Mardi Gras: Binche Carnival. Global Post: "It's said the English word 'binge' originates in the reputation of the festivities at Binche." Who knew Belgium could get any weirder than Hercule Poirot?

...the United Nations recognizes the Binche carnival as one of the great treasures of international cultural heritage, alongside the Argentine tango, Mexico's Dia de los Muertes and the Kabuki Theatre of Japan.

What makes Binche unique are its gilles: hundreds of local men who, for the culmination of three wild days of celebration, squeeze themselves into garish multi-colored costumes complete with jingling bells and lace collars. On the afternoon of Mardi Gras, they strip off their strange wax masks and don crowns of towering ostrich plumes to dance through the streets hurling oranges at the packed crowds of revelers.

That sounds like fun.

The Boston Globe's Big Picture of Mardi Gras 2010 illustrates Tuesday's outbursts of theater around the world. AP's Christian Escobar Mora snapped the reveler at left in Barranquilla, Colombia. The Devil and dark forces show up for some parades, angels, elegance and artistry rule others. Traditions tap the beautiful, ornate, primitive, intense, archetypal, erotic, stylized.

And then there are these guys, whom Reuters caught parading in Ovar, Portugal: