The Information Super-Frog

Yeah, Tuesday was Mardi Gras! After spending the last two Fat Tuesdays Uptown, I again had did Mardi Gras Downtown.


I started off the day with Mimosas and King Cake at a friend's house in lower Marigny. Then walked up (through various groups of costumers and revelry) to meet with some musician friends in the Marigny Triangle neighborhood; we were playing for a friend's wedding. The couple were wheeled in home made floats for a short parade to the R Bar, and they were married on the porch across the street. Next on over to Frenchmen Street, for the presentation of the new court of the Krewe of Kosmic Debris, then the parade into the French Quarter. Then back down to Frenchmen Street, and walk back to my starting point, passing thru continued fun. Another fine Mardi Gras Day.

( Photo! Video! Links! )

My set of pix of Mardi Gras Day in Uptown New Orleans. Caught the beautiful Rex parade from a friend's raised porch on Napoleon Avenue; a great spot to photograph the floats from.

I've started messing around with uploading a few short video snippets taken with my pocket camera to YouTube here. (Hm, I wish I'd got more than a couple seconds of video of the St. Anne band, but I was too busy playing. Maybe Ms. Hollie can take video next time.)

Better than anything I've uploaded, check out "Battle of Jackson Square, Mardi Gras 2009". Christian Fundamentalists picketing Mardi Gras encounter a second line group and pirates armed with bead cannon.

Yeah, I haven't been posting very much here. I have uploaded a bunch of Carnival photos to Flickr. Infrogmation's Flickr photos

Happy Carnival, folks.

The weather warmed up for Mardi Gras day. H came downtown with me (for the first time in years) and we had a good time in the lower Quarter and Marigny.

( 4 random photos, with celebrity sightings )

I was able to attend a couple of events of the Tulane Maya Symposium. The highlight was the keynote address by Dr. Karl Taube, discussing interesting less well known aspects of iconography and tying them in to the same motifs in other parts of Mesoamerica and up to the US Southwest-- including nifty illustrations of ancestors arriving from creation on the flower road featherd serpent shown from formative murals in Guatemala to Pueblo art some 3,000 years later. Super fabulous for folks interested in such things.

Yesterday was moderately cold but clear as I drove downtown in the afternoon for Krewe du Vieux. On the way down Loyola Avenue I saw a small group gathered in front of City Hall. Today's paper explained it: A Catholic group was protesting Blasphemy in a Krewe du Vieux parade 2 years ago! To quote:

"The crowd recited the rosary and sang hymns "in reparation" for "blasphemies" they said were perpetrated by the krewe in the 2005 parade. While much of the reaction to the 2005 parade was delayed, based on viewing of images on a Krewe du Vieux Web site, many Catholics were angry about one participant's use of fake breasts next to the words "Our Lady of very Prompt Succor" [....] They also protested one float's use of the image of a lamb chop, with signs proclaiming "He Died for Ewe" "

My immediate reaction on reading this: Ha ha ha ha!

Usually we've only gotten Jimmy Swaggart fundamentalist protestants protesting Carnival. Welcome to such distinguished company. Actually I think such "blasphemies" are very traditional for Carnival: In Europe back in the day, they would crown a fool as "king" and recite a silly nonsence "mass", making fun of the two things that had to be held most sacred of all the rest of the year.

The Krewe gathered at the warehouse den down in Marigny a few hours before the parade, with kingcake, beer, and dancing to a nice band. I was with one of several groups doing Alice In Wonderland related stuff for the "Habitat For Insanity" theme. We were assigned to make Mad Hatter hats out of paper bags. Some artistic cosumers can do something impressive with such a start; as I didn't feel up to that I decided to make the cheapness work for the concept, and did little other than a quick spray paint and adding signs on either side reading "FEMA HAT /In this style/ 16 month wait". It seems to have gone over well, as throughout the march I was hearing spectators saying "Look, FEMA hat!" and "Ha ha! FEMA hat!".

This is the first time I marched without my glasses (post eye operations). I left my driving glasses in my car and just carried a small pair of reading glasses in my pocket (which I only needed to pull out briefly when signing in at the Den). A number of aquaintances seemed not to quite recognize me, getting that "I know I know you, but I can't quite place..." look. While I saw a number of folks I knew long the route, for the second year I saw no sign of the group of friends who said in advance they'd be catching the parade in front of Molly's. I flung handfulls of stuff into the crowd there anyway. Afterwards, post parade party at the Lowe's Palace.

Today Ms. Hollie & I are having our Super Bowl Avoidance celebration.

New Orleans Mardi Gras is always something astonishing.

I doubt there has ever been one more heart felt.

I have a sore throat and fear I'm running a fever, so I'll only share a few disjointed observations.

This Carnival had fewer parades than seen for decades, many of the parades were less elaborate. Some days the weather was cold, other days rainy. It was still one of the best in history.

Despite the much reduced population of the city and number of visitors in town, along some of the parade routes for the big parades on St. Charles Avenue, crowds were significantly LARGER than usual. Because so many of the folks here who might otherwise decide to miss parades NEEDED Mardi Gras.

Has it been made clear in the national media how much many people who have suffered have insisted in participating this year? Many parades rolled with a majority of riders whose homes were severely damaged and are still either living upstairs with a gutted downstairs, or not able to inhabit their home at all. The riders and float makers are generally in the same situation of the majority of the city. I talked with one float maker who sometimes slept in the float den (warehouse) which still has yet to get electric power restored; they built the floats from the flood damaged hulks of last year, reportedly sure that the ghosts of collegues who died in the disaster were there with them.

I've never seen so many tears of joy at the parades.

Many floats were thick with many more inside local jokes than usual that left the locals laughing and the visitors puzzled. That's okay. Understand that as always, we invite the whole world, but it's still a party we throw for ourselves.

The weather Mardi Gras Day could not have been more beautiful. Morning and mid-day I paraded through the Marigny and French Quarter with the Society of St. Anne, a walking group that always has some of the most splendid costumes of the season. I again had the priviledge of playing with the band as a guest with the Storyville Stompers, one of the finest and tightest groups in the city. They are above my league, and usually I hold back to make sure I stay out of their way (I can let myself go with the Tumblers or in jam sessions later in the day). This year there were many more musical guests marching with the band, a number of us with lips not as up as they could be, and honestly it did have an adverse effect on the cohesion of some of the Stompers head arrangements. However everyone so wanted to play for this, and there were shouts of encouragement "We're family!" "Cut loose!" "Let them hear this up in Washington!", that the sometimes rough around the edges had a fine feel and a 100% New Orleans sound. But the dirges-- Oh my. Every year we play at least a few dirges for those gone. This year the dirges were of astonishing magnificence. With all due respect to some of the fine bands in Europe, Japan, and elsewhere who can produce a good aproximation of a New Orleans Brass Band sound from study of old recordings, this was a sound of celestial music could be heard no where else in the world.


Much use of blue FEMA tarping in costumes.
Many fine group costumes drift by which I got no chance to photograph, including Dick Cheney, a peppered Harry Whittington, and a couple of Quails. Groups of Heck of a Job Brownies (girl-scout style uniforms), chocolate Nagins, comatose US Army engineers, blind levee inspectors, and devil Bushes.

The Pussyfooters dance troupe dancing in parades doing call & response couplets like:
"Levees fail and break break break!
Pussy-footers shake shake shake!"

I saw a number of people wearing something flood damaged, my favorite being a still muck encrusted old K&B nametag.

The Krewe du Vieux parade last night was excellent, with some good satire. Our hitherto mild winter turned chilly for the parade, but we had a good turn out anyway. I marched with Krewe of Underwear. I got an offer to sub with one of the brass bands but I'd already gotten my costume ready. I was one of the "Corpse of Engineers" presenting "A Day at the Breach".

My pix (some pix may be risque for work viewing):
thumbnail gallery; mostly taken before the parade started

Other folks pix:
30toseoul's pix
from cobaltgreen
from docbrite
lots of pix from bobbysan -- may be slow loading

I saw a good number of folks I was expecting, and even someone I hadn't been able to contact since before the storm. I didn't see a number of people who said they'd be there, but with the crowds & confusions, not suprising. I didn't see any of the folks who said they'd be in front of Molly's, but I flung handfulls of beads, cups, etc while passing there; I hope some were caught by someone I knew.

Today I was doing errands on Magazine Street, and caught the Jefferson City Buzzards practice parade. The Buzzards are a white Uptown working class men's neighborhood group that started parading in the 19th century. Their big parade is on Mardi Gras Day when they march down St. Charles to the Quarter; 3 Sundays before they have their "practice parade" around the neighborhood. Some previous years I'd made a point of catching them, but this year I'd totally forgotten about it, so encountering the silly mini-parade was one of those moments of New Orleans seridipity. For their practice parade they dress in drag. No, they're not gay (not predominently, anyway); they just think it's wacky fun to drink too much beer and go out in drag once a year. Up to 50 years ago, they used to be in drag and blackface.

Buzzards pix

Meanwhile, the House Katrina report shows that the Republican controled Congress is finally showing a bit of willingness to point out some of the administration's collosal failures. Of course the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld administration still has its supporters, though I'm not sure what more the junta could do to demonstrate its nefariousness to the public short of personally going around shooting people or something.

The Sunday before Mardi Gras has a number of large parades.

One is Thoth, which unusually has resisted city pressure to conform to one of the standard routes and still parades on upper Magazine Street. This area is still mostly locals.

I went to two parties at friend's homes just off the parade route, 3 blocks apart. Here are some photos of folks and festivities within those 3 blocks.

( And now, the rest of the story... )

I'm finally getting around to our next installment: Daytime Porch Band Parties on Fat Saturday.

On the Saturday before Mardi Gras I went to a couple of parties with good bands on the front porch.

( Details and pix )