Word: gras
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...with his SDECE years well behind him, Marenches doesn't mind sharing a few stories over a two-hour lunch of foie gras and braised veal. "Shortly after your hostages were taken in Tehran in 1979," he recalls, "the Americans asked my advice. I told them, 'When dealing with rug merchants, you need something to trade.' " The count's modest proposal: kidnap the Ayatullah Khomeini and exchange him for the 53 Americans. "After weeks of reconnaissance, my people came up with a detailed plan to land a helicopter near Khomeini's residence, neutralize his guards and whisk him away...
Even by New Orleans' lusty standards for revelry, last week's finale to weeks of Mardi Gras merrymaking was an epic blowout. There were John Bobbitt mimics, a Tonya Harding on roller skates with a baseball bat, and vendors peddling condom keychains. The 10-hour parade was viewed by 1 million revelers who overflowed hotels and French Quarter restaurants. As grateful merchants totted up the $10 million infusion, swelled for the first time by a riverboat casino, tourist-commission spokeswoman Beverly Gianna pronounced it "a grand and glorious party...
...political theater is familiar to New Orleans, but it seems only to heighten public cynicism. Observes Xavier University sociologist Silas Lee: "We've taken a Mardi Gras approach for too long, covering up all the problems with costumes. But we were dying on the inside." That can change, others say, if New Orleans draws on its inner grit and bonhomie. "It has things going for it that others don't," says Renwick. "Who would want to eat in Atlanta compared to New Orleans anyway?" In times like these, a little civic chauvinism should be forgiven...
Except for a 40-year-old man dressed as Tonya Harding, there were no reminders of Boston, of the Northeast, of any-thing outside of Mardi Gras. It was hedonistic and loose...
...waded through the snow that night to get my forehead ashes and go to section, feeling appropriately somber. My timing was good. But from the desk in my office now dangle three long sets of flat beads in purple, gold and green--the colors of Mardi Gras. Lent will pass, another year will go by and the time for revelry will come again. when it does, you'll be able to find me on St. Charles Ave.., precariously perched on someone's shoulders, smiling a big smile and holding out my hands for some beads. Mardi Gras is balm...