MARDI GRAS FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
So, Mardi Gras seems like it is less of a day and more of a lifestyle in New Orleans. What’s the deal?
Mardi Gras is definitely not just a day. It starts on January 6th (Epiphany and Joan of Arc’s birthday) and lasts until Fat Tuesday, which is 40 days before Easter. Since Easter changes every year, so does Mardi Gras. This year it falls on March 4th.
What do you do during Mardi Gras season?
There are parades every week and in increasing numbers as we approach the Big Day. (You can see them all here, and yes, there’s an app for that called the Parade Tracker.) It’s really too much to go to all of them (and some of them are fucked up; there is a long history of racist shit happening through Mardi Gras), so we usually pick the 3-4 we love the most and go to those. My favorites include Chewbaccus (sci-fi themed) and Krewe du Vieux (political satire themed). Oh, and we eat king cakes…a lot of them. There is so much art in New Orleans’ food, architecture, music, and people on any given day, but during Mardi Gras it is extra in all of the most amazing ways. People literally spend all year planning and making things for Mardi Gras.
What do you do on Mardi Gras day?
Mardi Gras is a regular Tuesday in most of the world, but here it is the culmination of weeks of community art and performance and gatherings. In addition to the parades you’ve probably heard about or seen, there are several other important aspects of the day. Usually, people in New Orleans wake up early to costume and then hit the streets. In some neighborhoods, a Skull & Bones gang will wake you up by banging on pans and metal doors. (This is to remind us that we are all gonna die and so we better get out there and live.)
For us, we start the day at St Anne’s walking parade which starts around the corner from our house, and then we wander the streets for the next bunch of hours. We check out some of the formal parades by social aid and pleasure clubs, like Zulu, where people throw beads and other tchotchkes from large, tractor-pulled floats. But we love the informal, walking ones like St Anne’s. We also go out and find some of the Black Maskers in their beautiful beaded suits, and if we’re lucky we might see some Baby Dolls, too. By 3PM, everyone is pretty, um, tired, and it's common that we will head home for some fried chicken or a po’boy and a nap. After nap time, if we don’t go out on the streets again, we watch and heckle the Rex and Comus ball on TV because that shit is fucking insane.
Why is Mardi Gras also called Carnival?
I don’t know exactly, maybe because that’s what it’s called in the rest of the Caribbean region we are related to? Regardless, the theme song that you will hear over and over again here during Mardi Gras is called “Carnival Time” and it’s by an amazing man named Al “Carnival Time” Johnson. You can listen to it here.
I encourage you to join in our festivities wherever you are by listening to our community-supported radio, WWOZ, or exploring our friend’s music map of the city, A Closer Walk, and letting loose in any and all ways you deem appropriate.