…it’s time for the Mummers Parade. (To be honest with you, I wasn’t at yesterday’s parade; the only things I get to see at events like that are taller people’s backs. What follows are photos from the television broadcast.)
Mummers can look a little startling at first glance.
And maybe more so at the second look. Yes, it’s a guy in a dress, holding a parasol, at an imitation beach bar.
Being a Mummer tends to run in families – some are very, very young.
The choreography and costumes are amazing. This is one of the “string bands” – you can see a couple of the musicians in the right rear of the picture. At least, you can see their instruments 
All the scenery has to be moved by hand as the groups march along, by the way – no motorized floats.
What we have here are a lot of cops and teachers and store clerks and firefighters and lawyers and, well, people in any occupation except professional actors or dancers who get together for elaborately costumed and choreographed and competitive performances. And do it again the following year with a new and different show. With feathers.
What a great idea to photo the screen. Much better than people’s backs
Thanks! Though it turns out that screens don’t photograph very reliably…you should see how dreadful some of the other shots are.
Nice to see a thriving line of eccentricity over there!
Very thriving and very eccentric!
Looks like a fun parade.
Oh, it is!
I had no idea there was such a celebration in Philly. Looks like Mardi Gras in the streets of Philadelphia.
Happy New Year.
Happy new year to you! I guess it is a bit like Mardi Gras, but colder.
Looks like a wild and crazy time! And speaking of pictures from the TV, I got an amazing shot of Aaron Rogers that not only looked as if I were at the game but as if I were on the field opposite his center.
It’s a lot of fun (and a lot of work and expense for the clubs, but it’s what they do
) Congratulations on your picture!
Nice summation of the Mummers parade here in Philly. It’s unique and quite an experience to see; glad your however-removed shots turned out so (impressively!) well.
Thank you! I thought the rest of the blogging world deserved an introduction to the Mummers, even if the shots weren’t really taken live (though a LOT of the pictures I took turned out impressively awful; there seem to be many technical problems you can run into trying to photograph screen images!)
We have Mummers plays here, goes back to medieval times I think.
I don’t know if there’s a connection or not to our Mummers – a lot of them are South Philly Italians (many of whom live in South Jersey now, but their grandparents or great-grandparents used to live in South Philadelphia).
i love it, i really do. They don’t that here. Here it’s down the pub and see
but not me. I stood on the doorstep and watched the fireworks going off all around the city, very pretty.
We had New Years Eve fireworks over the Delaware River – used to be that all the fireworks went off at midnight, but several years ago they started having a 6 p.m. show too so that people could bring their children to watch. So now we have two sets of fireworks to start the year with. Nice.
very nice. I can hear the city hall clock from my house