Author: gulley

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?"

Grounding Day

Happy Grounding Day, 1998. It’s time for a midsummer stretch — wallow in the overripe heat and ventilate your brain with a cool gin breeze. There is less time than you think.

It’s a good time to sit back and listen to a story. Relax, there is more time than you think.

Baiting spiders

Dedicated readers of the Star Chamber will remember a piece from way back in October of 1996 called Spider-Baiting. Avoiding for the moment the obvious joke that this was centuries ago in web time (though the venerable StarChamber was already six months old), it was a time when search engines were still called spiders. The idea of the piece was that a search engine would read the lascivious text-between-the-lines of our innocent story about canoeing on the Ipswich river, and then horny teenagers from around the world would bombard our site with page requests.

Clever enough, only it didn’t happen that way. Recently, we received (from one Alan H. Martin) the following email here at the Star Chamber executive editorial offices:

Cute.

However, I just hit the page with the following AltaVista query:

+”ipswich river” +canoe*

(since I just bought topo of Eastern Mass./RI and want to find the location of the canoe rental place my group at work used years ago on an outing…)

/AHM

In other words, the only person who found the page with a search engine was actually looking for someone to help him innocently canoe down the Ipswich river! And, by the way, he found what he was looking for (through no assistance from us)… so if you’re ever in eastern Massachusetts and you’re looking for a good place to outfit a canoe trip, try the Foote Brothers. And tell ’em Paracelsus sent ya.

This week we are honored and delighted to publish in this space a contribution from a long-time friend of the Star Chamber, Pandora. It’s a great big world, and it’s getting bigger every day.

Super-size it

by Wendy Gulley

The line at the concession stand for the local cinema megaplex was moving excruciatingly slowly. I was vainly hoping to buy some goodies before the previews started in my tiny booth they call a theater. As I inched closer, I discerned why it was taking my fellow moviegoers so long to make their purchases. The helpful young man behind the counter was wearing a button that says “Ask me about the SUPER COMBO.” But there was no need to ask, because he greeted each new customer with “Welcome to Loew’s. Would you like a Super Combo tonight?” Some customers didn’t miss a beat, but most customers were caught off guard for a few seconds before they decided to go ahead with their original order.

No one in line that night actually ordered the Super Combo (which consists of a very large bag of popcorn and a very large drink), despite his dogged persistence. But the helpful young man didn’t stop with just that question. When a customer went on to order a small or medium-sized drink or bag of popcorn, he immediately asked if s/he wanted the next largest size for only x cents more. I must have looked especially thirsty to him, because he asked me TWICE if I wanted to upgrade my drink to medium-size. “Look, I know it’s a bargain,” I said to him impatiently. “But the medium drink is too big for me to put my hand around!” He then gave me my small drink without further cajoling, and it fit in my hand just right as I raced back to the already darkened theater.

Fitting in my hand was one of the reasons I didn’t want a medium drink that night at the movies, despite its “better value”. The other reason is that I simply didn’t want to drink that much liquid! But recently I’m beginning to think that I am the only American that thinks smaller can sometimes be better.

The super combo costs $5.75, while a medium drink and medium popcorn total $6.24.

Size Matters

Perhaps it all started, innocently enough, with the “Big Gulp” 15 years ago. In addition to the ordinary small, medium, and large paper cups for fountain drinks, 7 Eleven Stores began offering gigantic cups that could hold 40 ounces of your favorite soda. For only pennies more, you could get twice as much Coke as a large cup would hold! Big Gulps were quite successful and remain so today, but does anyone actually ever finish all 40 ounces? Is it a bargain if you only drink 20 ounces before the ice melts and it’s too watery and warm to finish?

In the years since then, more and more everyday products are being packaged in bigger and bigger sizes. Ironically, this trend has happened at the same time that the size of the average American household is declining dramatically. Does a household of 2, 3, or 4 people really need to shop at BiggieMart to get giant boxes of cereal that could feed an army? But to get big sizes, you need not go to these special, buy-in-bulk stores that have sprung up like giant weeds in the past 10 years. At any ordinary supermarket, supersizes abound for any type of product. You can now buy a 64 oz. bottle of ketchup instead of the standard 20 oz. size, or a 24 oz. bottle of salad dressing instead of the standard 12 oz. size. Or buy a 45 oz. jar of Ragu sauce, instead of the usual 26 oz. For your cleaning needs, Dawn dishwashing liquid now comes in a 64 oz. bottle that is too big and heavy to conveniently squirt on your dishes. And Tide detergent now comes in a 200 oz. container (12.5 pounds!) that will give you a hernia to tip into your washing machine. But what a bargain. As you pant and heave with the Tide container for the next two years, try to focus on how you saved $2 with your smart shopping.

The trend towards abandoning standard sizes is a puzzling one. In the past few months I have unwittingly purchased: 1) a toothbrush that’s too fat for the built-in toothbrush holder in my bathroom; 2) paper towels that are too wide for the paper towel holder in my kitchen; and 3) soap that doesn’t fit my travel container. My contact lens solution, always a heavy bottle to take on trips, is now only available in a size that is yet a third heavier than before. Take a stroll down the toilet paper aisle in your local chain grocery store and you’ll see that 4 roll packages, the standard size for generations, are now in the minority. Bulky packages of 8, 9, and 12 rolls line the shelves. Perhaps you have been wondering why the sales of large vehicles (SUVs, minivans and pickups) now equal the sales of “standard” cars in the U.S.? Sure, family size is going down and studies show that SUVs put us at greater risk on the road. But we need supersize cars to hold our supersize groceries, not to mention our supersize butts (more on that later). That must be the reason for a couple I know from Indianapolis who has one child and TWO minivans.

Better Value, but at What Cost?

Back to food items, and fast food in particular. McDonalds and Burger King now offer “value meals”, which make it cheaper to get medium or large fries and a medium drink with your sandwich than to get small fries and a small drink. Or if this isn’t enough to fill your belly, just say “supersize it” and you’ll get supersize fries and a large drink for only 39¢ more.

Let’s look at some sample meals. If you want to eat a modest McDonald’s meal, you might order a basic cheeseburger, large fries, and a medium drink. There is no value meal in this case; you must purchase the items at their individual prices, which total $3.47. If however, you decide to splurge and get the “two cheeseburger value meal”, you’ll pay only $2.99 for TWO cheeseburgers, large fries, and a medium drink. That’s right, pay 48¢ less and you’ll get an extra cheeseburger. Or “supersize it” (two cheeseburgers, supersize fries, and a large drink) and pay $3.38, still 9 cents ahead of the one cheeseburger/large fries/medium drink meal.

Meanwhile, at Burger King, a similar meal of a cheeseburger, medium fries, and a medium drink will run you $3.97. But for the same price ($3.99) you can get a double whopper value meal, consisting of a double whopper, medium fries and a medium drink. Why eat that small cheeseburger, with only 380 calories and 19 grams of fat, when you can, for the same price, clog your arteries with the new supersized whopper, which has 870 calories and 56 grams of fat? If you add in the fries (21 grams of fat), you’ll have more than enough fat for your entire day, all accomplished in one meal for less than four dollars!

Of course, breakfast at these fine dining establishments offers bargains as well. At Burger King you can buy a biscuit sandwich and coffee for $2.38, or add hashbrowns to the meal and pay 20% less ($1.99). Why, you’d be a fool not to eat a heavy breakfast at these prices.

Given the Star Chamber’s highbrow readership, I’m sure many of you are smiling at this point, thinking to yourself: “I never eat at these burger places, so I won’t be enticed into eating bigger meals.” But a recent study comparing a typical (better than McDonald’s) restaurant on Long Island to a typical restaurant in London shows that portion sizes weigh about a pound on Long Island and half a pound or less on the other side of the Atlantic. And in addition to the huge portions, Long Island diners also get items such as a bread basket and complimentary appetizers.

Bigger Is Not Always Better

Next time you’re in a busy public place — at the mall, at the BiggieMart, at the Lard-Hut — try collecting some interesting data: what percentage of people you see around you are seriously overweight? I’ll save you the trouble: a lot.

Americans are the fattest people on earth, and they’re rapidly getting fatter. According to the Seattle Times (May 29, 1998) 54% of Americans are fatter than is healthy, and this percentage has grown by about a third in the past 20 years. 1 in 3 adults in this country is obese, as are a fifth of children; these rates have also risen dramatically in the past 10 to 20 years.

Medical researchers view Americans’ increasing obesity as nothing short of a big, fat epidemic. As well they should, since obese people face a 60% greater risk of death, especially from diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. The number of Americans who die annually of obesity-related diseases is 300,000. (For tobacco-related diseases the figure is 400,000.) $100 billion is the estimated annual cost of lost workdays and medical care for obesity-related illness in this country.

And what are we doing to fight this epidemic? Eating supersized portions of food, encouraged by restaurants and food manufacturers. The Big Mac and the Whopper are no longer the big kids on the fast food block. Now we have the Big King, the Double Whopper, the Bacon Double Cheeseburger, the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, and the soon-to-be-released-and-overhyped MBX (McDonald’s Big Extra). All at cheap prices.

Some Americans are undoubtedly eating healthier these days. Or trying to. But beware, healthy eaters, of two other food trends: bagels and lowfat foods. Many of today’s fresh-baked bagels pack 500 calories or more. And studies are now showing that people who eat lowfat foods often suffer from the “I deserve to indulge later” syndrome, consuming more calories in the end.

Americans could certainly improve their health by eating more fruits and vegetables, the natural nonfat foods. But only 22% of us eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day. If farmers could only grow those peas and carrots in supersizes, maybe people would eat them.

Keep your eyes out for more examples of supersized objects, bombarding us in every direction. The new Godzilla, the FleetCenter (47% of its seats would fall outside the physical confines of the old Boston Garden it replaces), the effects of Viagra (albeit short-lived), and finally– THIS ARTICLE.

Scooping Mayonnaise

Ah mayonnaise. The Viscous Muse.

Mayonnaise, like hollandaise, was invented by the French to cover up the flavor of spoiled flesh, stale vegetables, rotten fish. Beware the sauce! Where food comes beslobbered with an elegant slime you may well suspect the integrity of the basic ingredients.”

— Edward Abbey, “The Fool’s Progress”

Part I. Bert

Bert, 74 years old, refused to retire, and through some bureaucratic quirk, it was impossible to make him go. Here is what he did: in the morning he worked on the crossword puzzle and circled real estate classifieds, and in the afternoon it was his special task to drive Marian absolutely insane. Marian was a brisk and efficient secretary for the little Air Force Liaison office that I frequented. She spent the morning undoing the trouble that Bert stirred up around base the day before. In a world where some people pull their own weight, and others manage to pull only a fraction thereof, Bert was a great beached whale. You would swear he was senile but for the fact that he could righteously defend his position as nimbly as a politician in heat. I feared his fat grabby hands, his thick glasses, his bad synthetic creased suits, his slicked back mobster hair. I feared his anecdotes, because if he got me in his office he would spend a half hour telling me about his engineering exploits with the German rocket designers just after World War II. In short, he was a fascinating old man. In short, he was a mayonnaise scooper. Do you know any mayonnaise scoopers?

Part II. Mayonnaise.

Let’s face it, mayonnaise tastes good. Dry stringy turkey on cheap bread, crumbly bacon on wilted lettuce and dusty toast, what are these without the ennobling powers of the magic white spread? Mayonnaise is extraordinarily fatty, so a little will go a long way. And most importantly, if you absolutely HAD to, you could live years and years on nothing but mayonnaise. Of course you would be a changed person. Think about it: after a while, your complexion would become pale and glossy. Like any addiction, you’d soon be reduced to defending your supply, sprinting furtively from jar to jar. Suppose you had a choice between hard work (let us say, what you do now) and a life of empty leisure fueled solely by mayonnaise. Which would you choose? I thought so. Yet every year, thousands and thousands of people choose the Pride of Hellman’s.

You could argue that this is just another phrase for laziness, for goldbricking. But the truly lazy are fat drippy cats who will pour through the gaps in your arms if you don’t hold them just so. Mayonnaise-scooping is more complex; we’re not talking about the simply unmotivated, the slovenly. We’re talking about someone who is not only clever enough to know better, but still cleverer: they can rationalize and relish every drop of unearned goody that comes their way. They can actively take advantage in a predatory premeditated way that eludes mere bums.

Part III. Examples

1. Across the base from Bert’s Air Force Liaison Office was the building where Lt. Holt worked. Everyone who worked with him knew that he wouldn’t complete a project if you pulled him through it on a big metal hook, yet he was the most decorated junior officer in the building. Why? Because he spent all his time writing recommendations for ribbons and commendations which he would then pester senior officers into signing. See what I mean? That’s a lot of effort, and it suited him. But if the earth swallowed him whole tomorrow, he would not be missed for a week.

2. Marilyn takes two hour lunches, of which she is fiercely protective. She takes the elevator up and down past two flights of stairs. She leaves work at four, announcing to anyone who will listen that she’s now going home to her REAL JOB—taking care of her wonderful children. She spends so little time in the office, it’s no wonder she can’t be bothered to answer her voicemail. Yet she dispenses professional advice with the self-importance of a brain surgeon. Do you know anybody like Marilyn?

3. Think about that kid who comes by to badger you into buying something so he can win a trip to Disney World. Magazine subscriptions, chocolate bars, you can’t even tell what he’s selling, because he’s asking you earnestly “Don’t you want me to go to Disney World?” Let on that you aren’t necessarily concerned about his vacation plans, and he’s liable to snarl and bite off a finger on his way to the neighbor’s house.

Part IV. Identification in the Field

What are the characteristics of a Mayonnaise Scooper? Wounded righteousness and a quick left hook.

  1. They are powerfully lazy about anything having to do with their job.
  2. They are strangely intense about avoiding work even if that involves considerable effort.
  3. They are angry when you catch them with one sticky paw in the Hellman’s.

Suggest to a mayonnaise-scooper that they perform a task that appears in their job description, and you are likely to get a look of blank hatred.

Part V. Mayonnaise Futures

Hard times at work are cruel for the lazy, but they can be strangely exhilarating for the inveterate scooper of mayonnaise. So the question I have been pondering of late is this: will the wired world of the future favor or penalize these perversely lazy shirkers? Wherever you can see the structure that supports an organization, whether it’s a copy room or a warehouse, there is the opportunity to scoop booty. As the structure required to support an organization shrinks due to improved technology, the space in which to hide gets smaller. But these people are good at adapting—even now they’re looking forward to the challenge of being lazy in new and different ways. The slobs are in for trouble, but when it comes to mayonnaise, my money’s on Bert.

Footnote:

I was doing a little web research on mayonnaise as I wrote this. An AltaVista search revealed (at http://www.nomayo.com) the great Edward Abbey quote displayed above. At the same time, AltaVista exhorted me to “Search Amazon.com for top-selling titles about mayonnaise!” How could I resist? There were nine matches, of which, it may interest you to know, the best match was “Mayonnaise and the Origin of Life: Thoughts of Minds and Molecules” by Harold J. Morowitx.