Mardi Gras by proxy

So it's cold, dark, and miserable outside in this joyless northern city of ours. Meanwhile, people half a continent away are having a grand old time, and some of them may even remember it tomorrow. But thanks to the magic of the Internet, we can get a small inkling of all the brainless and irresponsible fun we're missing out on. That may be good or bad, I'm not sure. So here's what showed up after wandering the net for a while, while waiiiiiting for my uber-overweight C++ app to recompile on a slowwwwww HP-UX box:

• A rant about the city of New Orleans's comically failed attempt to find commercial sponsors for this year's Mardi Gras.
  
• An artist/blogger from New Orleans discussing the
  glory of beads. This is where that cool frog photo comes from. As she puts it, Reason number five million and eight why New Orleans is the greatest city on Earth: in New Orleans, even the trees wear jewelry!.
  
• A brief history of the culinary phenomenon that is king cake.
  
• A lesson for the uninitiated about what Mardi Gras is all about, really, including a bunch of king cake photos (including the one you see here).
  
• One blogger's memories of going to Mardi Gras with his buddies way back in Y2K.
  
• Another Mardi Gras reminiscence, including a paean to Popeye's biscuits.
  
• A post about the singular joys of bringing a fundie to Fat Tuesday.
  
• The source of that "We're from Texas, you OWE us" image. The poster is sort of disgusted, and rightly so.
  
• How could I not pass along this post about the local beer down New Orleans way? I mean, it's beer...
  
• Yet another blogger who found a previous Mardi Gras a bit mind-boggling.
  
• Seems everyone except me has a Mardi Gras story. Here's another one.
  
• An interesting and unusual perspective on the holiday, coming from a Catholic seminarian in New Orleans.
  
• A comedian from New Orleans has a piece about why Mardi Gras is important.
  
• Of course, you can never really get away from the earnest, well-meaning people who feel nobody should have a single moment of fun until we've gotten rid of all the bad stuff going on in the world. Here's one example.
  
• And the inevitable earnest documentary about how Mardi Gras beads are made in China.
  
• A student whose Sociology prof gave a talk about "Ritual disrobement during Mardi Gras", which is apparently an outgrowth of the capitalist system. It's really astonishing the things you can get a grant to study these days.
  
• That professor may not even be right, to top it all off. Here's at least one visitor who practices a socialist bead-throwing philosophy.
  
• Someone else writing about the ongoing "gone wild" phenomeonon. You know you want to read it.
  
• Holiday greetings from another blog I stumbled across. Probably not safe for work, of course depending on where you work.
  
• A post aptly titled Mardi Gras Hangover, with links to numerous photos. [Added 3/1/06]
  

Tags: mardi gras new orleans.