This past weekend would've been my favorite weekend of the year: when a friend and I, sometimes just us, sometimes with others, go to Lafayette, LA for the Festival International. It's food and music and fun, like you'd expect, but it's also about the vibe.
For those unfamiliar with Louisiana, Lafayette is considered the capital of Cajun country. The festival is free, the locals are happy to have you there, and people are generally happy and relaxed. The weekend is a breath of fresh air and a low cost, low effort trip.
This pig, whom I call Jon Ham, was painted with that vibe in mind, inspired by an easy-going Cajun musician or music fan - maybe zydeco or jazz. He hangs in Toups Meatery right now. The Toups’ are doing incredible work feeding the needy in New Orleans right now; throw them a bone to support them and the hungry in my city.
Is it weird to look at a anthropomorphized pig as you eat a pork chop? You tell me.
We all miss our outlets for relaxation and recharging, but with this festival, it’s probably the first major void in routine I have felt. I imagine a few months from now, I'll really feel the effects of losing out on the festival this year.
I can't help but wonder what the collective loss of traditions will feel like as a society, especially as it becomes more clear we won't do anything "normal" until there is a vaccine widely available - maybe 2021, likely 2022. What will Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas look like? Will we have Mardi Gras parades next year?
How long until I get to see my family in other states?
When the traditions we structure our year around are missing, where is that kind of long term mental schedule we maintain? The world's seasons will continue to change - do we start to orient ourselves around weather and agriculture, like we used to?
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t imagined, with some degree of optimism, what a world free from the burdens of tradition would feel like. Perhaps it would benefit us to stop orienting our entire lives - vacations, spending, social interaction - around the structure of a consumerist Christmas, or a school year based on a harvest schedule that no longer means anything to us.
At the end of this year, when hopefully most people are back at work, a lot of people will not be taking time off for the holidays. They will be out of PTO, or financially trying to work to recover from this period.
My imagination has run wild with posssibilities for the future, and breaking out of the somewhat oppressive monotony of each year might not be a terrible idea. However, I will still be attending Festival International.
One of the more memorable performances I’ve seen at that festival was the Gugu Drum Group from China; this video is from a different performance but they really captivated me. I’m not some sort of international music scholar, but these guys really stand out in my memory.