jazz funerals, taino indians and riderless floats

sometimes mourners at funerals just cant cry. sometimes in the somber moments when you think you should be crying the tears just dont come.
that’s when a jazz funeral does its job.
the jazz funeral has two interlocking, mutually opposite, mutually dependent parts.
everyone knows that sad, slow dirges are the first part. slow, sad music is customary for funerals.
but the second part of the jazz funeral is its distinguishing feature. the drums roll in a syncopated march. the whole crowd — both band and mourners — starts up in crazy, soul-lifting, emotional spiral that sounds to the uninitiated like a party. this is because it is a party. it's a party with a purpose and its purpose is to bring on the tears and it usually works. time and again one hears that the mourners chest’s tighten and then all of a sudden they are crying right along with the happy music. a paradox? perhaps. but the manner in which our emotions become locked within our hearts is non-linear. therefore the route to their discovery is strange and oblique.

in the caribbean there is a taino funeral tradition in which the body of the deceased is laid in the home to allow friends and family to grieve. during this time there is a celebration. people dance and sing. it is a party. those who cry are put off to one side behind a curtain to allow the lightness, the good spirits to envelop both the dead and the living. this allows for more crying. the taino puerto rican tradition, like the jazz funeral, works.

in our literal, linear society some people cant understand these incongruities which is why you may hear this season — its even made the national news i think — that new orleanians are somehow “insensitive” to host the countries largest party in the countries largest disaster zone. some have actually asked, shouldn't mardi gras be “cancelled” this year?
answering this, locals have said a great many things. (new orleanians are not known for remaining silent in the face of a perceived challenge.) one rebuttal reminds us that mardi gras — fat tuesday — the day before ash wednesday — the last day before lent — is a date on the calendar and cannot be eliminated by any official entity, even if there were just one centralized authority that was responsible for mardi gras.
other rebuttals are more complex but get more to the point. these refutations involve a theory on the nature of happiness and sadness that is both very new orleans and very buddhist at the same time. for there is no such thing as happiness unmingled with melancholy. there is no such thing as sadness unmixed with joy. its deceptively simple.
perhaps new orleans has always been a kind of national epicenter for this emotional crucible. it really doesn't matter why happy music should make us cry. it just does what it does.

____________
two nights ago, in the muses parade, the last float was darkened, riderless, and draped in black crepe. nice, very nice.
*see matt bucy’s blog aloofdork for pictures and descriptions of muses and other parades and parties we have been in, and to.

____________
typical mardi gras joke heard this season is, “i was so drunk last night that i couldn’t walk home – so i drove.”