Happy Lundi Gras
If anyone not from New Orleans would like to get a little taste of the New Orleans magic, they should definately go to the Mardi Gras. Forget Mardi Gras in Mobile or Washington or any other city that claims to hold Mardi Gras sacred. Mardi Gras is not just a parade , dressing up, eating king cake, listeneing to New Orleans music or knowing how to get a good pair of beads on Bourbon street or any other street for that matter. It's a spiritual thing. Not just religious but spiritual.
Mardi Gras is magic. Not figuratively but really magic. How else can you explain the transformations that happen to just about everyone in New Orleans when Mardi Gras time grows near. I've seen every type of person swear that they weren't doing Mardi Gras this year and then get up at 5am on Fat Tuesday and out to get a spot. I've seen young, old, black, white, rich, poor, religious and not so religios come together for the "party". Something about that day brings out the Coon-ass in all of us. You don't have to be born in the city to be effected by it.
When you stand in the street and smell New Orleans in the night air while dancing to the big bass drum from the Saint Aug purple knights. While you eat a moon pie , drink a beer and watch Bacchas or Endymion roll by. You look up in the hazy night and see the beads hanging from the Oak trees or look back at the balcony and see the Mardi Gras party going on. You go to your
"Mom an them's" and eat Popeyes chicken waiting on the next parade. The beads are so thick around your neck that you have a hard time putting your little boy or little girl on your shoulders to see the Parade. Even while you watch the young and old out of towners talk people out of their clothes for beads or even pass out yourself on the blanket in the middle of the neutral ground while everyone steps over you for the beads and cups being thrown from floats. You are feeling some of Mardi Gras. During Mardi gras the inhabitions take over at some level and start to feel like a New Orleanean. It's a kind of initiation into a not so secret club that you can never leave. Once you feel it you are addicted. Your experience can be as extreme as you want it to be or as docile as you like. But you will have an experience.
Straight people come from miles around to watch the gay parades and costumes. Gay people show up in Metairie to have the family experience. Black people dance with White people and White people show up on Claiborne ave to see the Mardi Gras Indians in all of their grandeur.
Kids fight with old people for throws and Old people enjoy being young again for a day.
I still haven't completely explained the magic but I did touch on it.
Happy Lundi Gras
Mardi Gras is magic. Not figuratively but really magic. How else can you explain the transformations that happen to just about everyone in New Orleans when Mardi Gras time grows near. I've seen every type of person swear that they weren't doing Mardi Gras this year and then get up at 5am on Fat Tuesday and out to get a spot. I've seen young, old, black, white, rich, poor, religious and not so religios come together for the "party". Something about that day brings out the Coon-ass in all of us. You don't have to be born in the city to be effected by it.
When you stand in the street and smell New Orleans in the night air while dancing to the big bass drum from the Saint Aug purple knights. While you eat a moon pie , drink a beer and watch Bacchas or Endymion roll by. You look up in the hazy night and see the beads hanging from the Oak trees or look back at the balcony and see the Mardi Gras party going on. You go to your
"Mom an them's" and eat Popeyes chicken waiting on the next parade. The beads are so thick around your neck that you have a hard time putting your little boy or little girl on your shoulders to see the Parade. Even while you watch the young and old out of towners talk people out of their clothes for beads or even pass out yourself on the blanket in the middle of the neutral ground while everyone steps over you for the beads and cups being thrown from floats. You are feeling some of Mardi Gras. During Mardi gras the inhabitions take over at some level and start to feel like a New Orleanean. It's a kind of initiation into a not so secret club that you can never leave. Once you feel it you are addicted. Your experience can be as extreme as you want it to be or as docile as you like. But you will have an experience.
Straight people come from miles around to watch the gay parades and costumes. Gay people show up in Metairie to have the family experience. Black people dance with White people and White people show up on Claiborne ave to see the Mardi Gras Indians in all of their grandeur.
Kids fight with old people for throws and Old people enjoy being young again for a day.
I still haven't completely explained the magic but I did touch on it.
Happy Lundi Gras
posted by Tim at 1:08 PM
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