But for groups like Eris, segregation wasn't the issue. The whole Carnival culture, with its outlandish expenses and required coordination with the city, seemed elitist in itself. Eris, which grew out of another downtown-based group known as the Krew de Poux, was meant as a very public response to all of this money and organization. Two of Eris' founders, known locally as Ms. Lateacha and Lord Willin, created the group to bring the spirit of anarchy out on display, taking over the streets in a public reclamation of space.

Half a year after the 2011 Carnival, hundreds of American cities were swept off their feet by their own anarchist suitors. American public spaces became campgrounds for the Occupy Movement--eschewers of hierarchy who didn't just want to stay for a night of Carnival but were ready to move right in.

While the Krewe of Eris is a collective that prides itself on its singularity, it's hard to ignore the hallmarks it shares with the Occupy movement: its rudderlessness, its youth, its frustration, its creativity, and its fractious infighting, as well as its clashes with law enforcement. Pizarro unwittingly added a few other common features as he tried to explain what made Eris so unique.

"Eris is different from other New Orleans [protest] traditions because it's a bunch of fucking white kids for the most part," he explained. "I think it's different in the fact that it's newer, it's not such an old tradition. You can have parades in New Orleans that are reasonable and you don't get fucked with, but Eris got too big. And it's because of that whole structurelessness."

Accordingly, those wondering how the Occupy Movement will reorganize itself this spring might glean some clues from the way Eris reconstituted for the 2012 Carnival. After the debacle of the previous year, the Krewe found itself facing a number of thorny questions: Would the group still organize without leaders? Would it try to distinguish between those who wanted to parade and those who sought confrontation? Would it limit its ranks to a more carefully defined body? Would it still march without a permit? Would it craft a more specific message to an increasingly skeptical public?

As the group gathered for the parade on a mild Louisiana night, most of these questions had been answered. Behind the scenes, a few more assertive members of the Krewe, who half-jokingly christened themselves "Eris Alpha," had taken on the task of handling more of the decision making, much to the chagrin of everyone.

"The problem with structurelessness is the implied hierarchy," said one member of Eris Alpha. "Even the hierarchy itself gets resentful because you're doing all the work for everyone else."

Unlike in previous years, Eris would avoid the French Quarter entirely and limit information about the group's whereabouts. The Eris marching band, by many accounts the heart of the group, would avoid another conflagration by skipping the parade and performing instead at a ball at a venue nearby. It would also be the first year that the founders, Ms. Lateacha and Lord Willin, would not be present. The chosen theme, a nod to the subterfuge, was "The Trickster's Ball." Eris 2012 would aspire to be nonviolent and nondestructive--a credo that caused a fissure. A splinter group, calling itself "The Krewe of Witches" and impelled more by chaos, set a boisterous course through the streets of New Orleans one night earlier.