Parades: The Bean Parade!!!!

Two blog posts in one day... yup. It's a record.

But I had to write a second time today because I went to the Mardi Gras Bean parade, and really, I am not going to have a lot of time to write tomorrow.

The Bean Parade is a small local parade that marches through The Marigny (a small neighborhood just past the French Quarter). All costumes are made with or of beans. Remember we eat a lot of beans down here (as in red beans and rice). In a bit of a parade reversal, viewers throw rice at the parade, providing the "other" key ingredient.

The parade began with a bean car...

The parade's king-of-beans

Little Bean Peep

There is a tradition in New Orleans that small, localized parades are often political satires, and for over a hundred years, locals protest the parades' themes, providing opposing political satire---all done in good fun. We decided to watch the parade in this tradition, and prepared satiric protest signs to flash as the parade cavalcaded by...

Many locals showed up both to march and to watch.

Crawfish and child

Crawfish daddy

Athena and feline attendant

 Close-up of Athena's Medusa shield.

She takes her beans very seriously!

The Queen of Beans

Rice monster!!

The Treme Brass band, one of the best second line bands in the city, provided the music.

Blue bean

Tuba girls

Lauren and Brittany

Final bean costume...

From Mardi Gras in the Marigny, this is Kenny Klein explaining it all.

Parades: Marching Bands!!

Yesterday was the Babylon parade, and it was such a huge, crowded frat party that no one saw the actual parade unless they were there holding a spot at six in the morning (kind of like busking on Royal Street these days). So today, which here in NOLA is Lundi Gras, I'm going to write about the marching bands of the New Orleans Mardi Gras parades.

In smaller parades, the brass bands are "second line" bands, pro and semi-pro brass players who play for parties, parades and funerals in the city. They have a repertoire of Mardi Gras songs like Mardi Gras Mumbo, Mardi Gras March, and of course, When The Saints Go Marching In. But in our larger parades, the music is provided by New Orleans high school marching bands.

Now in most places, the words 'band geek' evoke snickers, pity, and jokes from a series of comedy movies. Visions of fat kids in glasses who wish they played football but instead play the tuba fill one's mind. Well here in New Orleans, it just ain't like that. As this superb Washington Post article on Mardi Gras myths and truths points out (PLEASE read it!!): "... the real stars of the parades are the marching bands. In New Orleans high schools, playing in band makes you one of the coolest kids in class. Seeing our school marching bands perform during Mardi Gras — something they train for all year — is a thrill."

During the parades, there is a bit of an informal competition among marching bands and their adjunct dancers, majors and majorettes, flag twirlers, baton twirlers, etc. to outshine each other. This is New Orleans, so these kids are some of the best budding musicians on Earth! If you ain't from here, you cannot imagine the elation one feels upon hearing these bands. And the dancers, majorettes and baton twirlers put on a huge show. In a city where gangs and crime are still fairly present to all of us, we take enormous pride in seeing these kids proudly displaying their talent, grace, beauty and hard work for huge parade crowds.

Here are some photos taken over the last few parade days:

From Mardi Gras in New Orleans, this is Kenny Klein explaining it all!!! Happy Lundi Gras. See you tomorrow!

Parades: Babylon, Chaos, and MUSES!!!!!

The Muses Parade! This is one of the most anticipated parades of the season. An all female Krewe, Muses throws not only beads and small favors just like all of the other krewes: each woman in the krewe creates a custom Muses shoe, and each throws her shoe to one lucky woman in the crowd. Everyone wants to be the special person who gets a shoe!

On a beautiful Thursday evening, Lauren and I, and our friends (about eight in all) set our for Muses, each woman in the group reciting the mantra "I want a shoe! I want a shoe!"

The evening began (for us) with Indian food, followed by the first two parades, Knights of Babylon and Knights of Chaos. Both parades strode up Napoleon to Saint Charles. We stood for a while on the corner of Napoleon and Magazine, part of a huge crowd of parade goers. A few highlights...

The crowd on Magazine and Napoleon. We're in there somewhere...

A Knight of Chaos!!

The Knights of Chaos theme was "Chaos Ball"...

Bead throwing

A baton twirling lovely. I'll write a Blog in a few days about the awesome marching bands in all of the parades.

We then crossed through the huge crowd at Napoleon, and walked a few blocks down Magazine for an uncrowded (comparatively) view of Muses, and of course...

A Tale Of...SHOES!!!

While shoes are always the prevailing theme of Muses, the actual parade this year was titled "Muses Go Shopping."

The shopping float.

Shopping for glowy shoes!

Roller skating Muse.

The shoe knows all...

Shoes, shoes, shoes...remember that the Muses hand make one show each, so they pick one person in the crowd to throw that show at. Stephanie caught a shoe, but the Muse yelled at her "that's for HER!" wildly gesticulating at a woman next to Stephanie. Stephanie dutifully handed over the shoe... This happened frequently, with much heartache to the shoe losers, and elation for the shoe winners! But back to the parade...

Floral Muses...

Awesome librarians!!!!! The one with the pink hair is my favorite.

The Muses Krewe contains several "sub-krewes":

Goose Girl, part of a sub-krewe of huge fairy tale puppets.

The Camel Toe Steppers.

The Bearded Oysters.

Throwing beads from the rabbit float...

A very excited, very beaded Stephanie.

Didn't catch the name of this sub krewe, but they're awesome...

The NOLA Cherry Bombs

There is a happy ending to this tale, good reader. Lauren was one of the chosen! Here, in all of its glory, is Lauren's Muses shoe!

From Mardi Gras, this is Kenny Klein, whose girlfriend has a Muses shoe, explaining it all!