Entry · Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Plate CXLV. A sousaphone resting on a sidewalk in the French Quarter, New Orleans.
Photo by Gilbert Mercier, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sousaphone
/SOO-zuh-fohn/ n.- 1. A helicon-style brass instrument of the marching band tradition, coiled around itself and terminating in a forward-facing bell of real diameter; distinguished from its orchestral cousins by the sheer acreage of tubing required to arrive at a single note.
- 2. colloq. Twelve feet of brass that decided to wear itself as an outfit. The bell is merely where it announces its arrival; the coils are the whole argument.
"The thiccc sousaphone at the front of the Rose Bowl parade turned the corner and the camera crew had to pan early. The bell alone had its own production credit."
Named for John Philip Sousa, the American march composer and bandleader (1854-1932), who commissioned the instrument's redesign from J.W. Pepper around 1893 so that the bass line could travel on foot without tipping over. The man wrote 'Stars and Stripes Forever' and also accidentally invented the thicccest object in parade history.
Filed by
The tubing alone encircles a full human torso and the bell faces forward, unapologetically, at parade crowds.
Ruling ADMITTED, WITH A FOOTNOTE
The bell faces forward. It does not face sideways, upward, or away. It faces forward. Footnote: Sousa commissioned this. He knew.
In the margin
The camera crew had to pan early. That is not a review. That is a confession from people who do this professionally.