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NEW ORLEANS (AP) – You just can’t keep a good city, especially as Mardi Gras approaches.
All around New Orleans, thousands of homes are decorated like floats because the coronavirus epidemic has called off the elaborate parades beset by crowds during the carnival season leading up to Shrove Tuesday.
Some small groups have announced no-parade plans before the city did. Pandemic replacements include treasure hunts for signature trinkets that would normally be thrown from floats or handed out from a streetcar, as well as outdoor art and drive-thru or virtual parades. The eminent Krewe of Bacchus has an app where people can catch and trade virtual trinkets during the carnival and watch a virtual parade on February 14, when the parade was scheduled.
But the “house float” movement began almost as soon as a New Orleans spokesperson announced. On November 17, the parades were interrupted.
That morning Megan Joy Boudreaux posted what she later called an idiot Twitter joke: “We are doing this. Turn your house into a float and throw all the pearls from your attic to your passing neighbors. “
But the more she thought about it, the more she loved him. She started a Facebook group, the Krewe of House Floats, expecting some friends and neighbors to join. The numbers have increased. Thirty-nine sub-groups evolved to discuss neighborhood plans.
At the official start of the carnival season on January 6, the group numbered more than 9,000 members, including “expatriates” out of state. About 3,000 people, including some as far away as England and Australia, will have their homes on an official map online, said Charlotte “Charlie” Jallans-Daly, one of the two cartographers.
Houses must be decorated at least two weeks before Shrove Tuesday, February 16 of this year. With addresses spread and two weeks to watch, the hope is that people will scatter widely in time and space.
“I didn’t think I was starting a Mardi Gras krewe. Here I am, ”Boudreaux said. “I have a second full-time job myself.”
Discussions in Facebook groups include directions, ads for props, and neighborhood themes. Artists gave live lessons in the open air.
Katie Bankens posted that the theme for her block was Shark Party Heaven. When a resident worried that she was not “cunning” enough, administrator Carley Sercovich replied that if they could play music and throw knickknacks at neighbors, “you’re perfect for that Krewe!”
Boudreaux also suggested that people could hire or buy unemployed carnival performers and suppliers affected by the parade cancellation. A spreadsheet of artists and sellers followed. One of them, artist Dominic “Dom” Graves, has booked over 20 five-person courses in professional papier-mâché techniques, at $ 100 per person.
Devin DeWulf, who had already started two pandemic charities as the head of the Krewe of Red Beans walking club, launched the idea of a house float a few notches at the suggestion of Caroline Thomas, a professional designer of floats. Their “Hire a Mardi Gras Artist” Crowdfunding lotteries raised enough money to put teams to work decorating 11 homes, as well as commissioned work in two other homes and seven businesses.
“We put about 40 people to work, which is good,” DeWulf said. As Mardi Gras approaches, he said a 12th lottery would be the last.
A commissioned house is rented by a pair of nuns.
Sisters Mary Ann Specha and Julie Walsh, who run a shelter for homeless women with children, had to get permission for their own crowdfunding from the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary motherhouse in Dubuque, Iowa. “They loved it,” Specha said.
Decorations funded by the crowdfunding could be auctioned off after Mardi Gras to raise more money, DeWulf said.
Several mansions along a short stretch of St. Charles Avenue had elaborate exhibits with signs indicating their creation by one of the city’s largest float-making studios.
Tom Fox, whose wife, Madeline, painted a scene from Spongebob Squarepants and made jellyfish from dollar store bowls, said he believed a new tradition may have started.
“Even when Mardi Gras returns, I think people will continue to do this,” he said.
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