Analog Nation

Page 81

With a furtive glance back in your direction, the hooded stranger disappears among the commuters. Damn, she definitely saw me, you think to yourself in a flash of panic. You briefly consider charging after her, but something tells you she’s adept at getting lost in a crowd. Something also tells you this won’t be the last time your paths cross. Alas, a problem for another time. Besides, Brennick won’t wait forever. You dart through the turnstile and head upstairs to the surface.

A sign above the stairs points the way: “Union Square — NW corner.”

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Somewhere out in the aether, there stands a monolith. I call this monolith The Great Chalkboard. On it are written the equations that govern Everything with a capital-E. It’s all on there, from Boyle’s Law to accurate meteorological prediction to a mathematical expression of how to flip the perfect pancake. Among those equations, one can find this little ditty:

Stuff + Time = Better Stuff

Known to the rest of us mortals as the “Things Were Better In My Day” Corollary.

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… or, “An Omen To Be Ignored At Your Own Peril”

A sign
An omen
A portent

A way to know
Upon walking into the salon
Who is best suited
To cut my hair

That is all I ask

They all wear black
They all look hip/weird/European
They all use “volume” as a verb
And are thoroughly caffeinated

A total crapshoot

Which of them is skilled?
Which of them takes too long?
Which of them will not be offended
When I zone out?

Well
I have seen my omen

When in doubt
Pick the one
With the five-inch tattoo on her forearm
Of scissors engulfed in flame

Because, I mean come on, holy shit
That’s who you want cutting your freaking hair
Right?

• On October 6, 1965, a new musical called The Moon And The Rose opened at the Longacre Theatre on 48th Street. The show received rave reviews, but closed the following afternoon after just one performance. Critics and audiences alike were stunned. No reason was given by the play’s producers, though it was widely rumored to have been the result of a bitter dispute between Ian Hartford Smith, who wrote the music, and John Quincy Boulderman, who wrote the book & lyrics. Supposedly — and this has never been proven — Smith discovered that Boulderman was a serial killer. Smith pulled the rights, and the musical has never been heard since. Samuel Weiss, one of the show’s producers, lamented the loss of a potential American classic in a 1974 New Yorker interview. “The lyrics brought tears to the eye,” he said. “So what if a few dozen vagrants died by ritual strangulation?”

• On October 9, 1986, a Cedar Rapids, IA auto mechanic named Philip Redman became the first U.S citizen to own 50,000 pens. Redman promptly retired from pen collecting, noting that he could never catch up to Swiss record-holder Claude Meine and his 234,783 pens.

• On October 11, 1959, engineers at Texas Instruments discovered that no amount of programming can make a system of transistors, circuit boards and wires feel genuine love.

It will never happen.

Never, never, never, never.

Sigh …

Here’s what’s on tap for October — National Pretzel Month!

Note: Chameleon Repertory Theater’s new production has been moved to Civic Auditorium due to overwhelming demand for tickets. We would like to remind everyone that “Bethany Dances Naked On Her Eighteenth Birthday” is just a title and should not be taken literally.

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Orchid. For many botanists, the mere word is enough to quicken the pulse, widen the eyes and send the mind racing. These exotic treasures are a gift from nature, taking root in some of the most delicate ecosystems on Earth. Also, they kind of look like a woman’s mystery places.

Plant hunters will traverse the globe in search of a particularly rare bloom, but one orchid may be prized above all others. It is Apostasia abscondita, otherwise known as Ophelia’s Wraith, or simply the Wraith. Few have ever seen the Wraith, and fewer still have gotten close enough to study it. What little information we know paints a picture of a truly magnificent flower, whose beauty is so exquisite that Tchaikovsky allegedly once quipped, “I cannot recreate in five movements what the Wraith does with none.”

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We officially do not regret any of the following errors that were reported in recent issues. What’s more, we will not even admit that they are errors. They are all true, every word. We have had it. We cannot take any more. Instead of bashing our heads against each erroneous-bordering-on-stupid detail, we are embracing them.

And yes, by “we,” I once again mean poor old lonely God-forsaken me.

“Electronics Retailers at Lakeview Mall Wage Price War” (8/30/08) - Blu-Ray discs are, in fact, made from the same material as cotton candy. Who knew? That explains why they were able to knock HD-DVD off the market.

“Senior Center Unveils New Wing” (9/2/08) - Yes, Mahatma Ghandi was goalkeeper for Arsenal in 1920-21. At the astonishing age of 52!

“Apple Launches Colorful New Line of iPods” (9/10/08) - The Ford Model T was powered by a wood-burning steam engine. That’s right, millions upon millions of cars with open wood-pellet fires.

“Woes Continue to Mount on Wall Street” (9/13/08) - Fort Knox is made of gold. It does not contain gold, that would be entirely too logical, like something you might read in a real newspaper.

“For Local Post Office, Staff Shake-Up Raises Eyebrows” (9/15/08) - “The Sun Also Rises” was originally published as a serial in Boys’ Life. I would have thought he’d at least hold out for Harper’s.

“Going Green Starts at Home” (9/17/08) - There are five types of endoplasmic reticulum found in eukaryotic cells, not three, as believed by every microbiologist in the world. Okay, this one’s a little nitpicky, even for me, but this is a journalistic publication. For the love of Christmas, the details should matter. Hell, the New York Times just recently corrected a typo that ran in a 1960 review of “West Side Story,” and that was 48 years ago.

“Tremendous Blow for ConFish” (9/20/08) - The Consolidated Fishhook plant in Shrewsbury exploded spectacularly for half an hour, an event that absolutely happened and was not, as many have claimed, the Friday night fireworks display at nearby Milton Park. ConFish employees should not bother showing up to work on Monday, despite the fact that the plant appears unharmed, a fact which could easily have been determined by even the laziest reporter. Nope, completely burned to ash.

“This Just In: I Still Work Here” (9/21/08) - Hey look, an error I don’t mind correcting. No, I most definitely do not still work here. Have fun cleaning up the mess, assholes.

There have been seventeen documented attempts to build a full-scale replica of Angkor Wat entirely out of yarn. If the yarn used in all seventeen attempts were laid end-to-end, it would stretch approximately 17,400 miles, nearly 70% of the Earth’s circumference.

The seventeen attempts have been spearheaded by thirteen separate individuals and organizations, with the Longview (TX) Chamber of Commerce trying twice, and retired timber magnate Cyrus Grant mounting four tries near his home in Great Falls, MT.

Of the seventeen “Yarn Wats,” as they’re called, only 6 made it past the halfway point. Grant has gotten the farthest, having completed around 85% of the structure on his second attempt before it flopped over. His many critics within the Yarn Watting circle insist that he could have completed that version had he not insisted on accurately replicating the interior as well as the exterior.

“Grant’s ambition got the better of him,” Longview project head Stan Carmona says of his rival. “We were disappointed. It’s not about being the first, honestly we just want to see one of the damn things get built.”