Trendy But Casual

The House on Villere Street

This is the home of Joyce Montana, widow of Tootie Montana, on Villere Street in the Seventh Ward.

On Mardi Gras, we spent a couple of hours lurking in the street outside the house and watching all the Mardi Gras Indians come by to pay their respects to Miss Joyce, and to greet Darryl, now the big chief of the Yellow Pocahontas. (Lisa Katzman's film Tootie's Last Suit is screening this week at the Pan African Film and Arts Festival in Los Angeles.) The first Indian pictured here is Miss Joyce's great-granddaughter. The little ones in pink were with the Fi Ya Ya.

By the time Darryl was in partial costume, it was mid-afternoon and the street was crowded, thronged with neighbors, costumed revelers, film crews, photographers ...

The delay was caused by the costume: it wasn't finished, and inside Darryl, his wife, Sabrina, and legions of helpers were still gluing feathers and working on the cuffs. The humid, windy weather wasn't helping. But finally the crown was carried down the stairs.

That last picture is Darryl with Miss Joyce and Sabrina. The circle motifs on his suit were a tribute to the work of late artist John Scott, who was from New Orleans. This article in USA Today shows Darryl at work on his suit. (Note that story says he planned to come out at 10 AM on Mardi Gras morning.)

Seeing the Indians and their towering, vibrant, hand-beaded suits up close was beyond amazing. Sorry to give such a banal summary of such a spectacular sight.

February 6, 2008

In New Zealand, it's Waitangi Day and also Shrove Tuesday, but in New Orleans it's Mardi Gras.

We returned from New York yesterday: it was snowing fat, wet flakes when we caught our cab to Newark. In New Orleans it's humid and windy, in the high 70s, with big rain coming. (Like Auckland in high summer, just before a tropical storm.)

This is our fourth Mardi Gras, and we thought we'd do something different this year - ie not simply go to watch Zulu and Rex ride, and leave weighted down with beads (and beer). We caught plenty of beads last night at Proteus and Orpheus. So we decided to go masquing. We bought incredible hand-made masks in the Bywater from the sisters who used to run the Little Shop of Fantasy in the Quarter. TM borrowed a fancy, satiny pirate costume from our friends in Metairie, and I went to a costume shop for one of those generic goth gypsy wench countess dresses, so I could be the Baroness de Pontalba - ie the kind of clothing where you should avoid a naked flame. We looked fetching, I think.

Hot and uncomfortable, but fetching. This morning we joined the Society of St Anne, walking from Mimi's Bar in the Bywater through the Marigny and into the Quarter. We met up with some costumed colleagues, who asked me not to publish the pictures ... so I won't. But here are some of the other denizens of St Anne's.

Then, with said anonymous colleagues, we diverted out of the Quarter and up to the Backstreet Museum on St Claude in Treme, to join the street party, spy on Dr. John, and wait for some Mardi Gras Indians to come by. We weren't disappointed.

Then we bumped into Lisa Katzman, another colleague, who made the brilliant documentary Tootie's Last Suit. She was walking over to the house on Villere Street where the late Tootie Montana lived; his wife, Joyce, still lives there, and it's from this house that their son, Darryl, emerges on Mardi Gras in his Indian suit. Darryl has succeeded Tootie as Big Chief of the Yellow Pocohontas Hunters. We spent a couple of hours there, waiting for Darryl to emerge in full regalia, and watching the other Indians come by. We have tons of pictures, but I'll put them in the next post. Like Darryl, they're worth waiting for.