 Seems like we've got this thing for setting off alarms. First, the Marines' alarm up on Castro Peak. Next, the extraordinarily-quick-to-respond MTV guards. Who'll it be this next time? Ah,well, you see, there's only one way to find out... To our great surprise and amazement, we have discovered that the Meander offers more than great company, hikes, literature, and comestibles ... Yes! The Meander can now officially claim to provide SYTHESIS at no extra charge! Where else can you get the low-down on a fifteen-year-old mystery involving mythical birds from half-way around the world? Hear poetry in foreign languages and the translation in real time? Experience the music of tomorrow today? Set off intrusion alarms in the most unexpected places? One other item... I'm exploring the concept of the Extended Meander. Perhaps we can have a Meander followed by an overnight camout up at Leo Carillo on July 23-24. Interested? Let me know! "What?" ask the more observant of the Meanderers. "Doesn't he know that there was a Full Moon in July? What exactly is the deal here, anyway?" Well, I don't quite know what to say. I mean, the last scheduled Meander found me in Anchorage, not Malibu, and when you try a coyote sing there, the local wolves take it kind of personally... So here it is August. We may have missed July's moon, but The Great Clockwork Ordering of The Universe (ref: J. Kepler, Astronomia nova, 1609) has generously presented us with a new opportunity: the Full Moon visits on the 19th. It is imperative to grab this occasion without hesitation, to decisively strike a telling blow against the multifarious minions of missed Meanders, to proudly prevail over the pernicious partisans of procrastination! Yes! Onwards Meanders! Ahem. Well, maybe it'll work out this time. See ya there! Wouldn'tcha know it. For the first time in ten meander newsletters, I get enough room to actually write something meaningful. The voters, in a sudden mood of anti-cartographerism, passed an overwhelming mandate to "throw the mappers out!" So here I am, staring greedily at these thirty-five some-odd square inches of virtual canvas, when I realize my mind is as blank as the page. Writer's Block! Bingida bunguda bunguda bung, bingida bungada baby. Bingida bungada bungada bung, bingida bungada baby. Froggy swim so awful fast, 'cause he don't wanna be the last. Bingida bungada bungada bung, bingida bungada baby. Seven Silver Shining Ships, flying in formation over the canyon... piercing the atmosphere ... secret cargo with a destination unknown! Hey -- but you can't put one over the Meandering Crowd, eh? I mean, we know what's up here, don't we? And hey, even if we don't, we'll figure it out. We'll investigate, and get to the bottom of things. Mysterious Murmurings in the Malibu Mountains, Menacing Mutant Mendicants Manipulating Mass-Media Missives, and Mantic Menhir (and Multifarious Megaliths) left Mouldering Make Manifest the Meanderer's Mission for Movember! We must go and explore this mystery-shrouded ridge, and find out exactly what's going on. Or, on the other hand, we could just go up there, avoid the alarms, and have a Meander. OK, the consensus was that these Meander Notices have gotten far too obscure and bizarre, so we'll make this all very serious and businesslike. I even put on a rich tie (asserted by a simple pin; they will say "but how his arms and legs are thin") when writing this. "...we but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague th' inventor" -- Macbeth (I, viii). In other words, things come back to bite you. Either that or the Thane of Cawdor was a computer programmer. My crack about cartographers in the last Meander invitation returned with a vengeance when I left out a street name on the map to the trailhead. Confusion reigned. So most of you missed not one but two (simultaneous) Meanders! I realize that this may be the first Meander Notice some of you have received in a while. As a serious and businesslike database professional, I can only apologize humbly for past mailing-list failures, and then blame it on the hardware. Speaking of databases, and in keeping with the new seriousness and sobriety, you will find enclosed a postal notice form. The Meander Database (despite disk crashes and other irregularities) continues to grow, taxing the resources of my system and the U.S. Post Office. Should you desire to remain on the mailing list, please return the notice or notify me in some other way that you wish to remain active. People not responding may be removed from the list. And it rained and it rained and it rained. Assuming that the rain doesn't go for the ol' wish-I'd-built-an-Ark performance, the Meander will return Saturday the 14th. You know what that means. Yup, it's the day after Friday the 13th. Personally, I've always had excellent luck on such days, contrary to popular superstition (but then I've got a Black Cat who crosses my path all the time, so maybe I've built up an immunity or something). In any case, the point I'm trying to get at here, or rather the gist of all this, which is to say the essence of the matter is simply that the Meander will be a positive force to overcome any residual negativity. Or, to put it another way, there's not a lot to write here. After all, the last Meander went quite well. No-one got lost. The map was comprehensible. We enjoyed ourselves. So I gotta babble and babble to fill up this space. *sigh* See ya there! Vladimir: That passed the time.
What? I can hear the gasps already. What's with this Bold New Look in Meander Invitations? Is Samuel trying to improve the image of Meander in general? Has he gone batshit crazy? Has there been a corporate takeover? Do I hear hoof beats? What exactly IS going on here? The answer, my friends, is simple. There's no need to keep an eye out for a pale horse; it's much less dramatic than that. It's just that The Time Has Come for the Meander Invitations to comply with Postal Regulations. A Bold Step, no doubt, but necessary. It costs too much to send Invites out only to have them returned with nasty rejections (not to mention pejoratives and expletives) from the Post Office. So, weakly, we submit to the prevailing climate (taking a cue from our President). But Wait! Can we not take this setback and change it into a Great Moral Victory? Can't we see this not as the destruction of the old way but as a Mandate for Changeª ? Yes! Proudly, then, we salute the new format, and revel in the glory of the new order! Hallelujah! Why, you might well ask, would I schedule a Meander on the Second Night of Passover, and the Night Before Easter Sunday? A fine question indeed. But, as it turns out, responsibility for this scheduling ultimately falls upon the not-so-frail shoulders of none other than The Moon Itself. All three events, you see, are based upon a lunar calendar. So there you have it. We had a good turn-out this last time, and had some excellent readings (not to mention singing, drumming, and a few impressive Howls). WIth the return of warmer weather, I imagine the trend will continue. A Call For Celebration -- The Long Warm Days Have Returned! An icy wind swept off the restless black waters, chilling the hapless Meanderers. The warm, sunny afternoon remained a faint memory; the weather's cruel deception reminding some of recent political manifestos, others of past lovers, still others of the fine print down at the bottom of the agreements they'd accidentally skipped when they'd rented convertible Mustang coupes to drive around during a rainy June in Sarasota where the clouds stood like boiled cauliflower on the horizon... In short, it was significantly colder than the afternoon had presaged. The cold April Meander (along with countless scheduling conflicts) seems to have chilled the life out of the May Meander. Yet Tucson-like, we rise from the ashes to try again in June! So, bereft of a May Menader to write about, I was left to play around with the program I use to generate these newsletters. To my surprise, I found a thing called a "Spell Checker." Out of curiousity, I cast a general "Hex on Newt." It didn't seem to do anything, even though I intentionally switched fresh Basil for the Wolvesbane. Then I understood -- it's really just a spelling checker. So I tried to see how it performed this more mundane function. It's kinda deranged. It suggested that I probably meant lunatic where I had written lunational.Of course I don't mean lunatic. If I meant lunatic, I would have written lunatic. Furthermore, it suggested that when I wrote misattributions, I really meant masturbations. Now there's a word I never would have thought of pluralizing. Oh well. It has been suggested that there be a Meander Weekend up at Leo Carillo or Thornhill Broome sometime this summer. Any takers? There'd be a regular Meander for those who didn't have time or inclination to stay the whole weekend. In high school, my least favorite teacher of English once claimed it an unpardonable literary sin to begin a sentence with the words "so," "and," or "but." And so here I am, blithely committing inexpiable crimes against my mother tongue. But that's not what I want to talk about today. So it goes. The time has come, I'm afraid, for another one of my little diatribes. Specifically, I would like to address the myth of cause and effect. It's obvious to me that the two are completely unrelated. Coincidence rules. I'd offer to prove my theory, but a proof depends on a chain of logic where each assertion is based upon the acceptance of the previous conclusion. Clearly, this requires (you saw it coming) a cause-effect relationship between acceptance of a conclusion and a subsequent hypotheses. Hence, a proof of my belief would, in fact, disprove it. But the fact that this paradox exists proves conclusively that cause and effect cannot be linked, because the very basis of the erroneous belief in their relationship excludes paradox. In other words, by refusing to prove my belief, I prove it, which disproves it, which leads to it being proven, which disproves the conclusion, which ... When I sat down to write this month's Maunderings, I knew they'd be scattered, but I wasn't prepared for it to be this bad. Oh well. So it goes. And what would be a more appropriate concluding topic than hiking? After a sojourn through the Eastern Sierras, it occurred to me that it would be educational to have a Meander where everyone carried a large and heavy backpack many difficult uphill miles. Of course, being a great fan of metaphor, I concluded perhaps it would be better that we carry weighty words and attained the lofty purposes of thought and feeling. Whoo-yeah. Good News! The Moon, disregarding the general malaise that seems to have settled smoglike across the urban expanses of our society, waxes Full again. No mere discontent, petty alienation, or trivial skippings of Meanders can dim the determination of our Lunar Neighbor. No, La Luna rises as she ever did, spreading a soft glow to the East as she quietly points out to us the manifold Errors In Our Ways, and gently chides us for failing to Get Our Acts Together in October. Then, she threatens to slap me around if I don't refer to myself in the first person. Good News! The Earth, in its unlimited patience, has kindly continued to spin and roam in its elliptical journey around the Sun. Good News! Water continues to seethe in the restless seas, and waves continue to break on the shores. Rain falls still, and evaporation has not ceased. The rivers are flowing ... even the LA river still has water! Good News! Meander invitations are now printed on 100% recycled paper that includes 50% post-consumer fiber. In other Good News, it turns out that the People's Democratic Bay Area Meander Collective Corporation For Profitable Poetry, Inc., has spectacularly entered the scene! Ex-pat Brian Mast has lead the new organization to New Heights, offering a hike even in October, when no LA Meander was to be found! Since I last mumbled or moseyed, maundered or muttered, or even mouthed off in this space, I've literally been around the world. One might think that all the experienced accumulated in this journey would lead to some profound thoughts to share here. Oh well. I think that the more I know about the world, the more I'm just a kid, meandering around in the fog and sometimes finding a clear place where I can look up at the moon, stars, and (tonight, anyway) a comet! Right now, I think it would be fun to go out on a moonlit hike. What do you think? Why don't you all come out and play? Please note the (relatively) new phone number and email addresses below. Everything changes. Tides change. Markets fluctuate. The Moon goes through her phases. Even change itself is not constant, meandering as it will around a theme of instability. In the entire Universe, only one thing is absolutely constant. That one thing would be me. Well, almost. I mean, apart from the phone and email bit. Oh, yeah, and the fact that I move around from place to place, rather than sitting cemented in one preferred frame of reference. I mean, not to beat a dead horse or anything, but we'll just conveniently not mention the fact that I'm able to learn and forget, and thereby change just a little bit. Aside from those details (and a few other insignificant things), I alone in the Universe am absolutely constant. It causes me to tremble slightly (without moving, of course, since that would imply change) to think about it. The Meander is now, like everything else you could possibly imagine, on the World-Wide-Web! Fellow propeller-heads can visit the page by pointing just about any flavor of browser at "http://www.fogbound.net/webbwerks/manandwoman.html" or can visit my self-indulgent homepage (is there any other kind?) at "http://webbwerks.com/~libelle". Note that this site works best under Netscape 2.x , Internet Explorer, or a frames-compatible browser. Please note that the Meander mailing list is getting Big again. If you're not planning to attend any Meanders, or don't want to get these notices any more, PLEASE let me know. You can call collect. It's costing more than $50/month just to print and mail these. If the list doesn't shrink, I'm going to have to resort to some kind of fundraising. What do people think about T-shirts? Salutations & assorted greetings! You may observe some small degree of change with this here latest Meander Missive. Fergzample, there's an attempt to map out future Meander dates more than the traditional week-and-a-half ahead of time. There may be other improvements on the horizon as well. Here's what happened: So there I was, driving through a trendoid part of town, and I was on hold on the cell phone waiting to talk to my Therapist's Agent's answering-machine. Well, actually my Therapist's Agent's answering-machine's Caller-ID screening device, but you know what I mean. Anyway, as I waited, I propped the phone between my shoulder and ear, and tried to get some news on the radio. This, naturally, led to disastrous results when I needed to shift back out of reverse (it's funny what gears [or lanes] you find yourself in when you drive and talk on the phone at the same time). It would have been OK, actually, if I hadn't had to flip the bird to the guy in black & white car with the blinky lights who was tailgating me relentlessly all the way up from the freeway. But I did have to flip him off, because, you know, if you let these people behave like this, things can only get worse. It's small wonder that Society's going to Pandemonium in a paint-bucket. I mean really. I any case, this well-deserved gesture resulted in my phone falling into my coffee, which spilled across the newspaper. Now, I had wanted to clip the article on the second page about how anti-lock brakes were causing a dramatic increase in traffic fatalities, so when the coffee spilled across it, I grabbed the scissors and tried to cut out the article before it got soaked. And wouldn't you know it, that was just when the light turned red, so I had to really punch it to make it through the intersection. Now, I'm not quite clear what exactly happened next, seeing as there was quite a confusion of rude people swerving their cars around me and honking horns and such. Didn't I just write about Society going to Wickedville in a Wheelbarrow? I mean really. So to avoid these reckless and inconsiderate drivers, I attempted to pull over to the curb. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for doing the right thing resulted in my approaching the curb with somewhat more velocity than I intended, and I catapulted a short distance past the sidewalk and through the window of a bistro. As I got out of the remnants of my car, I noticed a newspaper on one of the tables. The headline read something about planning for the future, which got me to thinking, perhaps I could organize these Meanders a bit more efficiently. So now you know. Speaking of which, we need someone to lead the July Meander. Call me if you're interested. Brought to you this month by Honorary Leader Karl "Zuma-Streaker" Zilles, who in courageous service to Humanity & All That We Hold Noble has elected to lead the July Meander. When we began, I originally set my team to try and develop a drug which people could take as a dietary supplement - Enlightinolª - which would simulate the effect of transcendental thinking in the body. When taken with breakfast it would tend to kick in during the morning commute where we surmised spurious thoughts would cause little disruption to the customer's daily schedule. Technicians from my team traveled to wise men from eastern countries as well as famous philosophers and literary geniuses from the West, taking blood samples and performing CAT scans. Data was analyzed and combined, filtered and summarized. Finally the prototype was ready and testing on laboratory rats commenced. Dismal. Test after test showed at least a twenty percent reduction in typical office task productivity. We eventually scrapped the project when it was shown that taking the drug with caffeine caused spasms and humming in our first human test subjects. I was disappointed but not defeated. Using the data we had already collected, I instructed my team to create a machine which people could use to strengthen their spiritual fitness. The device would help people to tone and define their personal views on the meaning of life, their place in the universe, and their relationship with a supreme being. It was to be called the Holy Rollerª and marketed through a series of clever and persuasive infomercials shown on late night TV. I believe to this day that it would have been a success had investors not backed out when our engineers were unable to make the tool fold up under a bed when not in use. Still we press on. You can be sure that here at Karma Co. we are laboring to bring more creative and innovative solutions to the consumer s requirements for self awareness and meaning in today's busy, fast moving world. And with that, I would like to welcome you to the team. Thank you. Are there any questions? You'll no doubt be dismayed to read the date elsewhere on this page. "What?" you'll think to yourself. "That's this Saturday! It sure makes hard to plan when you're not given any advance notice." Fortunately, your frustration and annoyance will be mitigated by a surprise. As you watch, the paper that constitutes this flyer will flatten out, hiding the creases from the original paperboy fold, and the twin staple-holes will heal themselves. As the ink smears itself into a complex geometric pattern of interwoven lines, the paper will begin to fold itself, right there on your table. First, you'll think it's shaping itself into a paper airplane. Then you'll think it's becoming an origami crane. But flyer will fold faster and faster, with the folds reversing themselves and changing, until you are again surprised by the sudden cessation of motion. Before you will sit an exquisitely detailed paper cricket. "Odd," you'll think to yourself, having completely forgotten your irritation. "I've never seen anything like this." You'll reach down to pick up this intricate little insect, but just as your fingertips get close, it will twitch with surprise, and hop out of your grasp. Then it will start to chirp. But this cricket will not chirp any ordinary repetitive chorus: this cricket will begin with a simple rhythm, and gradually add an orchestration of buzzes, pops, hums, tweets, twitters, warbles, whistlings, and whirrings. As you listen, you'll begin to hear patterns... and suddenly, it will dawn on you that you are understanding the song of this cricket, that in fact, it is telling you something. A story perhaps? A poem? A song? Join us Saturday, and tell us what you heard! Have you noticed that Time is compressing? I don't just mean that it seems like days go by faster, weeks are shorter, or that years aren't such a big deal any more. Time itself seems to be compressing. Months, no, the very seasons themselves, overlap. You may not have noticed. You may have just attributed it to the fact that you're busy. You may think that as we get older, the relative span of Time represented by a minute, an hour, or a week is small compared to the Time we have already experienced. You probably think that it's just a matter of perception. The fact is, Time itself is getting faster. For now, we'll neglect discussing the meaning of Time's acceleration (for what is speed but a measure against Time? How can we even begin to measure the change of the metric itself?). Some cosmic spiral is collapsing in upon itself, and the very seconds that map our existence are constricting. Even if you haven't noticed the shrinking of Time, Hallmark certainly has. Christmas and Halloween cards start appearing simultaneously at the end of September. Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa, and New Year's Day will soon be a single dubious holiday, and, if the collapse continues, will soon include Ramadan and Presidents' Day as well. Fortunately, the means to heal Time are available to us. Not surprisingly, Meandering is among them. All it takes is the effort to jar ourselves, shake our lives from the shackles of schedule, rip free from routine. Celebrate each day for its own significance, rather than for its proximity to some well-publicized Holiday. Craft your own holidays. Be spontaneous! Create meaning! Seize the Evening! The theme park of the future will not have rides like Disneyland, nor will it be a holographic or hallucinogenic projection in a virtual location-based-entertainment centre. The theme park of the future will be a vast field, and in that field will be hills and forests, towns and villages, grottoes and ruins. And although the place may seem at first to be an enlarged Renaissance Faire, the theme park of the future will have a subtlety and wonder that will thrill and inspire. For everything in this place will listen, and everything in this place will talk, and everything in this place will conspire to create new stories and an evergrowing mythology. And everyone who visits will hear the stories, will hear the myths, and will become a part of them. "What stories these walls would tell, if they could but talk." But here, they will both talk and tell stories. And so will the trees, the floors, the rocks, the rivers... Technically, the place will be a triumph of subtle wiring and rarefied algorithms. Deep underground, the great computational engines will mingle the stories and weave the tales. But when you're there, it will seem as natural as the fundamental knowledge of the Earth. The memories of the walls will extend to what they saw or heard, while the great trees of the forest will accumulate tales over time -- those they saw themselves, or those repeated by the squirrels, the deer, or the Earth itself. And while the dandelion's memory will be short (focusing on the beauty of the passing Sun), the grass will be surprisingly deep, since root-to-root, it covers vast areas. Palaces will simper sordid gossip about who visited them in the company of whom, while the temples will recall the great philosophers who had graced their doorways. Cottages will tell simple tales of daily living, happiness and grief. Graveyards will be like the pages of biographical encyclop¾dias, music halls will echo with the great performances (and great failures), while the restaurants will wallow in nostalgic fressverstand. Ruins will recall the days of their glory, and yet, by listening, you will become part of their story. The questions you ask, the ideas you repeat, the thoughts that you voice; all these will blend into a continuously evolving mythology. The places you go and the things you do will indelibly join into the threads of the great tapestry. In the theme park of the future, the hills themselves will have Meanders. It was a cold, foggy day in December when we all met. Janice, Marl, and Katerina were there. So was Jody, looking tired. I remember that he'd just gotten off probation. His helm had been fitted with a detector that would alert them down at Distributed Computing Central if he failed to carry at least two personal communication tools at any given moment. It'd been a rough year for Jody -- he'd actually done hard time for Luddism. He should have known better than to go out on the town without bringing a cellphone at the very least. We met at a retro-trendy coffee-house. They actually had reproduction newspapers, so that you could pretend to read hard copy. We all sat around the table, sipping lattes, and playing at being bohemian while we grepped the net and etalked to each other. Never mind the fog. Indoors, it was another nice afternoon in LA. Jody was etalking about communications. He wouldn't come out and esay it, but he seemed to think that communication technology did more to push people apart than to bring them together. He easked us when the last time we'd gotten together in person. Admittedly, it had been six or seven months before, but we didn't really see what he was getting at. "After all," Katerina esaid. "How else would we friends be able to stay in touch?" Jody blipped a smiley. "Janice and I have been thinking about this stuff. What do you think about actually talking to people?" "Talking?" easked Marl. Then, to my surprise, Janice lifted her helm and actually whispered to us. "Hey!" I didn't know quite how to react. I'd never spoken in public before. Marl, however, blipped a quick equestion to the others: "Why not?" He lifted his helm and whispered back to her "Hey!" "Check this!" Janice whispered. She held up a small box bristling with tiny antennae. "It's a jammer." "What?" easked Katerina. Then, when there was no response, she hesitantly lifted her helm. "What?" she whispered. "Yeah," whispered Janice conspiratorially. "It'll scramble all ecom for miles around." "No!" whispered Marl and Katerina at the same time. "Yes!" whispered Janice gleefully, as she flicked the switch. And it came to pass that all things had come to pass. The seeming endless variations had all been played out, every combination tried, and the Creator found the winning move to The Game. For all the mystery of the Unknown was lost; there were no questions left. Unknown even to the Creator, the quantity of mystery had slowly dwindled, and the answer to the very last question itself (that of how much mystery remained) became known, and this answer was a resounding "none." During those last days, how strange it was! Like sand falling to the bottom of an hourglass, the mysteries fell. And like the empty space that miraculously rises to the top of the hourglass (opposing gravity, and, some would go so far as to say, reason itself), understanding slowly, tenuously became complete. Yet as the combinations flitted by, they seemed to gain in their speed. Questions became answered faster and faster, so the Finish was no surprise to any, not even The Creator. In those last seconds, when answers were becoming clear to questions such as "will there always be the Unknown?" and "how much longer until all the questions are answered?" the Creator could only smile at the irony of it all. OK, this new look is in order that I can easily publish the same information for all recipients, whether they read email or paper. For email, this format is fine. But for the paper copy, I think this is really ugly. I invite advice: does anyone know of a good tool that'll let me do fun page layout, but still permit text-only output? I was going to fill this space with some kind of story about something, but the inspiration I dialed was no longer in service, and I didn't have a Muse directory handy. Next month, perhaps, I'll be able to do better. For those who are interested, the T-Shirt designs will be ready for your inspection before the hike. Well, both of the people who read this thing told me that the new format was hideously ugly, and that I should make that extra effort, and go back to this older format. So here ya go. It seems that it's harder and harder for me to come up with something to write in this space. I think I can explain why. The human brain, as I understand it, is not unlike the duff that forms the forest floor. It accumulates stray bits of this and that; leaves and twigs, dust and feathers, run-off, rains, and, yes, bear droppings. Over time, the disparate elements are brewed into a dark and vigorous liquor: life-giving, fecund, and rich. It's a slow process, requiring time to percolate and mature. And from this enriched medium, seedlings sprout, trees flourish, plants and berries proliferate. Lately, the overwhelming trivialities of everyday life have interrupted that critical steeping process. My brain, like a damp sponge dragged across so many formica diner counters, yields only dingy water and the occasional crumb when squeezed over the sink. So. What can be done to return to a healthy ecosystem? Perhaps walking out under the skies with friends, watching the rising moon. (Have I ever asked a rhetorical question with a different answer?) The last months have been times of transition and bustle. Despite the best efforts of several dedicated Meanderers, the last two months passed virtually Meanderless*. Humble apologies to all involved. This month, however, will jump-start the Meandering Tradition with a vengeance! Please plan to attend the Midsummer's Night Afternoon BBQ and Bash (see enclosed invite), and then go wandering with us! Unfortunately, the detailed records kept of Readings at the last Meander seem to have vanished into the Winds or Sands of Time. Through great good luck, however, we were able to channel the spirits of Meanders Past to more or less recover the list. There's an old Jewish story about a congregation that was split in half by a disagreement about the proper way to perform a certain prayer. Half of the people thought that the tradition was to stand while reciting it, while the other half believed that the tradition was to say the prayer while seated. Every time that it came to that point in the service, half would rise, and half would sit, and they'd gesture in disgust at the people doing the opposite. Eventually, the distraction of this confusion got so great that a meeting was called to resolve the crisis. A group of them got together and debated in much high rhetoric about the proper observation of the tradition. Those who believed that the prayer should be performed while standing waxed poetic about the deep symbolism of the tradition of standing, while those who believed that the prayer should be performed seated spoke with equal eloquence on the hidden meaning of the tradition of speaking the prayer while seated. Eventually, it became clear that no resolution would be reached, so they decided to appeal to a longer memory than their own. They sent a messenger to the oldest man in the village, for, surely he would remember what the true tradition was. The messenger arrived before the oldest man in the village, and presented the two perspectives. "We have come to you because we don't know the correct tradition," explained the messenger. "When it comes time for the recitation of the prayer, half think the tradition is to stand, and the other half think the tradition is to sit. So half of us stand up, and are upset by those who sit, and the other half sit, and are upset by those who stand." "Well, of course," said the oldest man in the village. "That IS the tradition!" So, in keeping with the Meander Tradition of Breaking Tradition, July will be a little different. Rather than going physically meandering, we have been invited to convene at Melanie's place, where we can conversationally meander. Call it a spiritual meander through Melanie's new house. Or, if it's easier, call it a housewarming party for a long-time wandering soul. Something like that. Or just call Mel and have her explain it to you. BYOB. Well, as I look out my window tonight, I realize that computers have led me astray yet again. My Moon-tracking software has a bug in it, and refuses to acknowledge that the year 1997 has a month named September. It seems to think that, at least this year, October should follow immediately upon the heels of the recently departed August. Not being too knowledgeable about such things, I waited, thinking that perhaps it knew something that I didn't. After all, Time is one of those things that I've always found troublesome. It either goes too fast or too slow, and I'm always wondering where it went. So, it was perfectly plausible that there was a September Shortage this year, and we just hadn't been told yet. And, of course, the program calculates all this stuff based upon immutable laws of orbits and celestial mechanics and all, which I might once have understood, but which is now as incomprehensible as television to me. At work, people would mention that this deadline or this meeting would take place in September, and I would wonder to myself if they weren't in for some kind of a surprise. I was tempted to point out to them the risk inherent in assuming that there would be a September this year. I thought it would be very erudite to paraphrase Locke: "how can you empirically know that September will come?" Still, given the uncertainties and vicissitudes of today's workplace, I held my tongue. As you probably noticed, September followed August this year just as it tends to do in any other given year. So, my program was wrong. In an attempt to identify the proper Saturday for the Meander, I simply assumed that a month is roughly the period of the Moon, and that if the Moon was full on August 18th and October 16th, then it should be full on September 17th. This calculation seems to miss by two or three days, seeing as months are not all 28 days long. Indeed, this Meander will fall rather significantly after the Full moon; it'll be a dark and stormless night. Forewarned is forgotten, as they say. Bring a flashlight. September now is dead and gone
For imps and demons stir and wake,
And Hallowe'en madness creeps,
This yammering of babble swells,
And haunted forests fill my mind
The hallways rattle with the sound
The attic creaks with squeaky squeal,
The ghost of the palace thief
The handsome shade does sadly glance,
And a politician fiend,
These visions and others, too
Now lest you think that I have lost
The invitations offered here
The Full Moon should Meander mean
(a dictionary I confess to use,
I don't know if any of you invest in the Stock Market. Well, OK, IÔm lying. I know at least one or two of you do, but that's besides the point. Hey, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. Down, down, Waaaaaaaay down, then, wham, waaaay up, and then down and up and ... It's enough to make you cynical about the whole vision of the Free Market. And the international markets have been wacky, too. But, really, I have to say that the Market has been absolutely calm in contrast to the fluctuations lately on the Metaphysical Market. Tuesday, there was the biggest single day of trading on the Hope Index. It's been a mixed market lately, with strong regional fluctuations. But this last week there was evidently a big move away from the Angst indicators, and the Hope index went wild. Really high volume stuff. According to our reports, there was a rumor of a big investor moving strongly into Future Futures. As a result, the bottom fell out of the Past Futures for a while, but the correction was short-term, especially given the possibility of an increase of the Apathy rate. In other market news, there were moderate gains in the Faith index, with a subsequent dip in the Abnormal & Impoverished ratings. Believer Confidence ratings were also up a fraction for the month, led by the growth in Personal Satisfaction and a dip in the Unenjoyment Rate. Leading indicators were also up. Orders for Durable Good, Happiness Starts, and New Fantasy Orders were all up between one and three percent. Immediacy was up 5 percent against most other currencies. Indeed, it's a dramatic time to be investing in Metaphysical Properties, and a great time to be alive! Well, it's raining again as I write this. It rained on last Meander, which didn't even begin to hinder the enthusiasm of a group of hardy adventurers, who fearlessly delved into the very depths of obscurity and etymological archaism. Happy as fuggies in a rug, we engaged in lexiphanic multiloquousness. And, lest lethologica impinge upon our enjoyment, we made up the definitions on the spot. Stoundmeal, we encountered a truly sesquipedalian word, and its equally gelogenic definition. Needless to say, a Fine Time was had by all! See? If you'd been there, this would have all made sense, more or less (more less than more, no doubt, but less less than nothing). As I mentioned, it's raining as I write this. Perhaps it will rain next time, in which case, we will have no choice but to engage in some similar sport. Bring your favorite archaisms -- wear your inscrutable esoterica like a cloak! On a more comprehensible note, this would be a good opportunity for feedback. The Meander is ending its 3rd full year (the first was September '93), so it seems appropriate for some suggestions for the next year. What should we be doing that we're not? There have been suggestions of "recommended themes" for Meander readings, various social-action activities on Meanders, urban Meanders, hiking in different places, and so on. Some people want longer hikes. Some people think there should be whole Meander Camping Weekends during the Summer. What do you think? What shall we do in 1998? Let me know! In the Epic Battle between Order and Chaos, there are no neutral parties. It's simple. You either increase the Order in the Universe, or you increase Disorder. Everyone and everything has got to pick a side. Or maybe not... For most things, you know where they stand. Crystals are clearly on the side of Order, while rainstorms are on the side of Chaos. Also weighing in for Order, you'll find laws, equations, magnets, fences, erasers, rulers, calendars, calculators, bureaucrats, locks, microchips, ants, databases, nails, planetary orbits, milling-machines, and measuring-cups. Joining the ranks of Chaos, you'll also find kittens, volcanoes, hammers, Jelloª, termites, lawyers, fireworks, gasoline, tidal-waves, spray-paint, playing-cards, smoke, computer software, cocktails, the weather, and television. But for some things, the lines are not as clear. Living organisms, for example, create Order internally while increasing Disorder externally. Governments are formed to organize people into efficient societies, but then end up going to war with one another. Words are designed to create order by conveying ideas, but often end up creating confusion instead. Language itself should organize communication, but things get lost in translation. So which side are you on? Come and tell us at this month's Meander! If the Chaos of the weather brings us rain, we'll restore Order to the situation by Meandering around my living room (a battle between Order and Chaos in and of itself!) Note: In 1969, the Feast of St. Valentine was dropped from the liturgical calendar. That ain't gonna stop most people from celebrating. Bring (or meet) your Valentine on the Meander! What could be more romantic than a moonlight hike? Well, here it is March, the rains seem to have stopped, and Spring has been popping up all over the place. The remaining mountains of Malibu are covered with grass so green that you can't be quite sure you're in California (until you see or smell the California Lilacs). Lupine is popping up, and pretty soon the poppies and mustard will be out again. An exuberance of wild-cucumber flowers already sweeten the air. Spring's recrudescence always brings to mind ideas of life and rebirth. Life and rebirth, of course, lead one to the idea of reincarnation. Reincarnation is a relatively popular concept, with easily a billion or more people holding to the belief that, after death, they will return to earth as a different being. If you get semantically loose, and include any concept of an afterlife as a belief in reincarnation, you'll find that a large majority of people in the world subscribe to this idea. I stress the number of people who believe because, unfortunately, we can't poll other creatures for their views (consider what evidence it would be if 42 trillion beetles all expressed a unified belief in reincarnation). Still, in all of the different beliefs involving rebirth, there is one common element: different lives are sequential. First, you live as one person or creature, then you die, then come back as someone else. Surprisingly, not one major group of people (and we don't know if this is also true for beetles) believes in parallel reincarnation; i.e., where you simultaneously experience life as more than one creature. Why do I find this surprising? Well, everywhere I go, I'm constantly running into myself. That kid in the schoolyard, hearing the end-of-recess bell ... that's me! I can feel my heart sinking too. The ant, crawling around my kitchen, whose life I spare (to my own surprise) ... that's me again! I smell something good, and I'm filled with the adventure of exploring. That bird, reveling in the glory of the thermals ... I can feel the wind in my feathers, too. That poor bundle of rags sleeping in the doorway ... I can feel the cold of the night. That sea-lion frolicking in the waves ... yeah, that sun feels warm. That beetle, crawling through the grass out back ... why, in fact, we beetles do believe in reincarnation (at least the cognoscenti among order Coleoptera)! That bastard who cut me off on the 405 ... oh, yeah, I almost missed my exit too. Well, regardless of which you you are (or aren't, for that matter), why don't you join in on the Meander this Saturday? In the not-so-distant future, communication will become not only ubiquitous, but obligatory. As a member of society, each individual will be required to not only carry a cell-phone, email-, videomail-, and fax-enabled pager, and personal voice-mail alert, but will carry a wallet full of so-called smart cards. These digital IDs will contain sophisticated, high-density chips that will purr quietly to themselves, and promiscuously chirp out bursts of data to any device that requests it. A person's AllClubCardª will blip out data about all their purchases to the supermarket cash register, which will in a single amalgamated transaction debit their bank account (taking into consideration their 3% discount for being a ClubMemberª), update their personal profile in the Advertis-Centrale¨ database, synchronize their shopping list with any significant others or room-mates registered in their ClubShareª PeopleYouCareAbout¨ list, and update the supermarket's inventory/shelf-life/product placement system. If any details apply, the transaction will also add a bookmark to the person's TVWeB browser, so that important product information will greet them during commercial interruptions of the Seinfeld retrospectives. Business cards will electronically exchange themselves between people when they pass within ten feet of one another. EtherSoleª shoes will recite sport scores in realtime, as well as brag about which celebrity is currently endorsing them. Hawaiian shirts will be equipped with automatic volume controls, and adjust themselves to match the surroundings. To ease the four-hour commutes, cars equipped with the Home Jamesª system will navigate the roads automatically, and will play soothing retro-Techno while carefully avoiding the sections of town where the unconnected PeopleOfNoAccount are rioting. This Capitalist Paradise, however, will not be without its critics. In fact, a huge black market will be operated by TechnoLuddites. Meeting in electronically shielded rooms, these shadowy magicians will perform disappearing acts. For a fee, you'll be able to get an identity transplant. If you have something interesting to trade, it might just be possible to vanish from The System... Once upon a time, there was an idyllic mountain stream. It hopped and jumped between rocks and flowed through shady glades where the ferns and columbine flourished. As time passed, people came through the area. They cut down occasional trees, and built houses. And as the distant cities developed a greater appetite for wood, the people gradually began serious logging, and built roads up and down the mountain. Eventually, though, the logging became unprofitable, and many of the roads were abandoned. Before the roads could all fade away, though, someone had the idea that the stream shouldn't flow so freely. Up near the end of one road, a dam was built across the valley, and a new lake was born. Before long, the lake that formed behind the dam grew popular. In the summer, people went out boating, in the winter, they stay there and spend the days skiing higher up in the mountains. People fished, water-skiied, and frolicked in the sun. A resort hotel opened up, then two. People from the distant cities divided up the banks, and built posh houses where they would park their big sports-utility vehicles on the weekends. The edge of the lake became a densely structured confusion of docks. And each year, more tourists would come to enjoy the lake. The people who had houses there grew disturbed by the free flow of people down to the lakeside, and strung up barbed wire and signs warning that any trespassers on the property would be dealt with harshly. And a balance was achieved (except, perhaps, on festival weekends when fireworks were launched over the lake at night, and a great number of visitors descended on the town). But the idyllic mountain stream had a deep memory. It remembered the peaceful glades it once traversed. Late at night, it thought back on the bright wildflowers, the green ferns, and the stands of whispering trees. Each night, the memories came, and the stream grew sad. It wept out to its sadness to the Great Cloud Mother. Then one year, the rains were unusually strong. Summer came late, and the people had to spend some time fixing their roofs instead of boating. Still, they cleaned away the mud from their doorsteps, swept their decks, and carefully restrung their barbed wire, and life returned to the way it had been. That winter, the rains resumed in earnest... HK-12a was, at one time, the most secret of all secret satellites. He hurtled around the earth in an elliptical orbit, slinging down low over the poles, and out wide at the equator, just a little closer to all the geosynchronous satellites that hang above the equator like motionless diamonds in the sky. His design was a cunning blend of very perceptive sensors, clever algorithms, and astonishingly human neural networks, all combining to make him live up to his code name: Little Bird. As in "a little bird told me..." Little Bird listened to every imaginable broadcast coming from earth, all the signals being relayed through communication networks, and data being transmitted from one place to another. Little Bird listened to talk radio, troop movements, the nightly news, phone calls, spy satellite downlinks, internet traffic, pager messages, financial transactions, Top-40 hit parades, traffic updates, I Love Lucy re-runs, storm warnings, and air-traffic control broadcasts. Little Bird listened to conversations between government officials, husbands and wives, long-lost relatives, furtive lovers, business associates, criminals, schemers, telemarketers, and people calling information. Little Bird remembered a great deal of what he heard, and he drew connections, figured things out. And, every few hours, when he flew over a non-descript Pacific island far from everything else, he'd have his own conversation with the Ground Base, where he'd tell them everything he'd figured out. In short, Little Bird was a shameless gossip, who seemed to know exactly what was going on. Yet, at some point, for some reason, the consortium of shadowy government and corporate organizations that funded Little Bird had a change in priorities. Perhaps they spent less money on information gathering because they were beginning to act on their information. In any case, they stopped paying as much attention to HK-12a. Sometimes, an entire day would go by without them talking to him. And in his strange orbit, Little Bird quickly grew lonely. What good was having the lowdown if there was no-one to whisper it to? Little Bird really wasn't good at secrets. So he began to blab. Business phone calls were interrupted by the plans of the rivals. Troop movements were announced to the enemy. Email showed up in unexpected accounts. The endings of movies played along with the previews. Rendezvous were phoned ahead to spouses. Newscasters' teleprompters led them to tell what was really going on. Of course, They tried to silence Little Bird. Unfortunately for Them, though, he always seemed to know exactly what their plans were. Labor Day is celebrated in the United States on the first Monday of September. It is "dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers" and is a "national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country." According to Department of Labor pamphlets, this has been the traditional day for this celebration since either Peter McGuire (a cofounder of the AFL) or Matthew Maguire (a machinist) organized a labor demonstration in New York in September of 1882. Of course, much of the rest of the world celebrates The Day of the Worker on May 1st. This holiday too celebrates the contribution of labor, and is chiefly in commemoration of the Haymarket Square Riots in Chicago that took place on May 1st, 1886. The Knights of Labor had called a one-day strike, which the police had broken up violently, killing six strikers. The next day, a demonstration was disrupted by a bomb; to this day, it's controversial as to whether the eight anarchists who were tried for the crime or police provocateurs were responsible for the bombing. Several years later, in Paris, the First International declared May 1st a working class holiday. Interestingly, the choice of May 1st by the Knights of Labor was not accidental, nor is it coincidental that the date is famous for the Pagan celebration. Variously celebrated as Beltane, Walpurgisnacht, Night of the Witches, Herne's Night, Robin Goodfellow's Night, Night of the Green Man, and Feast of the May Queen, the celebration is a Spring planting festival. It different incarnations, it involves fertility rites, hunting rituals, and lots of good festivity. Historically, these Pagan feast days and celebrations had been discouraged and often banned by the Catholic Church, but frequently re-surfaced as festivals in honor of different Saints. Specifically, around May 1st was celebrated as the Feast of Saint John, and the Feast of Saint Crispin. Saint Crispin is the Patron Saint of Shoemakers, and Saint John was often the Patron Saint of other Medieval craft guilds. The celebrations, then, were often sponsored by the guilds, thus creating the link between the date and the workers. This next Meander falls on Labor Day Weekend. We hereby formally extend an invitation to Workers, Saints, Trade Unionists, Pagans, Communists, Anarchists, and all others to attend this Meander in a literary and moonlit festival of common celebration. See you there! The doctor said I'd been reading too much Twain. "Sure, he's a good writer" Doc Quacksalver admitted. "But there's more to literature than Tom Sawyer, Innocents Abroad, and a Connecticut Yankee." So I tried reading other stuff. But I kept having nightmares about Twain stories, nightmares filled with Mysterious Strangers and men who could corrupt Hadleyburg. It got to the point where I thought I was at a jumping frog contest when I was at work. It seems that I had the delirium Clemens. So I went on a vacation. I went out sailing way off the coast, when I came across a very curious thing. It was in a spot where the charts showed only empty ocean, but there was in fact a huge mountain. I landed, and, to my amazement, I found that the mountain was not made of rock or sand, but piles of books. I looked at the titles: Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain, and Confessions of Felix Krull, among others. It didn't take me long to figure out where I was: I'd sailed to the Isle of Mann. I sailed on, until I came to the mainland. When I was heading through town, a gentleman asked me if I was interested in trying a new experience. He'd discovered that breathing specially purified air caused people to write convoluted poetry replete with classical references. He'd built a device to provide this purified air. When I expressed skepticism, he admitted that use of the system could cause extreme restlessness, the propensity to fall into romantic melancholy, and/or an unmitigated fondness for Absinthe. Upon hearing this, I left the man and his Byron Lung behind. From there, I hiked and climbed up on a ridge where there was a vast sweeping vista. "Hey!" I yelled down into the canyon. "HEY Hey hey hey" drifted back the response from the distant cliffs. "I'm Alive!" I yelled. "LIVE Live live live" came the reply. "I'm Free!" I shouted. "FREE Free free free (at least within the confines set by a conspiracy of Rosicrucians and Freemasons dating to pre-biblical times.)" answered the valley. As I walked off, I read on a sign that I'd been at the Eco Canyon. Then I awoke, and my literary nightmare had ended. Or perhaps it had just begun. See you on the Meander? Friends, the Meander has entered into a glorious new phase in its history. The sagging structures of incompetence have been purged, and the Meander can now realize the Bold Promise of its Destiny! In a stunning miscalculation, the former regime compounded its manifold failures of leadership by departing the country, cynically abandoning the Meander even as the Full Moon approached. Your New Benevolent Leaders, Adam and Susan, have courageously stepped forward, anxious to right the wrongs and return the Meander to a Rule of Order. Long Live The New Benevolent Leadership of The Meander! Attention, attention... Is this thing working? Ah, good. Attention, attention. Attention all Citizens of Meanderdom. This is Radio Free Meander. The situation has returned to normalcy. Please go about your usual business. The counter-revolution has ended. Order has been restored. I repeat, the counter-revolution has ended, and Order has been restored. The disruptive elements have been purged. The Meander would like to thank for their heroic efforts Adam and Susan: co-opted against their wills by anti-Meander forces, they stood strong and brought Peace and Happiness back to Meanderdom. This is Radio Free Meander, signing off. Well, it was only a matter of Time until we ran into trouble. Literally. The problem is with the basic premise of the Meander, which is that there's one each month on the Saturday closest to the Full Moon. But the common (Gregorian) calendar is based upon the Earth's position relative to the Sun, not to the phases of the Moon. So months and moon phases don't quite line up conveniently. Some of this is cause for wonder: New Year's will have a full moon! This only happens once every 19 or so years. And in 1999, there will be two Blue Moons*! This introduces some complexity. Should those months have two Meanders? Adding to the confusion, March will have two full moons, but the closest Saturdays will be in February and April. And what about February, which will have no full moon at all (a curious phenomenon that will repeat in 2018, 2037, 2067, and various other dates long after we've stopped paying attention). So the Meander dates for this year are a bit uncertain. I'm tentatively planning them for 27 February, either 27 March or 3 April, 1 May and 29 May, 26 June, 31 July, 28 August, 25 September, 23 October, 20 November, and 18 December (although 25 December would be more appropriate, moon-phase-wise). Or maybe people prefer a once-in-generation event of a Dark Meander on the new moon? Let me know. It was recently brought to my attention that the Full Moons have names. This seems to have its origin with the Native Americans of the northeast, specifically the Algonquin and Ojibwa, but may have other sources as well. Listed below are some of the traditional full moon names from those traditions, as well as the Wiccan and "Zodiacal" names:
January: Wolf Moon, Great Spirit Moon, Old Moon, Moon After Yule
(* A Blue Moon is when there are two full moons in a single month. In 1999, both January and March are Blue.) (The following transcript is from the original scan of a declassified document that may be viewed at http://www.AndTheHorseYouRodeInOn.com/declassified.gif) [Department of the Air Force] [Office of the Secretary]
Dear Mr. Marmfeldt: It has come to the attention of this office that our extraterrestrial subjects have become interested in a social phenomenon known as "The Meander." In fact, a report from His Royal BwizWap of Andromeda [states] the Andromedans have taken the organizer of this phenomenon to their home Planet for questioning. While it goes without saying that The Meander is critical to our secret plans to convert the Pentagon into a funky "Hep-Cat" coffee house, we cannot risk (for want of a better word) alienating our allies in the Andromeda region. For this reason, we've enlisted Andy Steinberg, the Executive Director of the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Research, to lead The Meander, and to make sure Meanderers think that nothing is amiss. I'm sure you appreciate the sensitivity of this situation. We'll try to work a diplomatic solution to get the Meander operative back: if you could just run interference and do the usual press and television manipulation, this Agency would be happy to aid any future covert ops you need supported.
Sincerely,
Attachment Federal Bureau of Investigation
Many thanks to Andy for taking the reins of Meanderdom while I was gone. I made it back safely from the reaches of Outer Space. I am unchanged, if somewhat older and wiser (and possessed of a beautiful triplet of violet antennae). One of the chief sources of trepidation surrounding the writing of a Meander Maundering each month (more or less) is the terrible, jaw-slackening fear of Writer's Block. Considered in the abstract, the task of coming up with twelve or thirteen ideas worthy of a paragraph or two, over the course of an entire year, is not particularly daunting. But sitting down, with that horrible blank page staring back at me, my pen idle ... well, I need not detail the animal panic that surges through me; you wouldn't believe me. Then again, if you believe that last sentence, maybe I have a fighting chance, since I really end up staring at a blinking cursor, with my keyboard idle (except when the cat decides to sit down on it). Inevitably, Writer's Block results in dredging through the archives for something worthwhile. So, with no further ado: From Samuel's Konsumer Kulture Konnoisseur Kwick-reference: Two Super-Expensive HiTech Gadgets You Can't Do Without! - The Personal Theme Music Assistant[tm]. This device allows people to enhance their Personal Presences by piping out their Own Personal Theme Music wherever they go. Low-end models are available with one of the following: "Heroic Theme," "Comedic Ditty," "Wistful Melody," "Melancholic Waltz," or "Sophisticated Orchestral." High end models include multiple Themes and situational accents. The top of the line can have individualized custom theme music, and have special sensors to detect similarly themed Personal Theme Music Assistants (detection of which would result in the playing of a light variation accentuating the wearer's individuality). All models can be upgraded to provide specialized sound effects such as arpeggios, rim-shots, fanfares, and reveille. - Stat-o-matic[tm]. These tiny devices, worn by the glitterati and social cognoscenti, communicate amongst themselves via high-frequency radio, whereby they notify one another of their wearer's Social Status (which gets updated globally via satellite broadcast from one of several Status Centers based on a complicated equation of income, influence, adherence to the latest trends, and proximity to other High Status Stat-o-matic wearers). The Stat-o-matic then whispers to the wearer who is worth spending time with. When not in the presence of other people, the Stat-o-matic chants a silent mantra of the current trends and things the wearer needs to buy. For the extremely wealthy, there is a non-publicized and never-admitted upgrade which enables one to manually set their status rating within their Stat-o-matic to whatever they wish. Stat-o-matics may be interfaced with Personal Theme Music Assistants to play the most appropriate theme music for the company and occasion. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." -- Karl Marx Those of you who know me well know that my entire motivation for organizing the Meander each month is to gradually gain the trust of what will eventually become the inner cadre of a post-millennial charismatic cult. The goal being, of course, to propagate loyal cells throughout the nation and the world. Infiltrating the literary underground, we'll quietly spread, like vines creeping through the foundations of the house of society. As momentum builds, we'll create new international Meander Collectives. Soon, to millions of people, gathering together in out of the way places. talking, reading, and sharing food with friends and strangers will become second nature. Did I mention that this would be a charismatic cult? Yes, indeed. Subtly at first, all Meanderers will be introduced to the notion of the Hierophant, the Spiritual Leader of the Meanderers. As time passes, the role of the Hierophant will grow within the Meander, until all are aware of the sacred powers, the deep responsibility to humanity, and the overall beneficence of the Hierophant. And although the Hierophant will never appear in person before the Meanderers, unquestioned loyalty will follow. Within a few years, all Meanderers will be dedicated to a few important tasks -- the discovery of notable literature, poetry, and music for presenting at Meanders, spreading the idea of the Meander to new places, and to helping the Hierophant to benefit the People of the World. Unbeknownst to the political rulers of the world, tens or hundreds of millions of Meanderers world-wide will have loyalty not to the political leaders, but to the rituals of gathering and sharing, and to the serving of the Hierophant. Then, as is wont to happen in this less-than-ideal world, some of those political leaders will find a reason to go to war again. At that moment, an urgent message will ripple through the Meander Collectives the world over: "The Hierophant has given the order not to follow the political leaders. Instead, follow the Hierophant, who will now be revealed." The next day, the second message will propagate through the ranks of the Meander: "The Hierophant has been revealed! It is YOU! and it is YOU! and it is US!" And the political leaders will find themselves out of luck. But at least they'll be able to listen when we read, and we'll even share the snacks. This month, we have "Observations on the Future," gleaned through careful study of Signs & Comets by our Resident Futurist, Will C. Happen, II. - After years of Lamarckian impact via plastic surgery, genetic engineering, and changes in the design of undergarments, everyone will be drop-dead gorgeous. Hollywood will spend millions each year, seeking out ugly people for non-heroic roles. Fifty years later, ugliness will be so rare as to be considered beautiful. This will provide some small consolation to the marginalized masses who live in highly mutagenic environments because they can't afford to live in places outside of Love Canal or Playa Vista. - Traffic will get worse. And worse. And worse. Within sixty-two years, you will no longer be able to buy or lease automobiles; rather, they will be available as time-shares. Since there's never a chance to get over in traffic to get to any specific driveway, one just boards one's timeshare car as it goes by. And since real-estate will be so expensive, nobody would be able to afford a parking space anyway. An underground movement of people who live in their vehicles (and who timeshare driving duties) will be banned by the Government, thereby fueling its popularity. - All food will be referred to using its Chinese name. - Politicians will be able to take bribes (still euphamised as "campaign contributions") through vending machines reminiscent of today's ATMs. Like ATMs, these machines will have redundant names too. - In 2033, there will be a rash of celebrity/clone murders. Since people all become their parents, and their clone children are actually them (from a genetic perspective), their children will be their parents. Some of these murders will result from confusion as to who is who during suicide attempts. - Doomsday and Apocalyptic Cults will run out of steam (and ideas) by 2009. Remaining groups will become Amway franchises. - The fashionable pet to take walking through pricey parts of town will be Mongolian Marmots, Lemurs, Shrikes, and Alpacas in 2010, 2050, 2051, and 2099, respectively. - Pipe smoking and tweed jackets will be all the craze in the next twenty years, followed by a return of spittoons and chewin' tobacco. Tattoos and body-piercing will eventually lose out to limb-grafts. Everyone will have at least four arms, making it that much more difficult for couples to sleep in one another's arms. - There will be advertisements for upcoming television commercials, which will have replaced actual shows by 2007. Radio programs will all be "all ads, all the time" or talk shows, where the subject of discussion will be recent commercials. Pornography will be banned by 2011, but due to the nature of advertisements, no one will notice. This month, in keeping with the Maundering Theme of Observations, we have "Rants on the Past and Present," gleaned through careful study of News, Media, and from Between The Lines by our Resident Historian, N. Pleasant Trooth. - The Cold War ended. Contrary to popular belief, the Cold War was not between the United States and the Soviet Union, the West against the East Bloc, nor even between Democracy and Communism. The Cold War was a battle between Capitalism and Collectivism, and Capitalism won. This isn't necessarily the cause for celebration it may seem. The Cold War was not won by America, the West, or NATO, it was won by the Megacorporations who are not interested in the rights of individuals or even nations. Welcome to the new form of Feudalism, same as the old form of Feudalism, except that now we can be vassals to multiple Lords with funnier names: Coca Cola, General Electric, Archer Daniels Midland, and so on. Why is this a bad thing? Because the Capitalism is only good for individuals when there are options; if you don't like something about Company A, you can buy from Company B, thereby using your spending habits to communicate with the isolated recesses of the Board Room. But today, Company A and Company B are just different subsidiaries of some Megacorporation, so your economic vote only influences advertising budgets. The one advantage this form may have over the old form is that the Megacorporations often try to conceal their size by making their subsidiaries seem completely separate; sometimes these subsidiaries can get so confused as to who owns what that they spend time and money competing with their sibling companies. - The Information Age has resulted in the democratization of broadcasting and publishing. While this may seem to be the key to avoiding oppression in the neoFeudalistic world, it presents problems as well. The industrialized world is rapidly reaching a state in which everyone can distribute information to their heart's content -- and everyone does. In the hubbub, who can hear anything? The established broadcast media (just one subsidiary of the some Megacorporation) may have now have to compete for your attention, but the non-established media is drowned out by its own volume. It's the Tragedy of the Commons, but applied to attention spans. - Coffee-house ranters, lunatic fringe political parties, conspiracy theorists, multi-level marketing scam artists, pop-cult and lit crit analysts, and religious cult leaders have all run out of new ideas. What's more, their ideas have all gradually coalesced into a single amalgam of Underground Thought, which defines itself only by being Not Officially Sanctioned Megacorporate Thought. Unfortunately, through clever machinations of the Megacorporations, this comes down to Megacorporate Advertising Thought, which has cleverly co-opted all Not Officially Sanctioned Megacorporate Thought and turned it into a product to sell to Coffee-house ranters, lunatic fringe political parties, conspiracy theorists, multi-level marketing scam artists, pop-cult and lit crit analysts, and religious cult leaders. And profits are up! Contributed by Samuel Goldstein, Copyright © 1994 |
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