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Ejected Into Space While Orbiting Parades

Blog Post published by Tiff Graham on Thursday, May 31, 2018

More than sixty plus days ago I ventured into outer space territory. I searched for space themes in parades locating the spaceships, clear helmeted space suits, and alien representatives in real and fictional parades.

Source: https://www.nice.fr/uploads/media/default/0001/16/Carnaval%20de%20Nice%202018.pdf

Having read about the frontiers of planetary exploration in the news, I was intrigued by the vastness of galaxies in the Universe. I would often stare with my lower jaw dropped at NASA’s Hubble telescope imagery of planets, star clusters, and other space objects in observable galaxies. I felt human space exploration through my tv screen as 
"A Year in Space" aired on PBS. I read "5,200 days in space" by Charles Fishman in The Atlantic and imagined a simulated day-to-day experience with carbon dioxide headaches and duck-taped trash in a zero-gravity environment. Science Fiction adventures of futuristic space encounters in writings were forever entertaining me too, such as Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to Ted Chiang’s "Story of your Life" ... Andy Weir’s Artemis and on and on. Flipping through a Vacation Guide to the Solar System book, I even yearned for a little Saturn via Jupiter gravitational pull destination trip with a side adventure to viscous soupy lakes of Saturn’s largest moon, Titus.

Unexpectedly, just as I was to begin my deep study of Earth parades with aliens, astronauts, and space machines, our landlord sent that 60-day notice to vacate. No vacation to outer space or blog writing time for days. LA land, the place where landlords can sell for big profits and leave tenants scrabbling, I was knocked off course, having to search for a new space of one’s own after many years of imagined comfort. Testing all my survival abilities to adapt, I floated, tethered to my stuff and surrounding chaos, trying to find a landing pad. Knocked out of orbit for a bit, and unsure of viability in this high-priced market, I eventually found ground and settled back in this world of space and parades.

Parades in space / space in parades

Returning to the intergalactic web world, I re-visited my notes on parades and space. Initially, I was inspired by that cherry red Tesla convertible with a dummy named Starman shot into orbit on a path around the sun. Here was a convertible, the quintessential parade ride, apart from a float, floating in outer space. Also, at that time, Nice, France's Carnaval theme for 2018 was King of Space. Shortly afterward, I began listening to this science fiction story "The Parade" describing an alien invasion via a parade. The story opened with the narrator saying, "if you wanted to take over our world, how would you go about it…obtain publicity campaign…a suspense campaign is best" and then followed with "…and here they come…the first units of the big martian parade…with music, confetti, floats…free sugar candy to the kids…quite a sight seeing these 1000s people standing expectantly…here they come…row after row of them…dressed in metallic gray space suits…holding ignominious looking ray guns...we gotta stop this parade before things begin to happen…who would suspect an invasion that advertised its plan…"

This led me to search for parades with real space-related connections, such as

• U.S. presidential inauguration parade 2013 with a float carrying a replica of the Mars Curiosity Rover and the Orion spacecraft

Source: https://www.universetoday.com/99548/nasas-curiosity-and-orion-shine-at-presidential-inaugural-parade/

• Space industry company such as Boeing’s air balloons of earth and space capsule (Fourth of July parade, Huntington Beach, CA)

Source: Tiff Graham

• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology floats reflecting space exploration missions (Rose Parade, Pasadena, CA)

Sources: http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum23/HTML/001428.html / https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=1566

• NASA Glenn Research Center participation in parades (Canton and Cleveland Ohio)

Sources: https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1737.html / https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/history/ceremony.html

This is only a short list of some of the parades honoring astronauts and achievements in space travel and exploration.

And, space-themed parades with otherworldly connections and nods to science fiction writing, such as

• Carnaval parade in Nice, France with its "King of Space" 2018 theme guiding the creation of planetary, astronaut, and alien themed floats

Source: ttps://www.thetalkingsuitcase.com/tag/travel-in-nice/

• Golf Cart Parade in Palm Desert, California on their 51st anniversary had an Area 51 theme

Source: https://networks.h-net.org/golf-cart-parade-palm-desert-california-martian-max-alien-2015

• Chewbacchus Parade in New Orleans, Louisiana bows and high fives the SF genre in costumes and floats with all kinds of Star Wars alien species and other SF aliens

Source: http://she-geeks.blogspot.com/2015/02/chewbacchus-part-two-parade-er-ing.html

• "Adventures in Space" created by Public Storage, Rose Parade, Pasadena CA 2014 (video and sketch)

It’s likely that Carnival, community, and art car parades around the world and even the Mummer’s Parade in Philly had some wild out of this world space costumes or conveyances at some point. Maybe there was a grand marshal alien in some parade somewhere too.

Now, I’ll describe several of these parades with space-related content while employing a semiotic approach.

Semiotic side notes

Reading parades for meaning suggests that I will delve beneath the surface, then mine vigorously for nuggets of information encapsulated in each image of a parade float. Metaphorically, I guess I will scrape and poke through the paint, foam, cloth, and other materials to uncover the maker’s ideas, hidden/coded messages, and historical or pop cultural nods. And visions of Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Sanders Peirce, Roland Barthes, and Umberto Eco’s semiotic approach will float above my head as each scholar's work pokes me in the brain. Signifiers/signified, iconic-indexical-symbolic signs and denotation/connotation all riding the synapses to help me wrangle in the meaning embedded in parade floats with space themes.

As an example of semiotic mining, I’ll begin with this image of an astronaut in a parade. Seeing a real astronaut like John Glenn on a float or in a convertible in a parade is more than just a man in a parade. This person, the astronaut, represents otherworldly experience, extreme survival in zero gravity, and a possible future for all humankind not yet experienced. Knowing these astronauts have smelled space and witnessed the earth rotating makes them seem more than human. The astronaut is an iconic sign of space travel.

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/people/features/taub10.html / https://www.honeysucklecreek.net/other_stations/muchea/hl_MA6_essay.html

It brings forth historical thoughts of astronauts in parades and the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut (*cosmonaut is Russian astronaut term), who orbited the earth April 12, 1961 in the space capsule, the Vostak 1. The term astronaut further evokes images of the United States Apollo 11 crew of Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and their spaceflight to Earth’s Moon on July 20, 1969; and more recently, thoughts of Alan Bean, the 4th astronaut on the moon, who passed away in May. Televised images and photographs of white space-suited men bouncing on the Moon continue to shape human ideas of what one thinks of when envisioning an astronaut.

The astronaut’s helmet and white suit by simple description and function is outer gear (signifiers/objects) that covers and protects the human body in space. It also signifies the history and culture of human space travel and human desire to push boundaries and scientific limits. Additionally, it is representative of human species willingness and adventurous spirit to explore the universe. From a more nuanced technical perspective, the white suit known as an EVA (extravehicular activities suit) is for spacewalks. It is white because it reflects heat and is highly visible against the dark expanse of space. It protects from small pieces of space junk and contains oxygen, radio, water, cooling unit, wrist mirrors, and all kinds of survival parts. Russian cosmonaut’s custom designed their spacesuits known as Orlan suits. Chinese taikonaut’s wear Feitian suits or Orlan suits. These white space suits vary in different ways, though all function for space survival and have patches representing one’s country of origin and their mission patch designed by the crews.

Top secret connotation tip: In a parade, you might see real astronauts or kids/adults/balloons/dogs pretending to be astronauts in white, blue, or orange uniforms. What I’m about to tell you is highly classified. Do not repeat. An international orange or royal blue colored suit is not a space-walking suit because…again, do not repeat the following. Inside a tiny panel of the orange and blue suits are a series of small, square-shaped pieces of Ruthenium metal. It might appear as a BeJeweled decorative element. It is not. It is far from being a piece of ornamented tchotchke. It is a time machine control button. That is all I can say for now.

Back to the white spacesuit... so in a parade, in real life and on tv unreal/real life, the little astro man represents more than actual time travel, wait, scratch that, I mean space travel. You probably have seen in some pop culture example, the little puffy marshmallow astro character employed as a marketing tactic, suggesting that this product is out of this world, an evolutionary step for humankind, a first of its kind, and so on. Examples include the MTV music channel. The design group for the MTV logo and animation used the Apollo 11 footage on the moon to show that MTV was "claiming this land for music" while piggy-backing its message on an already iconic image associated with first steps. (Ref) Later the VMA music awards used this recognizable Moonman as their awards trophy since it was already recognizable and associated with music entertainment.

Source: https://youtu.be/XqPBUrXgrTw

Other companies have used the astronaut to sell their products, such as Carlsberg beer playfully reimagining the moon landing with an astronaut carrying a cooler full of beer to catch a glimpse of the earth rising. The cliche image of a hard day's work followed by a brewsky is implied. Maybe you've mowed a lawn, worked a factory line, killed your back sitting all day in an office chair with no lumbar support, or serviced the space station with a checklist of 100 things to do strapped to your wrist. You, my friend, deserve a break. Plop down in that comfy seat, pop open a Carlsberg, and enjoy the view. Unfortunately, "Houston we have a problem" this astronaut can't drink his much-deserved beer and live. A familiar scenario coded in the words and images, yet, so other-worldly, too.

Source: https://youtu.be/LwSGCt6U46w

In an Earth parade, a real astronaut on a float evokes ideas of past and present space exploration, dream's of future space travel, and science fiction stories. On one level, the astronaut is simply a recognizable flesh and bone sort of human in clothing who works/worked in space. A reading of the clothing or the float banner text can reveal the astronaut's name, associated space mission, and other sorts of identifiers. The astronaut symbolizing real travel beyond earth and historical, scientific milestones (or time travel, but no one has returned to confirm this). For some parade attendees, the image of an astronaut can bring forth a number of pop cultural references. Even I can't help when upon seeing an astronaut in a parade, I think, oh there’s Matt Damon (The Martian) science the sh*t out of something astronaut/Matt Damon Interstellar surprise bad man astronaut; Sandra Bullock, almost went crazy astronaut, but got her sh*t together even when the manual was in Chinese (Gravity); or Sam Rockwell, what the, I’m a cloned astronaut man character (Moon). Astronauts in white, blue, or orange suits in a parade are just so iconic evoking layers and layers of interpretation.

Aliens from Space in Parades

Now aliens from space in parades, they are represented in shades of green, gray, pink, blue, and white. Why? Because tv shows, pulp fiction mags, and alien autopsies showed us how real aliens look. They drive silver saucers too, I’ve heard. And usually, want to kill or be friends with us to eat us later ("Serve Man" Twilight Zone). I once knew a people-friendly alien named Dr. Who and he looked human. I guess I’m starting to question who’s the real McCoy alien, even a real McCoy I just Google-learned, is a German music group, so I’m not sure anymore. However, based on Earth parades, when I see an alien, it connotes a warm nostalgic 80’s feeling of that crème skinned E.T. who hung out with a red hoody kid. Sometimes green skinned anonymous aliens seem to be the parade thing; while other times, it’s a lineup of only the famous movie star aliens, like Xenomorph parasitoid alien or the leaders of alien empires. In the 2018 Carnavale in Nice, France, there was an alien mashup float of alien stars from Mars Attack to Avatar, Star Wars, Star Trek, Toy Story, and Le Voyage dans la Lune.

Source: https://www.thetalkingsuitcase.com/your-passport-to-the-nice-carnaval-parade-of-lights-plu...

In the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus New Orleans parade there are all types of aliens from Star Wars and other science fiction movies/tv shows. As you see in the photos below, there is a very, very, very big brain bar head that resembles a Dr. Who evil time Lord named Morbius, no wait, Face of Boe (my bad, I get my brain-headed aliens confused at times), while also representing the creative skills and the important party essential (pony keg) for Krewe du Who survival.

Sources: http://she-geeks.blogspot.com/2015/02/chewbacchus-part-two-parade-er-ing.html / http://kreweduwho.com/news/TabId/89/ArtMID/465/ArticleID/55/Kickstarter-Funded-The-Face-of-Booze-Rolls-in-IKOC-Parade.aspx

Stand up if you know a real alien

We have all these aliens on parade, but so many are science fiction characters. Who knows if you are seeing a bona fide alien species or genuine depiction of the alien lifestyle. Possibly the followers of the UFO religious organization, Unarius (acronym for Universal Articulate Interdimensional Understanding of Science) actually know. They are said to have a direct link to the "Space Brothers" who will be "re-visiting when Earth is invited to join as the 33rd planetary member of Interplanetary Confederation" though no date has been confirmed. In the El Cajon, California "Mother Goose" parade there was a tribute to the "Space Brothers" and the followers. Released doves (welcoming beacon), spacecraft (replica of alien conveyance), silver shimmery things (representative of the stars and planets in space), and a painted Cadillac with space mural (because what alien doesn’t want a Cadillac) were fabulously on display for parade crowds.

It’s obvious we Earth humans are crazy about space astronauts and aliens. We probably need more parades for them. I'm sure I have more to say, but I am about to be abducted. Wish me luck.

* add your thoughts and links to space-themed parades in the discussion reply post

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