http://livingriver.eu/?page_id=86 The exuviae of Mardi Gras. And Lent begins.
Monthly Archives: February 2009
Ashes to Ashes.
25-Feb-09From Krewe D’Etat.
23-Feb-09The joys of living in New Orleans. If you have a mortgage, you need flood insurance – which in certain areas is like another mortgage. Plus high taxes. And no jobs either. And the famous water and sewer board, where nothing gets done. New Orleans water is famously filled with all of middle-America’s effluent. Certain […]
Letting the Days Go By.
23-Feb-09At the Krewe D’Etat parade I spoke with an English emigre who had come to Tulane as a graduate student and ended up moving to New Orleans. “I basically begged and pleaded and did anything I could to make sure I could stay here, and here I am. Twenty years later.” He was a “sculptor […]
The Mystic Krewe of Hermes.
23-Feb-09I was astonished on Friday night by the floats of the “Mystic Krewe of Hermes,” a krewe which prides itself on its traditional, secret, and indeed hermetic ways. The parade was dubbed “The Retinue of Dionysus,” but I expected mythology from the parade about as much as I would expect a presentation on the Homeric […]
Krewe D’Etat.
22-Feb-09On Friday Krewe D’Etat and Hermes rolled uptown. I met friends at Napoleon and St. Charles in the evening, where a huge crowd was gathered. Krewe D’Etat was another satiric parade, aiming not only at the New Orleans targets but commenting on broader social phenomena as well, from oil companies to Amy Winehouse. This made […]
New Orleans Levee.
21-Feb-09I’ve already mentioned the satirical paper The New Orleans Levee. But the more you contemplate these things, the funnier they appear to be. The paper, an Onion-style sendup of New Orleans, has the motto “We Don’t Hold Anything Back.” And the website is N.O. Levee, which comes out to www.nolevee.com.
St. Jeremiah Altars.
21-Feb-09Chaos and Muses.
20-Feb-09The Krewe of Chaos were supposed to roll after Muses last night, but somehow they got in front of Muses and when turning the corner of Magazine and St. Charles, one of their floats broke its “wagon tongue” – the hitch between the tractor and the float (the float is carried on a 130-year-old wagon […]
Mardi Gras Out of Context.
20-Feb-09The parades roll in earnest now – every day there is something worth seeing. But it’s good to take little snapshots out of context. Last night, I was eating french fries at a bar on Magazine Street. As my companion bit into a burger, I saw behind him through the window a giant bathtub, 50 […]
Death and life in New Orleans.
20-Feb-09When I got back from my excursion to the shrine of St. Vera, I tried to settle myself down to an afternoon of laborious composition. After a few minutes I heard some scuffling in the neighbor’s yard, and having no particular focus for my thoughts yet, I looked out my window. I saw two dogs […]