Glass Beads.

Carnival is here. Plush Appeal is open for business and busy. It’s a warehouse full of Mardi Gras supplies. They have aisles and aisles of everything, not just beads, though there are walls that are stacked to the ceiling with pallets of plastic beads.

Old-school crystal Mardi Gras bead. used to be made in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in what is now the Czech Republic. Now, they come from India. They are made of glass, or “crystal” if you prefer.

Glass beads get handed, not thrown. There is enough stray trash on the ground in the wake of a New Orleans parade. Because they are fragile, and because they are more expensive than plastic Chinese beads, glass beads are rare. They are coveted and saved. They can be worn year ‘round.

Only one aisle is dedicated to glass beads. Every aisle has a theme, the shelves are not arranged willy-nilly. The variety changes every year, but the same types of things are kept in the same places, as predictable as the seasons.

Carnival has started. I haven’t been taking pictures. It is a short Mardi Gras this year. I think it coincides with Valentine’s Day, screwing up my main business. Still, only a churl complains about Mardi Gras.

I don’t know if the Krewe of House Floats is still around. I haven’t heard much, but since the pandemic, people decorate their houses more and more elaborately. If the Krewe of House Floats is not still extant in body, it is in spirit.

Photos to come when I take some pictures. I spend more time taking photos of clouds than I do of passing ephemera on the ground. All in good time.