March 7, 1885 Harper's Weekly illustration, , artist John Durkin. Art courtesy of Historic New Orleans Collection

Mardi Gras – Fat Tuesday – is the day before Lent begins.  In 1512, the Butchers’ Guild of Paris created the tradition of leading a fattened ox, the “Boeuf Gras”, through the streets to celebrate the last feast before the rigors of Lent.

In its earliest form, Mardi Gras is probably linked to pagan rites celebrating the return of spring.  Ancient Rome’s Lupercalia, a lusty fertility festival, was celebrated yearly on February 15. The young Catholic Church, unable to obliterate the pagan festivals, adopted and purified many: Carnival as a pre-Lenten celebration was born.

Pierre LeMoyne Sieur d’Iberville, arriving at the Mississippi River on Mardi Gras eve, 1699, named his encampment “Bayou and Pointe de Mardi Gras.”  In the 1700’s, the French settlers continued to celebrate Mardi Gras.

Masquerades were regulated on a discretionary basis during the years Spain ruled New Orleans.  Whenever the peace was threatened, a short-term police ban on masking was invoked. Balls, rather than parades, were favored. The Quadroon balls, known for their beautiful women, and most spectacular during Carnival, thrived during the end of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries.

Because of the French “Boeuf Gras” tradition, it is safe to assume that New Orleanians paraded before the newspaper accounts of 1837-38, which record the processions of maskers in decorated carriages, on horseback and afoot.  Mention of the Mobile, Alabama Cowbellions as Carnival participants also appears in newspapers about this time.

By the 1850’s, troublemakers had invaded the ranks of the maskers and were tossing dirt, flour, and even lye at the spectators instead of the traditional dragees (sugar coated fruits and nuts) and bon-bons, leading to a city ordinance against the “throws” and a proposed ban on parading.  While Mardi Gras parades were declining in quality, there were definite bright spots; the carefully planned 1852 parade by the Company of Bedouins is considered the finest prior to Comus.

The parades of 1855 and 1856 were especially bleak, but events were taking place that would vastly improve Carnival. In the early 1850’s, a number of individuals from Mobile moved to New Orleans.  Some of them had been members of the Mobile Cowbellion De Rakin Society, the first parading New Year’s Eve club. They missed the New Year’s Eve parades back home, and after experiencing a few of the New Orleans Mardi Gras processions, decided to form a secret Mardi Gras club in New Orleans similar to Mobile’s New Year’s Eve organizations.

Led by Joseph Ellison and Thad Smith, they obtained costumes from the Cowbellions and the Strikers Independent Society (another Mobile club) for their new Carnival parade in New Orleans. Thus the Mistick Krewe of Comus was born, legitimizing New Orleans Mardi Gras parades.  Attended by torch bearers, Comus rode on one float, Satan on another, and approximately 75 devil maskers cavorted on foot.

After the Civil War, during Reconstruction, the Twelfth Night Revelers (1870), Rex, and Momus (both 1872) were formed.  Rex introduced daytime parading to Carnival. Ten years later, Proteus was organized, followed by the Jefferson City Buzzards (a marching club) in 1890.  Zulu, a black krewe, originally a spoof of Rex, was formed in 1909.

Alla, Mid-City, Hermes, and the first truck parade, the Elks Orleanians, began in the 1930’s, and the first parading women’s krewe, Venus, preceded World War II.  After the war, many new organizations, the majority from the suburbs, began parading.  The number of major parades doubled and tripled, reaching a high of more than fifty.

In the early 1950’s, mules were phased out of float pulling, being replaced by tractors. 1960 saw the birth of a major new throw, the aluminum doubloon.  Carnival 1969 was the inaugural parade of Bacchus, the first krewe to have jumbo “Super Floats” and a celebrity non-local King.

The krewe of Mardi Gras first used decorated paper cups as a throw in 1975. The next year, Alla introduced a decorated plastic cup, which for a couple of decades became the most popular throw. That cup was made by a local company, Giacona Container Corp.

1979 was the year of the infamous Orleans Parish Police strike, resulting in the cancellation of most major Orleans parades and the temporary move of others to the suburbs.  Carnival recovered from this ordeal

Momus, Comus and Proteus stopped parading in the 1990’s, but continue to hold masked balls. Proteus returned to the parade route a number of years later.  It is said that a number of Comus and Momus members ride in a relatively new parade, Chaos.

The 1990’s saw the diversification of throws, including a wider assortment of small toys, and a huge assortment of stuffed animals, and some new throws, including lighted beads.  Doubloons have lost some favor, but still exist in small numbers. In the last few years, a number of krewes throughout the metro New Orleans area have stopped parading. The reasons are many, including a shortage of krewe members, and the high cost of krewe dues, throws, and parade insurance.

The new century saw a standardization of parade routes, with most krewes rolling down St. Charles Avenue.  August 29, 2005 brought Hurricane Katrina, which severely impacted Carnival. The season was shortened by 20%, less parades rolled, the parades were shorter with less floats and bands.  Many hotel rooms were not available.

Want to know more about the history and traditions of the New Orleans Mardi Gras?  Read these fine books: Mardi Gras, by Robert Tallant (Doubleday & Co.,1949); New Orleans Masquerade: Chronicles of Carnival, by Arthur Burton LaCour (Pelican Publishing Co.,1952); Mardi Gras! A Celebration, by Mitchell Osborne and Errol Laborde (Picayune Press, 1981); The Mistick Krewe, by Perry Young, (Carnival Press, 1931); and If Ever I Cease to Love: One Hundred Years of Rex, by Charles Dufour (School of Design, 1970).

Think Krewe du Vieux or Krewe d’Etat are the most satirical?  How about Muses and Momus?  Consider these New Orleans parades from long ago.

Two 1870s parades are famous for the controversy they created concerning the big issue of the day, Reconstruction.

The 1873 Comus procession titled “The Missing Links to Darwin’s Origin of the Species” and the 1877 Momus parade named “Hades – A Dream of Momus” ridiculed the carpetbaggers  who ravaged the war torn South in the decade following the Civil War.

New Orleans was a troubled city during the Reconstruction era, and by 1873 on Carnival Krewe had enough. The members of Comus, behind the relative security of their masks, decided to let their feelings known. The 1873 Comus procession was noteworthy for a second reason – it was the first constructed entirely in New Orleans, all others having been at least partially built in France.

But it is the satirical aspects of this Comus parade that are best remembered. Comus ended the tradition of political neutrality with a flourish, depicting the carpetbaggers and Republicans as pests and misfits. President Grant was  a boll Weevil. The stir created by the parade was immense, locals loving it and carpetbaggers hating it equally as much.

One year later, in 1974, a major riot occurred on Canal Street between the Metropolitan Police, run by the carpetbaggers, and the White League, the organization of the badgered citizens of New Orleans. The major Carnival parades were cancelled as a result. When 1876 rolled around, the city was again in a desperate condition due to the contested state and federal elections that year.

The two Presidential candidates, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, were quarreling over the Presidency and an electoral commission was formed to settle the question. The Louisiana electoral vote was about to go to Hayes, giving the election to the Republican candidate by one vote.

On the state side of the election, two gubernatorial candidates had a similar feud going on. S. B. Packard, the Republican carpetbagger, had the might of the Federal armed forces behind his effort while Francis T. Nicholls, the Democrat, had the support of the populace- he was the a Confederate war hero, having given his left arm in one battle and his left foot in another.

Obviously prepared for the official outcry, Momus paraded on February 8, 1877. They were hours overdue because the floats proved too big for the den doors. When the obstructing wall was finally ripped out, it was 10 pm. The crowd was waiting.

The people’s response was immediate- they loved it! The floats satirized and ridiculed the carpetbagger chiefs and Republican officeholders from the local to the national level, including President Grant.  Each float recreated Hades, the abode of the dead, the gloomy subterranean home of departed spirits. The float riders depict the scalawags (white Southern Reconstructionists who acted as Republicans) and other regional and national Republicans as every manner of odd creature imaginable.

With the ensuing Republican outcry rising, and retaliation from Washington a possibility, Nicholls, who had been hoping for official recognition of his victory from the Federal Government, decided to act fast. He wired an apology to the nation’s capital, even though he was a strong supporter of Carnival.  Nicholls was afraid that the new President, Hayes, would dash his hopes of keeping the Governorship of  Louisiana. Nicholls ended up as Governor, but Momus didn’t utilize satire again until the one hundredth anniversary of this memorable procession.  Their return to satirizing local politics and trends was welcome, and they continue to do so.

Musik

Comus – First Utterance

Meisterwerk des progressiven Psych-Folks aus dem Jahr 1971. Ein einmaliges Hörerlebniss der besonderen Art.

Das gesamte Album ist auf Youtube als Playlist abrufbar.

Film

Der Norweger Bent Hamer erzählt in dieser lakonischen Komödie die Geschichte des symphatischen Spießers Odd Horten, der – seines Zeichens Lokführer – an seinem letzten Arbeitstag zum ersten Mal zu spät zur Arbeit erscheint und sich entscheidet, pfeifenrauchend durch Norwegen zu ziehen und die Vielfalt des Lebens kennenzulernen. Zum ersten Mal versteht er sein Leben nicht mehr als Ablauf von Plänen, sondern als Schmelztiegel von Möglichkeiten, die nur darauf warten, genutzt zu werden. Sehenswerte Tragikkomödie über das Leben ohne Dienstplan.

Zu sehen in diesen Kinos.

Die polnischstämmige Monika Wojtyllo erzählt in diesem Road Movie von den Unterschieden und Vorurteilen zwischen Deutschen und Polen. Der (fast-)Anwalt Max reist nach Polen, um im Namen seines Vaters Besitzansprüche auf ein Haus in einem polnischen Dorf anzumelden. Dabei trifft er auf die Studentin Anna, die auf Versicherungsbetrug aus ist. Die beiden tun sich widerwillig zusammen, um das Dorf zu erreichen, wobei sie auf ihrer Reise durch Polen es mit polnischen Weihnachtsmännern,  Mechanikern und Wirten zu tun bekommen.  Mit reichlich magisch-realistischen Stilmitteln gespickt dümpelt der Film auf langer Strecke ein wenig hin, um dann in eine grotesk-witzige Tour de Force zu münden. Ebenfalls sehenswert.

Läuft das nächste Mal am 1. Januar um 3:45 auf ARTE, daraufhin nochmal am 5. um 1:05.

O QUêêêê….

-descrição:mas você era tão bobinha
óculos de tartaruga

tá toda louca agora
arrasando
fazendo sucesso

e eu que sou eu tô na decadência?

o quêêêêêêêêêê!
preciso mudar agora

- quem não reencotrou aquele ser mais trash da escola, q do nada resolveu fica no mínimo interressante. é bom qdo isso acontece com meninos…pq sempre fui amiga de todos, mas em maioria era dos feiosos…mtas vezes vi um cara na rua, ele chega…oiiii….eu…QUEM É VC?…ae a pessoa…ae sou eu mostrinho, o feinho, o xexelento…eu ao reparar na beleza alheia respondo…NOSSA SAUDADES IMENSAS DE VC!

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

ahhh………..essa é mtoo boa!

CARALHO, já tá amando?

Descrição: para todas pessoas que ficam indignadas ao ver que alguém tem capacidade de dizer semana passada que amava alguém, essa semana ama não sei quem, semana que vem amará quem ?

[te amo não é bom dia porra! se toca]

PQ?? tem coisa mais irritande que alguem q vc não conhece mto bem fique dando notícias da sua vida íntima!?!?!? e é impressionante como o relacionamento dessas pessoas é rápido, é tão rápido q em menos de uma semana parece q ela vai casar! aí algo da errado e ela aparece, aquele não deu certo, mas ele tem um amigo (A) q me liga todo dia e tá locooo pra sair comigo, eu to super afim dele já, nós ainda não ficamos, mas, é a pessoa certa. EU PENSO, NOSSA ELA (E) CONHECE A PESSOA CERTA TODO F.D.S, queria ser assim tb! Pelo menos na minha vida eu só conheço caras errados!!

…dando continuação ao mote escolhido pros proximos anos (afinal são tantas comus), a comunidade a ser comentada hj é?

EU NÃO SOU DELICADA

Descrição:Se você detesta quando os homens ficam cheios de cuidados com você, não querendo que pegue peso, que não brigue na rua, que não jogue futebol, que não fale palavrão, que não faça nenhum tipo de luta e que não peite um homem. Esta é a sua comunidade!
Não tenha vergonha se você grita com os outros, briga, responde e se necessário até bate… Sinta-se a vontade, você acabou de achar o seu lugar…
Aliás: Somos mulheres, mas não convencionais… Diga não as delicadas!

- PQ eu não sou delicada? Bom pra começar pq eu não penso antes de falar (meu maior defeito por sinal) e qdo eu vejo já ofendi. Pq eu não uso palavras doces. Pq eu falo mto palavrão. Pq eu não sei medir a minha força (no sentido literal) e acabo machucando as pessoas (no sentindo literal). Pq meu andar não é leve e contente. Pq eu não sou nem um pouco suave. Minha voz não é baixa e aveludada. Pq qdo eu vou me sentar no sofá por exemplo EU ME JOGO, como na vida tb, eu simplesmente ME JOGO!

é impressionante como eu sofro. mas ultimamente tenho reparado que esse meu sofrimento dura pouco. esses dias eu sofri aproximadamente 3 segundos por um lixo aí, depois 25 segundos por um problema com um superior, depois 3 minutos por um desprezo. hahaahahaa.  Sofrer poco é bom! É bom ter um sofrimento que simplesmente passa logo!

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

e hoje eu dou início ao um ciclo de comentários de comunidades que eu tenho. Sim, sei que é um tema fútil discutir porque vc participa de uma comunidade em um site de relacionamentos (adoro essa palavra), mas se eu tenho essa comu é pq tem alguma história e histórias são legais, não importa de quem (pelo – eu acho). Bom tenho aquelas comus bem clichés de bandas e autores q eu gosto, dessas eu não vou comentar. Vou citar as comus peculiares como:

MULHERES BIBAS

descrição: Você pira ao som de Madonna e Björk?
Se uma coisa é boa você diz “tudo”, se é ruim, é “uó”?
Antes de sair, parece uma drag se montando?
Jura que se nascesse homem seria gay?
Se preocupa com detalhes estéticos, estilo e adora coisas coloridas?
Então, meu beim, você É uma biba!
Independente da orientação sexual!
Escandalosa ou discreta… SOMOS BICHAS COM ORGULHO!
ENTRE E SURTE À VONTADE!
P.S. CUECAS também são bem-vindas!

- PQ eu sou uma mulher biba? bom pq todo mundo fala q eu sou um traveco que nasceu pronto (eu odeio esses comentários) pq eu falo q nem drag, pq me comporto como uma, pq frequento lugares bibas, pirooooo na Kyle Minogue, adorooo purpurina e rosa. Pq no final de festa minha maquiagem derrete e eu fico parecendo uma drag q apanhou. Pq gasto quase todo o meu dinheiro em roupa. Adoroo acessórios, de preferencia bemm chamativos.

bom…como eu tenho aproximadamente 400 comus ainda tem mta pauta pra esse blog!!

BJUSS MILIGA

AHASA BIIIIIIIIII

Who? Comus

What? The first real Freakfolk band

Sounds like? Irish Leprechauns holding some strange ritual druid parties near Stonehenge and the sun is just going under never to rise again.

Ok, because i’m too busy listening to music from 2008, I decided not to blog about bands that have released something this year anymore until my list is complete and published. Old stuff (stuff from last year is old too by the way) is all it’s about next month.

So, let’s start with really old stuff… sixties, seventies, timeless..who cares. Comus is one of the most challenging bands you’ve ever heard (well, i’m talking about their first album ‘First utterance’). If you’re into folk, you’ll really love this. It’s kind of horror folk, spooky as hell, but never betraying their druid, pagan roots.

A lot of blasphemy and kick in the balls of everything christian. Let my enthusiasm not turn you off, by the way.

Comus – Drip Drip

Comus – Song of Comus

The downloads are quite heavy, but really really worth it!

The album got reissued, together with their second album (which is really really bad) . Here is this complete collection. only 7 euro’s. wow, that’s really cheap. you should all be ordering NOW!

(just thinking..maybe i should start a Classics-series. the albums you must own…let me see if i can find time to do so…)

(and it won’t contain U bloody dumb day 2)

who? Paul Roland

What? Medieval sounding singersongwriter

Sounds like? Robyn Hitchcock, the peaceful version of Comus, The Waterboys, David Bowie

Paul Roland…a guy from the eighties about whom I know absolutely nothing. And then i decided to put my laziness away and at least read his biography on last.fm. So he writes books about mysticism…that’s no wonder, hearing his music.

Especially his album ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ from 1987 is a classic that got lost in time somewhere. On this timeless album, Roland plays a sort of medieval sounding folk, that is a little scary. I haven’t heard any album that gets so close to the creepy sound of 70’s folk band Comus.  Next to that, the eighties are also present, but then the eigthies I can stand.  It could also be a David Bowie acoustic bootleg ( well, the song Demin In A Glass Case really is)

Roland tells stories that seem to come froma 19th Century madhouse. Listen e.g to ‘Gary Gilmore Eyes’.

Paul Roland – Gary Gilmore Eyes

Paul Roland – Madhouse

And the coolest thing? His music got reissued, together with another album of his on one disc! You can buy it at CDBaby.

Buffy Sainte-Marie

Illuminations (Vanguard 1969)

http://www.mediafire.com/?zn4wmvbcwqj

I don’t even know why I picked this one up during a chicken shit jag in Dothan, Alabama where my masochism led me to linger after a slow-moving breakup. No one said “No Mas”, but both parties were constantly on the verge of letting those words fly. During this awkward status quo, I wandered the local mall and picked up Roky Erickson’s Never Say Goodbye and Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Illuminations. I didn’t know much about her other than her stint on Sesame Street, but the cover looked so sparse, pagan and downright alien to me as i ran my fingers over an endless parade of alt-rock detritus. This depressing moment resulted in my first date with two albums that still symbolize love, longing and its eventual decay to me.

Illuminations is the darkest and bizarre album of Buffy Saint-Marie’s career and much of this due to the contributions of Michael Czajkowski who recorded an odd electronic album for the folksy Vanguard label. She definitely plumbed some chasms on past albums, but the vocals and lyrics were the foundation for her angst and eloquence. However, Illuminations transcends her past because the orchestration, process vocals, reverb and general eccentricity comes from a place not unlike fellow travelers 50 Foot Hose, Jefferson Airplane and even the Silver Apples. I love Grace Slick’s embrace of the psychedelic goddess on the first two Jefferson Airplane records, but this less hippie-dippy and more tender and fractured.

It is hard to discuss this album without paying tribute to the pagan mysticism of the opener, “God is Alive, Magic is Afoot.” It is no surprise that Coil covered this song since it seems like a template for most of their excursions into magick and hallucinatory imagery. Only Comus delved into such impassioned psychedelic territory. This song celebrates the existence of spirits all around us, but the fucked electronic effects make it downright unsettling. It is as if your beliefs in sprituality have come back to haunt you as animism takes hold and your surroundings come alive with a cavalcade of good and evil spirits. It is haunting in a literal sense and never fails to creep me out of my fucking gourd.

Maybe my devotion to this album is rooted in its association with a low point in my life, but tracks like “The Vampire” capture the essence of emotional cannibalism where both parties feed on one another in order to prolong the inevitable. Plus, I love the line where the vampire’s victim laments the fact she must bid goodbye to her rosary now that she has crossed the border into another phase of her life. She has been drained and it is time to start a new life. I may be stretching a bit, but I found solace in this morbid tale and still do to a lesser extent.

Illuminations is ahead of its time, but you rarely hear anyone cite her as an influene or embrace her as a newfound love. I wholeheartedly endorse any of her 60s albums, but this one possesses a hoodoo that rivals any record of the late 60s.

En aquesta etapa comença pròpiament el Camí dels Bons Homes. Es passa per Pelalh, les gorges de la Frau i Comús. Entre Montsegur i Pelalh hi ha una forta baixada molt enfangada i perillosa (a les topoguies ja ho adverteixen, però fins que no t’hi trobes, no t’ho creus). A Pelalh hi ha una àrea de descans, amb lavabos i aigua potable. Des de l’àrea de descans fins al començament de les gorges hi ha un tram de carretera d’uns 3 km que es fa una mica pesat.

Cap a les gorges de la Frau

La pujada per les gorges és forta però molt assequible si es fa tranquil·lament; a més, l’espectacularitat del paisatge convida a prendre-s’ho amb calma.

gorges de la Frau

Dormim a Camurac, a 2 km de Comús, al gîte d’étape la Marmite – Amicale des randonneurs, coneguda popularment com chez Michel (tel. 04 68 20 73 31). La fama de l’hospitalitat de chez Michel és de sobres coneguda entre els senderistes francesos; una fama merescudíssima. Cal veure-ho per creure-ho. La nit chez Michel va ser una festa!

amb el Michel i una de les seves obres mestres: el "cassoulé"

Tower Recordings

Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles (Siltbreeze 1997)

http://www.mediafire.com/?dynilt0y3xn

Back when I was a hack for Alternative Press, I had the opportunity to interview Matt Valentine of Tower Recordings and he kept speaking about communal living and a shared lifestyle. I think Spanish Wolfman was listening on the party line. My dumbass thought he was referring to the fact they were a bunch of hippie swingers, but age has taught me that he referring to something more wholesome than my fractured imagination.  I asked to interview them since their Fraternity of Moonwalkers album blew my boo-boo loose with its lo-fi take on English psych and folk. I didn’t know my Comus from my asshole, so it all sounded so strange and otherworldly to me. You know, it still does. I guess youth and age agree on this one occasion. However, I did eventually visit Port Chester, NY where they lived at the time and didn’t see a single commune, just bodegas and urban blight.

Let me get this out of the way before I discuss the album. Their cover of Os Mutantes’ “Q Delmak-O” is on the short list of songs I want to hear on my deathbed. I always loved the original, but Helen Rush makes it even more delicate and airy while the sparse intrumentation makes it even more stunning in its simplicity.

Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles is the best of the Tower Recordings albums. In fact, it is the best thing that any of these musicians have ever recorded. I like MV and EE as well as the Pg six albums, but they lack the cohesion of this one. All that was great about the band is on display here. At times, it sort of reminds me of what the Espers are doing today. However, their take on English troubadours is more troubled and woozy. These are simple, sincere folk songs, but their take on them is just so goddamn fried that it makes you wonder why this one never gets mentioned anymore. Listening to it now, it sounds positively pagan and could’ve been added to the Wicker Man soundtrack. If you thought of Nicholas Cage, please allow me to think badly of you.  However, the sight of him in that bear suit cracks my shit up.

I know it seems as if everyone with a Cd burner and steady access to weed sounds like this nowadays, but Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles is special and inhabits its own little universe. It is the happy meeting place where Takoma, Joe Boyd, Clive Palmer and Siltbreeze happily coexist for your listening pleasure. Helen Rush, why won’t you sing again? You are missed.

Siloah

s/t(Private Press 1970)

http://www.mediafire.com/?7wo7emtnwzd

I guess you could label this as krautrock since the band is German and it falls under the category of psychedelia, but it bears little resemblance to Can, Faust, Cluster or any other influential groups of this era. Siloah’s self-titled debut shares more with the disjointed, communal folk of Comus’ First Utterance or Amon Duul’s Paradieswarts Duul than anything else. They do not share Comus’ disturbing lyrical bent, but these tracks capture the shambling, expansive qualities of both bands at their best.

Siloah’s debut doesn’t match up to the brilliance of the aforementioned albums, but it is an essential listen for anyone who has spent hours communing with these two classics. Much of it consists of stoned ethno-folk jams that meander in the best possible ways, but I always come back to this album for the 18 minute track “Aluminum Wind” which is epic in all the right places. It has a slow, dissonant buildup complete with distant percussion and flute until the singer starts warbling about Disneyland, Christmas trees, drinking your eyes and other surreal musings. It is whacked and incoherent, but it does tickle my fancy.