfooters,



And the 610 Stompers trying to get crunk as the parade speeds up unexpectedly



These are all very creative people and I love that they take their creativity to the streets every year to help us celebrate. Some years, though, the parades serve to remind me how little I have in common with the Krewes' membership.

I think the Muses krewe members, like the Krewe D'Etat members are comfortable with this kind of banal humor because they're typically the sort of people who are comfortable with their station and are reassured by its associated humdrum. The very act of joining a club is, after all, a calculated attempt to improve or cement one's status and fortune through contrived interaction with a group of similarly desperate social climbers. It's the same as what I said about John Georges' decision to join the Tulane goat-fucking society. They're all aiming at the same phony idea of success through the act of joining a club. Some clubs have their members show off their worthiness by parading through the streets in silly costumes. Some have their members do funny things with goats. And some, it turns out, wear silly costumes while parading their goats through the streets on mule-drawn carts.



Either way it's all part of the same exercise.

So that's the bad news, I guess. The good news is, you don't have to be in the dumb club to be a part of Carnival. For that all you have to do is get out in the street and play. Which is what I'm about to do right now. But first a few techniques for optimizing your chances at catching stuff. One, just be generally awesome like I am. I got this cool sword at Endymion last night which I'd love to show you but there's no time to add a photo now. Two, wear an appropriate shirt. This one seems to be the winner this year.



Note: She's worn it to every event and hasn't washed it yet.

Three, wear an appropriate hair color and maybe someone will throw you a glittery shoe.



Failing all of that, just keep drinking. Seems to be the catch all solution anyway.

Going back outside. More later.

Uh oh

Gonna be one of those massive crowds tomorrow night. Nothing like Lombardi Gras, I'm sure, but still pretty big.

Krewe of Muses parade, pre-party postponed until Friday

Last night we stood out in the surprisingly-not-so-cold to catch the Krewe of Druids with about five or six other people.



As a parade, Druids is pretty much just filler. It exists as a sort of collaboration among members of other Krewes to add another "traditional" looking parade to the calendar. We're glad they do it. We tend to think the parade schedule is too compacted at the end of the week.

[Begin tangent] There are enough parades to hold one or two on each night of the week instead of what we have now. Things are a bit different this year because of the addition of the Saints parade on Tuesday but usually we get zero Monday, zero Tuesday, one Wednesday, three Thursday, and three Friday. Now some people may want to keep a short break on Monday, which is okay, but the rest of these parades could be spread out to better balance out the week. An ideal schedule of the current parades would move Morpheus to Tuesday and Muses to Wednesday. That way we get Monday off, one parade Tuesday, two Wednesday, two Thursday, and two Friday. Plus, extending the schedule opens more opportunities for make-up dates in the case of bad weather.[End of tangent]

Anyway, in parade aesthetics, there's a fine line between traditional and lame and Druids tends toward the latter category. The floats are not very elaborate. The theme is uninspired. Last night's theme was various puns on the word hole. Floats were things like "Man-hole" "Fire-in-the-hole" "Key Hole" etc. None was particularly witty or satirical or really worth looking at. Also they don't throw very much... except for this one guy but he was obviously kind of nuts.

Adding: Oh and now Babylon is also postponing until Sunday which means we'll have five parades that day.

Mid-Afternoon report

Congratulations to Rickey "City Champ" Jackson for becoming the first member of the NFL Hall of Fame primarily for his exploits as a New Orleans Saint. I've written this before, but it's worth repeating. In all my years of watching the game, I have never seen a better football player than Rickey. That's it. (BTW: This means I am perfect so far on last night's "predictions" list)

Meanwhile, the rumblings on the Tweeter Tube have it that today's election is on pace for a record low turnout. I don't know how much stock to place in these rumblings but, if they are accurate, that's disappointing. I took a few pictures of signage around the neighborhood earlier. Here's one at Louisiana and St. Charles.



Didn't see any goats anywhere.

By the way: What the hell is Ray Nagin even talking about here? A coach? A coat? A Colt? What? Please. Somebody.



The telephone poles of Central City are decked out for Carnival.



Don't know who did it, but there's one of these on just about every corner.





Caught the Krewe of Pontchartrain this afternoon on St. Charles Avenue. Their theme was "Can You Name That Idiom?"



So the floats were all titled things like "G_ ___ A K___" and you had to fill in the blank based on the decor of the float. (That one was "Go Fly A Kite") Of course there was a "W__ __T S__ ___ G____ ___t D__ S____S?" Speaking of which, there was also this.



Of course, there was politicking at the parade route. I spotted this.. um... house? shed? being towed down St. Charles opposite the parade.



Finally, the wait is over. We now know who the first marching band is to offer up a rendition of "Halftime" by the Ying Yang Twins this Carnival season. It is St. Mary's Academy.



Won't be the last, I'm sure.

Quote of the Day

Rachel Maddow: "America is lucky enough to have New Orleans in it"



Maddow's broadcast from New Orleans tonight was pretty cute. Plus it managed to get more essential things right about NOLA in one hour than most national media have over the space of the past five years. The program featured John Barry on flood control, Norman Francis and Melissa Harris-Lacewell on the Saints and politics, Clancy DuBos on food, and Terrance Blanchard on trumpet. Not bad.

Meanwhile, we stepped outside and caught the season's first Uptown Carnival parade of 2010. The modest Krewe of Oshun featured only a few medium-sized floats carrying a generic TV-inspired theme. They weren't throwing a whole lot but we did manage to get a krewe-emblemed medallion which made us happy.

Also the bands were pretty good. We saw St. Mary's Academy, Xavier Prep, and Roots of Music who were playing the first of many renditions of "When the Saints Go Marching In" we expect to hear this year.



The best sounding band of the night was McDonogh 35. We caught a bit of their performance on grainy video.



Later, we ordered dinner from Juan's. When I went to pick it up, I saw a guy running up and down Magazine Street randomly "Who Dat"-ing at any passing people and cars he could find.

This is going to be quite the weekend.

With apologies to Angus Lind

I've received the following photo from Lind's infamous Carnival source, "Deep Float" It appears the reveal the super-secret theme for tonight's Le Krewe D'Etat parade.

Ladders in the news!

From yesterday's idiot page:

Parade patrols are inconsistent
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

While I realize the Orleans Police Department has bigger fish to fry and that this rant may sound trivial, I made some observations this weekend of enforcement of our ordinances.

At one intersection, there was a police officer diligently enforcing the rules against ladders or chairs in the intersection and dogs at parades. Meanwhile, around the block there were six or seven dogs at the street line and chairs and ladders in the intersection.

Doesn't this lax enforcement at one corner make it harder for more vigilant police officers at the next corner?

Surely if the police expect respect from us they should begin by uniformly enforcing the laws.

Maria Huete

New Orleans

Actually, I find the news that police were enforcing the rules at all quite encouraging. I think the best thing NOPD can do is get out there and inform people. A major cause of ladder misuse is lack of public awareness.

The dog issue mentioned by the letter writer provides an excellent example of responsible enforcement. As I've said before, most dogs love Mardi Gras. Unfortunately, it is illegal to walk your dog within 50 feet of the parade route. It has been my experience, however, that NOPD exercises excellent discretion in enforcing this rule. They are usually more lax during the early parades with smaller and calmer crowds and are pretty good at laying off the better behaved animals.

Last night, a neighbor of mine brought her dog out to see the parade formerly known as "Ancient Druids" but now calling itself "Mystick Krewe of Druids". An officer came over to us and politely told us that the rule was 50 ft. We retreated about 20 ft, and that seemed to work out fine for everyone.



If the police can courteously help dogs to enjoy the parade safely, surely they can remind people to be respectful of one another as well. Mark Folse gets to the heart of the problem here.

But on that same neutral ground every year, people (mostly not from our neighborhood) show up and spray paint themselves blocks of neutral ground larger than some homes in our neighborhood, and if you want to challenge their right to do so you had best be ready for fisticuffs. This is insane. Parades are supposed to be for everyone. That is why we allow them to roll down the city’s public streets, rather than having them circle the floor of the Superdome for ticket buyers. But try telling that to the neutral ground Nazi’s.

It is simply another example of the continued crumbling of the basic social contract, and the tendency of some in the greater world to privatize the commons for their own benefit to the greater society’s detriment. When Washington and Baton Rouge are run on this basis, why not grab your own piece of public property for your private party?

People need to be reminded they are there to share the parade experience not to hoard their private piece. Simply put, if you don't want to interact with other people, you should probably stay inside. The police are quite capable of communicating this to folks in a completely benign way with little or no risk of Mark's above-mentioned fisticuffs.

Notes on Druids:

• Before I say what I want to say here, let's be clear on one thing. Last night was a great night for a parade and I enjoyed it very much. I am always happy to walk around outside drinking beer and talking to people under any pretense and this was as good a night for it as any. The dreaded thunderstorm never materialized. A lot of people were out. It was nice.



• Having said that, I think we can all agree that Druids put on a pretty crappy parade. The floats were ho-hum, the riders were the stingiest so far this year, and the theme was unbelievably lame.
  
  One would expect the theme, "Why?" would have lent itself to all manner of mischievous satire but Druids dropped that ball pretty quickly. One of the first floats was entitled, "Why, Archbishop, Why?" in reference to the recent local controversy over church closings. Not a terrible start, but it was the last float of any topical relevance in the procession.
  
  Subsequent floats titled, "Why don't snakes have legs?" and "Why is the ocean salty?" didn't seem to have anything to do with anything. Reading these float titles was sort of like manning the reference desk... at a library for 4 year olds. I got the impression that the Krewe members either couldn't decide what to do with their theme or maybe had disagreements over how to handle controversial topics other than the church closings. In any event, they just seemed to have given up. This float, titled "K Why" was the low point in the lame progress of puns and inanities.
  
  



• On a more encouraging note, I am happy to report that affordable parade food is not quite a thing of the past.
  
  
  
  This little truck on Josephine Street was selling pretty decent tacos for $2.00 each as well as Polish Sausage for $4.00. Just down the block nearer Felicity the Polishes were going for $8.00. I didn't try the Boudin Balls but there is plenty Carnival left.



• And, finally, my neighbors are back with their head-mounted target contraption.
  
  
  
  He calls it the "Beadmaster 2009" (The name changes every year). And, yes, it works. Just don't stand between it and enthusiastic riders trying to nail the target.

One more note for anyone reading who may be new to all of this. DO NOT MISS tonight's Krewe of Muses. Nothing else in Carnival achieves Muses' mix of the traditional feel of a neighborhood-style parade, the bombast of the Super-Krewes, and the cleverness of a satirical theme... not to mention the odd surprise. It really has become the highlight of the season.

Happy Mardi Gras

KDV tonight!! (I have resolved to include !s in any links to Adrastos from now on)

Charging the camera now.

Rain on the parade

The threat of big bad storms has caused the postponement of two of tonight's parades and a cancellation of a third.

The Krewe of Babylon, which is typically one of the prettier night parades with its classic float design and heavy use of flambeaux now will be forced to roll Sunday during the day. That should be weird.

The Krewe of Chaos, one of the most anticipated and wittiest of the parades, will not roll at all this year. Chaos is basically a reconfiguration of the sidelined Knights of Momus which has long traditional roots in the history of Carnival and was renowned for its use of satire in its theming. I think many of the members of this Krewe are either in or intermarried with some of the other "old line" Krewes like Proteus and Comus whose social seasons are in high gear. There may have just been too many conflicts with rescheduling. Just a theory.

Luckily, the indescribably awesome Krewe of Muses has postponed one day and will cap off what is now a quadruple-header of parades Friday night.

So save tonight for whatever last-minute errands you may have left because after this it's time to hunker down for a big weekend.

Meanwhile, here are some shots I got of the Ancient Druids parade last night. My nighttime photography is pretty sucktastic so I put the camera away before the Krewe of Pygmalion (carrying local internet persons Clay and Candice) arrived.

I Have A Snake

Storms wash out parades across metro area

As thunder increased, and light rain gave way to a steady downpour, the parades scheduled to roll on the first big night of the Carnival parade season were cancelled one after the other. Only Oshun, the first scheduled parade on the Uptown route, managed to make it on schedule.

And I wuz there.



Happy Mardi Gras

Today's Carnival Must-Reads

This week's Gambit features two excellent articles by Clancy Dubos and David Winkler-Schmit on bygone and endangered Carnival traditions. Dubos's is about the state of the remaining "neighborhood" parades that don't actually parade in their neighborhoods anymore. The krewe captains quoted all cite diminishing crowds among their reasons for reluctantly abandoning their traditional routes. But the most important factor is the prevailing pressure from NOPD and City Hall who are unwilling to manage more than one parade route anymore. Something tells me that this pendulum could swing the other way in coming years given post-Katrina upswing in neighborhood pride (at least in some areas that are recovering... particularly Mid-City).

Winkler-Schmit's cover story is about the long-established traditions tied to social institutions in Treme as a result of continued displacement and gentrification. The next generation of downtown indians, second-liners, and bone men could be lost... and it could happen sooner than you would think.

Stuff to Dieux

Eh most of you know... it's that time.

Meeting the Challenge

Having already seen the gauntlet (or goblet as it were) laid down by the Krewe of Bacchus's naming Hulk Hogan as this year's celebrity king, organizers of the rival Superkrewe Orpheus knew they would have to dig deep to come up with some names to match that kind of vaguely trashy, sorta has-been, C-list cheese.

I think we can now safely say Mission Accomplished:

Race car driver, reality TV star and one of People Magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive Helio Castroneves will ride this carnival season.

The popular all girl hip hop group Salt – n –Pepa, Young and the Restless star Christian LeBlanc, Guiding Light star Ricky Paull Goldin and Sidney Torres – the man largely credited with cleaning up the French Quarter – will also reign over the crowds this Lundi Gras.

Adding: This morning I jokingly suggested to Clio that we might see Rhonda Shear here. Turns out I wasn't too far off.

Mardi Gras is a Marathon Not a Sprint

Right now I'm running on fumes trying to re energize from Iris, Tucks, too much sunshine and waaaay too much walking. Will have full update and a few pics from the last few days later. But first I guess we have to go look at Endymion.. since the whole freakin world seems to have moved into the neighborhood for it. More later.

Update: Endymion real quick. 1st of all Endymion is stupid. The parade is unnecessarily large.. comprised of unnecessarily large floats.. and attended by an unnecessarily large crowd which doesn't know how to attend a public event in a public space. But we've already covered that. Tonight's crowd was.. overwhelming as expected. But look, we know this parade doesn't belong on the uptown route so instead of belaboring the point, here's what happened.

Endymion is all about football.

To walk down St Charles before a parade is to become a passive participant in an uninterrupted football game as the oblong spheroids tossed between folks in the street whizz by one's head all the way from Napoleon to Canal. Not one inch of the road lies beyond the shadow of an airborne missile.

I caught a "pair" of black and gold football beads thrown by Scott Fujita.

We caught a pair (an actual pair) of bean-bag Endymion footballs.

Dad proved once again.. to the delight of everyone but me.. that he does not know when to shut the fuck up.. or stop dancing.

Because Endymion is too cumbersome a parade to pass the Uptown route without incident, there arose a prolonged gap in the procession which allowed the spectators in our area to arrange an impromptu game wherein two people operated a jumprope fashioned out of beads which volunteers from the crowd attempted unsuccessfully to.. um.. jump.. in groups of unsuccessful threes to the repeated groans of onlookers.

The entire neighborhood is a mess and we're still three days away from the end of this.

More to come..

Next Day Update: Endymion pics

The pre-parade crowd fills the air with footballs (click to enlarge)


Skooks, in the spirit, sports his green wig (same instructions)

Can I go home yet?

This morning, the library hosted Adella Adella the Storyteller. I haven't seen her since pre-K days when she participated in our branch's production of the Primetime family reading program. Adella is quite the showperson. Her routine this morning was black history themed but she finished up by leading the group of 1st and 2nd graders in a few Mardi Gras songs.

Much like those children, I'm ready to get out of here. Tonight things ramp up quite a bit. Visitors will be arriving this afternoon.. and more this evening. Tonight I'm looking forward to braving the cold to see the Knights of Momus um.. sorry.. Chaos (wink) stage its annual satirical review followed by the always popular Krewe of Muses featuring.. among many other things.. the 9th Ward Marching Band. Again.. can I go home yet?

Related: Oyster with more on the general mood at the moment.

Also: A Momus (dammit!) Chaos rider prepares for tonight.

Carnival in the cold

Or.. maybe Carnival with a cold. I've still got this case of the sniffles (Menckles's fault) which would probably keep a sensible person indoors in these temperatures. So naturally I walked outside to catch the Krewe of Ancient Druids parade this evening. Seems like this parade is always affected by the weather in some way. A few years ago, I braved a solid downpour to watch it. I figured if they were making the effort then so should I. In much the same spirit I hauled my sick ass out there again tonight. I'm not sure they managed to match my effort though. This year's theme, "Druid Floats" made very little sense as the procession included a "Bunny Float" a.. um Leprechaun Float a Football Float and so forth. The floats themselves were recycled from this weekend's Krewe of Carrollton and (unimaginatively) re-themed. Druid riders seem to have a... um... staid professional manner about them as they robotically locate and deliver their throws to parade goers. It was a strange thing to watch. I came away with one doubloon one cup and a few strands of heart beads (I guess since it's Valentine's Day) so I can at least say that I was at a parade.

It wasn't all bad. The Marine Corps band made an appearance for the first time this year (as far as I've noticed) and the number of marching bands overall was respectable. I'm beginning to wonder what's up with the flambeaux carriers this year. It seems like half the torches are unlit.

This was also the first parade I've seen in a while at which I remained completely sober throughout. I'm still not feeling so hot and am trying not to overdo it before the big stuff starts happening. Lots of company arriving tomorrow. Maybe we can get them sick too.