Ash Wednesday in Louisiana is a quiet day in which the celebrants of Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, try to be penitent. Many may go to the Catholic church to be marked with a smudge of ashes and to hear the words, “From dust you came and to dust you shall return.” The church says it is the beginning of the season of Lent.

Yet celebrants in many locations across the Catholic world have found reason to extend their Carnival activities. For them, Ash Wednesday, in what must be a delicious transgression, is not the last day, but is one more day of Carnival.