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.

Shooting stars burn bright but...

In a different universe tonight would have been the night when we kick off parade season's heavy hitters with the famous "self-proclaimed superkrewe" we all hated to love. On the one hand, Nyx had become the one parade that every New Orleans resident who wasn't actually riding in the parade knew 10 to 20 people who were.  On the other hand, it was led by a con-artist who everyone understood was taking advantage of those 10 to 20 people we all knew. Peruse our Nyx/ Julie Lea archives for a deeper dive into all of that, if you like.  

Certain things have happened over the course of the past year, though. It's a long story but the upshot is we are not going to watch that parade tonight. We do, however, find ourselves treated to some measure of entertainment.

Julie Lea, the captain of the Mystic Krewe of Nyx, and the all-female Nyx organization were sued in Orleans Parish Civil District Court on Wednesday on behalf of former riders in a potential class action that could allow for 3,000-plus ex-members to collect $10,000 each in damages.

The suit, filed in Division G of the Orleans Parish Civil District Court, is a grocery list of accusations against Lea, including allegations of inappropriate use of krewe income, of forcing members to buy supplies exclusively from her husband, of refusing to refund dues from resigning members and of the filing of false public documents.

The suit describes Lea’s alleged pattern of personal profit-taking as “racketeering.”

Here is an absolutely perfect Twitter thread by @FQMule from earlier this week that practically everyone had to fav and share. It gets at the heart of the ritual that so many of us are missing this year.  It talks about the process of cathartic healing and renewal of community that comes at this time. Here's a quick bit from it.

New Orleans has a reputation for being a community, for helping each other in our times of need. It is a well deserved reputation. During this pandemic, New Orleanians have surpassed themselves on giving back and making sure people are taken care of. Why are we different? Well, there is a tie made by shared culture. But Mardi Gras also deserves credit. You see, when we gather for parades, we stand shoulder to shoulder with our neighbors. We may only see them 2 weeks out of the year but they are friends. We share food and laughs and catch up.

I will add one more point. We gather in the streets to see our friends, our neighbors, visitors. But, just as crucially, we see quite a few people we probably don't get along with very much as well. And they, like us, are also at their most.. well.. themselves that they can be. The whole city is there performing a public pageant of itself.  Our floats and costumes convey silliness, joy, imagination, but also frequently they delve into satire placing all of the accumulated angst and absurdity of another year in this strange place on display for us to confront... even if only to laugh at. The exercise allows us to grapple with the most carnivalesque versions of ourselves, our city and all of its problems. We don't solve anything by it. But by immersing ourselves in it we renew our bond with this community and prepare to go through another year with its frustrations and its rewards. 

Anyway tonight is the part of that weeklong ritual when we would have been watching Julie Lea lead a parade of many of our dear friends who we all knew she was ripping off.  Instead we're.. not doing that. But thanks to a lawsuit cleverly timed for filing today, we do get to feel those feelings a little bit. It's nice, kind of. 

Despite its ginormous size, Nyx never really grew into the grand spectacle worthy of that membership. That, in itself, was a sign that something was amiss.  There were a few signature floats like the purse in the photo above. But, mostly, it was a long string of big box double decker floats full of tightly packed riders. The theme was never anything clever. I mean, it was a perfectly cromulent parade by most standards. People always had fun, the krewe members were proud of what they were doing and they did always throw a lot.  But the "superkrewe" status was never what Lea claimed.  It seemed like she was promising everyone something more than she offered. 

At least Lea has made up for some of that now with this year's spectacular crash and burn.  Or, as Doug MacCash puts it in this article,

"Founded in 2011, Carnivals’ most meteoric krewe has since been in disarray."

The most meteoric of meteors has come crashing to Earth. It's not quite the show we wanted but it certainly has been a show. Hopefully some good things come of it in the future.

Go off, Queen

And with that, Julie Lea just entered the grifter hall of fame. 

The application encourages potential members to invest in the possible Nyx 2021 parade as a way of boosting the local economy.

“Paying your membership dues is another way you are supporting small businesses in our city, especially now,” the application reads. “And the best way to make sure that we still have a successful Mardi Gras krewe in the future, even if the city or state decides that that future is delayed until 2022.”

What can one do but just wonder in awe at that. 

Deduct Purse

There are so many points of stress in the social and economic fabric that make up our society. When the times go into tumult you never really know which institutions are going to unravel first. So many things feel like they're up in the air right now in the midst of a global pandemic, a deepening recession, a growing street revolt against the police state, etc. etc.

Somehow the first thing to really break under the pressure in New Orleans, though, is a Mardi Gras parade is destroyed by an Instagram post.

KIPP Schools in New Orleans became the latest group on Friday night to join others vowing not to march with the Mystic Krewe of Nyx in future parades after krewe's captain Julie Lea's recent insensitive social media post on one of the krewe's accounts.

Of course the uprising is about a lot more than just that one "insensitive" post. That's really just spark that lit the powder keg. Most long time fans of the serial will recall at least some of the highlights from previous episodes.  We've known for a while that Julie Leas was kind of a sketchy character. She'd been fired as Delgado's police chief for facilitating a double dipping scheme for officers on security details. This business over a "stolen" T-Shirt idea was odd.

Former Nyx member, attorney Taetrece Harrison, argued that in 2016 krewe captain Julie Lea stole her idea for throwing T-shirts after she left the organization. Her argument successfully netted her a temporary restraining order on the krewe's shirt throw when Judge Paulette Irons of the Civil District Court for Orleans Parish ordered it Feb. 13. But on Thursday, attorneys for Lea and Nyx, Chip Morrison and Jana McCaffrey, succeeded in getting Judge Sidney Cates IV to both dissolve that order and dismiss Harrison's suit to ban the shirts permanently.

Incidentally there is a Schaylece Harrison on the First City Court ballot July 11. It would be remarkable if these two lawyers were not related.

But that's not important right now. Because now, in what we suppose must be some sort of irony given the wider context, the cops have been called on Lea.

New Orleans police said Friday they have opened an internal investigation following allegations made by a former member of the krewe that in 2012, an NOPD officer — who is the husband of Nyx Captain Julie Lea — helped her obtain a Krewe of Muses waiting list by hacking into that krewe's website.

It's always been part of the Nyx origin myth that the club grew out of the Muses waiting list.  Kind of weird nobody ever talked about how before.  Turns out there's a lot of opportunity in waiting lists. Lea seemed to figure that out pretty well.

Jennifer Edwards, a former treasurer for the organization, said she quit over Lea's business dealings with the krewe. Edwards said Lea formed a separate company from the nonprofit Krewe of Nyx in order to collect fees from prospective members who wanted to add their names to the waiting list.

“So you had to pay, I think it was $75, to be on the wait list,” Edwards said. “That money went to a separate entity and never flowed back to the Krewe of Nyx.”

About four years ago, there were Facebook rumors circulating about misappropriated funds. Now we have a better picture of that as well.  The fees went into the Deduct Purse. Anyway, like we said, much of this has been sitting more or less in plain sight for years.  Just waiting for the right moment.

We have to do something

They delayed the Morganza again. 

Enough pussyfooting around with all the knobs and dials on the river. Time to call close enough good enough and let it all rip. I mean we have to do something, right?  What is the worst that could happen?

Scientists don't yet know what precise weather conditions could overwhelm the Old River complex, but anything stronger than the 2011 event would present a "real risk," and the risk will continue to increase as more sediment is deposited in the channel, Xu said.

“These changes diminish the river’s capacity to carry water on its current course. When sections of the river’s floor rise to a sufficient point, a sudden increase in flow — perhaps from a flood — could drive the Mississippi River to overwhelm the control structure and adopt a new path, potentially causing the Mississippi to be captured by the Atchafalaya,” his research summary states.

Okay okay but there's too much nerdy engineering in all that.  Tell us about something else bad that could happen.

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) - As hurricane season approaches, one expert said he worries what kind of impact high water in the Mississippi River will have in an active hurricane.

Though river levels will likely be lower during the peak of the season, Alex Kolker -- a coastal sciences professor at Tulane and LSU’s Marine Consortium -- said storms still pose a threat.

High river levels this year have forced an unprecedented opening of the Bonne Carre Spillway and, likely, the Morganza.

“This river is managed for river floods and it’s managed relatively well. The one thing it’s not managed for is if you were to have a hurricane and a river flood at the same time,” Kolker said. “A high river like we have now, in late August, that would be a bigger concern.”

Yeah but that's not very likely to be something we are gonna have to worry about in June, right?  Right?

Ugh! Look, fine. Everyone, let's all do our civic duty to be as pro-actively freaked out as possible because that is supposed to help for some reason. But can we also maybe try and live our lives in the meantime?   LaToya says we are too busy in the summer hunkering down and whatnot to have a parade but I would like to see the evidence for this.

The Mystic Krewe of Nyx has responded to New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell's decision to nix plans to host a summer parade.

On Monday, Cantrell rejected the proposed July parade citing "public safety resources in the middle of hurricane season."

Nyx leadership announced plans for the parade in May. The 8-year-old, all-female krewe wanted to become the first major krewe in Carnival history to have two parades in a single year. They would have rolled on July 27.

That's not a good reason to deny the permit.  A better reason to deny it would be because, even though there are plenty of parades that happen outside of Carnival season all year long, including several during the summer months, this particular organization is captained by a con artist who is constantly looking for ways to leverage her position into one ponzi scheme after another. The summer parade was probably one of those.

As of this writing, the Freret "summer strut" is apparently still on. My guess is that is because a second line style event is subtle enough to get a pass while Nyx had a big attention-getting downtown parade with Kern floats and stuff planned.  A lot of Julie Lea's problems tend to issue from her never having learned to sophisticate up the corruption.

Anyway, just saying we don't have enough cops during the summer is nonsense. The State Troopers in the Quarter are so bored, in fact, they are shooting people for minor traffic violations. And, really, what would it hurt to pull a few NOPD off of curfew enforcement duty for a day? According to almost every expert rounded up in this story, the curfew does more harm than good anyway.  They tried telling that to the Cantrell people but were defeated by logic.

A 2016 article in The Guardian also raised the problem of curfew laws increasing police interaction with youth that isn’t always positive. "It was really kind of scary to have them treat you like a hardened criminal,” a 19-year-old who was stopped for a curfew violation told the newspaper: 

New Orleans officials said they are aware of the research questioning the effectiveness of curfew laws, but Stevens said officials concluded the enforcement is in the best interest of public safety.

“Right now, it’s important that we do something, and we have to do something with a sense of saving our young people to the streets,” Stevens said. “One way is to start to let them know laws are in place. You need to abide by the law that’s in place.”

"We have to do something"

"Ok but that thing you are doing is ineffective and probably harmful."

"But we have to do something."

QED

If the Corps of Engineers had that attitude, we'd have opened Morganza weeks ago.