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February 22, 2006

4. Krewe of Barkus Parade

Mardi gras is full of parades – more than a dozen of them at different times over the course of the week+ that is Mardi Gras, following a variety of routes across the city and (mostly) into the French Quarter. Of course, this year’s parades are smaller with fewer floats, fewer marching bands, and so on. But they are still happening and still big fun. And they are all thrown by “Krewes” which are some kind of group with a nomenclature that looks as good as “Massive” sounds.

The Barkus Parade is basically “the parade of dogs in funny outfits with their owners that are very often in funny outfits, too.” Great if you are toting a toddler like I was. I don’t know if the Wizard of Oz theme was specific to this year, or the way it always is.

But the other great theme – and one you saw all over the city in t-shirts and graffiti and folk art – was the general discontent (to put it lightly) with FEMA, the government response, Mr. Bush, and so on. I like to see a healthy degree of public dissent where it is deserved – mixed with wit and creativity that takes it from protest to living political cartoon. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good pictures of this in action (see toddler-toting mention above – I was lucky to get photos at all, and most of them came out blurry).

Posted by Rock Heals at February 22, 2006 12:00 AM