Is it any wonder that a sassy, freewheeling city forever checking its pulse against the meter of some eternally offbeat, funky tempo would have found so many jubilant ways to ritualize its heartfelt love of life, music, and food? New Orleans has festivals and events to celebrate everything under the sun and stars. In fact, the city denies itself nothing for the sake of a good time, and the Big Easy will even offer a warm smile and breezy nod of understanding for those who might arch their brow in judgment of our characteristically carefree ways.
Ironically, we can chalk up at least part of our Big Easy heritage to religion. As a city settled by predominantly French and Spanish Catholics, New Orleans never quite grasped the Protestant work ethic like the rest of the country did. This, no doubt, explains why this unabashedly flamboyant and Europeanlike enclave possesses such a seductive and masterful flair when it comes to letting the good times roll at the drop of a crab. This ethos was ingrained in the city’s psyche early on, and by the time those somewhat stuffy, style-starved Americans from the Colonies began arriving here in the early 1800s following the Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans simply twirled its parasol over its shoulder and continued along its merry Creole way.
Many outsiders think of the Big Easy as an oversize frat party that uses the Superdome as a beer keg. Without a doubt the city can parade, dance, and eat up a storm like nobody’s business. In fact, it takes a full calendar year for the City that Care Forgot to pack in with near-spiritual devotion all the best life has to offer, set against a backdrop of trombone-sliding brass band funk, spicy sausage jambalaya, and sunny days. But New Orleans more than anything else is a city of celebrations. If it offers hot eats, cool tunes, and just the right spin of lighthearted fun, chances are someone has built a festival around it. Outsiders wonder how we manage to get any work done. We wonder why we bother.
Not one but two parades, spaced a weekend apart and held in the Irish Channel and Old Metairie, respectively, celebrate the patron saint of Ireland with kisses and cabbages. In the French Quarter, dog lovers and their costumed canines in the Krewe of Barkus as well as the Bourbon Street Awards’ drag-and-leather contest keep the campish possibilities of Mardi Gras on a long leash indeed. Enjoy sweet Creole tomatoes? The Great French Market Tomato Festival offers a weekendlong tribute to the region’s heralded accept-no-substitutes cooking mainstay. Or join locals at the Greek Festival to pay tribute to the culture that gave the world philosophy—and the ouzo needed to understand it—all while munching on stuffed grape leaves and dancing to bouzouki music. The Essence Music Festival, which draws some of the nation’s top entertainers from the worlds of rhythm and blues, soul, and hip-hop, has already earned its stripes as a major attraction and tourist draw.
You can’t miss locals at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. We’re the ones dressed more casually than Californians at a surf wedding, dancing our heinies off or striking up friendly conversations with out-of-towners while waiting in line at a food booth for some shrimp remoulade or alligator-on-a-stick. When Carnival season officially kicks off on January 6, it doesn’t stop until midnight on Mardi Gras after more than 70 parades, thousands of king cakes, high-society balls, and downscale street parties later. During this time the Big Easy turns fantasy into reality and reveals to the world the true colors of its beautifully adulterated, quixotic soul: purple, green, and gold.
New Orleanians also make room on the social calendar for special occasions a little more serious but truly just as fun. A shining example is the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, a tour de plume of the life and times of the author who gave the world Night of the Iguana and A Streetcar Named Desire, the famous play set in New Orleans about that always-shouting-about-something couple next door, Stanley and Stella Kowalski. The annual 10K Crescent City Classic helps locals burn off calories, while Art for Arts’ Sake opens the art season with a nighttime “Artwalk” of more than 60 Uptown, French Quarter, and Warehouse District galleries hosting open houses. Celebration in the Oaks trumpets the arrival of the holiday season with a dazzling display of one million lights decorating City Park’s centuries-old live oaks. And on December 31 the city kisses another year good-bye with its New Year’s Eve countdown in the French Quarter outside Jackson Brewery on the Mississippi River. And then we start all over again. Got aspirin?