Amnesia and Excess
It’s the end of February in New Orleans, and the magnolia trees are blooming. As I bike along the city’s potholed streets, the purple flowers are my unlikely guarantors that the wet chill of New Orleans winter is finally over.
"Minutes after the last float rumbles by, a line of men in orange sweatshirts or fluorescent yellow vests advances, armed with shovels and heavy-duty bags."
Turning onto St. Charles Avenue, a different bloom catches my eye; vibrant multicolored beads droop from the branches of the boulevard’s live oaks. One week after Mardi Gras, this alien bloom is all that remains of the city-wide celebration and round-the-clock revelry.
During the two weeks of parades that lead up to Mardi Gras, an estimated $1 million worth of beads are bought and thrown. New Orleans natives will tell you that it’s bad luck to pick up beads that land on the ground. In the wake of each parade, then, as the crowds drift away with their booty around their necks, the streets are piled high with discarded beads and beer cans. This is what remains of the “greatest free party on earth”, in the words of Sgt. Lesley Hill-Peters.[1]
Hill-Peters is spokesperson for the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office. According to her, “someone picking up after you” is all part of the fun; revelers are required to do nothing but have a good time. So who cleans up the city’s messes? Local prisoners, released into the sunshine for a few hours to make thousands of pounds of garbage disappear. Minutes after the last float rumbles by, a line of men in orange sweatshirts or fluorescent yellow vests advances, armed with shovels and heavy-duty bags.
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