(excerpt)
It could be Mardi Gras, Carnival, Halloween, the Fourth of July,
Thanksgiving or St. Patrick's Day, a victory celebration or a protest
demonstration. Regardless, the atmosphere is almost always gay and most
certainly chaotic. Barricades are set up, traffic backs up, horns honk,
disorder sets in, the police wait in readiness. A cacophonous mix of
military melodies, show tunes, chants and cheers fill the air. Then down
the middle of the street comes a procession consisting of garish floats,
high school bands, fraternal organizations with color guards, unions and
mutual aid societies marching behind their banners. Everything seems to
be covered in glitter, sequins and tassels. Big-headed characters ramble
along, fantastic beings with bulging eyes and flapping tongues, with
huge feet, and fingertips that drag on the ground. Some are so tall they
scrape the sky, others so short they walk between their companions'
legs. The mundane mingles with the fantastic and tawdry, giving reality
the quality of an acid flashback. Then, without warning, the parade
dissipates. The crowds disperse, and in their place among the litter are
the lost and abandoned. The scene has everything one can wish for and
perhaps more. It is "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad" rolled up into one,
noble causes, passions and marching bands.
As darkness sets in, the experiences of the day retreat into the recesses of the mind, events become reduced to anecdotes, souvenirs and snapshots. Once more the participants are ordinary people who proceed to their workaday world, where they happily dream that waking dream about the day next year when they will don their guises once again, and, in complete anonymity, act out their deepest desires, their outrageous urges and their most ardent passions before an adoring and cheering public.