Friday, February 24, 2006

Carnival

There are lots of different ways to do Mardi Gras, you know.

What you'll see on CNN this weekend and on until Tuesday - drunken throngs pushing through the French Quarter, girls on balconies, the crowds packed like sardines around the barricades at the parades on Canal - that's Mardi Gras, for sure. The fact that it's mainly tourists and a few die-hard locals doesn't diminish the fact. It's the most well-known aspect of a multifaceted thing.

But the pagans and hippies and crusties and hipsters in the Marigny and Bywater? That's another Mardi Gras. It's a big one, too - a deep and complex celebration running just a few blocks from the insanity on Bourbon Street, but miles away all the same.

Then there's black Mardi Gras, with Indians and cookouts, social clubs and crowds under the interstate on Claiborne. I haven't had the honor of seeing much of that one, but it's Mardi Gras, for sure.

And Metairie's a whole different thing - parades and crowds and beads, yeah, but a whole different flavor, a whole different set of traditions.

And then there's St. Charles Avenue, where I'll be. No barricades, for sure, and smaller crowds. Yes, there's parades and beads, and we'll drink a lot of beer, but there are kids and grandparents, college students and families, locals and tourists. People will chat with strangers, cops will walk a lost kid back to his parents.

So what I'm saying is what you see in a fifteen-second spot on the news this week? The three drunk college guys, heads immobile from huge beads, hooting at the camera? That's not all there is. It is, no shit, a cultural event unique in the United States. It's the way these people celebrate their culture - as important to them, in its way, as being in church on Sunday is to a Baptist. It's heritage and history and celebration - the last, particularly, is in dire need in New Orleans.

And that's where I'll be for a few days. Don't rob my house.

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