That’s the call to riders dispensing beads and “throws” from the elaborate floats of Mardi Gras. The name of the holiday’s misleading. It’s about a month or so of parties named for just one day, Fat Tuesday, the last day before Lent. But Mardi Gras is more in New Orleans. No one does Carnival like the Crescent City. Beginning on Twelfth Night, Jan. 6, the city is obsessed with eating, costuming, bead-tossing and parading that increases in intensity as Ash Wednesday nears. On the weekends leading up to Fat Tuesday, parades roll all over town. Spectators gasp at the colossal Endymion floats and delight in the social satire of Krewe d’Etat’s. There are new traditions like Chewbacchus with its Star Wars-inspired tomfoolery and ages old ones such as Zulu and Rex. Visitors are encouraged to explore New Orleans Mardi Gras traditions. To eat oysters and king cake, watch parades roll down St. Charles Avenue and tag along with marching krewes as they wind their way into the Quarter from New Orleans historic neighborhoods.