01/28/2008

Mardi Gras Madness

Carnival Kicks off Across the Globe

From Bavaria to Brazil, revelers celebrated the beginning of the Carnival season over the weekend. They rattled cowbells, donned decadent costumes and marched in massive parades to kick off festivities that will stretch until Feb. 6.

Mardi Gras, Fasching, Carnival. No matter what you call it, the party season leading up to Lent -- forty days that Catholics traditionally spend fasting in preparation for Easter -- has given rise to some of the best parties and wackiest traditions in the world.

This year Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, is on Feb. 6; in the 10 days between then and now, Carnival-goers will pursue all manner of debaucherous fun from Bavaria to Brazil. Carnival season kicked into high gear last weekend, as revelers in Europe and the Americas dusted off their decadent costumes and danced in massive parades.

In Venice, a Carnival tradition that includes Victorian gowns and hauntingly emotionless paper maché masks has enjoyed a zealous revival since the 1980s. On Sunday, 40,000 people packed San Marco plaza to watch as the American rapper Coolio performed the "Flight of the Angel:" Suspended from a wire fastened to the tower of the plaza's namesake basilica, he swung out over the crowd and dusted the masked merrymakers with confetti.

For the first time this year, the official Venice Carnival program included a strange motto, discouraging the infamous masks because, it claimed, many of them are too sad or frightening. But many of the 40,000 revellers were undeterred, complementing their colorfull ballroom gowns with the traditional masks, which can appear stone-faced, foreboding, or downright gruesome.

Across the Atlantic Ocean and the Equator, Brazil kicked off the world's largest Carnival party. Despite heavy rain on Sunday in Rio de Janiero, 20,000 Brazilians and tourists turned out to march, dance, sing -- and drink. The Brazilian government seems well prepared for the frenzy of partying -- they plan to distribute 19.5 million condoms between now and Ash Wednesday.

Government leaders in Munich faced a challenge of an entirely different sort in recent weeks as they prepared for the Carnival parade that held in the Bavarian capital yesterday. The parade was criticized by Jewish advocacy groups in Germany because it was held on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp and death camp at the close of World War II. But the remembrance is not a public holiday in Germany, and festival organizers proceeded with the parade as planned, and thousands turned out on Sunday to watch the procession.

Meanwhile, preparations have reached full tilt in Cologne, Germany's most Carnival-crazed city. Over a million visitors are expected in Cologne over the weekend and early next week for the climactic close of what Cologne residents know as the "fifth season." A massive parade to be held on Sunday is known for the creative and often tongue-in-cheek themes of its floats. At least one float has already attracted attention this year, for mocking the English football team, which failed to qualify for the European Football Championship next summer.

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