A New Orleans Diary -- Two Kinds of Craziness

NEW ORLEANS -- The decorations on the houses in my neighborhood -- and people in my neighborhood are wickedly dedicated decorators -- have gone from green and red to purple, green and gold, the annual signal of the transition from "your" holiday season to "ours". The transition started weirdly early, because Mardi Gras ends up on Feb. 5 this year: the neutral grounds (median strips) in neighboring Jefferson Parish were occupied by grandstands for the Carnival parades two weeks before Christmas.

So there's definitely craziness in the air. The malign kind is year-round: the Mayor went on local television this week to boast about his international name recognition, and explaining that sometimes he says off-the-wall things just to keep his name before the public. But the benign kind of craziness begins on Jan. 6, Twelfth Night, when the first beads are thrown from a streetcar commandeered by a group of early celebrants. This past Saturday night in New Orleans, the real thing began. By "the real thing", I mean the Mardi Gras that you don't see represented in the ads for Bud and the "Girls Gone Wild" vids. It's the Carnival that locals remember being taken to as children -- yes, it's for children, sometimes -- the Carnival that's primarily for and about locals.

Krewe de Vieux (pronounced "crew duh voo") is the only parade with Carnival floats that still marches through the French Quarter (two other Quarter parades, Barkus and St. Anne's, have marchers -- canine and human, respectively -- but no floats). KdV's floats are small and handmade, pulled either by humans or horses, unlike the larger, tractor-pulled floats in the later, bigger parades. The Krewe always hires the best street brass bands in the city, so the music is irrepressibly danceable. And the parade is satirical and raunchy.

This year's theme, "Magical Misery Tour", allowed for multiple swipes at local targets wrapped inside Beatles references. So "You Never Give Me Your Money" was a float dedicated to the late-paying Road Home program (supposedly to compensate homeowners for the flood damage caused by beached federal levees), and the White Album was represented by a float that generated shock, until you remembered who owns the rights to the Beatles catalog.

The marchers threw or handed out largely hand-made or hand-painted (or hand-printed) souvenirs, as well as a fine supply of Chinese beads. The parade actually started in the Bywater neighborhood, snaked through the adjacent Faubourg Marigny, and then into the Quarter -- three riverside neighborhoods of related historic richness and ascending economic richness. In the first two, crowds were three or four deep, and you could walk up to the floats, engage with the riders, and get pushed back by the swiftly passing tubas. Up in the Quarter, the crowds are deeper and more raucous. Many folks I know manage to get a double dip, seeing the earlier, more accessible version, then trotting up to the Quarter for the wilder finale.

But what amazed me was the sight of the folks leaving after the parade passed. Knots of two, three or a dozen, walking down the streets energized and electrified by the anarchic spirit of what they'd just experienced, the benign craziness that, while it's in control of the street, seems to be timeless and endless, and, once having passed, seems like a strange, lovely fever dream. People were walking briskly (it was freezing), smiling, talking, laughing, through the streets of a city lately left for dead. You could have fooled me.

Comments

[JAUG]

And people outside of New Orleans say we have no sense of humor!

[JAUG]

And it's stuff like this that makes New Orleans truly unique and one of a kind.

Gods, these are the days that make me remember why I love NOLA and why I continue to put up with all the post Katrina bs.

No where else on earth...

[nolalily]

I was there in front of Brennans on Royal. It was wonderful. Everyone was freezing but the spirit was better than I ever remember it being. We and our friends took the streetcar down and road it back home, stopping at a restaurant for a bite to eat and then hopping back aboard.

I slept extremely well. Maybe the best I've slept in a couple of years.

[uabear315]

Couldn't agree more Harry. Parades like KDV always bring out the best in people because it allows the common man to take part in Mardi Gras. I don't quite get the same feeling watching the aristocracy in Rex roll down St. Charles.
Keep up the good work!
http://gumbofile.wordpress.com/

[KarenZipdrive]

Like New York and Los Angeles, New Orleans is a lotta peoples' second home.
I've had nothing but good times there, and I loved your review of upcoming Mardi Gras events.
You're a cool guy from a cool city. That's all there is to it.

[Beatitudes]

My family moved from Abbeville to New Orleans when I was a little kid. I'd never been on a city bus or to a big Mardi Gras parade. We did have Mardi Gras though, and my most enduring memory is of the African American whip crackers in their colorful costumes that streamed long the sidewalks from across the railroad tracks. Oh yes, that was the deep south of th 50's. But my first parade in new Orleans was magical. I feel in love with NOLA.

I stopped and looked around us, listened as church bells from all over the city rang out, the smell of spices thrown into hot grease, meat sizzling on grills, gumbo bubbling in black pots, shouts and curses and flesh against flesh in agony and ecstasy. The words of warning slashed violently on the wall across the alley from us. And I could see before us the burning cathedral, a place of no words where ribbons of Mardi Gras plumes filtered toward the sky like smoke from the terminal crematorium called earth. And the sinner will dissolve into the nothingness of their venality. A warm breeze made its way towards us, brushed against my legs and moved on.
“What are we supposed to get used to, Pinch? The slumbering dawn, the uneven streets, green fungus on the bricks, the smell of roux and fried chicken and oyster po’boys, hot coffee at two in the morning, the cool river mist, music that can change your life in a second? This city is beloved, like Alexandria or Nineveh, where the sun comes out unbroken by septic clouds. But New Orleans was never a sleeping leviathan, nor was it meant to be. It is a place where we will walk into other dimensions, my love, where we will meet the good and the corrupt. Every day this city will be nothing more and nothing less than what we dream.”


Lyn LeJeune-The Beatitudes Network-Rebuilding the Public Libraries in New Orleans, "On Ignatius J. Reilly, Kelly Girls, Expanding Human Valves, and Ghosts," at http://www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com

[tuckgraph]

It is nice seeing so many folks come out for Mardi Gras. For a few hours, people can drop their problems, worries and issues, and try to catch some beads and doubloons. It might sound silly to most people, but it's nectar for the spirit of many others.

[melmcgee]

Thank you so much for the KdV hit. I'm living in California and missing my hometown's big party but I've got my ticket to the Jazz Fest. Wish I could get back for both this year. Tell all your friends to head to NO they need the love and support.
Best to you,

Melinda

[garth1066]

I’m an expatriate New Orleanian, who has followed Le Show since Hell Cats of the White House. 1983? You explained the ways of L.A. to me. Now you fight for N.O. and beautifully explain its ways to the rest of the country. I don’t need or want a hero. Damn you, Harry, you are becoming one. But Thanks.

[antispin]

So what coterie *does* own the Beatitudinales alphabetical? No longer "I like Mike" Moonwalker Jackson? Beats me.

[backhandpath]

Awe Harry Bless Your Heart. Had to miss Da Krewe this year, first time in nearly ten years, but thanks for the great view. You're such a Peach.
I duly hung you onto today's NO News Ladder http://noladder.blogspot.com/
That parade, I swear, even rolled on my birthday one year. It still marks the 'beginning' of the new year for me.
Thanks