Mardi Grass Is Coming To Town

New Orleans News

Endymion Taps Maroon 5, Anderson Cooper For 2012
Superkrewe Returns To Dome After One-Year Hiatus

POSTED: 6:57 pm CDT September 29, 2011

NEW ORLEANS -- Grammy winners Maroon 5 and talk show icon Anderson Cooper will help lead the Krewe of Endymion home to the Superdome in 2012.

Officials announced their headliners for the upcoming Carnival season on Thursday -- a list that also includes country stars Big & Rich with Cowboy Troy, and Gretchen Wilson.

Endymion's annual bash will return to the Louisiana Superdome after a one-year detour to the Morial Convention Center -- a shift made necessary by renovations at the stadium. The parade and ensuing bash are set to take place on Feb. 18.

Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine gained added fame this year as one of four celebrity judges on the hit NBC talent competition "The Voice." The show will begin its second season early next year, and Levine is expected to return to the judge's chair.

Cooper launched a new nationally syndicated television show in September and continues his role as a primetime host on CNN. His daytime broadcast airs weekdays at 2 p.m. on WDSU.

Cooper is a frequent visitor to New Orleans and has reported on major events including Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

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Who is Endymion?

According to Wikipedia there are two sides to his story. I think the second story is the real one, especially when WE know that Endymion looked a lot like Anderson:

Apollonius of Rhodes is one of the many poets who tell how Selene, the Titan goddess of the moon, loved the mortal. She believed him to be so beautiful that she asked Endymion's father, Zeus, to grant him eternal youth so that he would never leave her. Alternatively, Selene so loved how Endymion looked when he was asleep in the cave on Mount Latmus, near Miletus in Caria, that she entreated Zeus that he might remain that way. In either case, Zeus granted her wish and put him into an eternal sleep. Every night, Selene visited him where he slept. [Watta waste!]

According to a passage in Deipnosophistae, the philosopher and eloquent poet Licymnius of Chios tells a different tale, in which Hypnos, the god of sleep, in awe of Endymion's beauty, causes him to sleep with his eyes open, so he can fully admire his face. [This story makes more sense.]
~ Endymion ~

Endymion's sleep. 1793 Canvas, 198 x 261 cm Inv. 4935
Louvre, Departement des Peintures, Paris, France