Cultural Arts

... There's no way he could have done that if he hadn't been there last year. And so similarly, in parades, people comment on last year's parade or they comment on the other groups that are parading or they comment on other things that are going on in the community, or it could comment on things that are going on in Atlanta, or they could comment on, obviously, Waconda, or what's been happening with Spider-Man. And I'm not going to use the right language, but the multi-verse or the universe or whatever it is that's happening with Spider-Man. That's really exciting and it's got a lot of people interested in comics, who haven't been interested in them before. So there's a way that parades speak to what's happening right now, that is part of what makes people excited about them, so there's an opportunity there as well. I realize, you might not want to do political commentary about what's happening with science, but it could be a way to connect more to the popular culture of the present possibly. Yeah. And then interacting with other marching groups, I think is a big thing that people do in parades, and that Gemima and I observed. When the planets were dancing together, that was fun for the planets and it really engaged the audience too, that there was a physical interaction among the paraders. That doesn't have to be choreographed, but it's helpful when it happens.

learned a lot from other paraders, and from looking at one year's parades and I have a chance to think about, "Oh, this is what I want to do next year. Next year, it's going to be so much better." But also being coached by veteran paraders, and certainly in the parades that I, to some extent how I observed groups marching with the DragonCon parade, is that they use their body as part of the parade, as well as using symbols and of course words as symbols to convey meaning. And so the way the body is dressed, wigs, hats, things like that, are a big part of the messaging, they said they set the tone. And a lot of paraders do use words, but they don't rely on words as their first way of communicating meaning. And so things that people can see at a distance, regardless of the font size you're using, things that stick up into the air, flags or other things that people can see coming are helpful. And then obviously things that are just a few feet off the ground or at the level of the body, people will see those right when you're upon them, they don't see them coming. Those are just some thoughts I have on people who have used parading as a distinct technology first for communicating and for sharing information.

Please- But that's all for now. Oh no. [inaudible], you want me to say more? Yeah, I think so. One of the things here, just to give you context, is that we don't ... I don't know, Jordan, is this the first time you've been in a parade since you were in school? Yes. This is my first time being in a parade. Yeah. Great. So this is not business as usual for many of us,