Religious or Secular, and by Mardi Gras- I mean either Fat Tuesday itself, or the several week run up.
St Louis bills itself as The Second Largest Mardi Gras Celebration in the United States. There are a number of events in the Historic Soulard Neighborhood. Though it is mostly another opportunity for people to get drunk on Anheuser-Busch products.
I was in LA a couple years ago, and it didn’t seem to be very well celebrated.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It’s bigger than you realize.
Is it an important holiday to all Catholics, or just to ones of French descent?
IOW, should I make an effort to call my mostly-Irish Catholic brother-in-law and wish him a happy Mardi Gras (like I would do for Christmas or Easter), or would that be silly?
I assume you mean Los Angeles? I don’t recall there ever being any Mardi Gras hoopla there and just assumed it’s a southern thing. Then again, I’m in Florida and I totally forgot it’s today. I’m all for letting the good times roll but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near New Orleans at the moment.
Mardi Gras is a big honking deal in New Orleans. You would have to attend it to understand the magnitude. It certainly isn’t over hyped either. There really are several million people in the streets doing exactly what the stereotypes are. Mardi Gras in New Orleans isn’t just one day either. It is a season roughly 3 weeks long that builds into a frenzy as it gets closer to the actual day. People often find themselves staying up basically for days at a time committing all kinds of previously unthinkable sins that they would never do back home. Preparations for the next Mardi Gras begin right after the previous one is over and go on all year long. There is a whole industry devoted to building elaborate parade floats and making things like King cakes. It is at least as big as Christmas.
There are a few different versions of Mardi Gras in Louisiana as well. There are some outside the city proper that are a lot more family oriented. There is also true cajun Mardi Gras which is completely different and cool to see.
Growing up Catholic in WI and attending church every freakin’ Sunday, I don’t ever recall hearing the words Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday.
little known fact: the North American version of the pre-lenten celebration Mardi Gras originated in Mobile, Alabama, not New Orleans. Mobile to this day has a thriving (and largely segeregated) Mardi Gras*
*Parade attendance isn’t segregated but there are two carnival associations, one for blacks and one for whites. The carnival associations are comprised of the Crewes, some of which parade. The parades are the tip of the Mardi Gras iceberg. Much more to it.
You see “Tuesday before Ash Wednesday” as a fun holiday in lots of traditionally Catholic communities/countries, it’s just called something else. It’s Carnival in Latin America, Paczki(sp?) Day in Polish. I don’t know of others offhand but I’m sure they’re out there. Needless to say the traditions vary – I was an exchange student in Ecuador years ago, there Carnival was celebrated by throwing water balloons at whoever looks like a fun target.
Supposedly Paczki Day was something of a minor holiday in Buffalo (where I’m from) but I have no memory of this (I do remember Dyngus Day, the day after Easter). My impression is that in mainstream US culture Mardi Gras has been turned into a bar/drinking holiday, like Cinco de Mayo. As always YMMV.
Perhaps I should rephrase my OP.
Is Mardi Gras an excuse to get drunk in your town? Or have the good folks at AB manufactured another secular holiday here in St Louis, in a similar fashion to, say, Cinco de Mayo?? About 5 years, we had a near riot by drunken revelers when the cops busted a girl for flashing.
Mardi Gras has become a pretty big deal in St Louis, billing itself as the second largest [after New Orleans] in the US. There are krewes doing floats in parades both last Saturday and another one beginning in just a few minutes.
Of course the big problem is that Fat Tuesday happens as it were, on a Tuesday. Not the best party night.
I’ll bet you heard of Fasching, or Fashnacht. Same thing.
It sounds like your version may be manufactured but it is a real holiday with deep roots and traditions in parts of the Deep South (mainly Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama). There are several different legitimate and historical versions in the U.S. that weren’t manufactured and are religious based even though the results of that are sometimes completely counter-intuitive.
Other areas have a mix of religious Mardi Gras references, commercially inspired ones, and just plain excuses to drink. I am from Louisiana but I live in the Boston area now. Our Episcopal church has small reminders of Mardi Gras traditions and beads available and King Cake sometimes. There are also bars and private parties with Mardi Gras themes but those are incredibly small scale compared to the real thing.
The only Mardi Gras celebrations in the U.S. that I would describe as legitimate rather than just a commercial copy are in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. For the latter two, those also occur on the Gulf Coast in areas that used to be part of Louisiana.
Other groups obviously use different names for theirs if it is related to their religion and culture.
I have been to several large scale celebrations in my time, including the Olympics, a couple of NBA World Championships, a Superbowl, dozens of various large-scale music festivals, San Fermin festival (“Running of the Bulls”) and many, many Grateful Dead shows…
Nothing I have seen comes close to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. (though I have never attended Carnival in Rio, or Ocktoberfest in Munich, which I understand are both amazing)
Until you are actually on the corner of Rampart and Canal on Fat Tuesday, it is impossible to understand the true depth of feeling during Mardi Gras in New Orleans—Everyone should experience it for themselves, as it is something that you will never forget!!!
Noper
MPB in Salt Lake is correct. It’s hard to convey just how freaking crazy that time of year is in New Orleans.
Here in Seattle we have a mini version down in Pioneer Square but that seems solely a place for the frat boys to get drunk. It has been scaled back and a lot more tame since they had the riots and a guy got killed a few years back.
Speaking of Seattle, I have flown up for Bumbershoot a couple of times, and always had a great time.
The festival where they have the naked bike parade was also pretty wild, but I dont recall what it was called; afterwards the party by the bridge (where the Redhook Brewery is) was good fun as well…
Not even that. There’s no Mardi Gras/Carnival tradition in Quebec.
Looking to the places where major events occur, it seems to be more of a Spanish tradition than a French one.
You want to talk about manufactured drinking holidays? I submitHoboken St Pattrick’s Day. Basically every year the town of Hoboken, NJ (a short 15 PATH subway ride from Manhattan) throws it’s own St Pattricks day several weeks before regular St Pattricks Day on March 17.
Carnival is a huge deal in the southern (Catholic) parts of the Netherlands. It lasts a couple of days, has costumes, floats, marching bands and lots and lots of drunk people.
Here in Springfield, IL, where by my WAG 40% of the Christian population is Catholic, Fat Tuesday is… Tuesday. One or two local bakeries may have made King Cake available, and one or two bars may have haphazardly strung up some beads, but that’s about it.
Springfield does, in fact, have aMardi Gras. It’s a newish celebration & family oriented.
Galveston had its first Mardi Gras in 1867; as a port city, it was always a bit looser & more Catholic than the rest of the state. It faded away but was revived when good developers (George & Cynthia Mitchell) began fixing up the old parts of town. It’s now revived again–post Ike.
Quebec’s Carnival was apparently born from the Mardi Gras tradition but later linked to the solar calendar. Since it’s mainly a winter festival, a late Ash Wednesday would lead to meltiness…
The climate of New Orleans has probably encouraged the celebration you see there now.