Light but still early enough that the east end of town is numb with night’s chill. The sun has not yet mounted the mountains and shone into Town Park where the gorgeous, inflamed, bombastic entrants to the Fourth of July Parade are assembling, slowly and messily, bumping and scraping as the barely road-capable vehicles find their places.

Sarah makes her inspection….

Quality control covers a universe now that Homeland PanOpticon Security and National Health reach everywhere, almost everywhere

The wear and tear due on the Floats and Agit Machines due to the increased frequency of events pales in comparison to the larger problem having to do with the production of the local element in the crowd scenes…..excitement for the red white and blue, barbeque, fireworks, problematic displays of patriotic militarism used to be genuinely tappable once or twice a year, but not at the present grinding once a month schedule.  Turns out that once innocence is lost, generating for observers, those thousand in the street and the millions on the Stream a convincing appearance of spontaneity and excitement and enthusiasm becomes extremely difficult…..for then it is false, and it takes significant craft to turn the embarrassing mock up into art