Carnivale

Henry James wrote, "And yet do what you will you can't really elude the Carnival." That was in the late 1800's. Now it's hard to find any remnants of Carnivale. You have to search it out, and when you do, the events are primarily for kids. Being a person who loves this sort of thing, I went looking. Where to start? Just follow the kids in costume.

For two weeks you see kids dressed up all around Rome. When I asked Lorenzo where they were going, he said, "Nowhere, they just walk around like this." No trick or treating, no definitive destination, but at the ready to throw confetti at one another or engage in a silly string fight. Unlike Mardi Gras in New Orleans, there are no beads, no hangovers and no regrets. Here you'll only find marionettes, clowns and horses. The celebrations don't seem to have much to do with getting in that last taste of your vice before giving it up for lent. Back in James' day the confetti was thrown by women to attract the attention of their male counterparts. Although little girls may still throw confetti, the motivations are not the same.

I find it interesting that the Romans have toned down their Carnevale celebrations while the Americans have adopted them. James wrote, "An unsophisticated American is wonderstruck at the number of persons, of every age and various conditions, whom it costs nothing in the nature of an ingenuous blush to walk up and down the streets in the costume of a theatrical supernumerary....Our vices are certainly different; it takes those of the innocent sort to be so ridiculous." I don't know if it's innocence that encourages the crazy, out of handedness that takes place at Mardi Gras, but their is surely a lapse in self-consciousness. At least for the night, until the sun comes up again.