Author: gulley

What I miss

by St. Frank

The other day I was walking back to work at lunchtime in downtown Oakland. This being California, it was sunny and mild, and I caught sight of a guy in front of an office building enjoying a cigarette. Now, as I said, this is California, so it’s a tough time to be a smoker…and it ain’t cheap either. At any rate, I looked at this guy as I hurried back to my job, and I felt a pang of nostalgia. I am an ex-smoker.

What I miss about smoking is just standing around, watching the world go by. It’s nearly meditational, as you rhythmically breathe in and out, all the while checking out the scenery. As a non-smoker, I’d look foolish standing outside a building, huffing and puffing and gazing mindlessly at people.

I also miss the rush or buzz you get from having waited a little too long between smokes. For me, this would have been something like ten minutes. But that first drag! You can literally feel the nicotine course through each vein and capillary as it goes about its business, feeding your body’s craving. You might get a little light-headed and let out a giggle, as passersby glance at you to make sure you’re not dangerous.

I miss the paraphernalia and routines: Getting ready to get out of the office to “burn one”; the smell of the sulphur from a freshly lit match. These things usually accompanied the first one of the day, or one of the ones you’ve waited too long for.

Mostly, I miss the camaraderie of smokers. Actually, it was less camaraderie than it was a Bunker Mentality. Yes, even a few years ago, being a smoker in California was about as popular as being a Young Republican at UC Berkeley. We knew we were hated, but that merely strengthened our resolve to smoke more! To Hell with the “Health Nazis,” we’d say, give me another Menthol.

Now I’ve turned the corner. Now it’s me casting disparaging looks at them. I have become the enemy; worse, I am an ex-smoker. I am reformed, so I preach to the unenlightened about the horrors of their pastime. I have recently become more of a danger, as I have entered to race in the Sea Otter Classic Mountain Bike Race in Monterey this March.

Still, there are those times…

Confederates in the Attic

I’m reading a book called Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz.

Its subtitle is “Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War,” and in it the author travels through the modern South talking to people about the Civil War, what they know of it and what it means to them. Horwitz, who spent years as a war correspondent in places like Bosnia and Iraq, is surprised to find so many people (eccentric and otherwise) who are intensely passionate about that ancient conflict. They aren’t interested in seceding anymore so much as they are interested in remembering and romanticizing the Lost Cause of the Old South. I admit I’m a sucker for Civil War books, but this is a great read.

I am a Southerner, and I’m glad the South lost that war. It fought for the wrong reason and lost for the right reason.

But what a story!

It’s damn near impossible to read about the run-up to Gettysburg or Grant’s campaign against Vicksburg and not be swept up by the drama of it. And I’ll tell you one thing the South has that the North does not: we know what it means to have lost a war. And I’m not talking about any Vietnam did-we-lose-or-didn’t-we ambiguity. We were whupped fair and square, invaded, defeated, and occupied. Strangely, there is a perverse comfort in that. The South stood up for what it believed and was pinned to the floor. The burden’s off. All Southerners, eccentric and otherwise, are welcome to relax in the warm and weathered lap of humility. It makes it a little bit easier to kick back and live a life.

You want some bourbon? Drink some bourbon. You want a smoke? Light up a goddamned cigarette. A little blustery Uncle Sam is all well and good, but it helps to be able to chuckle.

The Cause is Lost, but the memory endures. I’m glad the cause lost, but I’m glad the memory endures.

This week, we are grateful to St. Frank for sharing a word with us about cigarettes and enduring memories.

Mr. Nym Goes Adventuring

A palindrome, you will recall, is a word that can be read both forwards and backwards, like dad, or the language name Malayalam. But we needn’t stop at words; entire phrases can be palindromed, as for example, in the phrase: Otto made Ned a motto. And why stop there? Why indeed. In the entire history of humankind, no one has ever been able to fashion an entire coherent story in which each and every sentence is a palindrome. Everybody knows those lame one-liners like Able was I ere I saw Elba, and A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. But how far does that get you, after all? Today, on the Star Chamber pages, history is made. Herewith, we present you with that most remarkable of remarkable creations, the wholly palindromic story.

Mr. Nym Goes Adventuring

(Editor’s note: I know that’s not a palindrome; it hasn’t started yet)

My name is Siema Nym. Once I went to the city of Foyticeh tott New Iecno. There I met a magical dwarf named Deman-Frawdla Cigamat E. Miereht.

“Eciovy reeh canie mot diase!” he said to me, in a cheery voice.

“Huh? Em etib,” I helpfully read from my phrasebook, but he said, “Dias eh tub, koobe sarhpym morf da erylluf plehi, bite me!”

“O no!”

“Ecanem ta ergh tiwdna reduol diase!” he said, louder, and with great menace.

He taunted me… he threatened to poke me in the shoulderblade with a candlestick, all the while growling in a low voice, “Eciov wol anig nilworgelih weht; llakcit seldna cahtiw edalbred-luoh seht nieme kopot denetaerh… tehem detnuateh.”

What a terrible mistake to come to Foyticeh tott New Iecno; I wish instead I had gone to Tenog da Hidaet-Snihsi Wionce Iwent tothe Cityo’Fo Temoco Tekatsim el-Birret a Tahw!! At least there they will offer you a tasty plate of the local delicacy, caciled lacoleht foe talpy-tsatau oy reffolli wyehte rehtt saelta. Mmmm.

“Look over there!” I shouted, hoping to draw his attention away from my increasingly desperate situation by pointing out a low-flying fruitbat native to his country whose name is quite long and complicated and which I will abbreviate here (if you will forgive me) as a saem-revokool*.

No luck; he glared and gurgled, “El grug d’na deral gehk culon…”

“Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?”

He paused and tapped his finger thoughtfully on his long nolsih-noy llufth guoh tregnifsih deppat d’nad esuapeh.

Aha! I left and never went back to the city of Foyticeh tot Kcabt New Revend Natfeli.**

My name is Siema Nym.

The end neeht.***

  • Its full name is Saemev igrof-lliwuoy fier eh etaiverbba lliwihcihw d’nadetacilp moc d’nagnol etiuq sieman esohwyrtnuoc sih ot evitan tabtiurf gniylf-wol a tuo arey ouchec kingt his gnitniop yb noitautis etarepsed ylgnisaercni ym morf yawa noitnetta sih ward ot gnipoh detuohs Ierehtre vokool. Wow.

** A law came into effect during the course of the story that actually changed the city’s name! Hah!

*** I accidentally typed the word “neeht” at the end of this sentence. It was an honest mistake.

A trip to Mexico

As the noble Coffee Czar confided in our last installment at this site, the board of directors for Star Chamber Consolidated Heavy Industries went adventuring in Mexico last month (see our
helpful phrasebook on the subject if you plan on visiting). It was a delightful excursion, made all the more pleasant by the fact that one of our number, zaP, speaks the language and is intimately familiar with the sights.

I found the place names in Mexico almost as arresting as the visual splendor: Xochimilco, Ixtaccihuatl, Teotihuacan. Some of these names defy pronunciation by the typical gringo (such as myself), but if you keep at it and tame the sounds, you are rewarded with gemstones on the tip of your tongue. Once you’ve captured the volcano name Popocatepetl, once you can conjure it up at will, you can practically see the steam belching from its dark conic peak. Cuauhtemoc, Kwau-TE-mok, was a warrior, and if you see his likeness and hear his name properly pronounced, that stressed second syllable falling forcefully against the front teeth, Kwau-TE-mok, you can sense the repect he commanded (it’s no accident the current mayor of Mexico City has the given name Cuauhtemoc).

Whereas the Coffee Czar amused us in the van by carving tiny animals out of soapstone and scrap wood, I entertained my fellow travelers by reading all the place names aloud as often as possible. I’m told it can be annoying, but it had the curious effect of magnifying my there-ness. Even now I can cook up a little Mexican there-ness by pushing my finger across the atlas pages and reading aloud: Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Iztapalapa, and Iztacalco. To my mind, the conquering Spaniard’s names (San Miguel, San Luis, Santa Ana, repeat…) don’t have nearly the same staying power as the solid Indian names. Fortunately for Mexico, the old place names survived more often than they were lost. Good place names reek of earthy there-ness, and Mexico is blessed with an abundance of good place names. And I don’t know anybody who doesn’t need a good dose of there-ness every now and again.

Reversals of fortune in placenames and prose figure prominently in our contribution this week. It may seem a matter of no great importance, but zaP spelled backwards is Paz, which is the Spanish word for peace. In this season of darkness becoming lightness at long last, may peace, and an abiding sense of here-ness, be with you all.

Fisher Flies

I. Scott Proehl and his Hard-To-Pronounce-Last-Name

When Fisher Pinckney leaned forward for a better view of the commotion at the front of the line, he saw a tiny kerchiefed woman wagging her wrinkled brownspotted finger menacingly over the counter. He strained to hear her gravely measured words: “Then may this plane drop from the sky like a stone!” His eyebrows arched reflexively as he studied the agent’s unblinking stony reaction. Into the silence the computer terminal gave a plaintive bleat from behind the counter. The blue-suited gate agent managed a pinched professional smile and said, “Apparently we do have a seat for you after all, Mrs. Trismegos.” The woman just ahead of Fisher kick-shoved her lumpy carry-on bag one step toward the counter, saying in a low tone, “Don’t they have to treat that like a bomb threat or something? That woman gives me the creeps.”

For Fisher, air travel brought with it a luxurious sense of abdication. Against all expectation, it was a temporary suspension of worldly hassle. The aluminum airframe had a womblike embracing appeal: for the duration of a flight he was completely, blissfully beyond reach. There was nothing else to do except read a book, perhaps drink a beer or two while mysterious forces conducted him through the air. Flight delays troubled him very little, because it just meant a little more off-line reading time. More so than ever, he wasn’t looking forward to the end of this flight. He had made up his mind to break up with Molly once and for all once he got back to Baltimore. He could picture her waiting for him at the end of the exit ramp. What reaction would he give? What emotion should he project, must he betray? When would he break open his bottle of poison? He felt so sick and bleak that the thought of spiraling from the sky because of the kerchiefed woman’s curse had a certain tragic appeal.

As he was preparing to board Flight 817 to Baltimore, his ear picked a familiar southern drawl from the airport noise: “Not Prole. P-R-O-E-H-L, like Prail.” He turned to see, at the checkin desk, Scott Proehl, his high school classmate and one-time best friend. Fisher caught a clear glimpse of him: heavier, balder, and very tired. Then he gave his ticket to the attendant and moved down the jetway.

II. Controlled Flight Into Terrain

Scott and Fisher had played in a band together in high school. Scott was the more talented of the two, and Fisher later learned that he had gone on to some musical success in college. Fisher had played in a college band too, the Sad Clichés, but when he realized they had fanatical groupies despite the fact that they were extremely bad, it depressed him so much that he had to quit. Now as he moved to his seat, he fretted over whether or how to greet Scott.

Fisher found himself four rows behind Scott Proehl and in the same row, but just across the aisle from, Mrs. Trismegos. Her mouth was drawn in a taut, stitched line of concern; her hands clutched what Fisher supposed was a crucifix. He made a point of smiling at her. Whether it was friendly and encouraging or smug and baiting he couldn’t be sure. His emotional compass, never reliable, was off its bearings entirely recently.

The flight, as it happened, was extremely bumpy and chaotic. At one point, the flight attendent lurched to prevent being knocked to the floor, sending a spray of Diet Coke over Fisher. She cried out with a sharp expletive, then, flustered, hurried the drink cart back to be locked down. Fisher met eyes with the kerchiefed woman. “Young man, do you think we are going to die?” He smiled again, though queasiness drained his voice of real confidence. “No, we’re not going to die. Weather like this almost never knocks down planes. If a plane crashes, it’s usually because the pilots don’t know any better and fly straight into a mountain, BOOM!” He smacked a fist into his other hand forcefully. “But we’re way up high. It’s uncomfortable, but very safe.” She nodded blankly, then stared out the window and crossed herself. After a few seconds she chuckled in a deep, chronic-smoker sort of way and turned again to look at him. Her gaze was piercing but surprisingly calm and warm. “Yes yes,” she said slowly and distinctly, “Never fate, only blindness. That is true.” Soon after that, despite continued turbulence and flashes of lightning, Mrs. Trismegos fell soundly asleep.

III. No time to lose

After the plane had landed, Fisher stood in the crowded aisle and debated his next move. Though it was avoidable, he decided he had to say something to Scott. It had been a long time, after all. As he started forward he called forward, “Scott, it’s me, Fisher Pinckney. Remember?”

“Well hey, Fisher. Long time no see.” The last time they saw each other was at the beach immediately after high school graduation. There had been an awkward drunken fight, the kind of fight that middle-class kids who never fought before have. Before that moment, Fisher would have described Scott as a close friend. Since that moment, they had not spoken. Because they went to different colleges? Because they hated each other? Scott looked oily and overweight.

Scott said, “You got a mess on your shirt, there, Fisher.” Fisher said, “Turbulence.”

Fisher asked a question. Scott said, “I’m a sales engineer for DPM. We make electrical connectors.” Fisher asked another question. Scott said, “Yeah, two little boys. Lynn and I just had our seventh anniversary.” Scott didn’t ask a question. Fisher didn’t say, “Fuck you for how you treated me. Fuck you for never apologizing.” Scott said “Okay, then. Well…!” as though that were an ordinary way to say goodbye. Then he turned slightly to indicate that the conversation was now over. His face wore an absent transaction-completed smile. They waddled off the plane and through the umbilical connection to the terminal.

Fisher walked slowly, so slowly, toward the greeting area, pulling himself from the unhappy past into the cruel present. He looked up, expecting to catch sight of Molly, and was amazed to see the tiny Mrs. Trismegos talking animatedly to Molly and gesturing toward him. By the time he reached Molly, the old woman had moved on.

Molly wore a long purple dress. She carried a single rose, but it drooped to one side. Instead she offered him a card.

“What did she say to you?” Fisher asked.

“She asked me to give this to you. She said you were her friend. Do you know her?”

“We talked for maybe two minutes on the plane. Why would she come up to you like that?” He examined the card. It was a business card labeled “M. Trismegos, Tarot, Palmistry.” Then in italics next to a bad drawing of three candles and a rose: “No time to lose.”

“Did she say anything else to you?”

Molly hesitated. “She said I was very beautiful.”

Surprised, Fisher looked up from the card and into Molly’s flushed, anxious face, saw her shining eyes. “You are very beautiful,” he said quietly. She looked down at her sandaled feet and moved closer to him, uncertain whether to hug. She looked up again.

Then: the intercom said, “Mr. Scott Prole, please meet your party at the baggage claim.”

Fisher felt strangely light, like a tiny bubble of carbonation spiraling upward in a glass of Diet Coke. He realized he was surpressing a tiny grin.

Molly said, “What’s that on your shirt?”

Fisher said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Day of the Dead

Happy Day of the Dead. It’s a big holiday in Mexico, but what are the odds that it will ever catch on in the United States? Maybe better than you think, because you’ve got to wonder if it’s a coincidence that the Day of the Dead falls so close to election day here in the States. The Star Chamber editorial staff urges you to do your part to flush out the zombies: vote for someone who shows the least glimmer of actually being alive. Otherwise they’ll roast us all in the same fire.

The story today brings us back in touch with Fisher Pinckney, whom last we saw throwing back beers at the Scarf and Bolt.

Bubbling Hot Springs

Larry assured me of this: each day on the river, the image of Bubbling Hot Springs got more and more appealing. In addition to being my friend, Larry was an experienced river guide on the wild and scenic part of the Rogue River in Oregon. He was also something of a storyteller, as all river guides seem to be, so as we slowly paddled downstream in the rain-swelled Rogue river one June afternoon, he told me the story of Bubbling Hot Springs.

Working as a river guide is entertaining, but the pay ain’t great, as they say, and it can be a real grind after a few weeks, particularly if you have an unpleasant customer or two. Running a raft through the rapids is one thing, but cooking and cleaning up for a pack of demanding tourists is something else entirely. Of course, what pay there is comes from paying customers, so you do what you can to keep them happy, sometimes even to the point of lending them warm clothes they should have had the sense to bring themselves. You do all that and more, and sometimes the bastards still stiff you on the tip at the end of the trip. As a result both the customers and the river guides, lying awake and cold at night, dripping with river water and rain, dirty and water-wrinkled, they both have good reason to look forward to Bubbling Hot Springs.

If you’re a paying customer, any of the guides will tell you (after some prodding) that one of the joys of rafting the Rogue river wild and scenic wilderness area is the pre-dawn hike to Bubbling Hot Springs. Normally this would occur on the fourth day of the trip, and I can tell you from experience that by the fourth day of the trip, the ice-cold waters of the Rogue have lost some of their charm. The vision of a steaming spring emptying into a natural hot tub is a tempting one.

No customer is expected or even encouraged to go on the hike to Bubbling Hot Springs; it isn’t on the official itinerary so it has to be squeezed in early. It isn’t suitable for the aged, the pregnant, the halt and lame. To make the trek you have to wake up early and hike hard and fast. You have to get up when stars are still just twinkling in the western sky, when the cool river mist is still curling around the reeds, when the birds are tuning their morning songs.

You follow the sure-footed river guides up up up on a short but steep hike during which time few people really have the energy or inclination to talk. The guides are moving fast now in happy anticipation. Scramble over a rock ledge and walk across a small clearing and there it is: Bubbling Hot Springs, bubbling and steaming just like you’d expect. The river guides hop in first without the least hesitation. In with a mighty splash and then they float blissfully up to the surface wearing contented smiles.

And well they might, too, because they’re the only ones who know that the water of Bubbling Hot Springs is only slightly warmer than the frigid Rogue itself. This information tends to become widespread rather quickly. On a bad trip, someone will stick a toe in prematurely and ruin the fun. On a good trip, two or three customers will actually hop in before the comprehension is general. In fact, one or two customers have actually been known to regain their composure as they float to the surface and emerge with a convincing enough smile to induce the rest of the crowd to jump on in. River guides really like people like this.

River guiding is hard work, and the pay ain’t great, as they say. But it has its own rewards, as Larry will tell you. Customers and river guides, lying awake and cold at night, they both have good reason to look forward to Bubbling Hot Springs. It may well be, however, that only the river guides look back on it with the same warmth.

Moore’s Meta-Law

Warning! Moore’s Meta-Law is in grave danger of becoming obsolete. Moore’s Law, as you are no doubt aware, says that the computing power of a single chip will double every 18 months. Moore’s Meta-Law states that usage of the phrase “Moore’s Law” in the world press will double every 12 months. After years of solid predictability, there now appear to be both long term and short term limitations to Moore’s Meta-Law. In the immediate future, we can expect to see continuing heavy impact from Monica and Bill as they drain the resources of every available journalist: more Monica means less Moore. Is this the future you deserve? Don’t you deserve Moore?

Working on exactly this principle, several House Democrats led by Rep. Brian Tinker (Calif.) have proposed a “More Moore’s Law Law” that would legally coerce journalists to include more mentions of Moore’s Law in their articles (and by extension, fewer mentions of Monica).

In the long run, and perhaps more disturbingly, we can expect to hit the true physical limitations of Moore’s Meta-Law early in the next century. According to current calculations, by late 2004, every word appearing in the technical press will be either “Moore” or “Law”. Beyond this horizon predictions are sketchy, but we should remember that in the past researchers have always managed to skirt even the most dire obstacles. Dr. Lester Wu of Bell Labs observes that “we may well work out a very
satisfactory semaphore system, not unlike Morse Code, in which the dashes and dots are replaced by the words Moore and Law.” Armed with this “Moore’s
Code” we could, in theory, stay on track for another ten years or so merely by increasing the total output of published matter in the world’s press.

It’s exciting that this is what we’ve come to expect from the rapidly changing face of technology. Or put another way: “law moore law law moore moore law moore law law law moore law law moore law moore moore law!”

Die Zimmer

Paracelsus is spending time this week thinking about his parent’s fiftieth anniversary. He’s pulled out his family tree charts and is puzzling over the generations that came before. Coincidentally, the movie The Titanic has just been released in video (Wait! Stop! Please don’t rush away to rent it just yet — I should never have mentioned it this early in the column).

What’s the coincidence?

The Titanic was 882.5 feet long. It sank in the middle of the North Atlantic. There is a great temptation to think that the icy dark water that closed over it is, effectively, infinitely deep. It just went down down down into another realm entirely, a separate reality, a different world. But in fact, it’s sitting on the ocean bottom some 12,500 feet below the waves. That’s only 14.2 lengths of the Titanic deep. Because of the Titanic’s titanic size, it didn’t really fall that far relative to its length. The equivalent depth for a human six feet tall would be 85 feet deep. Deep, but not crazy go to heck and back deep.

When I first saw this depicted graphically, I was immediately struck by the image of a person’s life stretched back across time; the water isn’t really as deep as it seems. Lincoln pronounced the words “four score and seven years” in Gettysburg only 1.93 seventy-year lifetimes ago. And four score and seven years before that, the Revolutionary War, is only 3.17 seventy-year spans underwater. Deep, but not crazy go to heck and back deep.

This is strangely comforting to me. I can picture the sloping deck of the Titanic, not in a storybook dimension beyond imagination, but gently resting on a solid muddy landscape. And I can picture my great great grandfather Jay Whittington Lewis marching along muddy North Carolina roads to join the Confederate army. He’s still there, just as my parents are still kissing each other with wedding cake in hand. The past is more present than it seems. And that’s pure gold.

The persistence of the past figures into this week’s contribution: we are fortunate to be joined once again by St. Frank (see his wild tale of debauchery under the Christmas tree in the Naked Felix, in case you missed it the first time around). This time he takes us to a small room far far away (unless, of course, you’re reading this in Germany).

Continue reading “Die Zimmer”

Brother Blue’s Secret

Brother Blue says, "My father used to tell stories to God, tears pouring down his face."

Brother Blue is a storyteller of some fame, a jazz-riffing peacock of a performer, a first class wordconjuror and a fine harmonica player. Brother Blue is a slight man, not a young man. When he performs he is topped by a sky-blue beret, and the palms of his hands reveal painted blue butterflies. I have seen him perform several times, and to tell you the truth, it took me a while to warm up to him. His style is wide-ranging and changes abruptly, movement verging on dance, voice verging on song, a kind of spoken jazz. Nevertheless, by the time I saw him talk at the Media Lab, I was a fan.

Brother Blue is a black man whose family suffered cruelly from racism; he speaks with a clear voice from a deep place. I had seen him tell stories, usually at the Bookcellar in Cambridge, but I had never heard him talk about the subject of storytelling itself. That was what I came to hear. Storytelling is in fashion these days, and Blue had been invited to talk to the clever technologists of the Media Lab, the idea being that this might lead to insights about computer interfaces. What was I then? I suppose I was a clever technologist hoping that this might lead to insights about computer interfaces. That’s how I came to be in the audience the day Brother Blue told his secret.

Okay, stop. Just what is storytelling, really? A long time ago in a land far far away? That’s not what I’m talking about. What I want to know is this: what is it that a storyteller does? Yarnspinner, troubadour, raconteur, bard… whatever the label, the storyteller can only move you inasmuch as he can talk about you. The storyteller can only move you inasmuch as he can tickle forth a resonance in your middlemost middle. A good one can drive you like a truck.

Words alone, sidewinding soundwaves entering ears, have no power to move flesh to move mountains. The magic part of storytelling is in the storyhearing, in the fact that that which is told becomes real. The word becomes flesh. The Word becomes Flesh, and the heretics and mountains tremble. Storytelling depends on that exquisite sound-to-meat transducer called sympathy. Perception is reality. I hear and understand. I listen and obey. Mohammed could run circles around the mountain when it came to storytelling, and as a result the mountain ran circles around Mohammed. Stories matter.

Brother Blue says, "Religion is this: somebody told a story and they bought it." To which he added, "we need a new story."

The goal of the storyteller is to get invited across your threshold and into your middlemost middle. There are many strategies for getting across the threshold, since the listener can always try to bar the door. He can tap dance across it or to storm it with passionate fireworks. The best approach is to remember Brother Blue’s secret. It never fails.

I think Brother Blue felt a little uncomfortable talking to a crowd of MIT heavies. He got his doctorate from Harvard in the 40s doing research on the therapeutic value of storytelling for prisoners. He was ahead of his time, and to hear him describe it, I believe he preferred the company of prisoners to that of skeptical unwelcoming Harvard professors. He can talk the academic talk, but he is quick to deflate it with a smile and a joke. This was an academic audience, and he seemed a little torn between simply performing and talking about it in theoretical terms. In the end, he told us a story, a quirky little story about an opening flower in which he involved various members of the audience. It would sound corny if I were to relate it here, but believe me, he made it work, leaving the crowd of MIT heavies wide-eyed and smiling.

At the very end, there was time for some questions, and he finally opened up. He was asked what is it that makes a story work. I don’t think he intended to tell his secret in such simple words, because when he did he seemed uncharacteristically awkward and small. It’s not that he was trying to hide the secret, but I got the distinct feeling he preferred to live it rather than say it.

Brother Blue said, "There’s a question that everybody’s asking: Do you love me?"

This is the one that went right through me. This is Brother Blue’s secret. Everything he said had the ring of truth, but this was truth itself. Everywhere you go, for the rest of your life, remember there’s a question that everybody’s asking. That’s why audiences listen in open-mouthed wonder and that’s why they applaud. Tear down the scenery, throw away the costumes, burn the Media Lab to the ground, but remember this and you cannot fail. There is no new paradigm! There is no new millennium. This is it. This is it. This is it: do you love me?

Silent upturned faces, like flowers, wait. Brother Blue begins, "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?"