A terrific Mardi Gras article:
nola.com
Comedy rises from the darkness
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Mark Childress
The liquor billboard proclaimed "NOTHING Cancels Mardi Gras," but on the way in from the airport I thought, maybe somebody should have. Airport Drive was wasted, filthy. The corporate feel-gooding "We're Coming Back" signs were contradicted by thickets of "We Demolish Houses" signs, and the heaps of rubble everywhere.
I hadn't been back to New Orleans since early October. I never expected the city to look this much worse, five months later. All those houses frozen in place by their high-water lines were now unfrozen, innards spilled on the sidewalks.
A cop watching over a puny Friday-night parade crowd at Canal and Bourbon, where mobs usually trample each other for Hermes throws, told me "there ain't even enough drunks this year to make it interesting."
That would change, of course. The crowds and the city's mood would improve with the weather. But the disaster-porn glimpses of the Lower 9th and St. Bernard made the onset of Carnival feel like a party at which people are planning to put in a brief, dutiful appearance before they cut out early.
Or maybe that was just me. I hate seeing New Orleans flipped over on its back like a bug with its legs wiggling helplessly in the air. I hate getting a lump in my throat every 15 minutes or so.
But then out of the drizzly night came the floats of the Krewe d'Etat. Boxing Blanco. Refrigerator Hurling. The Nagin Backstroke. The Mold Vault with a cartoony duct-taped fridge and a gorgeous spew of sparkly green vomit. Hideous, leering Brownie asking his immortal question, "Anything I can tweak?" An elaborate float representing the Chocolate City, in the act of melting.
And dear God, here came Death himself through the streets, throwing beads, showing his bones, grinning his terrible death-smile. Death's costume was so great it made me laugh. And I realized I had been laughing for a few minutes now. The Krewe d'Etat had done the boldest thing imaginable: They had made art of the worst disaster in American history.
Not only art -- they had made comedy, too. Hilarious, life-affirming, city-renewing, life-saving comedy, bursting with artistry and smarts. Is there another city on the planet whose people would respond to such a disaster with this outpouring of good humor, plus all the beads you can catch?
Not New York City, let me tell you. I lived through 9/11 up there, and no art of any kind was permitted. Oh, there were a few abortive attempts, such as Eric Fischl's statue of a "Tumbling Woman" falling from the top of the World Trade Center, which was displayed briefly, covered swiftly, and hustled straight out of town. Humor? Fuhgeddaboutit. Any attempt at making people laugh was (and still is) strictly verboten. 9/11 is still not a laughing matter, and therefore the pain of it still lingers, unspoken, unpurged.
New Orleans is in sad shape, but at least her people can laugh at their own misery. I think that is what will save her. The MOMs Ball on Saturday night was a festival of individual expression, the expiation of pain through the application of color, glitter and thousands of eccentric imaginations. I was entranced by all the nearly-naked blue people with blue-tarp roofs on their heads. The hardhat from DEMA (the Dumbass Emergency Management Agency, of course). The large bar of Extra-Bitter Chocolate in the feathery mask. The sparkly lady who handed me a card reading, "Show Me Your Tits" and in fineprint, "FEMA will send you beads in 8-10 weeks." The Radiators howled a new lyric at the moon: "I want some chocolate in my city!"
Then came that flawless Fat Tuesday, folks in their fabulous homemade costumes lining up for the St. Ann's parade in the Marigny. One man called himself "Cuidado"; he wore an orange traffic cone and a forest of tiny orange gas-line flags sprouting from his head. Three "Looters with Hooters" and their loaded shopping cart showed up on every cable-news broadcast before the day was through. Gov. Marie Antoinette sported a fabulous wig and a sign proclaiming, "Let Them Eat Chocolate." The duct-taped Refrigerator Man sipped from a bottle of "Nagin Springs," a vile-looking liquid in a color that's best left undescribed. A smiling pretty woman was dressed head-to-toe as that most elusive of New Orleans citizens, a Silver Lining.
Later on, my friends and I wandered over to the gathering of Mardi Gras Indians at the Backstreet Cultural Museum in Treme. That's where I saw a smiling guy in the lowest-tech costume imaginable, the best one I saw all day. Jeans and sneakers, no mask. A carefully lettered T-shirt proclaiming, "FEMA Promised Me A Costume."
I started laughing, and for awhile I couldn't stop. When I managed to stop, I remembered the thing my mama always says when anything bad happens: "Well, it's better to laugh than to cry."
I used to think that was kind of a silly expression, but not |
