Pandemic Diaries - Year 3 - New Orleans - Mardi Gras Rex Parade!

28 April 2024

On Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday, I caught a ride with our landlady down to my usual parade watching spot, the corner of St. Charles and Napoleon Avenues. This was the Rex Parade - sort of the king of krewes, one of the most popular krewes and parades in New Orleans.
 

In fact, the Carnival King and Queen are always in the Rex krewe. Various krewes have their own kings and queens, but the official King and Queen of Carnival each year comes from the Rex krewe.

I had to look this up to find out why. Turns out the Rex krewe traces their origin to 1872, formed by a bunch of city leaders, both social and business. They
came together creating Rex, thinking that the current way Carnival was celebrated was disorganized and rowdy. They hoped to focus people's energy and attention with a new troupe and a centerpiece: a daytime parade featuring a King of Carnival. They thought this might also attract more visitors to the city as well as get more people interested in New Orleans in general.

So this group pretty much invented the King of Carnival! The group also came up with the colors of Carnival, purple, green, and gold.

If you want more information, here's an interview with a few historians: https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/mardi_gras/mardi-gras-parade-history-how-rex-became-carnival-king/article_9c2f9780-8c9b-11ed-95bf-e3abc204d195.html


I was really interested in why the colors were chosen, and I found another article: https://www.myneworleans.com/how-carnival-got-its-colors-2/

Basically, the same social/business leaders used the vague formula for heraldic crests and flags developed in the Medieval period, and then codified in the 1700s by Francis Grosse in his books "Rules of Military Antiquities." First, a flag usually has three colors. Several flags have flown over New Orleans while it was a province or possession, most of those flags being red, white, and blue. So this social group most likely ruled out those colors.

Second, purple has long been associated with royalty, all the way back to the Roman Empire. So, purple seemed a logical choice.

Back to the rules of heraldry during the Medieval era - the flag or crest usually included a "metal" color, such as silver (or white), or gold (yellow). If these civic leaders were avoiding the French and British flag colors, that ruled out silver/white, leaving gold/yellow.

Then a third color was needed. According to heraldry, there are only five acceptable choices: red, blue, purple, green and black. If red and blue are ruled out due to the French/British flag issues, that leaves purple, green, and black. Purple made sense already, being the color of royalty. Purple, yellow, and black? Hmmm, a bit dismal with black and purple being traditional colors of mourning. Purple, yellow, and green? Well yes, that looks much better!

Then the article mentioned above gets confusing, because the metal color shouldn't touch the background or field color - but the original order of the colors was always listed as green, yellow, and purple. Somehow that meant the metal color, yellow, wasn't touching the field or background color. As I said, a little confusing.

But the traditional explanation handed down locally is that the colors stand for justice, faith and power, in that sequence. I believe green is Justice, yellow or gold is Faith, and purple is Power. This is what I was told by local people.

Okay, so why is all of this important? In the Rex parade, there were some twenty-nine or thirty floats, and I don't know how many marching bands. In the space between most of the floats and bands, there were three men riding horses - one in green clothing and horse regalia, one in yellow, one in purple. They really did look like something from the Knights of the Round Table! But I find it helps to understand the history of what I'm seeing.  (Most oddly, the horses' hooves were painted gold.  I'm hoping this was some benign kind of paint, but it certainly did not seem like a good practice!)

Okay, so back to Mardi Gras 2024. The Rex parade started on the northern end of Napoleon Avenue, and they headed south to St. Charles, then turned east and went down St. Charles to the French Quarter. I was at a perfect spot to see each band or float coming down Napoleon, and then

turning to the right to head downtown! It started out as a crisp cold morning, quite overcast, but you'll see in the photos that the sky cleared and the parade ended with bright sunshine.

The theme of this
particular parade was
also rather confusing. It was called "The Two Worlds of Lafcadio Hearn - New Orleans and Japan." I had never heard of [Patrick] Lafcadio Hearn, but he was a Greek-Irish man (1850 to 1904) who travelled to Japan, wrote about his travels, and basically introduced Japanese culture, art, music, history to the Western world.

So some of the floats were very New Orleans based, and seemed to focus on the foods. A giant
steer blowing steam. A huge woman surrounded by seafood dishes. People on the floats dressed as chefs.  Even a float that looked just like the traditional New Orleans streetcars!

And then suddenly the floats changed and were straight out of Japanese art. Cherry blossoms. Flying turtles. Dragons with four heads, or possibly four dragons, it was hard to tell. Women in kimonos. A giant centipede and a giant roach, although at least the roach was playing a trumpet. The centipede was just scary!

It was all colorful and gorgeous! Absolutely beautiful, and so exciting to see this huge parade, even longer and more ornate than the Freret parade!!

The crowd around me was half locals, half tourists. I met two French women who were confused about the streetcar being stopped, so I explained why, having encountered the same issue the previous week. They were trying to get to the French Quarter, so I pointed them in the right direction.

Then there were two people from very rural Illinois, who were vacationing. They laughed at the small tractors pulling the huge floats, explaining to me that their local parades consist solely of those same tractors, no floats at all!

On my other side were a group of people who all seemed to know the newscasters from a local TV station. The man who chatted with me worked in the media department for a nearby school district. The two women newscasters were ready for Carnival, each in a bright dress with matching wig and fake glittery eyelashes - one in bright green, the other in Dayglo orange! With their camera man! I finally asked if they were going to broadcast from there, because I really did not want to be on camera! They laughed and said no, they'd be moving around and interviewing people, as well as filming the parade and interviewing some of the parade participants. And they nicely agreed to not include me in any shots.

Again, everyone was in a very happy mood, this is Carnival and it's a joyous time!

The parade started, the floats came by, with the horses and riders, on and on. There were a few military bands marching along, as well as some school bands from as far away as New Jersey! Also dance teams, or whatever they are called. I liked the drum major who would do some fancy steps, then jump!

There were also a couple of small jazz ensembles marching with Rex - remember, there's a requisite number of marching bands needed in each parade. I especially liked the small group with glittery garland sorts of things wound around the drums, and especially on the tubas! I think every tuba needs some glitter wrapped around it!

We saw the King of Carnival on a huge pink and red float as he waved benevolently, as befits a king.  He was right after the horses at the beginning of the parade, the first float - with a golden horse attached to the baby tractor pulling his float!  Too funny!

 

There also was a float that seemed to have a giant caricature of the King, which was quite amusing. He was mechanical, and turned his head slowly from side to side, sort of leering at the crowd somewhat maniacally!

Rex krewe seems to be known for having specially designed ceramic pendants made each year as their premium throws. Each pendant matched the float from which it was thrown, and they were attached to a single strand of traditional gold Carnival beads. Of course, most of the beads that weren't caught would hit the street, and those ceramic pendants would break as soon as they hit the hard surface.

But several people near me managed to catch a whole collection of the ceramic pendants - quite the prize!

Our little friendly group got lucky - one of the young men in back of me said his boss was on float number whatever, coming up. And could he please stand in front of me for that, so he could yell at his friend from the pedestrian fence barrier thing. I said of course, please do. So he started calling for his friend, and pretty soon all of us were yelling his friend's name as this guy was waving.

The boss smiled and waved back. And gently tossed a muslin bag full of something, right into the young man's hands! Ooooh, goodies! Of course we all leaned in to see what was in the bag, and it was about twenty strands of beads with the ceramic pendant! Wow, what a nice throw! The young man handed me one as a thank you, and he gave most of us one. Our pendant was what looks like a turbo-charged turtle, which was on the front of the float. Really, it's a lovely blue-green-turquoise sea turtle, but the back legs/fins are portrayed as sort of a bright red flame. Okay, it might be coral, but it really does look more like a flame than coral. Not that I've seen a Japanese movie with a turbo-charged turtle shooting flames from his back end, but who knows, it could be a legend not yet made into a film.

The crowd was almost as interesting as the parade! I saw a group of friends with two people dressed in traditional sort of safari gear, khaki shorts and hats, boots, that looked. Their other friends were all in those giant tyrannosaurus suits!!! In green, gold-ish yellow-orange, and purple! With tiny cardboard crowns on their heads, because this was the Rex parade!!! They were just so funny!

Tons of photos, as usual. The parade went on for probably two and a half to three hours! As I said, the day warmed up and it was a beautiful afternoon.

I ended up walking home, probably about two miles. I saw (and photographed) more decorated houses, golf carts, even a car. It was a zigzaggy route north and west, because there are occasional neighborhood cemeteries, possibly near old churches that have been removed, who knows. And one or two schools that covered more than one block, forcing me to walk around rather than through the cross street which dead-ended at the school.

I stopped at a traditional New Orleans coffee shop, the French Truck Coffee. Pretty good coffee, and a rather innovative menu. They actually have a sandwich of scrambled egg, chevre, and prosciutto on a waffle. It was tasty, although I deconstructed it as I tend to do.

Anyway, not much more I can say. This is one occasion where I'll let the photos speak for themselves. I tried to get shots of each float as it approached, then turned, and then a close up of the people riding each float. Their costumes and masks always coordinated with the float, not matching but somehow still going with the theme visually.

I skipped the military bands. They weren't colorful.

And often, the back end of the float was just as decorative as the front!

So there will be large photos at the end, beyond all this rambling narrative.  I know, it's a LOT of photos.  But it was so incredible, so decorative and colorful - I want to show the world!  If the photos bore you, fine, I won't even know if you've skipped them.  And if you skip reading all of this and just look at the photos, well, I won't know that either!

And seriously, come to New Orleans and head out beyond the central business district to watch a few parades. Just stand with the crowd, catch some throws, chat with the people near you.

It is an experience like no other!