Where the People Sing and Play Mardi Gras

They call it "The Greatest Free Show on Earth"--this stunning array of over 20 parades down New Orleans's broad avenues. And yet, more than other celebrations, Mardi Gras is largely a local affair, enjoyable for the thousands of visitors from across the country but significant also as a provincial rite of passage for the participants.

The festival is given to New Orleans by a series of "krewes"--private social groups that exist solely to finance and put on Mardi Gras. Some of the newer krewes are commercial in nature. They bring in celebrities to host their parades and balls. Others represent local interests. Tulane University students, for instance, have their own "Krewe of Tuck," and members of New Orleans's black community, who participate in the more traditional parades only as "flambeaux" (torch carriers), put on an elaborate "Zulu" parade and ball.

The week-long festivities climax on Mardi-Gras Day, or "Fat Tuesday," when the oldest, most traditional krewes--"Rex" and "Comus"--hold their celebrations. On that day, everyone, young and old, dons a bizarre costume and by 10 a.m. the entire city is drunk, reveling in a combination Halloween-New Year's Eve craziness. The Rex King--a wealthy New Orleans civic leader--glides downtown to toast his young Queen in a ritual unchanged for a century.

Later, invited guests attend a white-tie ball where the gold-bedecked Rex King and Queen, atop a splendid throne, receive the curtsies and bows of New Orleans debutantes and their escorts. Then, the shimmering pair, their flowing, ermine-studded trains in the care of ten-year-old pages, begin the "meeting of the courts," at which the silver-adorned members of the Comus Court, including dukes and maids, exchange elaborate greetings with Rex Royalty.

By Ash Wednesday, the streets are bare and parties over. Preparations have already begun for next year. Until then, New Orleans will slumber.