Still talking about ANZAC Day...

I was having a conversation with Francesco this afternoon (I've mentioned him before ~ he's an architect undertaking a PhD on ornamentation) and whilst he was talking about ornamentation as spectacle, I mentioned the ANZAC Day march. He suggested that spectacle, in itself, was a form of ornamentation. Fascinating! The word ornament has its base root in the Latin ordo (to order, to equip, to arrange). In a sense then, ornamentation is to order by embellishing or decorating ~ (from dek ~ to make decent, or dressed). So, I thought again about the march ~ the soldiers were literally decorated with uniforms that denoted rank and medals (a reward for merit), which showed they were properly adorned/embellished/ordered in recognition of what they had achieved. Their (our) chaotic past reconstructed as order. Their feet moving in half-time or quick step, each former soldier lined up behind their regimental banner. Regime ~ orderly procedure. But how/why is the march spectacle? Apparently from the 14th century at least, the word spectacle meant specially prepared for display ~ a show ~ something to watch, and yet there was little here to watch, if we compare this spectacle with other spectacles ~ you know the ones ~ the streets are filled with interesting things to watch ~ it's showy, there's music, dancing and costumes ~ a kind of pageant. The idea of pageant suggests that something is staged, like a play and it is here that the spectacle of the ANZAC Day march starts to take on a different kind of currency, one that may be thought of in terms of the way it is constructed. You can't have a spectacle without spectators ~ actors without an audience and, at the ANZAC Day march one is clearly delineated from the other ~ those wearing uniforms, those without. Steel barriers are set up at the edge of the street so that no-one will blur the boundary between those being honored and those who honour them. Having said that, there is always one. A man, dressed in civies, made a total spectacle of himself when he found a large gap between one regiment and the next. He marched along the centre of the road in a rather exaggerated mocking fashion ~ knees high and arms swinging, calling out the words 'I'm marching, I'm marching' as an army security guard attempted to persuade him to leave. I went into Readings Bookshop this afternoon, their front window is flooded with books about Gallipoli ~ the Light Horse Brigade, the Kokoda trail, WW2~ I'm wondering why now there is so much interest?