The Krewe du Vieux parade kicked off the New Orleans Carnival parade season last Saturday evening.

My pix on Flickr; some NSFW

Local Carnival pundit Erroll Laborde made an apt observation that unlike such parades as the Rose Bowl or Macy's Thanksgiving, New Orleans Mardi Gras Season parades are designed as participatory experiences, not to look good on tv.

Still, I enjoyed watching this and some of you might too:

Krewe du Vieux parade video on NOLA.com[edit ( Read more... )

Photos from yesterday's Krewe du Vieux. Mine were mostly taken before the parade started. Also, links to some other folk's pix. May not be safe for work, depending.

( look, see )

I was able to attend a couple of events of the Tulane Maya Symposium. The highlight was the keynote address by Dr. Karl Taube, discussing interesting less well known aspects of iconography and tying them in to the same motifs in other parts of Mesoamerica and up to the US Southwest-- including nifty illustrations of ancestors arriving from creation ( Read more... )

I'm trying to think of ideas for my costume in the Krewe du Vieux Carre parade on the night of 15 Feb. I want an anti-war satire or protest theme.

My sub-Krewe has the theme of Bayou Off, combining the news events of mosquito control and political corruption. Half the krewe will be dressed as mosquitos, the other half (including me) will be Pest ( Read more... )