It’s Carnival Time and, Everybody’s Having Fun!

by Loren Penton

You can just feel the excitement and expectation as Al Johnson's classic hit blares from every storefront and radio station in the Crescent City of New Orleans. It’s official, carnival season kicked off Feb 19th with the traditional Krewe du Vieux parade through the Faubourg Marigny and French Quarter. This is definitely an adult oriented parade with major political themes (lots of BP oil spill references) and not for those with delicate constitutions. To keep this blog “g-rated” we are not able to post the pictures of some our our favorite floats. This years theme was “20 Years Wasted!”, and if you were not here for the festivities, you should make plans for next year, today.

We got to the parade a little late; here’s a few photos from our dis-advantage point. Was a huge and raucous crowd and one couldn’t help but get the feeling that this town is ready to throw a party.

This past weekend was Bywater’s own Petite Rex parade, which rolled right in front of the Maison de Macarty, our home and guest house. As this was our first Mardi Gras on Burgundy Street, and ‘tite Rex, as it is called, is a relatively new krewe, we had no idea what to expect of this organization that bills itself as New Orleans' only micro-krewe. One of my favorite childhood memories of the elementary school year in New Orleans was the post-Christmas anticipation of Mardi Gras. Not only because we got a Tuesday off from school, were hauled off to the great-aunt’s house on Magazine Street and shoved on the top of rickety ladders for 6 hours to become human targets for the (by that time) very drunk revelers who would hurl handfuls of beads and doubloons at our heads from the passing floats; but also because we got to make shoe box floats.

For those reading this who have never experienced Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and who did not attend catholic or public school down here, you’re probably having a “wtf” moment. Just try to imagine yourself as 6 or 8 again, being handed a shoe box, construction paper, glue, scissors, paint, and told to build your own Mardi Gras float because we would be having our own parade at school the Monday before the big day and the best float would win a prize. Being a child (and adult) who is not very artistically inclined, and who is somewhat color blind; let’s just say my first attempt at a float was, as Sister Mary Ignacius would say “lacking in inspiration”. But I am somewhat of a technical geek, and as a child enjoyed blowing things up. You know, like ant hills, playing Pearl Harbor with my model ship collection in our swimming pool with a bunch of M-80s, shooting bottle rockets and lobbing “hand grenades” at my brother; that sort of thing. So the following year I decided to wow the Sister by adding pyrotechnics to the design; which involved lighter fluid and sparklers left over from New Years.

After the fire department left and we cleaned up what remained of my classmate’s projects, it was unanimously decided that maybe I took the challenge a little too seriously and was banned from all future school contests that could possibly result in explosions and/or fire.

Anyway, this is what Petite Rex is like; except on a grander scale. All of the floats are miniature; but small does not mean little in this case. We are talking about some very creative people here, many of whom hand-crafted miniature throws. We’re looking forward to many more ‘tite Rex parades in the future, and we may even get involved in the fun (we’ll notify the fire department ahead of time).

If you go:

Maison de Macarty Guest House
3820 Burgundy Street
New Orleans, Louisiana
(504) 267-1564
inquiries@maisonmacarty.com
Reservations, rates, and room information avaliable at http://www.maisonmacarty.com

Krewe du Vieux
http://www.kreweduvieux.org/

http://www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/mardigras/parades.html
for Mardi Gras parade schedules and routes