Big Easy Bonanza

Prologue
    IN NEW ORLEANS, Carnival is nothing less than a season. It lasts thirty to sixty days and virtually consumes its celebrants, who in turn consume several oceans of inebriants. This exuberant annual escapade has its roots, as does almost every excess of high spirits, in pagan fertility rites.
    Early on in Arcadia, to purify the soil, the priests painted themselves, the shepherds stripped naked, and the former chased the latter over the landscape, merrily lashing them with goatskin whips. But of course that was nothing compared with the Roman bacchanal that evolved from it. Naturally the church sought to end the hilarity. Just as naturally, it failed. Early quashing efforts only resulted in skylarks such as the medieval Feast of Fools, which included a mock mass and blasphemous impersonations of church officials.
    Finally, in the spirit of compromise that has so often saved their bacon, the bishops offered instead their own celebration, neatly transforming a pagan debauch into a Christian one. It was first called Carnelavare, or “farewell to the flesh,” because it preceded the forty Lenten days of fasting and penitence before Easter. But one must be sober to pronounce such a word, and so it became simply “Carnival.”
    The medieval custom of holding parades, masquerades, and revels in celebration of Carnival has been handed down in certain unruly cities—notably New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, Nice, and Cologne. The two gentlemen who originally claimed Louisiana for France (Iberville and Bienville) got things rolling in that area one February night around the turn of the eighteenth century, when they camped on a small bayou and, overcome with homesickness, remembered that back in France the streets would be mobbed with revelers. They called the creek Bayou Mardi Gras, for “Fat Tuesday,” the last-chance feast before the fast beginning Ash Wednesday.
    The colony’s settlers remembered also the customs of yore and declined, though far from home, to let the standards slip. In fact, they may have even raised them a bit, because in most cities Carnival lasts about a week. In New Orleans the season starts on January 6, making Mardi Gras Day itself the climactic moment of weeks of revels.
    From time to time in New Orleans, by one early governor or another, Mardi Gras was banned as rowdy and dangerous. But it always popped up again, and always rowdier still. In 1857 people thought that it would the a natural death due to the high crime rate. In feet, that year’s Mardi Gras was really the beginning of the frolic as we know it today. The Mistick Krewe of Comus paraded for the first time. This may have been the single most important event in the social history of the city.
    Quite simply, Comus is the most elite and important of the city’s krewes, or Carnival organizations, of which there must now be hundreds. Nowadays there are women’s krewes, like Venus and Iris, black krewes, like Zulu, gay krewes, black gay krewes, krewes composed of suburban dentists, krewes that make fun of other krewes, krewes of every stripe, krewes from every stratum. But the important krewes are secret societies made up of male members of the creme de la creme. To get in, an aspirant may have to wait for someone to die. Then, of course, he must be voted upon and must be able to contribute substantial dues to pay for the annual ball and parade.
    For the raison d’etre of the krewes is to have a parade and a ball at Carnival. Eccentric as it may seem, they truly exist for no other purpose. (However, the membership of Comus, though theoretically unknown, also runs the Boston Club and therefore the city.)
    Rex, the second most important krewe, is a different animal from Comus. Its membership is not secret and its focus is civic rather than social. Even a New Orleans newcomer might be asked to join if he had the right job, knew the right people, and worked hard for the good of the city. Despite such seeming common status compared with the rarefied circles of Comus, Momus, and Proteus, Rex himself, the civic leader selected each year as king of the krewe, is also king of Carnival. (He’s very likely to be a member of Comus as well.)
    The crown of Rex is the most coveted honor of New Orleans society. It’s said that ex-Rexes tend to get carried away with their royal status. The one who had little crowns engraved on his stationery has gone down in history. Others simply rest on their laurels in the Rex Room at Antoine’s, eating,