Mardi Gras Day

Every year I march with the Bywater Bone Boys. We are skeletons!
Not just ordinary skeletons, though.  We create new costumes every year to enhance our "bones".
One year I was Bona Lisa, last year I wore a black sequin suit with bones appliqued on top and
this year I was a Storyville Skeleton.  I dressed like one of subjects in Bellocq's turn of the century
photographs of the Storyville ladies.  Appropriate because we march not very far from where the
actual Storyville existed, now gone after the government decided to raze the area to build a project
during the Great Society years.
Anyway, my friends and I go down to the Bywater, not far from the French Quarter, and meet up
at daybreak with other like-minded skeletons.  We have a busy and noisy time waking up the residents
to Mardi Gras morning as we parade around for an hour or so.  After that we repair to Bud Rip's Bar
for refreshments and wait for the St. Ann Parade to come by with their brass marching band.  Then we
all join forces and storm the Marigny and French Quarter.  There is no way to explain how good it feels
to be part of something so special and glorious.  It's like playing dress-up and going back in time to total

innocence.  I can't wait for next year.

All Hail

One of the biggest and grandest of the night parades is Bacchus, which rolls on the Sunday before Mardi Gras.   The floats are beautiful and the bands are plentiful but everyone goes out to see the celebrity guest who is invited to become the King of Bacchus.  It is usually a comedian or movie star and this year they
chose Will Farrell who is in town making a movie.  Well, he was spectacular.  He was like a little child.
He dug into his pile of dubloons and beads and shoveled them up into the sky with a look of joy on his

face.  I have to say, he was the best Bacchus I ever saw.  And, as he him self said "All Hail Me".  What a nut!

The Real Thing

So, there were lots of parades this Mardi Gras, as usual, but the only ones I really ever go to, except for
Mardi Gras Day, are the night parades.  I just love the twinkling lights, shiny glittery costumes and the
magnificent flambeaux.  They go way back in history to a time when the floats could not be seen at
night without the illumination of the flambeaux flames.  They are now a part of the traditional night parades, especially for the older krewes.  The flambeaux not only light the way for the next float but
they also dance around and entertain while balancing a big metal apparatus filled with kerosene and

blasting flames all over the street.  You have to see it to believe it!

Mardi Gras Catch-up

Sometimes it is hard to think of something to blog about and sometimes I am so over whelmed with
all of the things that I am doing that I hardly have time to sleep let along blog.  That is the case this month.
I was busy finishing 35 paintings for my solo show at Jean Bragg Gallery earlier this month.  The show
went well enough even though I was faced with the competition of my own subject matter....Mardi Gras.
A gigantic night parade was going on at the same time as my opening party.  Ironic, huh?

Anyway, the show has been up for a month now and it is almost time to take it down.

Streetcar

For all of you tourists who love to ride our streetcars with wild abandon and no specific destination, today was not the day to ride the rails.  The early morning commute was halted when a large truck decided to
"beat" the streetcar.  Guess he didn't realize that those old streetcar brakes do not stop on a dime.  Crunch.
Can you say "alternate route"?
Then on the return  ride home from the French Quarter, it seems that the line lost power so they sent us a lovely bus for the pick-up but during our ride Uptown we were stuck for 20 minutes while an unscheduled parade of Mardi Gras floats meandered cross town....a true consternation to all of us because Mardi Gras parades are not due to begin for a few weeks.  After finally finding adequate power in the streetcar line we made the transportation transfer safely and were again arrested by the development of a movie being filmed  on St. Charles.  Yes, right in the middle of the streetcar tracks.

  I suppose we didn't look authentic enough for their film.  At least you could say that we never have an ordinary day here in New Orleans.  The rest of the world must be kind of boring!
Glad to be home, though.

Sugar Bowl

It was a beautiful. sunny day for a parade in the French Quarter today and the reason for it was to celebrate the Sugar Bowl start-up.  There were horses and carriages, bead-throwing, umbrellas and the best marching band in the country...the St. Aug Marching 100.  It is so refreshing to see so many teen-agers so dedicated to music and their school.  They are well disciplined and talented.  Of course, this is really just practice for
them because we are all gearing up for Mardi Gras here in New Orleans and St. Aug will be marching many miles in the weeks to come.

Under the Coconut Tree

Well, I'm just back from Key West, my former island home where I lived for 14 years before moving my life to New Orleans.  Many happy memories there, I have to say, but things change, as they will, and the old island is no longer the same.  Big development, cruise ships and ruinous retail stores have changed

the face of the once laid-back  community.  Now, don't get me wrong, we always had to work hard just to be there but it never used to be the land for the landed gentry like it is now.  I did hop on my bike and cruise around the island to the more residential side of things and there I found more peace and quiet and things as I had remembered them.  The houses are still lovely to look at...from the tiny Cigar maker cottages to the big two-story Conch houses with carved gingerbread details. The ocean is still clear and turquoise;  the big puffy clouds still hang over the horizon and the sun still melts gloriously into the water every night.  I did ride around the beach to a part of the island known as Houseboat Row where I once had a two-story houseboat moored among the  mangroves.  All of the houseboats are gone now.  Hauled off in the name of progress.  The sign posted there said "Seagrass Reclamation Project"...another way of saying that they are dredging and putting in a fancy marina.   I sat on the seawall and cried a little but then thought about it for a minute.  I am so very lucky to have lived there in that time and blessed to have had the opportunity to enjoy something so beautiful and special.  A good life lesson.  Enjoy what you have because you cannot go back in time and reclaim that moment.