A little bit of fun's never been an insurrection

 

We are parking according to our own individual levels of risk aversion this year

These signs were eventually explained by the mayor, btw. Good luck figuring out what she means

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of rituals lately.  Actually let's call "lately" the last couple of years. Beginning around the time of 2020's Carnival of bad vibes and portents, and then throughout everything that followed that time, I think we've probably all become a bit more introspective spiritually.  Early on during that season, probably the first Sunday, (I have foggy memories) I received a talisman.

Surely the appearance of the jaguar, our city's adopted avatar of defiance in the face of oppression, was a sign.  Our spirit animal had come to give us strength in trying times. As it turned out we would need it. Carnival 2020 was a difficult tumult of bad scenes and bad vibes that played out under the shadow of a crumbled Hard Rock hotel, the husk of which still held the remains of victims trapped by its collapse. Throughout the season, the universe seemed to be signaling its disapproval.  The chaotic weather caused controversial cancellations and reschedulings of some of the season's main events. Not one but two parade goers were shockingly crushed to death by floats. The city was headed for a major reckoning over these events before the pandemic drew everyone's attention to even worse problems. 

I kept the jaguar around my neck through all of that.  Did it help?  Maybe. Valerio didn't stop the bad things from happening.  But that isn't how talismans work. Their magic is not so profane. We keep them close and observe their rituals for a higher purpose. They are objects of contemplation, inspiration or humiliation if necessary. The fable of Valerio is about our will to freedom and a warning of what happens when we are unprepared to win it. It also tells us that tragedies and ecstasies travel in each other's wake.  On Thoth Sunday, 2020, my bike ride back uptown after getting off the float took me through the Quarter. I go the long way around so that I don't have to cross over the parade route during Bacchus. As I passed near the Hard Rock sarcophagus, I stopped, clasped the jaguar figure around my neck and gave it a kiss.  The bad vibes Carnival 2020 was about wind down.  A few days later we would close it out watching a Rex parade titled "Omens and Auguries." 

Whatever it was we may have done wrong in 2020, the pandemic has forced us to wait a full two years before we've had a chance to break the spell. I have decided to treat this Carnival as more of a sacrament than a party. If we do it correctly, there will no doubt be some room for joy. But the fundamental focus is on performing the rituals. For me, thus far, this has meant paying homage to parade season's iconic totems as they roll down the street. I have dutifully visited and genuflected before the following:

 

 The Phunny Phorty Phellows streetcar

 

 

 

The fabulous Krewe Du Vieux

 

 

 

The enigmatic AllaGator 

 

 

 

The majestic Sparta helmet

 

 

 

And the mighty Pygmammoth

 

 

I have heard the rapturous sounds of the Southern University Marching Band leading the Krewe of Femme Fatale on a Sunday morning. I have been greeted by King Arthur.  I have taken communion a few times over in the form of consecrated moonpies handed down from the deacon riders.  I've met Elvis.

I even made my own king cake. 

 

 

A little bit, uh.. rustic looking, I guess. But home baking is more about the meditative process than it is about style. I'd never done this before and this seemed like the year to try. It's a simple recipe I can post it later. [Update: There it is!] The result wasn't as light and fluffy as your Gambino's or Randazzo's or what have you. But it also wasn't as dense and bready as Rouses so I think that's a success. And if we happened to exorcise any demons in the process, well, that's all the better.  There are still plenty more to face.  

 

The pall cast over 2020 still hasn't been satisfactorily vanquished. We never got to have the promised citywide discussion about parade safety. Instead the mayor and the police have made the summary decision to shorten most of the routes. The new routes emphasize only the most tourist-intensive parts of town and have been described as "ruinous for locals."

Many krewe members and parade goers said they have emailed and continue to email City Hall to request that their neighborhood parade continue without change.

“This whole plan is ruinous regarding Carnival for local residents and families,” said Richard Parisi, who has watched Thoth line up near his house for over 40 years. “Thoth is for locals more than for visitors — and this arrangement is going to ruin that.”

The Krewe of Thoth originally did not parade to Canal Street, Larson said. It was solely an Uptown parade until the early 1960s, when Mayor Chep Morrison requested the krewe extend its route to pass in front of his newly built City Hall.

Now, Larson said, the krewe is willing to go back to its roots and give up the downtown part of the route to keep Thoth on Henry Clay.

The city didn't take Thoth's offer to trade the downtown part of its route in order to keep its traditional pass in front of Children's Hospital and other uptown homes for "shut-ins."  No explanation was given.  Nor was it explained why similar favors were granted to Zulu and to Endymion each of which was allowed to maintain the unique traditional portions of their routes with minimal changes near downtown. Although, one could argue, in Endymion's case, that cutting out the Howard Avenue portion just makes sense given that it would take the parade by the troubled Plaza Tower. Why take the chance of anyone even having to think about a collapsing building during Mardi Gras this time around.  

It has been suggested by apologists for Cantrell and NOPD that the route changes are temporary. But there is little evidence for that in the actual statements made by either of them.

Officials stressed that these changes are temporary but did not say how much additional manpower the city would need to go back to the original routes.  

“If that traditional spot that you’re used to being on … has changed this year, just know that we will consider that again coming for 2023 and future parade years to come,” Police Chief Shaun Ferguson said. “But we must be real with what we have right now and work with the capacity in which we can to make sure that the city is safe.”

Meanwhile, the fix for 2020's other lingering issue could hardly feel any more temporary, or at least thrown together for the sake of expedience. The plan for avoiding a repeat of the horrific accidents that killed two parade goers last time out is to simply slap a little piece of netting along the gaps between tandem floats. 

In an interview earlier Wednesday, float builder Barry Kern said a City Hall representative asked him several months ago to design something to make tandem Mardi Gras floats safer. Kern, CEO and president of Mardi Gras World and Kern Studios, said he’s conceived a device that is “basically like a cargo net” strung between float segments on “heavy duty bungee cords.” The device, which is still being designed, will be translucent, flexible and “not super complicated,” he said.

Look, I really hope Kern's "not super complicated" solution is the right fit. I wasn't too happy with some of the more draconian ideas floated earlier such as barricading the entire route or having escorts walk along the floats to shoo people away. This idea preserves the experience much better. But is it actually any safer?  I saw a few of these over the weekend and I can see why some might doubt it. 

Probably the bright orange netting seen here during Cleopatra on Friday night...

 

 ...is a little bit better than the all black netting seen here during Sparta on Saturday night. 

At least at night, anyway.  Day or night, the thought also occurred to me that the netting might actually make the floats into more of a hazard if someone happened to get caught up in it.  Maybe that's unlikely.  I don't know. Just don't go tugging on it or trying to climb around like Spiderman while you're out there. I'll sleep better knowing you didn't. 

Anyway, that only covers matters of bad vibes left over from early 2020.  Since that time, new disturbances have arisen.  For example, one question on everyone's mind now: is there even such a thing as an ex-superkrewe? Or maybe the term is ex-so-called superkrewe.  We need a new word for this, whatever it is. 

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - This year will look different for the Mystic Krewe of NYX.

“We are rebuilding our sisterhood. We’re very excited about having a smaller group to just rebuild and restart and reconnect with each other,” said Julie Lea, Captain of NYX.

The dramatic decline in membership came after a controversial social media post by Lea at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. Some NYX members even staged a protest, calling for her to resign.

In 2021, former riders sued Lea in civil district court claiming a list of accusations including improper use of krewe funds. Her attorney denied those allegations.

Take a spin through our archives following the NYXcapades over the years and ask us if we could possibly have seen anything like this coming.  NYX always struck us as some kind of scam. The overt racism is really just the last straw. Of course, one of the things you do learn in the multi-level marketing game is that, sometimes losing 3,000 of your nearest and dearest suckers is really the best thing that could happen to you.  At least that's what Julie says. 

In 2020, NYX staged its largest parade ever with 82 floats and 3,400 riders.

For 2022, the krewe will present 17 floats with 240 riders.

“It is a big change,” said Lea. “And I think what we’re finding just moving forward is, again, those personal connections. When you’re over 3,000... 3,400, it’s very hard to make the personal connections.”

“Even though we did it, and everyone was very friendly with each other, it was hard to get to know folks on a one-on-one.”

Really looking forward to making a few one-on-one connections with the NYX rump this Wednesday.  They're rolling with 7 percent of the folks they brought along on their last parade but the odds that any one of them might throw you a confederate flag have skyrocketed. 

As the newly self-appointed spiritual adviser to Carnival 2022, my guidance to you, in case this does happen, is to just let it drop.  Kick it away if you have to, like the woman at Gallier Hall says she did in this story. But if you happen to catch any confederate flags or "Lee Circle" beads or anything like that what you should not do is post them. Do not put them on Instagram and tag the mayor in for comment. Do not call Doug MacCash to manufacture some cheap NOLAdotcom content out of it. These are evil talismans. They are anti-Valerio. Cycling them up through the media only gives power to them and to the trolls who choose to wield them.  Just look at the curses already conjured by their cult.

Co-chair James Reiss III, a representative of the Rex organization, warned against the tossing of "illegal/political” throws, perhaps heading off incidents of recent years such as distributing Confederate flag beads or beads advocating the preservation of the Robert E. Lee monument in New Orleans.

Reiss cautioned against the overly enthusiastic tossing of throws at the Gallier Hall reviewing stand, where visiting VIPs gather. And he said bands should pause to perform at Gallier Hall for only 30 seconds.

Have we ever seen anything like this before?  In over a hundred years of these style of parades have we ever had an official warning from the city government (well, it's James Reiss so it's from the shadow government but close enough) that the "VIP"s are worried about being beaned by "overly enthusiastic" float riders? This is bad vibes all around.  The antagonists on either side of it feed off of each other. 

Again, my advice, don't look at it, Marion. The only revelation to be found is destruction.  I mean, I don't think anyone ought to throw confederate flag beads either. But "political" can mean a lot of things. You see a lot of political commentary at Mardi Gras. There is political satire from the left (well, center-left anyway) in Krewe du Vieux or from the right in Chaos and Krewe D'etat. Muses is often politically themed although played straight down the conventional center for the most part.  You can agree or disagree with or be amused or offended by any of that. But what you really do not want is the likes of James Reiss deciding for you what kind of political is and isn't acceptable. 

There is an inherent politics in Carnival. But its appeal is more universalist than partisan.  Carnival rituals, most of the time, end up reinforcing existing hierarchies through the absurdist pantomime of their inversion. But they also serve to stoke the imagination and maintain the idea that subversion is achievable. In an early chapter of the recently published The Dawn of Everything the late anthropologist David  Graeber and his co-author the archaeologist David Wengrow have this to say about Carnivalistic traditions.

What's really important about such festivals is that they kept the old spark of political self-consciousness alive. They allowed people to imagine that other arrangements are feasible, even for society as a whole, since it was always possible to fantasize about carnival bursting its seams and becoming the new reality. In the popular Babylonian story of Semiramis, the eponymous servant girl convinces the Assyrian king to let her be "Queen for a Day" during some annual festival, promptly has him arrested, declares herself empress, and leads her new armies to conquer the world. May Day came to be chosen as the date for the international workers' holiday largely because so many British peasant revolts had historically begun on that riotous festival. Villagers who played at "turning the world upside" would periodically decide they actually preferred the world upside down, and took measures to keep it that way.

Carnival offers people a dream of a different world. These are rituals of hope. There is something political buried in them but it is politics of a deep spiritual nature. The city's attempts to restrain it, over-police it, and reduce it to a wholly commercial product are an act of sacrilegious political repression. They're a strike at the civic soul. 

How do we defend ourselves from this kind of spiritual warfare?  Well we have our mantra supplied by the (occasionally lapsed) priest Arthur Hardy. Every year his Mardi Gras bible publishes the same Mardi Gras FAQ. Our favorite call and response verse:

Q: Is Mardi Gras staged for visitors?

A: Not really. While the "greatest free show on earth" draws hundreds of thousands of visitors, that is not its purpose. Mardi Gras is a party the city throws for itself.

We have our Sentinel supplied this year by the artist Simone Leigh. This is her Prospect 5 installation at the circle we once named after Robert E Lee.

The text below the sculpture reads:
 

Simone Leigh’s bronze sculpture Sentinel (Mami Wata) is sited at the base of the pedestal that once held a monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The title of this work means “guard” or “watchman,” and it honors the work done by activists, citizens, and New Orleans city officials to remove symbols of white supremacy from public view, while also suggesting the possibility for a new protective spirit at this central downtown location. Sentinel (Mami Wata) takes the diversity of African cultures in New Orleans as a starting point, evoking African folklore and spiritualities. Mami Wata, a water spirit or deity, is known under many names across the African diaspora, including Yemaya, Yemoja, and Iemanja. Leigh’s sculpture holds forms of knowledge that have been passed down through spiritual and masking traditions in the city and beyond, wherein masking signifies transformation, not simply concealment.

Celebrating rituals and practices throughout the African diaspora that includes New Orleans, Sentinel (Mami Wata) marks a new chapter in the history of the renamed Egalité Circle, wherein the site represents one point in a larger constellation of public art, conversation, and historical memory. This constellation decenters whiteness and the legacies of colonialism, renewing access to knowledge and culture that has been suppressed by the falsehoods of white supremacy. Rather than perched atop the imposing multistory column that served as the pedestal for the Lee monument, this new work of art sits at ground level, not looming over people but emerging from among us. Leigh's sculpture is a temporary proposal for what could stand in the place of the previous monument—Sentinel (Mami Wata) will remain at Egalité Circle for a brief period before making space for other histories and narratives.

And, of course, we have our patron St. Valerio. Ready as ever to guide us through another ordeal as we solemnly seek to purge the demons of past seasons of misrule.

Putting St. Valerio out in the kitchen to protect our home from bad vibes this Carnival season pic.twitter.com/sPvLexCUPL

— skooks (@skooks) February 18, 2022

 It's Carnival time again. Meet me on the other side, another direction.