Today is Mardi Gras, which is typically a huge celebration here in my hometown of New Orleans and the culmination of a season that begins shortly after New Year's Day. Mardi Gras season means parades, parties, and lots of tourists in town enjoying the food, cocktails, music, and more. It is called the greatest free show on Earth. Unfortunately, in 2020, some of the folks who visited New Orleans brought the coronavirus with them, making New Orleans one of the first, early hotspots in the United States for COVID-19. To guard against that happening again, Mardi Gras is very different this year. All of the parades were cancelled, all of the big parties were cancelled, and all of the bars in the City of New Orleans have been closed since Friday.
Saying that the bars are closed in New Orleans is sort of like saying that Disney World is open, but most of the rides are closed. It is a significant change, especially for visitors. I was in the French Quarter briefly on Saturday, and it was eerie to see the doors closed on places that virtually never close. I actually saw more tourists walking around than I would have expected — I guess some folks decided to take a vacation here anyway — but it was a very tiny fraction of what I would have seen on a typical Saturday before Mardi Gras.
If you want to learn more about Mardi Gras and New Orleans in general, I recommend that you check out a new video series that was released to help take the place of this year's traditional Mardi Gras festivities. The local newspaper in New Orleans (which runs the Nola.com website) and Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World (the Blaine Kern company makes a large number of the floats in the Mardi Gras parades) teamed up to produce a 4.5 hour special called Mardi Gras For All Y’all. It includes 90 different segments on topics ranging from different parade organizations, New Orleans neighborhoods and architecture, restaurants, the history of Mardi Gras, and lots of amazing local music from bands like The Meters and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. There are even some interesting segments that have nothing to do with Mardi Gras, such as a look at the historic cemeteries, a local book festival, and movies that are filmed in New Orleans. I enjoyed watching it, and whether you watch the whole thing or just skim through it and watch the segments that jump out at you, I think you will enjoy it too. Here are the three parts on YouTube:
Even with the parades cancelled the the bars closed, the spirit of Mardi Gras was still very strong throughout the 2021 season. For example, we still have King Cakes, and indeed, many of our bakeries could not keep up with the demand this year.
Moreover, with no decorated parade floats this year, people decided to turn their houses into floats, hiring experienced Mardi Gras artists or tapping into their own talents to decorate the outside of their houses and turn them into themed showpieces. It is essentially costuming for architecture. I’ve had great fun walking and driving around town with my family to see some of the thousands of amazing house floats. At the bottom of this post, I’ve included pictures of a few examples, which I took using my iPhone 12 Pro.
It has been uplifting to see the enthusiasm of folks in New Orleans during this Mardi Gras season. It reminds me of what I saw in this city after Hurricane Katrina. Nevertheless, I hope that, in 2022, Mardi Gras can return to its former glory.
For now, I wish you a Happy Mardi Gras wherever you are. L’aissez les bon temps rouler!
