Laissez les bons temps roulez!
(Editorial from some New Orleans paper--the Times-Picayune, I think)
...It's that time again: that wonderful, crazy, colorful, crowded, happy, mixed-up but glorious time when all New Orleans forgets itself for a day, lets its hair down, puts on a rubber nose, a funny hat, and walks around laughing at the silly people in their crazy costumes...
Revelers at the parade of the Krewe of Orpheus.
Mardi Gras is fun and laughter, vulgarity and coarseness, color and light, and at the end, quiet.
Krewe of Proteus Parade.
Mardi Gras is a state of mind, an attitude, a pose, an opinion. But at its most basic…and perhaps satisfying of all, Mardi Gras is the one day in the entire year when New Orleans can tell the world:
Bourbon Street, the French Quarter.
"We're going to have fun!" And we do.