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"It is impossible to capture even one Mardi Gras in words or pictures; a population devoted to joy is not won't to leave records, and those created have had to endure a tropical climate notoriously unkind to paper and velvets."
Henri Schindler in the preface to his book Mardi Gras New Orleans
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"Mardi Gras is the only time when I feel I've been given license to do things that any other time of the year would be in a way cruel. Because on this day there's that big sign hanging in the sky that says, "Do as you would; be what you really are, and let everybody know it."
Lyle Bonge - from his book The Sleep of Reason: Lyle Bonge's Ultimate Ash-Hauling Mardi Gras Photographs
No two people in New Orleans have the same Mardi Gras. For each participant Mardi Gras has very personal meaning and contains countless private and public traditions, rituals, and ceremonies. The Mardi Gras of Bourbon Street, which is sadly what most of the drunken tourist in the French Quarter will ever know is vastly different from Mardi Gras in the Treme, or the Faubourg Marigny or the Ninth Ward, or celebrations found in Mid City, and along St. Charles Avenue. An overpowering feeling of joy unites the entire city on this one glorious day of the year.
There is no way for one photographer to cover all of Mardi Gras. It is too vast in its scale, in its geography, and in the diversity of events that occur simultaneously all over the city. One cannot start out on Fat Tuesday with the Society of St. Anne in the Marigny and expect to be uptown for the start of Zulu or Rex. If you were out all night crawling around the French Quarter it's almost impossible to be up in time to catch Pete Fountain’s Half-Fast Walking Club as they leave Commander’s Palace and begin their journey downtown. Your chances of seeing the Mardi Gras Indians are slim if you aren’t in Mid-city and unless you are in the Treme you probably won't see the skeletons. For a photographer it can be a maddening array of choices.
Carnival
season begins on Twelfth Night (January sixth) with the Phunny Phorty
Phellows in a streetcar rolling down St. Charles Avenue as they throw
out beads to the folks assembled along the tracks. Then things really
start to heat up with the irreverent and adult oriented Krewe duVieux
parade. This is where you would find my friends and I as we began several
weeks of celebrations that led up to Mardi Gras. I would spend much of
this time working on costumes, preparing for houseguests, and cooking
tons of food for the many parties that would be held at the Conery Street
house during Carnival. Parties would always be held on the nights of the
Muses’ parade and the parade of Krewe d’Etat , those being
my two personal favorites. Countless friends and neighbors would make
their way to the house during the weeks of parades that led up to Fat
Tuesday.
Mardi Gras 2006 was a tough one, an emotional roller coaster of a day. It is not often that one spends Fat Tuesday laughing one moment, then crying the next, and then doing both at the same time. Reunions were all about me that day. I saw that day so many people that I hadn’t seen since the previous Mardi Gras, relieved to see they had survived. With each reunion the stories of loss, displacement, and hardships would be exchanged. and once those unpleasantries were discussed attentions would quickly return to the celebrations at hand.
It’s fat Tuesday in New Orleans and all our sorrows, if just for the day, will have to wait.
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