Mardi Gras Indian Show

The one and only Bette Midler raised $1,800,000 dollars taking advantage of Halloween for her annual bash that builds, creates, and keeps up parks in New York and cleans up the city's garbage. This is for her New York Restoration Project and this year Bette had The Mardi Gras Indian Show at the Waldorf making lots of noise, dropping feathers, masks, and generally making the wearing of costumes an art.

People love this charity and it is proof that Bette deserves to be on the recent list of top women philanthropists. She is the only "singer" on the list and is also cited as "a humanitarian." There is one other show biz person on the list - Oprah! The rest are all brilliant "civilians."

The Restoration Project has two new parks opening near the East River Drive - one is dedicated to the late Governor Ann Richards who made NYC a second home. And the other is a bequest from the estate of the late Geraldine Stutz who ran Henri Bendel at the height of the 70's fashion revolution. - Huff Post

A Mardi Gras Indian and a brass band performing outside the Superdome before Super Bowl XLVII between the 49ers and the Ravens.

NEW ORLEANS – You knew it had to start with the crawfish.

There were 50 pounds worth, all laid out on top of newspapers (The New York Times, naturally), along with gallons of chicken and Andouille sausage and king cake. A tray of vegetables sat nearby, mostly uneaten.

The local writer Brett Michael Dykes, Cajun Boy to some, gracious host to others, stood before these bright red mountains of deliciousness and instructed his visitors on how to eat them. He twisted the head off one.

And so it started.

This feast fairly summarized a week of Super Bowl gluttony in the Big Easy. Bands were seen. Music heard. Seafood consumed. Parties attended. Why they don’t hold the Super Bowl here every year is a mystery to me.

The parties began in earnest Thursday, and they were gaudy, over-the-top affairs, as could be expected. EA Sports hosted the Madden Bowl at the Bud Light Hotel, with every square foot packed. Big Boi of Outkast performed. So did the local rapper Lil’ Wayne.

Leather and Laces took it from there, with parties on consecutive nights. Hosted by Axxis Sports, it featured acrobats swinging from the ceiling, tables for Moet and Chandon and Belvedere vodka, and celebrities like Brooklyn Decker and Jenny McCarthy. Glitz, glamour, the usual.

If that wasn’t enough, Maxim magazine held its annual party Saturday, right next door to Leather and Laces. The guest list looked like this, in part: WHO: Sofia Vergara (Modern Family), Olivia Munn (Newsroom), Nina Dobrev (Vampire Diaries), Ian Somerhalder (Vampire Diaries), David Arquette (Scream), Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), 50 Cent (rapper), Hayden Panettiere (Nashville), Maria Menounos (Extra), Daniel Dae Kim (Hawaii Five-O) and Jamie Foxx (Django Unchained).

It all added up to another New Orleanian Super Bowl. There were beads and beers, gumbo and trumpets. And there was a crawfish boil that perfectly summarized the week.

There is also a game to be played Sunday, a championship at stake. The guess here is the party will continue. - The New York Time N.F.L. Blog

With upwards of 100 pounds' worth of colorful feathers, beads and other materials weighing them down, members of the Mardi Gras Indian Show worked up a sweat Saturday at Indiana Black Expo's Summer Celebration.

The four men, with a six-piece band behind them, danced their way through the Indiana Convention Center as part of the annual celebration.

It's the first time at Black Expo for the New Orleans-based group, which brought to Indianapolis this Mardi Gras tradition of melding together African-American and Native American histories. ... - INDYSTAR