Penultimate at the Procession

My favorite Procession photo of this year. Not sure why.

Before the brewery's steam whistle blows, before the first rush of forward and pulse of drums and crowds, the Procession is a different thing. The energy is still a bit pent in this penultimate moment; people are more relaxed. A lot of them show up looking like humans, and all through the staging area you see them transmogrifying into their procession species.

Herd, pack, flock, swarm, school, colony, skulk, convocation, dissimulation, smack, pod (or gam), and probably a parliament and shrewdness.* They all coaslesce. There's a check-in, and Earth, Water, Fire and Air creatures have their street to gather in, but it looks like things just sort of happen on their own. People find their groups, talk to friends, and check out the other species.

It's a good time, this Procession penultimacy. 


* You recognize most of these alredy, and if you know them all, then I salute you. In case you don't, though, here's the breakdown: skulk of fox, convocation of eagles, dissimulation of birds, smack of jellyfish, gam of whales, parliament of owls, and shrewdness of apes.
Oh, and yes, I do own James Lipton's masterpiece, An Exaltation of Larks, thanks to the thoughtfulness and generosity of my sister.

Procession of the Species Watchers

Urban arboreal species Homo Zacchaeusii

The human species that invented the Procession of the Species probably remains the most interesting to us anthropologists, and this year I enjoyed watching how humans watch parades. Enjoying evidence (see above photo) that despite having evolved enough to create an urban habitat and stainless steel sippy cups, we have not entirely escaped our arboreal origins, or fascination with watching unusual things. Or (cue next photo), with being social, gathering in crowds.

"We don't know you, and do not take orders from kelp."

The actual point of this photo is that anthropologists should shut up and listen. As we rounded a corner, I asked this crowd to take photos (because some synaptic tic of mine makes me want to take pictures of people taking pictures), vainly attempting to manipulate the situation, in clear violation of the Prime Directive. Immediately, most people lowered their cameras; the few people shooting photos in this shot happened not to have heard me.

Hey, I know them!

Professional angst fades quickly in the midst of The Procession, and wasn't even a memory when we rounded the next corner onto 5th Avenue. The street heavily bedecorated by kids and kid-minded adults, the crowd thick to the point of becoming a humanity canyon, drums echoing off Olympia's architecture. I love these blocks on a normal day--eating at Darby's and looking at the Capitol Theater marquee, aroma of the bag of spices I bought next door warming me as much as the coffee--but when it's filled with happy paraders and watchers, it pulses with energy and I'm grinning like an idiot, a blissfully happy idiot. Even happier when I zoom into this photo and see not only a friend and her kids, but off in the distance, another arboreal rebel perched on the marquee in front of "Nirvana Tribute," an event the night before at a place where Nirvana played in the early days. Grin widens.

The anthropologist in me remains just present enough to notice how thousands of people from Olympia and beyond--not knowing each other, maybe allied to different cultural or political or religious values--are all having fun together. Organically and peacefully, they self-organize: kids in front, parents minding kids, strangers making room for each other, and pedestrians passing by behind. Sure, some streets have been blocked off so cars won't ruin the fun, but beyond that, not much in the way of a plan or rules. Yet it all comes off fine, and again the anthropologist is overwhelmed by the grinning primate within.

We hang a left up Washington Street, and again the crowd jumps in magnitude. Mountains of people, spilling into the street and stretching up the lawn and old capitol steps. I cannot even register what individuals are doing, so dumbstruck am I by the numbers, grin slacking down to a dropped jaw. Holy crap. Considering the minisculality of Olympia and the rain coming down, it's amazing how many people are here.

The Watched become the Watchers while the Bees keep Beeing Killer

A half-dozen or so blocks later, somewhere around the finish line, the crowd is thinner, but the Procession does not stop. Many of us who finished first step into the crowd's gaps and watch as the rest of the Species processed on by. Nobody slacking, dancers and drummers going full-bore to the very end. Everyone is soaked, a few costumes are shredding in the rain, but people are happy. Family and friends stationed at the end meet their species, help them out of a costume and under an umbrella, and begin the trek home together.

I Finally Started Tumbling

A Mojourner Truth exclusive.

Over the years, I've posted a lot of photos here. The Procession of the Species has accounted for its share, and as it rolled around again this year, I figured it was time to try out tumblr. I would have started one years ago, but never could clear the profound hurdles that keep people from doing stuff, like having a few minutes, or choosing a username and deciding how much anonymity to pretend to have.

Before the 2014 Procession photos grow old and moldy, I wanted to post them, so I took a few minutes, decided to name the site Anthrowback (My actual given name, relegating "mojourner" to the page header), and started posting photos. I'll be posting pretty much the same kinds of things I do here: random Olympia, landscapes and plants, more landscapes and plants, rocks, landscapes and highways as seen through a bug-splattered windshield, archaeology, skyscapes, and the occasional psychedaelic edit of any of the above.

For now, though, check out the Procession photos at Anthrowback. Or, follow this throwback link to previous Procession posts here at the MT mothership.

Extinction of the Species

Most species were but are no more. Wiped out by vengeful gods or done in by inescapable facts. Knocked off by the competition, messed up by new world orders human and otherwise.


Most of the gone do not even live on in memory, but a few do. Dodos waddle through our lore trying to wag cautionary tails, but fail. Passenger pigeons do a little better, but their ghosts still topple out of the sky every time the enormity of their genocide occurs to them. 

We build dinosaur shrines in the world's great museums, more comfortable because we cannot be held responsible in their case. It's nice to believe that the forces that brought down these megafauna were maybe just culling the ungodly, that this kind of thing happened way before people walked the earth. Just how long before? Too many people have no clue, and I've met plenty who are unconvinced that humans and live dinosaurs don't overlap.


Such people are among those who remain unconvinced as well that there are any problems with human expansion, our appetites and wastes, and our vast creativity with chemicals and machines (unfortunately paired with a similarly vast disregard for the future of any other species). Much of the worst we apes have done has required that we burn the fossils of many species that if not extinct, have been dead for millions of years. A mass cremation of dead and buried plants and animals. A desecration? I've never heard people put it that way, but if it were my grandparents, I don't want them used for fuel.

Maybe I am not human enough, maybe I lack good old American invincibility. The kind that says we're the best breed, uniquely suited to rule the globe, unlikely to succumb like every other empire before us. When we are sure we cannot ever become extinct, that God chose us or we have a unique brain that will figure a way out of any jam, we're free do whatever we want, regardless of the cost. 

Like extinction of other species. We are now in the midst of a mass extinction so large that it will go down in geological history. People can argue, suddenly turn all scientific and demand to see solid unassailable proof, but really there's no denying that humans are partly to blame for the Holocene's (Anthropocene, if you're not orthodox) wave of extinctions. We may eat an entire species out of existence, or cut down its forest, cut off its river, fill up its swamp, take out its habitat. We may dump poop or dioxin until a place becomes unlivable, or pump the air so full of cow farts and smoke that we alter the ocean, atmosphere and climate. 

Many species become collateral damage in our campaign to cover the earth, but by and large we humans could care less. And we don't think it will ever happen to us. We humans can be cruel gods.

 

Procrassion of the Species Photos

Microbio!!

Sharing photos should be instantaneous these days,

but I procrastinate, as usual. Here are a few more from the 2012 Procession.

 

More people said they liked the dandelions than any other creature. The seedheads and flowers were so beautifully crafted that a wave of smiles passed along the route as they walked by, smiling themselves. 

Lots of participants focus on the Species, but a few do something special with the Procession aspect. I've already given the insects their due in the expressive movement department, but this elken amble-lope stands out, and I applaud it. The curious gait of photographers is also entertaining--dash, pivot, crouch, shoot, turn, repeat. Over the years, I have more photos of Homo nikonensis than any other species.

 

 

 Other than belly dancers, I suppose. There are multiple troupes in every Olympia parade. Of course, they are only in the background of this shot, which is mostly about the hippies. One of my favorite species, meandering through jamming and blowing bubbles. Speaking of which, look at that shot again: There's an iridescent bubble centered on her hand,...as she's making a bubble!! Aligned for the instant it took to shoot the photo, never again to be, but eternalized. Blows your mind, don't it? But brothers and sisters, that's just the kind of magic that happens at the Procession.

 This shot, on the other hand, is an example of the kind of random mischief the camera can do. Now maybe today these guys might be pissed at me on account of my clear bias in favor of trombones, but on Procession day I swear they were not marching through town glaring at people. But I hit the button and shuttered out everything except the expressions they had at that minute, which looks like "I'm gonna drop formation and come beat the crap out of you!" I know these guys wouldn't do that. Not even to the girl who's blocking her ears to avoid hearing them. 

 Of course, there are some angry men in Olympia, or otherwise the Olympian newspaper 

would have nothing in the Comments section of every story, finding fault and flogging scapegoats. Like the guy at the left, clad in black and raising a fist. People wrote in ranting at the glorification of terrorism and the gall of the organizers to let a real terrorist march in the parade. Meanwhile, they seemed blithely unconcerned with the serious threat to our community posed by anonyms clad in cartoonish, polyester-furred animal costumes. I don't see an explosive vest on the man in black, but the animal suit guy or girl could pull it off, no problem. And besides, polyester is tacky, and that costume doesn't look home made.

Oops, there I go getting cranky; it's time to quit before I veer into zealotry. But not before showing you one last photo, of Thunder-drumming Guy. By bringing a fake storm, he kept the real rain at bay. Mahalo, dude.

Procession of the Trombones

A loop-de-loop anglerfish trombone.

One of my favorite parts of the procession is the brass. I take vicarious pride in the fact that our little town can marshal several marching bands with horns. It says something about a place that its people have the community spirit to band together and play in a parade without being in high school or even a uniform, necessarily. At least, not the kind of uniform most people think of for marching bands. Olympians walk to many drummers in bands of butterflies and fish. My favorite this year were the anglerfish, a creature who has appeared in many forms in every Procession I've witnessed. 


Besides the benthic headgear, they featured a trombone. The weird and wonderful trombone. Valves, trombonists don't need no stinking valves (although that too can be arranged), they slide right in to everything from classic orchestral maneuvers to burlesque innuendo and of course, the comedic wa-wa-wa-waaaaaah.


My fascination with this instrument goes back to early childhood, discovering the odd case in the attic in which lay my dad's high school horn. I never did learn to play it, but over the years the yellow glow of the bell and the miraculous versatility of the slide captured my imagination. Not enough to get me to follow in his marching band footsteps, but definitely sufficient to fixate on trombones in the sea of brass. For years, my favorite record of his was the one with "76 Trombones;" I'd listen, charged up, imagining rank upon rank of trombone.


There's something in the slide. Not pushing buttons like on those other horns, but exercising exquisite touch to hit the right notes, capable of being a little off if that's what works; like Hawaiians slacking the keys of their guitars the trombonist can expand what the horn can do. The flow from one note to another can roll smoothly, the air keeps flowing if the player keeps blowing, hills instead of steps. Liquid languidity is possible.


Or rollicking. Laughing. Outright craziness. There was this guy who would appear at punk rock shows in Richmond in the early '80s, trombone at the ready, jumping up on stage and unleashing manic solos. Trombone players tend to be the interesting ones even when they are not crazy, or at least that's how I imagine them. The guy willing to learn how to master the slide and take up the instrument for which so few songs are written must have something driving him other than a desire for acclaim and groupies. 


So here's to you, trombone players of the world. I salute you, especially when you ply your trade with an anglerfish on your head.

Procession of the...Monkey Butts

In the eternal contest of Man vs Ape, I think we know who wins the Booty Competition

A troupe of baboons wandered into the Procession of the Species. As they approached, I wasn't exactly sure what they were. Butt when they passed, asses aglow, I knew they had to be old world primates (American monkeys lack the sitting pads that some of their Afro-Asian kin have). 

And yeah, I know you're saying, "But Mojourner, couldn't they just be in estrus? Does a red ass always have to be a sitting pad?" To both, I answer, "NO." There may well be New World primates whose backside reddens when in heat (I am told that this is true of Michelle Bachmann, for instance), but most of the ones in the Procession were males. And male monkeys need no special signal to mount other males, that activity having never been stymied by biblical taboos, so red-ass would just be a waste.

[My spouse just walked in and asked if I was being productive. I read the above paragraphs and showed her the photo. She does not seem to think that this qualifies. In answer to which I post this next photo, which features a primate who appears to be farting. Classy.]

 

The Insect Sect: Procession of the Species 2012

 

This year marked the fourth time I've been to the Procession of the Species (I missed it one year, only because another sacred ritual needed performing elsewhere), one of Olympia's finest moments. Or, as my more conservative townspeople gripe: when the "freaks are out," a "polytheistic" display. They are right, of course, and I glory in it. 

Every year, there is some taxon or other that sticks out in my mind. Like the ferocious Rhinocerocitidae of 2008, or the Mycetozoans of 2011. This year, the Insecta Class graduated to the top. I recognized a few from before, but this year they stood out.

Besides some great, creative costumes on the outside, the mammals inside seemed to have embodied their insect species thoroughly, moving like the species they represented. The giant praying mantis was fluid, stilt-walking with threatening grace. The fly (below), buzzed frenetically from place to place, preening and head-turning just like a fly, hoping for one of the other creatures to drop dead or at least drop dung, I suppose. (Meanwhile, a dung beetle followed the white buffalo, knowing it would pay off eventually.) 

Silly bird, flamboyant feathers are no match for the Lord of the Flies

And the mastery of movement did not end there. A line of leaf-cutter ants marched along, taking time now and then to dance as ants are wont to do when the entomologists look the other way. And although it's not an insect, and it's dance was more that of an extremely mellow Chinese dragon, the centipede did damn well, considering all those legs it has to keep track of.

Ants dance in their pants

And of course, the monarch butterflies. A huge flight of them wrapping up the parade with a dance that was great, even if it did not feature them swarming a mineral-rich downtown puddle for a sip. I'd post a photo, but a bunch of people already have, and most are better than mine.

In 2012, the Procession walked with six legs. 

Procrastination of the Species

 

Spring in Olympia. The cherries and daffodils are a-riot with blooms, buskers have migrated back to our sidewalks, and soon the Species will emerge from hibernation that they may Process. This last event is one of my favorite things about my adopted home, as various writings attest.

Last year, Oly Samba did the octopus thing. Somebody told me what they're doing this year, but I forgot, and besides, nothing quite captivates me like a cephalopod. And so in procrastinatory fashion, I have now completed a superfluous octopus. Not for the Procession, and for that matter not for anything. I don't need a reason to make an octopus, although I am just now realizing that maybe there should have been some thought put into what to do with it now that it is done.

Because, what do you do with a 6-foot octopus? Made of butcher block, so it weighs as much as a gross of actual octopi, and will be a shore to install, and a hanging hazard once it is up. Purple, with yellow and orange and electric blue stippling, not to mention day-glo orange suckers, so of course it goes with everything. For a few years now, I've had this dream (maybe scheme or half-baked plot would be more accurate) of staging a guerilla entry into the Arts Walk or Procession, but this thing is way too heavy to carry, and I'm not yet willing to drill holes in it and put in the giant bolts that would be required to put it up. I think it would be a nice addition to the Fishbowl brewpub decor, but do they?

Any ideas?

Neurons ablaze, Moctopus ponders his future.

Arach Attack

Yesterday I got all hysterical about the turkey, who may or may not represent an imminent threat, but remains potential only. The kinetic threat at the procession was the giant spider, followed by acolytes who held aloft it's immense web bedorned with coccooned husks of her victims. 

Emitting a complex rhythmic-click pattern, the arachnid stunned the crowd into dumbitude while its bevy of eyes scanned the crowd for the best morsel. Only the robot was immune (sensors on a different frequency, armored hydraulics) but alas, it had no empathy chip. So it also just stood there, trying desperately to fit in, wishing people would hurry up and forget the whole Iron Man revival so expectations of the metal clans could get back to normal.

No arachnophobia. Even when there appeared on the horizon, like the mainsail of the ship of doom, the web. (The Greek word for which (arakhne) is the origin of the word for spider.) ("Which came first, the spider or the egg" "Neither, it was the web.") No, people just stood there as the arthropod culled the crowd of obese youngsters.

Before the hypnotic haze ebbed, the next attacker was upon them. Not an arachnid proper, but an 8-legger nonetheless. (Much deeper than Greek, the roots for octo and arakhne merge. I don't remember the proto definition exactly, because I don't actually know if this is true.) (I do have a hunch, though, and a willingness to let language drift and change.) Right after I shot this photo, he dropped down and swallowed the guy standing under him.

You might think that would be disturbing, but it wasn't: quick, clean, and graceful. The octopus was fluid where the spider had been jerky, undulently soft skin instead of exoskeleton. You saw the guy disappear in an embrace, and were soothed by the tentacles' rhythmic motions and colors into thinking, "That's probably not a bad way to go." The robot looked on wistfully, knowing he'd never be that smooth.


Later in the parade, there was a troupe of dancing octopi. Someone sitting near me said they were actually people that had been previously "eaten" by the giant octopus, which was really just turning out hybrids who could dance and be his minions. Their job, till the effect wear off after the summer, will be to collect shellfish to satisfy the Big One's prodigious appetite for its traditional foods. Human turns out to wreak embarrassing havoc on the cephalopod digestive system, which is why we can all rest easy in the Salish Sea.

 

He's Back

I feared that this day would come. The day I would learn what had happened after I hit that wild turkey. Now, years after running afoul of (OK, afowl into) the feathery one, the memory rarely visited and suffering a loneliness akin to that which inhabits most nursing home rooms, it all came back. Five years? Something like that. Three kilomiles? Yep. Singling me out among the largest of south Puget sound crowds? Uh huh.

The turkey never forgets. Where the good seeds are, when the tasty bugs emerge, what other creature has started a blood feud by wasting a wattly relative. [Oddly, from a human perspective, turkeys do not hate hunters, being firm believers that killing for food is all right with the Creator.] Kill a turkey and walk away, and all his brethren hold the grudge. Hurt a turkey and don't finish the job, and it will dedicate the all of its remaining life to hunting you down and killing you.


The turkey I ran into back in the oughts was probably trying to kill himself, but that does not mitigate things, and probably just makes it worse. All of the Meleagris genus are proud by nature, and are loathe to admit to the kind of weakness that would lead one to erase itself. Ergo suicide by automobile, which is rarely provable, and with the least bit of luck appears to be an accident. 

When I hit that one, it disappeared, no carcass, no blood. When his cousins found him later, he made up a story about an evil human, not just heedless as their kind usually are, who had actually sped up to hit him. At once, they all vowed to find me and kill me. Or peck at my balls. Or wake me up at all hours with their incessant inane gobbling. Something, they all agreed, something must be done to avenge this callous act of assault on the galliform brotherhood.


I had no specific knowledge of this, but of course suspected it. I chickened out (to use a phrase invented by turkeys, it just so happens) before wandering too far off the road to search for the broken bird, uncomfortable at facing it and its ilk on their turf, and satisfied myself replacing certainty with hope. After so long, with so many miles between me and the scene of the accident (I almost wrote 'scene of the crime' there), the hope had grown like moss over the incident, engulfing, obscuring and softening it. Invisibilizing it.


But not erasing it. Not altering its fundamental reality. Not precluding the opposite reaction to the action (damn you, thermodynamics). And so the other day, as I sat watching the Procession of the Species, I came eye to beady eye with consequence.


The Procession is a parade in which Olympians dress up like some species, real or approximate or even imagined. I've written about it since starting this blog (hit the Procession keyword below if you don't believe me, or are in the mood for more strangeness). But the eerily accurate rendition of Meleagris gallopavo gave me pause right away. Nobody is that meticulous, that un-whimsical. Even more than with the slime mold from last post, I immediately suspected that this was no costume, but a species camouflaged as a human in an animal costume. 


And sure enough, he stared me down soon after rounding the corner. An onyx eye, a black bead that doesn't look like it could focus so intently on one point, boring into my soul, accusing me, promising vengeance. And the sucker was humongous. A lot of pounds and a lot of years have passed in turkey time, but I recognized the look, the visage I'd last seen slamming into my windshield. There was an instant where I could sense some discomfort--I am the one who knows his suicidal shame--but before I could stare back, it was gone, replaced by a cold glare.


The crowd heard "Ahhhh-gobgob-gobble-ubble-ubble-ubble." I knew the call was directed at me, "I'mmmm gonna-gonna kill you you motherfucker." Not then, not in front of the crowd. He was just letting me know he was in town, making me see that he'd been working out, getting buffed out and ready to do more than peck ineffectually. 


Looking into that turkey's eye, I could see that the bird I'd seen back at Reedy Creek, so empty of gusto and so full of le nausee, ennui, and various other francophonic malaises, had been unalterably changed. If only to wreak vengeance, this bird now has a reason to live.

And I have reason to hide.

Procession of the Species Olympia Slime Mold

The search strings people cast to hook this blog can be interesting. I am an actual big brother, and my sister, fervid researcher of late antiquity, taught me the tech to look at "stats" like that, to peek into you all's URL and country of origin and see how many people are looking. But the best thing is seeing a good search string.


Most are boring. I'll be honest, most have to do with heatilators, because at any given time there are more than zero out of all humanity who yearn for knowledge on the finest innovation of 20th Century American green design. If you are here because you want to learn more about a heatilator, heatalator, or heat-ya-later, then scroll on down to the keywords at the end of this post and find what you need, because this hear post is about to tack wildly away.


As search terms are wont to do, when viewed as a narrative that dribbles in phrase by phrase by word. Yesterday's strings were a treat, finding that some poor people yearning to know who sat behind the queen at the royal wedding followed their string here. If you are still here because of that, check out yesterday's post, or better yet: forget about it. The wedding's over, and was boring and irrelevant anyway, compared to what you're about to here.


Someone entered the title of this post into google, and ran across my post about slime mold in Olympia, which is one of those accidental webifact discoveries that people unearth while not-quite-finding what they're looking for. Which in this case was this year's slime mold, which I think is what the photo above is. The photo in my slime mold post shows a fruiting body reminiscent of this costume, which I like a lot. My favorite slime mold costume (I've seen hundreds, of course, as most educated people have) was from the first Procession of the Species I ever saw, a guy covered in yellow balloons, lying on a skateboard, oozing his way along the entire route. I'm a sucker for slime mold costumes, and love both of these.


Or are they costumes? I assumed there were people in there, but maybe not. The northwest, evolutionary incubator for all things wet and not too demanding of photons, may have created something special. Your run of the mill slime can coalesce, move as a body, and optimize the timing of its fruiting--what about that special slime who punctures the equilibrium of eons and mutates radically?


A slime the size of a large mammal. Mold molds itself as well as any plastic, and could easily form perambulatory stuctures reminiscent of human legs. My guess is that it cannot talk (though it is surely highly intelligent), and therefore creates the intricate costume we think we see, that it may be a painfully shy creature who craves social contact but most of the time just tries to blend into the wallpaper, baseboards, tiles,...ruefully listening as the humans laugh and dogtails wag. Or maybe I'm just a chauvanist, expecting that slime mold would even want to be like a human, the slimiest of species. Maybe it loves who it is, "I'm slime, sublime, get used to it."


Regardless of why, the fact that it appears during Spring on the very day of the Procession bespeaks an awareness, a synchronicity of some kind with our kind. That it always exhibits the fruiting bodies on this day is also interesting. At the very least, it's a much better show than other states of slime being (unless you happen to have time lapse vision and it's on the move, making even the blob form interesting). I suspect there is more to it, though. I think  that it is sporing spectators, spawning on a downtown crowd unparalleled in size any other day in Olympia. 


Why? Probably as part of a long-term scheme to evolve into an organ of the mammalian brain. Fearmongers out there think this is because slime mold wants to take us over, render our bodies zombified in the service of slime, like when Keanu ran that giant battle robot thingy in the Matrix. I recognize that as the Fox-fed bignorance that it is, and believe that the idea is just to extend it's unicell self beyond the limitations of the body, to evolve some cognitive complexity on its part, and push the host's brain toward a greater awareness and love of slime mold. 


Yeah, of cours, I dunno why I ever thought of it before: the spores are part of slime mold's strategy toward evolutionary transcendence, bringing all us other creatures into it's essential one-ness. All these years of religious dead ends, and it turns out that what we were looking for all along was to be absorbed by an evolutionary paradox, melding complexity and unicellarity, feeling the slime love. I think it's working already.

My Dirty Secret

Been reading this blog? Or maybe you know me?

Then you may have some ideas of the cartography of my character. Lopsided to the left, borders with the Right and rich fortified. A river of scorn and ire draining a vast watershed of political and economic opinion. Shifting sands and a wandering north pole. Lands of yore and fakelore. Criss-crossed by narrow roads. Occasional lyric naturescapes. Ponds most caustic. Winds that blow on and on without going anywhere, circling back again and again. Rocky harsh frontiers, unwelcoming.


Not long ago, someone spotted a discontinuity, a hint of some unexpected geology underlying the public lands that are this blog. It was in the form of a reference to Marie Antoinette's garden a topic that seems awfully girly and Francophilic to be showing up in these parts.


 
But I am not afraid to love incongruously. Long ago, in the grips of surging testosterone and flagging confidence, it was important to maintain consistency. To stick with the caustic wit without letting down my guard. To steer clear of anything mainstream. To listen not to hippie stuff or new wave fluff, but to be hardcore. 


Then I learned to live for myself instead of an image, and to revel in the land, not the map. 


So I admit to you that this weekend I reveled in the goofy spectacle of Olympia's best parade, the Procession of the Species. This photo is part of that, a troupe of mandolin, banjo, and guitar-playing butterflies singing about caterpillars and love. Punk me would have turned away from this spectacle of hippidiculousness, maybe. But now, I love it. Just some people having fun, celebrating life. I cannot remember their song (simple as it was), but bask in the REMemory, lyrics of "Shiny Happy People" running through my mind in a holey loop.

Another Procession Photo

Yellow Slime Mold was one of the coolest processioneers. Laying on a skateboard the whole way? Truly a fine Species.

Multifloral children and their mothers traveled with this endearing slime.

In then upper left is Mr. Herman and the two ladies from the other shot. You'd think I pasted them in, the way they're in the exact same poses, but this is bona fide.

Mayday Mayhem

I hightailed it out of Seattle on the afternoon of May 1, just as a big downtown march threatened to slow traffic.

And maybe also raise awareness
about immigration and the war.

Since early that morning, the Longshoremen had been on, um, not a strike, but whatever you call it when people stop working for political reasons. Most west coast ports were shut down because the union wanted to protest the war. This was reported on Seattle radio stations, but I'd be interested to know whether any of you heard about this. And if you did, was the story about people who gave up a day of pay and risked worse, or was it about the economic impact of an illegal maneuver by radicals? [NOTE: A week after this post, nobody has indicated that they've heard about this.]
I'd like to think that it was a persistent strain of American freedom-loving waterfront action, a la Boston Tea Party.

Here in Olympia, our protest ended in rocks thrown through bank windows and arrests, as you can see here:
http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/rnr/664897280.html
This uncivil disobedience included anarchist graffiti in the capitol. Ironically, one of the banks hit was Bank of America, which drew much conservative flack last year for allowing non-citizen immigrants to open accounts.

So what did this accomplish?
A half-dozen activists now get to feel the chill of felony charges (none shipped to Gitmo yet, I believe).
Several dozen people took note of anti-war protesters unwilling to just pace about with placards.
Several hundred people took note of the arrest of vandals.

Banks paid rush-job rates to replace windows, and may face higher insurance rates. (Clever anarchist ploy #27: Make the Capitalist machine turn on itself.)

And this result as well. One blogger suggests that despite what you hear in the news media about the importance of the economy, the fact that people are now sacrificing their freedom and their pay to protest the war suggests that It's The War, Stupid. We are distracted by the diarrheal bursts of "economic numbers" without context, encouraged to worry about our household economies, and not the deathly quagmire overseas. The most amazing thing is the audacity of the propagandists, who blame high oil prices on everything from China and India to hedge-fund-hogs and Nigerian 'terrorists.' Everything except the horrendous instability of the Persian Gulf region wrought by our Iraq misadventure.

A poster In Olympia last Saturday

Onlooker Photo

In this shot, it seems like everyone is really looking at something, but not all at the same thing. The Procession is that kind of parade: species varied in pace and style, a myriad of enjoyment, not marched to the specifications of network coverage. One woman looking up while her friend looks down, another peeking out from behind, a big guy glaring at me...Oh crap. I think he's coming over here. I hope he doesn't go rhino on me.

And who is that man with the hair I had in 1986? With the Hawaiian shirt. I have a sneaking suspicion that he may be Paul Reuben, or whatever Peewee Herman's real name is. His Big Adventure film is showing at the Olympia Film Society this month, and everyone knows that Peewee is so fiendishly professional that he would have to do some audience research, the type of guy who would think nothing of putting on some weight and dying his hair just to walk among the fans who would return his masterpiece to the big screen after all these years.

And do you think that's George Carlin behind him?

Procession of Sea Species

Due to popular demand, here is another posting with photos from Olympia's Precession of the Species. Olympia lies at the southernmost end of Puget Sound, and so it should come as no surprise that aquatic species were well represented. Lots of jellyfish floated through, a life-sized blue whale spouted and fluked amid a school of dolphins, and a bigger-than-life-sized salmon swam upstream.

Here is a honu worthy of a Hawaiian parade, and an exquisitely crafted angler fish.

Fabricated Rhino Trouble

"Ohh, twas a gruuesome spectacle in doowntoon Oolympia tooday," said one witness to this Year's Procession of the species. Another woman, ipso facto spokesperson for "the Lord," pitched in the opinion that "He hath spoken his wrath. The Lord shall not abide Evolutionists and Abortionists!" imputing a Darwinian slant to the Olympia tradition, and pointing at the Planned Parenthood office near the scene. Numerous onlookers looked on her outburst with everything from amusement to agog-ity, clearly not sharing her view.

Beasts of the serengeti are as much a part of the Procession as pink flamingoes, but this year the rhinoceri went berserk. The first victim, whose identity had not been released, was a woman also participating in the Procession. She was gored in the stomach, an atrocity caught on camera by visiting Baltimoron Lois Waters, who offered these shots as an exclusive to the Mojourner Truth because, in her own words, "The Moewjourner Trewth is the only paper I would subscribe to, if I were gonna subscribe to a paper, but I ain't gonna dew that, hon."

Just a few moments later, a man described by nearby spectators as "European, or something...he had a refreshing citrus scent" was gored by another rhino. As in the first attack, there was no warning, just a sudden narrowing of the eyes and twitching of the ears a split second before the lightning-fast lunge into the victim's gut. The second bloodthirsty rhinoceroid, perhaps twice the size of the first, sent the man flying a dozen feet in the air before landing in a tree.
One observer was nonplussed. "This is nothing. I work near here, and I see them anti-abortion protesters with their posters. That guy's guts hanging out ain't nothing."

Both Rhinos were taken into custody immediately following the incidents, and consensus among eyewitnesses is that both animals appeared dazed, even docile, not drunl, but maybe on drugs. Olympia police have identified the prisoners as Edwin Meese, 34, of Tumwater and Dick Thornburg, 43, of Olympia. Lieutenant Bruce Babbitt confirmed that blood tests had been ordered on the suspects, and surprised reporters by releasing a photo of a masked man identifying him only as a "a person of interest."


"We have reason to believe that the alleged perpetrators may have been under the influence of the being shown in this photo. We do not believe that he is really a biped with a rhinoceroid cranium, but is in fact a human, or maybe some kind of lizard, impersonating such a chimera. We have learned that the intense mojo beat of his drum may have been a factor in the attacks, and have put our most experienced detective-shaman on the case. We ask community members who may see this person call 911 immediately, and do not attempt to apprehend this individual. He is considered horned and dangerous."