anyway, minneapolis will never stop caring about our neighbors, will never stop fighting, and will never stop making time for resistance and joyful celebration of each other you can't break our spirit

And someone else got a terrific photo of the George Floyd Square float pulled by Brass Solidarity: bsky.app/profile/ckap...

Anyway. Minneapolis and Saint Paul are the way we are for a whole lot of reasons but ONE OF THEM is absolutely Mayday, which is beautiful and joyful and creative and also *participatory.*

Oh, here's a good picture of the locusts! bsky.app/profile/wire...

An awesome video of the Aztec dancers. Important to note: some of these people dance BAREFOOT the whole way. bsky.app/profile/m40d...

I did not see the worm who hates Mayor Frey at the parade, alas. bsky.app/profile/f12....

I completely forgot to include the Aztec dancers in my summary (they were near the beginning and I didn't have any good photos). bsky.app/profile/ener...

The final words of the pageant were about not losing hope, and not giving up, and continuing to work. And then we sang "Down By the Riverside."

Because this song, this song that's kind of the hymn to spring sung every year at this festival in Minneapolis: it's also a song about family separation. About losing someone you love.

"The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping I dreamed I held you in my arms But when I awoke, dear, I was mistaken And I hung my head and cried."

Usually that's how the pageant ends: celebration and singing. But this year, after we sang the chorus of You Are My Sunshine, a soloist sang the second verse.

And then we all sing "You Are My Sunshine." bsky.app/profile/tayl...

The Tree of Life is a giant (seriously huge, it requires multiple people to lift and manipulate it) puppet and also a maypole.

The sun comes to shore and they get ready to raise the Tree of Life.

The weather this year was spectacular, but there are years I have stood there in actual snow and had the sun BREAK THROUGH THE CLOUDS AND SHINE ON US at this point in the pageant. I'm not going to say that EVERYONE in Minneapolis believes this pageant is magic, but most of us probably do.

This is something that is always part of the pageant: they row the sun across the lake as people chant "SUN. SUN. SUN."

And as the butterflies gathered, the sun started to come across the lake.

But butterflies came. Monarch butterflies have been another really powerful symbol, locally, as a symbol both of all the things butterflies symbolize, and the connections between Minnesota and Mexico, since monarchs migrate back and forth.

And after the driver returned the child to his home, ICE came back; they dragged out the driver, beat them, kicked in the door, and took one of the immigrant characters. And a figure representing grief came to the stage to swallow everyone up.

But. Two of the houses fell, and revealed people dressed as ghostly birds, representing Renee, and Alex. They danced to the Italian antifascist song, "Bella Ciao."

ICE came, and was chased away by people with whistles and phones.

A couple of notes: the driver character wore a stylized mask with flowers that I think of as the Spirit of Mayday, it's an image that's been used for years in the festival art. Also, during the pickup scene, they had all of us sing, "This is for our neighbors who are locked inside."

The pageant told the story of this past winter. The characters in the center house are frightened immigrants; volunteers bring them groceries. A volunteer comes in a car to take the child to school.

The final people in the parade were doing trash pickup in costume; they were followed by a couple more art cars and then some parade volunteers telling us to please get onto the sidewalk so they could reopen Bloomington Ave.

And we've got SWOP (Sex Workers Outreach Project) and postal workers (with a big mailbox puppet!)

Quatrefoil Library is an LGBTQ+ lending library and I spent a bunch of time wondering why they were dressed as giant pickles before spotting something that explained that these were BOOKWORM costumes!

I didn't get a good picture of them but there was also a couple that had just gotten married, and their wedding party, with banners and cardboard flowers.

In the later section of the parade, there were Bat Appreciators, a boxing gym, bike alebrijes, Hare Krishnas, a yellowjacket stinging an Ice cube...

There was a TRANS PEOPLE ARE HERE FOREVER section that included a HUGE trans pride flag.

The problem with trying to do an organized, chronological explanation of the Mayday parade is that it's kind of chaotic and there's stuff I can explain and there's stuff where I'm not sure there is an explanation.

Oh wait, I just realized that my friend Peg has a video of the loon where you can see the person working it! Sorry, this is too cool not to share. bsky.app/profile/pegk...

There were also monarch butterflies in this section and both the bees and the butterflies had signs.

and sang songs of encouragement. (One of the common songs was, "This is for our neighbors who are locked inside. Together, we will abolish ICE.") There were also groups that stood outside of hotels where ICE was staying and sang, "it's OK to change your mind! You can join us, join us at any time!"

Before I move on, let me just tell you a little about the Singing Resistance, because it'll come up again during the pageant. There were a number of groups, that sang in different places, for different purposes. Some walked along routes where they knew people were sheltering in place,

This was shortly followed by the STINGING RESISTANCE. (This is a reference in part to the Singing Resistance groups.)

The insect theme continued with an invitation to JOIN THE RESIST ANTS!

After the Battletrain was a bunch of bugs. I didn't get any great pictures of the destructive locusts or the people dressed as cicadas but I did get this fabulous costume/sculpture:

Oh, sorry, two videos. That first video has the T-rex, the ferris wheel, and the crane with the person doing silks, among other things. If you scroll down to their second video, ll get another dinosaur, the bit with the slide, a skate park, a band, and a caboose with a roasted side of meat.

Here's the first of three videos showing you the WHOLE Battletrain. bsky.app/profile/luck...

If you're looking at this one and thinking, "is that a *slide*?" Yes, that's a slide, and at the park after the parade, they set this up and let little kids play on it. bsky.app/profile/colo...

Anyway, NEXT CAME THE BATTLETRAIN. The Southside Battletrain is this enormous mobile sculpture that you could use as your set if you wanted to remake MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. I took pictures but other people have videos that are significantly better so I'm going to link to several of those.

I'm skipping over a lot of bits from the parade just because I didn't get a good picture of it. But a little while later there was a loon EGG that hatched a baby loon. People chanted "EGG EGG EGG EGG" to get it to hatch. bsky.app/profile/teee...

It's a loon rising up and spreading its wings like it is about to FUCK YOU UP. Anyway here's a video of the loon! It included sound effects. bsky.app/profile/melr...

One of the icons that was very popular in the Minnesota Resistance was the "Rebel Loon," a cross between the "Rebellion" logo from Star Wars, and a loon. I think part of why that symbol became so popular here was that the image works very well even if you're unfamiliar with Star Wars.

Next came a huge rolling loon puppet. The wings moved. I've included photos from the front and back because I think the puppetry here is part of what's interesting; the guy riding on the back controlled the wires for the wings. It's also a loon in the "loon rampant" pose.

The snowplow was followed by WHISTLES.

Here's a fabulous video so you can see it in action. bsky.app/profile/luck...

AND THEN THE ABOLISH ICE SNOWPLOW. Every year, the MNDoT has a naming contest for new snowplows, and every year people submit the suggestion "ABOLISH ICE," and every year they do not put that one up for the vote. Even though it would definitely win.

Brass Solidarity was followed by fire horses.

There were A LOT of bands this year! Turns out not all of them were ours. There was an event called "HonkFest" that brought in bands from Somerset, MA and Madison, WI.