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February 2001

New Orleans (Mardi Gras)

David Aaronson
2005-09-25 16:51:22

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official Mardi Gras accessories consisted of a blue-black feather boa and the peacock feather mask shown here. David was limited to a jester hat which didn't last long on Mardi Gras day because it turned out to be quite warm. It was well into the 80s (27 C) by the time the parade showed up.

Rex may be the oldest Krewe in New Orleans, depending on who you believe, but it seems certain that they were the first to begin parading. One of the grand traditions of the Rex parade is the Boeuf float seen here (3). We're not really sure why but it's a tradition so it probably doesn't matter. There's a marching band in front of this float and we really feel sorry for them. A six mile parade route in those temperature and those costumes cannot have been particularly enjoyable.

The Rex theme for the year was "Illustrious Illustrators" which naturally tended to deal with children's books. We didn't recognize all the works represented and even less of the names. This may be a representation of Winnie the Pooh or it may not (4). That's the problem with illustrators - if A.A.Milne didn't do the original drawings, we don't know who did and we can't remember the name on this one anyway.

This however is definately Beatrix Potter as you might notice from the sign in front of the float (5). The costumes of the people on the float matched a character from the books in question. For instance, on the Tenniel float (Alice in Wonderland) the masked bead-throwers were dressed as playing cards. We aren't sure what they represent here although they had some particularly nice beads.

Here are a couple more recognizable floats (6). This of course is the Cat in the Hat on the Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) float with Cat In the Hat costumed bead throwers as well. There's also a grinch back there behind him. Coming up behind this float is the Maurice Sendak float perhaps best known for "Where the Wild Things Are". You might also pick out some more sousaphones and some marching military-type folk with bayonets because it is a parade after all. Its important to have these separating elements in the parade to give everyone time to pick up the doubloons between floats.

The backpack was full once again and we returned to the room to rest, unload, and then later reload for the truck parades. The truck parades seem to go on forever and we spent about two or three more hours before giving up and going in search of food. The rate of return of particularly good beads from the truck parades is rather low compared to Rex, Orpheus, and other Krewes.

The next day we headed home where upon arriving we weighed the booty in at 28 pounds (12.7 kg). Here is the scene when we emptied the bag on the floor (7). The doubloons are particularly notable, and some of the crayfish beads can be seen amongst them.

Some of the more interestingly shaped beads we received included playing cards, hearts, disco balls, and footballs (for lack of a better name) (8). At some point when you return from Mardi Gras, you start to wonder why you spent so much effort collecting 28 pounds of beads and what you are going to do with them. We sent several pounds off to various people by mail (especially people with cats) and we don't have an answer for the rest quite yet, but we do expect to have a slightly differently themed Christmas tree this year.