Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Fat Tuesday

Mardi Gras is a wonderful day, a day I think should be celebrated throughout the United States and the world.

This is the time of year I wish I lived in New Orleans. I have visited New Orleans before, and I really love the culture, the decadence, the history. What I wouldn't miss the crime, the hurricanes, or many of the visitors.

Mardi gras comes from the Latin, meaning "flash a boob." Well, actually it comes from the French, meaning "fat Tuesday," but my Latin interpretation seems closer to the truth. Mardi gras was not always as brash, as full of boobs and booze, as it was in the past. Actually the booze was always part of mardi gras, but the booze has flowed freely in New Orleans since Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop first opened its doors.

We are moving into forty days of fasting and prayer, forty days of prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial, and mardi gras is sort of a buster shot of sin to tide one over the next 40 days.

The English call this day "Shrove Tuesday" or "Pancake Day". The English have a reputation of not being sexy. Let's examine this. Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans have really sexy mardi gras (or Carnival) celebrations, where they expose breasts. The English have "Pancake Day" where they eat pancakes. Breasts verses pancakes. You make the call.

4 comments:

Advizor54 said...

If you get the really old women to participate, you could combine the two for "Pancake Breast Day", but that's an image that none of us need.

Fat Tuesday is the bachelor party with hookers before the wedding, the giant feast before the diet, the candy bar on the way to the dentist.

I wonder if the party would be as fun if we put it after 40 days of religious contemplation, maybe it's better before we think about it too much.

Anonymous said...

I think Mardi Gras should also be "Show Your Boobs On The Internet Day".

Any takers?

~Jef

Anonymous said...

I have cousins that live in Louisiana. When I was little, they would send my sister and I cans of beads they had collected from the parades. My sister and I would tear them apart and restring them in whatever colors we wanted.

Frankly Speaking said...

I like pancakes, which is probably why I'm starting to get breasts.