Laissez les bons temps rouler
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Laissez les bons temps rouler. Let the good times roll. Those of you who actually speak French are cringing and I know. I know. But that’s Cajun French and for today, that’s appropriate.
Mardi Gras has been celebrated in the US since 1699 although it only began to evolve into the festivities we know today in mid-1800s when the first Krewes were formed and parades organized. It’s always the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, always 46 days before Easter, always the last day of indulgence & extravagance before Lent.
Mark Twain had quite a bit to say about Mardi Gras in his book “Life on the Mississippi” (chapter 46). He describes his memory of a parade as such:
“I saw the procession of the Mystic Crew of Comus there, twenty-four years ago–with knights and nobles and so on, clothed in silken and golden Paris-made gorgeousnesses, planned and bought for that single night’s use; and in their train all manner of giants, dwarfs, monstrosities, and other diverting grotesquerie–a startling and wonderful sort of show, as it filed solemnly and silently down the street in the light of its smoking and flickering torches; but it is said that in these latter days the spectacle is mightily augmented, as to cost, splendor, and variety.”
Have you ever been to Mardi Gras? What was your experience?
