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Saturday, February 18, 2012

Fat Friday photos

The Skeleton Krewe dropped off a Krewe D'Etat bulletin with us. Here is an unfortunately lidded Clay looking it over.

Krewe D'Etat Bulletin

And they say print is a dying medium.

My favorite D'Etat moment was the Garland/Heebe themed float. It featured such oft-mumbled Garland quotes as "Maybe I'm just not smart enough" and "Can't someone explain this to me?" Naturally, I have no photo. I did manage to get these shots, however.

Bobby Hebert

Bobby Hebert

The, now it seems, obligatory "Ain't Dere No More" theme

Ain't Dere No More float

Earlier, the Hermes floats were staggeringly beautiful. Taking their theme from Persian literary forms, Hermes proved itself once again the krewe most likely to send parade-goers scrambling to Wikipedia.

Anyway, like I said, the parade looked gorgeous. But don't take my crappy photography for it.

Hermes floats

Please refer, instead, to the Uptown Messenger's coverage.

Morpheus was a re-run of several floats we'd seen already in King Arthur and in Nyx.

This one, for example, was float 18 in Morpheus.

Morpheus float

But was the title float during King Arthur.

Louisiana Bicentennial

This is perfectly normal, of course. But really the parades with re-rerun floats and lightweight theming should probably roll during a daytime or mid-week slot and not anchor the schedule on the second Friday night.


Meanwhile, it's Saturday afternoon and raining. This doesn't feel like an Endymion year to me... although we may take a look at Chewbacchus. While we're waiting, here are some riddles to ponder.

First, last night was my first encounter with one of these sign-toting preachers this far Uptown on the St. Charles Avenue parade route.

Jesus sign

What are the odds he had been kicked off of Bourbon Street by Kristin Palmer or Leo Watermeir?

At the end of the Morpheus parade, this cart invited people to throw their beads back at it so that they could be recycled.

Recycle cart

A noble idea although I'm wondering, given this enforcement initiative, if it doesn't actually constitute entrapment.

And finally, today's T-P answers the question I asked the other night about the Endymion floats I saw being moved down Poydras Street.

Determined to roll as scheduled, Krewe of Endymion officials took extraordinary measures late this week, going so far as to wrap their massive Mardi Gras floats in plastic and position them in lineup formation inside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Endymion president Dan Kelly said officials can now move the floats to the staging area as late as 3 p.m. Saturday. The city will allow the parade to start as late as 7 p.m., he said.


Last night I was asked if granting Endymion use of the Convention Center for float storage at the last minute... apparently for free... was a new practice. If so, can other parading organizations request this special favor should they need it in the future or is only Endymion so privileged? Or if the club is being charged for use of the space, how was that arrangement arrived at? Does the club have room in its budget for an emergency expenditure like this? Anyway, I didn't have an answer to that so I'm taking a page from Garland's book and asking if maybe someone can explain it to me.

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