Interesting article about exploring the Haitian Creole aspect of Mardi Gras in New Orleans... https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/...oogleapis.com/auth/chrome-content-suggestions
Good story about the guy who has been building all the floats for 70 years. At age 90, master float builder Blaine Kern is a more mellow Mr. Mardi Gras http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orle...cle_8026f488-0821-11e8-baab-a30e9d57f803.html
Keith Spera is a very good journalist but he was wrong to say that the world's fair mermaids were created by Kern. It was the Barth brothers. They used a different media (papier Mache). The style of the mermaids isn't even close to Blaine Kern's...it's much more detailed.
No. They're personal friends of mine. There's a sister too. Like the Kern family struggle, after Katrina there was a family dispute about insurance compensation that destroyed their collaboration. We all travelled together to Hondouras together where their parents are from...Utila, an English speaking island that was home base of the pirates called Morgan's raiders.
Mardi Gras party recipes... http://www.nola.com/mardi_gras_nola/2018/02/13_new_orleans_recipes_for_mar.html#incart_m-rpt-2
