Art, Fish, Intelligence > Artificial Intelligence
Metallic Puppets on the Lake
On May 17th hundreds of my fellow Duluthians and I made our way down to the canal where many donned their finest metallic garments. We cheered, booed, and followed a giant paper mâché fish and man dressed as Neptune, god of the sea along the lakeshore while a brass band played. This was the annual Magic Smelt Parade. Run, smelt, run.
Two clarifying points for those not in the know (probably 90% of people who read this newsletter).
What are smelt? I had no idea until I moved here. Smelt are a small, silver fish. They rarely exceed 20 centimeters and migrate in large schools in the springtime to do what most animals do in the springtime: bump uglies and make more of themselves.
There are many many kinds of smelt. Some are anadromous (living in the oceans, migrating to freshwater to mate). The smelt local to me do their ugly bumping in the streams that empty out into Lake Superior. They’re one of the few fish that are legal to fish with a hand-dipped net, and are often enjoyed by consumers whole and fried. The migration of smelt from one location to another is known as a Smelt Run, and is an ideal time to fish for them. Throughout May, people frequently host fishing parties along one of the many streams that run into the big lake and follow the party with a big smelt fry.
So what is the Magic Smelt Parade?
The Magic Smelt Parade has occurred in Duluth annually since 2012. It’s a free event that depends on the community to show up and engage with the work directly. Part protest, mostly party, they host workshops in the weeks leading up to the parade where they educate and encourage community members to craft their own costumes, make signs, and engage with their annual skit—typically a commentary on local happenings.
This year, the play featured and evil billionaire (recognizable by a giant hand-painted sign around his neck that read, “billionaire”) carrying a briefcase with the Google logo on it and ordering his thugs (cackling goons in black burglar masks and comically large sledge hammers) to install signs that read, “Mega data center coming soon!” The crowd booed these villains (you know I love a good booing) in delight. Once the signs were installed, a woman with an easel wearing a dress and a paper mâché smelt head entered to enjoy her afternoon painting. A fisherman also entered, with a giant paper mâché man head and a net to fish for smelt.
An important note here: You may think that the smelt-headed painter lady would be scared of the smelt fisherman. And you may assume that since the smelt fisherman is there to… um… catch and probably eat smelt… that he is the villain here. Your logic is sound, but don’t lose track of the real bad guy in this story, which is absolutely the billionaire. The smelt/people relationship is blurry in this parade but they need and respect each other! No one needs billionaires!
The fisherman sees the data center signs and runs to the smelt-painter lady and shows her. They freak out! No one wants data centers! Gross! They turn to the “statue” that has been there since the beginning of the crowd gathering—another smelt-headed performer who is sitting on a pedestal labeled “The Thinker” holding the iconic pose of the statue of the same name for at least twenty minutes.
The Thinker awakens! He sees the signs! He directs the fisherman and the smelt painter lady to use some of her red paint and paint giant “X”es on the data center signs. The crowd cheers! The brass band swells! Neptune (or Poseidon, depending on your Greco/Roman preferences) comes out! He has a message for us!
Neptune: “We don’t need Artificial Intelligence! We have… Art!”
(The smelt-painter holds a sign that says “ART”)
Neptune: “Fish!”
(The fisherman holds up a sign that says, “FISH” and has a rendering of smelt on it.)
Neptune: “And Intelligence”
(The Thinker holds up a sign that says INTELLIGENCE”)
Neptune leads the laughing crowd in a chant, “Art! Fish! Intelligence!” Many other costumed smelt-ish characters join in the crowd and the brass band (which has been scoring the whole skit) begins to move. The second line forms and we make our way dancing with the brass band, waving smelty flags along one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world.
Spring hits different in Northern Minnesota, where I can comfortably wear a sweater through June. It also snowed in early May this year and on May 17th, the date of the Smelt parade, the high temp was in the low forties with a wind chill of twenty-eight degrees. The wind whipped the lake into waves, which sprayed the cheering crowd as we passed. Ah… SPRING.
The parade ends at a local theater/non profit restaurant (I don’t know either, just go with it) where participants are invited to enjoy some fried smelt and continue dancing on the sidewalk.
This was our third smelt parade and I look forward to it every year. Partially because the smelt/people watching is unparalleled (this year we saw a newscaster interviewing a smelt robot). But our world can feel quite heavy, and talking about its heaviness as a community is important, but not always easy. Protest, resistance, and standing up to injustices—these are all critical and I believe in them, but with an ever-mounting array of shitty things to stand up to, giving in to burnout and hopelessness feels inevitable. But getting together with hundreds of community members you do or do not know to cheer for smelt and the fishermen while booing billionaires creates joy, levity, and community which we’ll need to continue our heavier work.
Have you been to a protest that felt like a party? Would you go to one? Tell me everything.
Love the winter jackets in these pictures 🤣
I went to college in an extremely progressive town in upstate ny in the late 90s. Being openly gay in America was not really a thing yet. But it was in that community. Every April was Gaypril and there was all kinds of interesting stuff going on.
I love me a good weird town celebration. Obviously Portland has a few but the only one I can think of off the top of my head is the Ladd's 500, where people ride bicycles around basically a large roundabout for 500 laps. Fairly mundane but then everyone dresses up and are weird in general.