5/25/2006: Shrimp and Petroleum Queen
 

http://cellar.org/2006/shrimpandpetroqueen.jpg

Axlrosen locates this Queen of the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, and 2005 Queen Abby Bruas features this unbelievably lovely gown to mark the honor.

Wait, Shrimp and Petroleum Festival? Doesn't sound like two great tastes that would taste great together...

IotD always features weird festivals from around the world, but it turns out that Louisiana is actually the Weird Festival center of the world. And what's more, they have Queens of all of them. The Gueydan Duck Festival Queen, the Louisiana Swine Festival Queen, Porte Barre Lion's Club Cracklin Festival Queen, Miss Nanitoches Meat Pie Festival Queen, Woodmen of the World Sausage Festival Queen. It's almost like people in LA can't hold a conference meeting without picking out which young gal is the prettiest. There appears to be no irony in it and Louisiana seems to have no shortage of young good-lookin' women who are willing to compete for and be tagged with such insane titles.

I suppose there's something wrong with this, but I'm not sure exactly what. It makes me vaguely uncomfortable.

The young ladies in comptetion get a chance to display their comportment, get dressed up, be crowned, be addressed as "queen" or "princess". My sister participated in some of these when we were younger. She had a good experience with it, and won a couple, too. There was essay writing, interviews (none on the casting couch, though (I hope)), and for one, she got a $500 scholarship.

It works out for the sponsor too. Lots of chatter and buzz about the festival queen, and look how pretty, etc, etc. Mindshare, y'know.

The train is over the top, but at least it's better than an image of an oil spill.

The festival's web site is equally cheezy. Click if you want to see how not to build a web site. (On the other hand, who knows? Maybe this is exactly the kind of web site that Louisianans would love?)

http://www.shrimp-petrofest.org/ (turn on sound for full effect)

Obligatory Louisiana joke:

Louisiana has its own version of the see and say (you remember the kids toy - you pull the string and it points to an animal and then says the name). In the Louisiana version it doesn't matter which animal it points to. The recording always says, "Them's good eatin'".

Must...Have...That...Gown...

:eek: The 2005 - 2006 Washington Parish Watermelon Festival Queen.......is Asian?

Is the border on that train made of blue tarp material?

Hell, you sure ain't seen many blue tarps. There's no mistaking the color of those things.:lol:

It's the New South™

Oh, you're just showing off your little tm thingy.:lol2:

Wow - I've been too distracted by the gown to notice the mural she's standing in front of. Is that... a giant shrimp, climbing an oil derrick? Possibly being shot at by helicopters??

It's hell to use now ... the latest vB upgrade took away our ability to enter ALT+ codes for some reason. I actually have to open up Character Map, find it, Copy it and Paste it in.

PITA. :p

Oooh! I love it's little hardhat!

Won't that be a hell of a thing to have found by future archeologists.

I was at the zoo last week. Same animals, different recipes.

Holy fuck that's weird

EDIT: Shrimpzilla, that is.