Druids, and Muses, and Knights, Oh My!

Wondering what that title's all about? Those are some of the carnival krewes parading tonight and tomorrow! Hang on for a quick tour of some of my favorite krewes.

Tonight kicks off the parades this week with Druids at 6pm down St. Charles Avenue, screwing up traffic all over Uptown. Luckily, I get to leave work at 4:30 today and tomorrow, and I'm taking Friday off. Yes!

The Krewe of Ancient Druids is one of the all-men krewes, and this is their 18th year. One of the fun things about Druids, besides the cool throws, is the secrecy. Their king's identity is never revealed to the public, which harks back to some of the first Carnival traditions. Can't wait!

Tomorrow is one of my favorite nights, with Babylon, Knights of Chaos, and Muses.

Instead of a tractor, which is what pulls most of the floats (gets kind of smelly, yeah, and do they ever break down!), the king's float for Babylon will be pulled by a mule this year, which is what Krewe du Vieux uses to pull their (our. I'm still getting used to being a part of the madness!) floats through the Marigny/French Quarter every year.

Knights of Chaos is always a fun, and mostly satirical parade, sort of like Krewe du Vieux. One of the interesting things about Choas is that they always use flambeaux in their parade, a controversial tradition which many krewes have either done away with or changed. The original flambeaux carried flaming torches to light the parade floats up at night. Here's a modern version. See? Traditionally, people hand/throw change to the men carrying these smelly, dangerous flaming sticks.

Some newer flambeaux are either propane, or lamer still, LED. I love the look of the old flambeaux, minus the danger and the weirdness about the thrown change, but it's a long route, maybe these guys make good money? Still, you can see why it might be a controversial topic.  

Muses is one of the most fun krewes, a newer super-krewe made up of women only. The floats are beautifully lit and just gorgeous. The theme last year was "Muses' Guide to Love and Romance."  *this year's was Dancing With the Muses*

One of their most coveted throws, like the Zulu Coconut, is the Muses Shoe.

The wife of one of my coworkers is in the krewe, and he just sent me a link to a flicker account where you can see all the shoes they've decorated to throw to lucky parade goers.

I'm going to dress up in my blue tutu and wig and mask again for Thursday, and make SURE I get a good picture of myself in costume to share. It'll insure I get a good haul that night, too. ;)

*Updated Saturday Night*

Keep your fingers crossed that I get my first shoe!