New Orleans’ first Mardi Gras: 183 years ago

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<![CDATA[According to History.com, yesterday marked the 183rd anniversary of Carnival in New Orleans. So it's only appropriate that I post a clip about my favorite part of Carnival, the Society of Ste. Anne parade — which this heretofore unknown (by me, anyway) documentary calls the "St. Ann's Parade". There's more info about the 1827 festivities below.

On this day in 1827, a group of masked and costumed students dance through the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana, marking the beginning of the city’s famous Mardi Gras celebrations.

The celebration of Carnival–or the weeks between Twelfth Night on January 6 and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian period of Lent–spread from Rome across Europe and later to the Americas. Nowhere in the United States is Carnival celebrated as grandly as in New Orleans, famous for its over-the-top parades and parties for Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday), the last day of the Carnival season.

Though early French settlers brought the tradition of Mardi Gras to Louisiana at the end of the 17th century, Spanish governors of the province later banned the celebrations. After Louisiana became part of the United States in 1803, New Orleanians managed to convince the city council to lift the ban on wearing masks and partying in the streets. The city’s new Mardi Gras tradition began in 1827 when the group of students, inspired by their experiences studying in Paris, donned masks and jester costumes and staged their own Fat Tuesday festivities.

The parties grew more and more popular, and in 1833 a rich plantation owner named Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandeville raised money to fund an official Mardi Gras celebration. After rowdy revelers began to get violent during the 1850s, a secret society called the Mistick Krewe of Comus staged the first large-scale, well-organized Mardi Gras parade in 1857.

Over time, hundreds of krewes formed, building elaborate and colorful floats for parades held over the two weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday. Riders on the floats are usually local citizens who toss “throws” at passersby, including metal coins, stuffed toys or those now-infamous strands of beads. Though many tourists mistakenly believe Bourbon Street and the historic French Quarter are the heart of Mardi Gras festivities, none of the major parades have been allowed to enter the area since 1979 because of its narrow streets.

In February 2006, New Orleans held its Mardi Gras celebrations despite the fact that Hurricane Katrina had devastated much of the city with massive flooding the previous August. Attendance was at only 60-70 percent of the 300,000-400,000 visitors who usually attend Mardi Gras, but the celebration marked an important step in the recovery of the city, which counts on hospitality and tourism as its single largest industry.

[History.com ]

P.S. Jonno some great photos during the Carnival festivities of 2006. To me, the crowds seemed as big as ever, and that Fat Tuesday was one of the most beautiful on record.

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Is this supposed to stop teens from smoking?

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Honestly, if I had seen this ad when I was that kid’s age, I might’ve started smoking even earlier, just to get some action. But then again, I’ve always been precocious. Oh: and trampy.

I quit, by the way. (Smoking, not being trampy.) As a matter of fact, I stubbed out my last cigarette six years ago this very day. Celebrate, w00t, raise the roof, call me on my videophone, etc.

P.S. Yes, I have other issues with this ad — not the least of which is its implication that sucking dick is a terrible, terrible thing. The shot is inherently, outrageously homophobic, informing viewers that gays are pederasts, being submissive is bad, and so on.

In fairness, there IS one shot of a girl (and a faceless man sans jacket), which seems appropriate, since girls also smoke. But of the three ads in the campaign, two feature boys. So, in a nutshell: WTF? As much as I love the French — and I do — they’re not always known for thinking things through.

[via Towleroad]

Viral video of the week from XtraNormal

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Press embargoes are ridiculous. The thought of a publicist emailing you loads of precious news, then insisting that you can’t talk about it for another two weeks — I mean, JUST SEND THAT SHIT IN TWO WEEKS. Don’t make me sit on it, prepping a post and setting it to publish one minute after the embargo expires. That’s torturous and annoying for people whose lives revolve around beating their competitors to the punch.

Of course more often than not, the embargoed “precious news” is crap “pseudo-news” that no one will ever write about anyway. Still, the PR kids pester you to agree to the embargo, which makes the experience just as terrible. In all, the embargo system is a lousy one and journalists hate it. In fact, many of the better media outlets refuse to honor embargoes. I salute them.

So let’s recap: who hates embargoes? Journalists. So what would journalists be very likely to write about? A funny video poking fun at embargoes. So if you work for an internet start-up that allows people to create their videos quickly and easily online, how do you get loads of free write-ups from widely read journalists?

Of course, now that I look closer, it appears that writer Steve O’Hear created the video, not the PR staff at XtraNormal. And that may be true — but only because XtraNormal didn’t think of it first. 

[via BoingBoing]

Putting equality in dollars and cents

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Activists have long been preaching that the best way to win LGBT equality is for people to come out of the closet. And to a degree, that’s true: John Doe’s views on LGBT rights are more likely to weigh in our favor if he’s personally acquainted with a friend, family member, or co-worker who’s gay.

However, as we’ve learned from people like Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin (who may or may not have actual gay friends), the simply act of knowing someone from the LGBT community doesn’t automatically make you an advocate for LGBT rights. And so the slant of the attack is slowly shifting to economics: the financial facts of equality.

Whether we like it or not, that’s the sort of argument that works well with elected officials. Sure, you can argue that LGBT equality legislation is “important” or the “right thing to do”, but taking the argument out of the bedroom (where conservatives like to place it) and putting it into the bank account can be far more persuasive.

As someone who works in the arts and advocacy, I can vouch for the effectiveness of this approach. For years, we told legislators that arts education made for happier kids, we even talked about the arts’ positive impact on SAT scores, but no one at the capitol really started listening until we were able to say, “arts events and arts program provide a 7-to-1 return on the government’s investment: for every $1 the state puts into arts funding, we generate $7 for our communities via gallery sales, dining out, hotel stays, small business purchases, and so on.”

This particular ad from RockForEquality.org doesn’t go quite that far — it still relies partially on the “equality is the right thing to do” argument, and I also think it takes WAY too long to make its point. However, viewing LGBT equality through the lens of finance makes it much harder to argue against:

[via Towleroad]

Am I a cold-hearted asshat for hating this piece of crap?

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So yeah: this short film has been making the internet rounds. Me, I think it’s pretentious (shot in black and white, backed by a crescendo of strings), it’s predictable (oh, that was all a dream!), and it’s the most derivative thing I’ve seen all year. It’s like an over-long DeBeers commercial. As The Gays are fond of saying about theme parties: it’s been done before, and better.

But whatever: don’t just take a bitter queen’s word. Judge for yourself:

John Mayer may have a new career. Let’s hope, anyway.

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After gum-flapper John Mayer told Playboy, um, EVERYTHING, he may have found an opportunity in the strangest of places. In between off-color comments and applauding Jessica Simpson’s sexual enthusiasm, Mayer confessed that his dream was to “write porn.” Vivid Entertainment, the adult film company that brought you Paris and Kim as you never wanted to see them, wants Mayer to to join the porn squad. TMZ reports that the Vivid’s founder, Steve Hirsch sent a letter to loud mouth mcgee, eager to sign him on as a writer. One of Hirsch’s points just has to be quoted. Has to be.
“We believe your incredible talent and passion, which have touched so many, can translate into a highly erotic adult film. Your understanding of the dynamics of relationships would undoubtedly appeal to both men and women.”

[SocialiteLife]