No Mas Fooling Around

Toomey's parking lot turns into a Mas Camp. What's that, ask the uninitiated? Mas is short for masquerade. The beautiful costumes for Carnival (this coming Monday) are made, traded, bought, tried on. Each group marching has its own place to prepare. Steel bands practice. Community. Food, drink. Good times.

Or at least, that's what I'm told by the folks in this picture. The mural adds a nice touch to the scene:

Toomey's parking lot. Here's a good story about steel pan bands looking for space to rehearse.

Look for mas camps all over the neighborhood. Some have been doing the "pop up" thing for years in unleased storefronts or commercial properties. I remember a couple years ago when Lili's Millenium on Flatbush became a costume showroom. Some of the friendliest people in the world are from Trinidad and Tobago. Stop in and say hi or listen to the music. The history of Carnival and J'Ouvert? Dang interesting. Read on, unless you're annoyed that I'm even writing about such an obvious thing:

Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago is celebrated before the commencement of the Lenten season. From 1783 for half a century, the French developed their Carnival , which was noted to be a season of gay and elegant festivities extending from Christmas to Ash Wednesday. These festivities consisted of dinners, balls, concerts and hunting parties.
The Africans started to participate in the festivities from 1833 after the Emancipation Bill was passed. The Africans brought Canboulay to its festivities. Canboulay was first played on August 1st, Emancipation Day , but subsequently took place after midnight on Dimanche Gras, the Sunday before Carnival. In early celebration of the festival by the masses activities were held over the three days preceding Ash Wednesday. However in the face of over 60 years of criticism from the upper class about the low standard of Carnival and strong feelings expressed about the desecration of the Sabbath, in 1943 Carnival on the street was restricted to the Monday & Tuesday.

Okay, that's a pretty sterile description. J'ouvert is inseparable from Carnival, and starts late at night on Sunday and goes til dawn. A crowd of revelers marches, and they come down Clarkson outside my window. For the first couple of times I thought I was dreaming. It's craaaaaazzzyyy y'all! You've got to see it and hear it. Smearing paint and oil on the bodies was originally to avoid being recognized. What I didn't get for a long time was that since slaves were forbidden from participating in the celebrations, they started their own WAY more exciting parties.

If you're new the neighborhood, keep your eyes and ears open as the week becomes weekend becomes full on out of control mayhem. Try to be patient with the noise if that's a problem for you. This is the biggest Carnival celebration in America outside of New Orleans Mardis Gras. Why, you might ask, is it done all over again at the end of summer? Dang, if you were into parties like this wouldn't you do them, like, ALL THE TIME? If it's good enough for the young American Electric Daisy Carnival set...

I mean, had you noted that the word Carnival seems perfectly matched in these two cultural phenomena?

More likely to hear deadmau5

More likely to hear Machel Montano