Mesmerized by Memories of Mardi Gras

In homage to Mardi Gras...

If you haven't been to Mardi Gras, go.  If you go, go past Bourbon Street.  In the below visual poem I tried to capture some of what it feels like in the streets of New Orleans during Mardi Gras.  There is one person in the shot.  Imagine that's you, dancing like no one is watching...

http://youtu.be/EVZVyE7k9Qw

It's hard living away from home where people's only orientation toward your city is Bourbon Street.  "New Orleans is the @sshole of America... It smells like p*ss and vomit," they say.  Well I don't boil Atlanta down to Magic City, New York to the East Village, or San Francisco to the Tenderloin so why would Bourbon Street represent all of New Orleans?

...And Mardi Gras is so much more than bare breasts for beads, f'd up frat boys looking for fights, and drinking till you are deaf, dumb, and disabled.  For New Orleanians, Mardi Gras is a time when you hop from house to house along parade routes and eat real meals homemade by culinary masters who could cook show chefs into a fetal position...  It's were children from pre-teen up get their first taste of freedom, wandering away from their families for miles at a time to witness the wildness that awaits them in pre-adulthood... where people play music and dance in the streets... where animals get dressed up to strut their stuff... where trees get decorated with beads for the rest of the year.

The next time you hear someone talking down about New Orleans because half the lights went out to save the Super Bowl from being a blowout, or because the French Quarter smells like the 300 year old river town it is, or because they heard about how dangerous it is in the Big Easy... you tell them "smoke a sausage and go see for yourself."

P.S.

This is a 5D Story...

1.  Words - Mass Transit Muse excerpts
2.  Sounds - Bingo Bango by Rebirth Brass Band
3.  Movement - Second Line footwork
4.  Visual - Rhythmic stop motion
5.  Interactive - your Mardi Gras experience in the comment section