Summer Rolls Into Town

The 2009 edition of the Fremont Solstice Parade was terrific! Things got off to a joyous start with a torrent of Naked Bicyclists -- and skateboarders, and rollerbladers, and juggling unicyclers -- in mind-bending body-paint. Then came the Fire Bird (to honor the Sun on this longest day of the year):

And the Water Women (to honor the rain that held off all day):

Then the Hug Brigade (same as last year -- heart-covered superheroes offering free hugs to the audience). Sitting in the front row, we got several hugs of our own, and also enjoyed being enveloped in the lower folds of the Huggers' gauzy red capes as they reached over our heads to embrace the people behind us.

Then came a gang of leather-clad Ravens:



A wise old Elephant:


Our friends Isaac and Jessica in their crazily kinetic walking creature:


and the Hemp Dragon:


There were Pirates aplenty -- some with water-balloon artillery:


Others escorting the Flying Spaghetti Monster (who reached out to touch us -- Yes! -- with his Noodly Appendage):


We had the classically classic Jugglers on Stilts:

And the classic-in-a-Fremont-way Scantily Clad Women Decrying the Death of Sea Turtles and Exhorting Us All To Recycle Our Plastic Bags:


We loved this solemn military entry -- totally deadpan but for the slightly altered flags:


(Aside from this, the parade was notably lacking in political messages -- the departure of George Bush seems to have stolen that particular thunder. We didn't miss the Dick Cheney masks & blood-spattered Uncle Sams too much, frankly, but other folks commented on the lack of edgy entries this year.)

These incredible Ladies in their paper wedding cake dresses blew us away:



But the highlight for us, without a doubt, was the Ginormous Beach Ball. You could see this marvelous creation coming from blocks away, a shiny red-and-white sphere bobbing above the heads of the Umbrella Dancers and the Matadors (fighting their wheelbarrow-based Bull) and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. It was so enormous it got wedged under a traffic light at one point and had to be carefully extracted by its neon-bewigged handlers. Despite its cheerful colors and stately pace, the sheer size of the thing definitely gave it an element of menace, a la Raiders of the Lost Ark:


It also reminded us of the old "Tippecanoe & Tyler Too" balls, which appeared in many small town parades and festivals in the summer of 1840, drumming up support for presidential candidate William Henry Harrison -- and giving us the phrase "keep the ball rolling." Sturbridge Village trots out its replica in election years:


This enormous orb managed to combine the alarming power of the rolling boulder with the mobilizing force of Harrison's campaign gimmick. As it got a little closer you began to see that the giant ball wasn't just bouncing along on its own. It was being conveyed down the middle of the street by a broad swath of supine humanity lined up in its path -- an ever-renewing, ever dissolving, up-ended centipede of waving arms and legs, formed by audience members who would run out and flop down on their backs in front of the ball,


propel it forward as it passed over them,

then leap up and race back to their seats along the curb -- or sprint ahead to fling themselves down in front of the ball for another round.

What was it like under there? Well, it was sort of like ducking under a capsized canoe -- all at once the world closed in, the parade sounds were muffled, the light took on an eerie tinge -- and then a split second later you were back in the sunshine, surrounded by shrieking happy people all struggling to get back up off the pavement. And it was sort of like a Ouija Board, in that even though you remembered pushing with both hands against the weight of the ball inches from your face, you still felt like it wasn't you who moved it along.

I'm pretty sure the beach ball's creators didn't know exactly how people would interact with their creation: they just brought this enormous crazy beautiful thing to the parade, and it was up to us to do something interesting with it. It seemed to be an evolving adventure for everyone -- the frantic kicking, for instance, was initiated by a later group; our crew had mostly used our hands to pass the ball along. And we couldn't see what propelled the ball off the main road and into the audience a couple of blocks away -- maybe a giant Raven v. Pirate volleyball game?

I'm not sure what it says about us that we all responded to this slightly ominous yet entirely joyful object by dashing out with squeals of excitement and lining up to be rolled over by it. Maybe we secretly long to be flattened by events beyond our control. Maybe it was too big to climb, but we wanted to get near it somehow. Maybe we were simply embracing the coming summer with gusto.

HUGE thanks to the Ginormous Beach Ball people and all their fellow paraders, and a Happy Solstice to All!