Me, Jaimie Lynn and Aviva pose with hoops before Eris

Mardi Gras in New Orleans was a strange and wonderful time. Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday, but the celebrations leading up to the actual day last for about two weeks. Besides the celebrations around the Super Bowl, the peak of Mardi Gras for me was marching in the Krewe d’Eris Parade on Sunday the 14th of February.

Eris is an unauthorized parade, as described on NOLA.com

“As Sunday night slithered out and Lundi Gras scuttled in, The Vieux Carre was swarmed by the filthy vermin of the Krewe of Eris, a wild and phantasmagoric walking (and bicycling and wheelchairing and shopping-carting) krewe dedicated not to misrule but to no rule at all. Unorganized, unauthorized, un-permitted, and unconcerned, the Krewe of Eris is an open-membership tribe honoring Eris, the goddess of discord and strife. In the mythology of the Greeks it was Eris who threw the golden apple that sparked a feud between vain deities, revealing the pettiness and weaknesses of the powerful, and thus the Krewe of Eris gives the lie to the grandiose and flashy motorized superkrewes, mostly by being much, much more fun.”

I was part of the Hula Hooping corps, coordinating with our friends in the flag corps. We marched at the front of the parade along with a luminous dragon and a marching band. The theme of the parade was “light and pleasure” and along that vein my friend Aviva and I both got LED hula hoops, and our third hooper Jamie Lynn marched between us to catch some of our light. We all decided to dress in costumes of white and gold. I had a fun marching band hat with gold horns made by a talented woman named Jade. The rest of my costume I got from second hand shops.

Marching for about three hours with a hula hoop was both exhilarating and tiring. I had so much fun tossing it as high as I could and catching it, watching the swirls of light making pretty patterns in the sky. The crowd loved us, and was us. People seemed to wander in and out of the parade, adding to the chaos and beauty of it. We had rehearsed a routine but found it impossible to carry out. It was all just fun and celebration.

Since I was hooping I could not photograph the parade itself but I found some cool photos online on the Wandering Dreamers blog and also on l*ght//motion’s flickr page. The slideshow below is of the photos I took before the parade…

Double Dutching in Jackson Square before the Super Bowl

In looking back upon my life, I have noticed a strange pattern. I have lived in the geographical fan base of successful football franchises much of my adult life. The first time it happened was kind of heartbreaking, living in Syracuse and Rochester (NY) while the Buffalo Bills played in and lost 4 consecutive Super Bowls in the early nineties. At the turn of the century I moved to New England in time to witness the Patriots go to 3 Super Bowls, winning two of them. Now here I am – a new decade, a New Orleans, and at the epicenter of the wildest football scene in the history of the universe. And yes, the Saints victory over the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV has beaten the shit out of every other football experience I have ever had. WHO DAT!!

Aviva hooping it up!

It is really funny because I am not a football fan, per se. I have watched a handful of Super Bowls and playoff games over the years, but here in the Big Easy there is no way to avoid the Saints mania. This is a city only five years out from being nearly destroyed by Katrina and the Saints seem to represent something beyond sports. They are the Phoenix rising up from the flames, with all the aura and legend of that mythical creature. Even my yoga teacher waxes poetic during class, prophesizing that the Saints’ victory is going to end the Hindu Kali Yuga and usher in the Dvapara Yuga. She tells us that we are all about to become beings made of light, and if my quantum calculations are correct she just might be right.

I spent the day out with my new friends who love to Double Dutch and hula hoop. We rode our bikes through traffic jams and dog parades (Barkus) to get to Jackson Square in the early afternoon, where we set up shop and drew a huge crowd around us. The Saints fans (aka all of New Orleans) were all out in their black and gold, some wearing more elaborate costumes. The sun was shining and our little boom box was playing upbeat music and it was all pretty picture perfect, as my perfectly pretty pictures hopefully convey.

For the game I went to a party, with the usual anarchists and artists you find at random parties around New Orleans when you are a freak like me. I sat inside an old warehouse building of some sort on a dingy car seat watching the game projected on a giant bed sheet. The setup would occasionally lose reception and about half way through someone put Saints Radio on instead of the CBS audio, making the famous Super Bowl commercials seem even more surreal. There was no heat and so I went out at half time to warm up by the fire while The Who played and we all secretly wondered if they regretted the lyrics in “My Generation“.

The second half of the game was epic, up to the point in the 4th quarter when the Saints made the game’s only interception and ran 70 yards to victory, and into history. After all the hugs and victory cries and high fives our posse once again rode out towards the French Quarter, busting out the jump ropes and hula hoops on the corners of Frenchmen and Royal. Once again a jubilant crowd gathered around us, while cars drove by honking and the whole city took to the streets in celebration. Everyone yelling “Who Dat!!” over and over again. All people united by one event, a celebration well deserved by this amazing city. I am blessed to be here, and to be a part of it all.

Giddy Saints fan holding my hoop

Saints Cycle

Here is a slideshow of the Daytime photos:

And here is one with the Night-time photos:

Promo image from heads 2 Hoops Exhibit

On March 6th Megan E LaBonte and myself held the opening for our Heads 2 Hoops show at the Green Bean in downtown Northampton. The turnout was great and people seemed to really enjoy the work as well. I created a coffee table book in iPhoto and ordered a couple copies, which sat on a table with one of Megan’s heads and our comment book. We also had a companion “Green Bean Exhibit Zine” to go with the exhibit.

Megan’s mother came through in the last minute with some vegan cakes and a vegan peanut butter pie. Megan made several pans of her new favorite recipe, vegan stuffed shells, which were scooped up in the first half hour. I contributed some Scheese, the amazing new vegan cheese from Ireland that tastes great on crackers and comes in several flavors. It is available locally at Cafe Evolution I should add.