Katrina survivors to party on Twelfth Night

'I think a lot of people need fun and craziness and distraction.'

Jolie Bonck, queen of the Phunny Phorty Phellows, is dressed for the Twefth Night celebration Friday.

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NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Since Hurricane Katrina, Jolie Bonck has been living in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer in front of her flood-wrecked house.

But on Friday, she will lead a raucous streetcar party to celebrate Twelfth Night, the start of the Carnival season leading up to Mardi Gras.

Bonck will appear as Queen MRE Antoinette, dressed in a blue tarp and labels from the ready-to-eat meals that were distributed to hungry residents after the storm.

She's queen of the Phunny Phorty Phellows, a costumed group that helps kick off the city's biggest blowout -- a party that has been muted by the devastation left by the deadly hurricane.

"I know there's controversy about having Carnival," said Bonck, who is a program director at a historic house at the city's edge. "Being someone who's staying in the city, rebuilding her home and trying to rebuild her life in the city, I need something like this to help me through what's going on. I think a lot of people need fun and craziness and distraction."

Like Mardi Gras itself, Twelfth Night began as a Catholic celebration. Fat Tuesday is a blowout in preparation for the austerities of Lent. Twelfth Night is the last of the twelve days of Christmas, marking the Feast of the Epiphany, the day that, according to tradition, the three Kings laid their gifts before the baby Jesus.

The Phunny Phorty Phellows used to make their unofficial launch of Carnival with a streetcar ride along St. Charles Avenue, but that route still has no power. The Phellows considered a bus, but decided to take the working streetcar route down Canal Street.

There usually are about 12 days of parades leading into Mardi Gras, which is February 28 this year. Because the city is so short of cash, with three-quarters of its residents living somewhere else, the schedule has been cut to eight days, with only eight hours of parades on any day unless corporate sponsors cover the overtime.