Like so many, the mother and insurance manager had known in her stomach that the week-long party would begin in 2021. Revelers of all ages sat at least three deep along routes that snaked for miles, seemed the textbook antithesis of social aloofness.
So I made a bit of a comment, ‘Well, that’s fine, I’m just going to decorate my house,’ said Boudreaux, inviting her neighbors to also transform their homes into stationary versions of the gracefully designed floats that populate the four dozen parades that roll across the city each year.This way, she thought, partygoers could stay six feet apart while visiting outside and enjoy the artistic character of the annual countdown to Lent.
The idea, like a series of strands of beads hurled toward the sky toward an endless crowd, has spread.
There is a house with a sign that beckons, “Welcome to Wakanda.” Another has a Night Tripper theme in honor of funkman Dr. John. A house honors a health worker in addition to giant ivory beads. On a balcony is a cutout of the late chief Leah Chase, spoon in hand, near a huge pot. Just off the St. Charles Avenue tram line, a giant model dinosaur grazes in a top hat. Elsewhere, a set-up pays tribute to Alex Trebek with a “Jeopardy!” board, playable using a posted QR code. Human-sized Lego figures approach a float being rolled on a porch by parade goers. A wooden pelican the width of two men perches on another.
All over town, papier-mâché or cardboard and foil flowers of every shade, plus streamers of purple, green and gold and strands of beads the size of beach balls, adorn the houses where so many have recently retired after the coronavirus. last Mardi Gras. That’s when 1.5 million people – including international visitors – congregated in the city, almost certainly fueling the viral spread that made the region an early hotspot.
Indeed, the purple and white house icons featured on a map on the Krewe of Float Houses website cover the city’s entire main footprint like a sidewalk strewn with doubloons, those metal collectible coins tossed by riders of traditional floats.
“In essence, it’s not much different than when people are driving around with the kids in the car and looking at the Christmas decorations and holiday lights,” said Doug MacCash, who chronicled the movement of the house raft for the local newspaper, The Times-Picayune. | The New Orleans attorney. “Except this year, in 2021, it has such a spirit of triumph, such a spirit of defiance. It’s like, ‘Sorry,’ rona. We’re not just giving up.”
“Mardi Gras certainly isn’t dead; it’s just different,” said City Councilor Jay Banks, who has cast his own house – already painted yellow and black – with other trademarks from the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club, the city’s foremost. . Black Carnival organization, over which he once reigned as king.
“And what we’re forced to do this Mardi Gras, with Covid as the No. 1 consideration,… is how this whole house float thing started,” he said. “And let me tell you, I’m just laughing about it.”
How to turn your home into a float
Do-it-yourselfers – many are already armed with hot glue guns and glitter by the gallon for making annual Mardi Gras costumes – have seriously embraced the home design efforts. Two private Facebook groups with over 14,000 attendees spew questions anytime, the fastest answered by a hive eager to collaborate after months of staying home orders.
“Any recommendations for securing this? It’s top heavy,” asked a poster, referring to a photo of a homemade Lysol container several feet tall.
From another: “Has anyone gotten lucky using cardboard to make floating home decorations? I’ve already used some and painted and sealed with mod podge acrylic sealer, but I wonder how it will hold up in the elements on a French Quarter balcony! Is there a better way of waterproofing, etc.? “
The exchange is no different from the bleak months following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when neighbors were connected with swapping recipes for bleach or baking soda concoctions to remove mold from items soiled by the flood.
Others looking to gild their homes now have turned to a regional cottage industry built over the decades for precisely these types of businesses.
“Part of the consternation about Carnival’s cancellation has to do with, well, there are people (for) who (m) Carnival is their livelihood – lots of people: float builders, bead and costume makers,” MacCash said. “Some of the Carnival artists who find themselves out of work at a time that would have been really difficult have found jobs decorating houses.”
In a normal year, René Pierre would now roughly finalize the books on some 75 floats that his company, Crescent City Artists LLC, adorns with lightweight canvas, light house paint, hard coat, wood and styrofoam, he said.
This year, Boudreaux’s vision of the house raft, which Pierre had caught in a local news report, turned out to be his “ticket out” of a toned-down carnival – and one that follows his and his young daughter’s recovery from Covid-19.
“Oh man, in about three weeks we were fully booked until today,” Pierre said of his home decor customers last week. “My wife and I were trying to sleep one night, and we kept hearing reports from the website. It was like,” Ping ping ping ping ping. It was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ It was like an instant success. It was unbelievable. “
The couple signed 53 house float contracts, ranging from $ 1,500 to $ 3,000 each, an amount that many riders in the city’s biggest showpieces would spend on beading strands and other “throws” to throw in any given year.
“It really put my business on full steam,” said Pierre, noting that he hired his cousin, an artist, to help manage the crush. “We’ve made more money in six weeks … and are talking about the spirit of Mardi Gras.”
Among the assignments, Pierre’s favorites include a trio of painted pups made after the homeowner’s pack, a Buddha-themed display, and one with an emphasis on the Grateful Dead’s dancing bears.
Boudreaux, known as “Admiral B” of the house’s fleet, aptly decorated her home in a maritime motif. “I don’t know if I want to know how much I spent,” she said, “definitely more than I meant, less than a lot of people.”
How to run a home (or become a member) float krewe
In addition to her own decor, leading this burgeoning krewe (local language for a festival group) has become Boudreaux’s second full-time job. There are exchanges with lawyers about beautifying rules in historic neighborhoods and weekly logistics meetings with the mayor to find out how to deal with homeowners who want to hire a band, for example. There are now 50 captains, 39 subkrewes, a communications team and an effort to collect and assemble dozens of dancers’ home videos into a performance masterpiece for the website.
Yet another to-do list item was added shortly after the krewe named a New Orleans bounce star as his great marshal, Boudreaux said. “Now the house of Big Freedia is a traffic jam. The house is so popular that even in guerrilla photography style it still attracted an audience”, the only thing that the Krewe of House Floats urgently wants to avoid.
The krewe has also launched a campaign to donate $ 100,000 to people dealing with unemployment and food and housing insecurity, largely because of this year’s Carnival limits: artisans, service industry workers, musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, and others. culture carriers.
And, perhaps unsurprisingly, “plant the seed this year” for what is already becoming an annual event that will continue long after the coronavirus is overcome, MacCash said. (At last count, Pierre already had 28 home decor contracts for 2022, and pre-registration is open for next year’s Krewe of House Floats.)
For now, Chris Volion is looking forward to safely welcoming revelers on Fat Tuesday, Feb. 16, passing his New Orleans home, adorned with huge black birds inspired by local crows and Edgar Allen Poe in his personal Krewe of Nevermore. Volion, an institutional research analyst, and his wife, Janet, are making some themed throws to hand out and plan to work with the neighbors to create king cake flavored Jell-O shots.
“Although it feels different, there is still that excitement,” he said. This year, instead of exchanging parade plans, “the conversation has shifted to, have you been in that and that block, or have you seen this house? It’s so nice to see the energy still there.”
For Banks, the city councilor, the floats offer a glimpse into a particularly bleak season. In his own circle, Covid-19 claimed 23 lives and killed 17 members of the Zulu organization, he said, not to mention relatives and friends of the club. It has deprived New Orleans – and the world – of the opportunity to personally socialize and observe customs in the typical way.
But as so often, he said, the city’s response in this dark moment is sending a message far beyond its borders.
“We’ll show the rest of you there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” Banks said. “As screwed up as Covid is, we won’t let ourselves be beaten… New Orleans’s lesson to the world is: you play the cards you get.”
