MungBeing Magazine: The Future

MungBeing Magazine: The Future moving forward, to the next level, and taking a step off the curb into the street of literary oblivion! http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html Copyright © 2005-2007, Pencil Tenet, Inc. in association with Eschaton Media. Mon, 04 Jun 2007 02:36:32 -0700 Sun, 05 Aug 2007 00:31:54 -0700 Forward -- Welcome to the Future
I find it curious that discussions of the future often bring up things from the past. Like how we see the World of The Future, complete with flying cars and helpful robots, as an echo of a bygone era bouncing off our shiny tomorrow; the world as an unfinished dream reflected in the dusty mirror of yesterday's imagination.

It is through that same lens that I think we tend to plan our daily lives - one eye squinting at what's going on, another glancing over our shoulder, and the other one gazing longingly at what could transpire from whatever it is we're doing.

I find it interesting, too, that whatever hope we have for the future has been tempered by these same images, forged by the spitfire wit of ironic barbs, and burned into our collective psyche by a cynical blacksmith of doom.

Sure, I have my tattered copy of The Dystopaedia tucked under my good arm, as do many of my contemporaries, but I also dream about the beautiful world that my children will grow up in - that my children will help create. Too often I think we fall back on our defensive skepticism and cynicism because it's easier to wane about a future that looks bleak than it is to wax about hope and joy. Plus, too much waxing will get your ass kicked.

That's not to say that we should abandon all hope for the future and live solely for the moment. That's a fool's errand that never ends well. I mean simply that we shouldn't forsake the present for a drive-by crapshoot chance that something might develop at some point somehow.

You don't have to come to a complete stop to smell the roses but, for god's sake, take a whiff as you whiz by. It's nice.

"The future is as bright as you can imagine / the past a reflection of your intricate schemes / Your creativity creeps into everything / Hold on tight to your intimate dreams" - from "The Ganzfeld Effect" by Bunnyhuffer, 2004

"Talking about the future is like shaving with a toothbrush; you get your chin all wet and you still have a beard." - T.K. Silverstone, "Reliance on Richmond"

"Don't believe in a future without pain. It makes the monkey jumpy." - Florida Carver [Michael Styles] in "Take the Stardust, Leave the Tip"

And with that, I hope you enjoy our exploration of the future.

I'll talk to you on the other side,
Mark Givens
Editor-in-Chief,
MungBeing Magazine
]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=820&subID=798rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Mark Givens) -- Ozymandias 3000
Two hundred years of Enlightenment science and rationalism have failed to destroy the Almighty. Optimists, scientists, humanists, atheists and futurists of our era have for decades been spreading the meme of a Godless future. We are human, they say, a remarkable species with the ability to create technologies of increasing efficiency. Collectively we will continue to improve the evolutionary trajectory of the planet, and we do not need to cling to ancient symbols and myths in order to accomplish incredible things. What use are the Gods when we have spacecraft that can travel through the heavens? Why, in recent months, explorations and studies of Mars, Titan and Gliese 581 c suggest the presence of water, the source of life. Surely these monumental accomplishments, which in themselves are but humble doorways into future possibilities so vast and mind-boggling, display the best of all human qualities. The God of the Old Testament dispersed the arrogant rabble building a tower to the heavens; we have outdone the builders of Babel ten times over, we've knocked on Heaven's door and walked on through.

Like many optimists of my generation, of my basic Western liberal values system, I fantasize of a future Utopian and bright. The promise was made on a Sesame Street record when I was a child: "we're gonna be living on the moon someday" sang the soulful voice. Science promised to end world hunger and fix the environment. Science fiction promised hover cars and interplanetary travel. With every new discovery and possibility I am infected with an excitement that fires my dreams.

History, however, tells us a story radically different from the narrative trajectories of scientific futurism.

Consider the fact that the primary deities of the major religious memeplexes all rose with the rise of civilization, when our ancestors abandoned the hunt and the tribe for the sedentary life of agriculture and the city. They've hung with us for thousands of years, and all cultural and political indications suggest that these Gods have as much power now as they ever did. They're not going to disappear anytime soon, no matter how loudly Richard Dawkins cries. And I'm not wholly confident that even the most optimistic of rationalist futures will destroy them.

Memetically, all Gods exist: they are cultural assemblages that wax and wane in power over time, subject to the whims of their own prophets and devotees who alter their messages and myths and pass them out through different cultural filters. The Gods with the most followers and iconography are the most triumphant. The Christ we know today may still be as strong in 500 or 1000 years, but he will transform in reflection of his human followers. He is an avatar representing the collective force of a certain agglomeration of human ideas, and as long as people continue to unite around him, he will exist. The power of Christ is in the sheer number of churches, Bibles and other artefacts that reinforce his avatar.

In the novel Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins there is a striking illustration of the memetic concept of a God. We are introduced to the old pagan God Pan, who is in the slow process of dying. He is a physical entity fading into nothingness because his supremacy as a God has been usurped by Christ: his followers have abandoned him, which threatens his existence completely.

The technology that science hoped would destroy the old Gods has actually abetted their growth, and has allowed for new Gods to seed and flourish. The Information Age has opened up unprecedented access to the collective repository of human knowledge: we know more now than we ever did, and what's more, we have channels of communication that allow us to process and share information in a net so wide that it covers almost all of humanity. Print, the telephone, radio, movies, television, the internet make it possible for us to increase our exposure to ideas from all over the world. Christ has joined the Information Age, and his disciples have always effectively used modern technologies to strengthen the Christian memeplex.

Christian fundamentalism is in a grand memetic confrontation right now with atheism, science, materialism. Scientists are banking on the hope that a combination of knowledge, tested/demonstrated hypotheses, free thinking and advances in technology will be enough to destroy the dominant avatars. It is, I'm afraid, quite possibly a losing battle, as history has shown us that the only force powerful enough to topple an avatar is... well, another avatar. Gods are replaced by new Gods, or collaged together to suit the needs of any given culture. Christianity has proven to be a virulent memeplex precisely because of its adaptability as an appropriator of other religious and mythic traditions.

Dawkins has admonished those of us with rationalist leanings, agnostics such as myself, to choose sides in this battle. The spectre of Christian fundamentalism is so scary to me I've carefully considered for many months now throwing in my lot with the Bright army. But I know my Jung, Campbell and Graves as well as my Dawkins, and they've laid it out quite clearly that we humans have a deep, mystical attachment to our myths and our heroes. If we accept that the sciences are based on fact, we have to acknowledge that the rest of culture is based on stories. I'm a writer, an artist, and I know for damn sure we need our stories, because they allow us to self-reflect and think in brand new ways.

In this past century America has built an Empire as grand as any we've known, and American civilization has built its own Mount Olympus. When the Beatles made that crack about being bigger than Jesus, they weren't being scandalous, rebellious, nay: they were being prophetic.

The New Gods are our celebrities.

Even your typical B-list celebrities command more attention and worship from people than your "average" person. They are the mythmakers and heroes of our age, they tell us our stories. And it is through the media of communications technology they derive their awesome power and magic.

Consider Jennifer Aniston. Rationally, we know there is nothing extraordinary about her in terms of intelligence, talent or beauty, and she may not have anything of great importance to say, she might not contribute to humanity in the same way a cancer researcher or a UN relief worker does. Yet we follow her every move as closely as possible. Why? Because her image is powerful, and its power is amplified with every repetition and replication in the cultural memepool. Her face is seen on television by millions of people millions of times over, her face gracing the covers of supermarket tabloids 'round the world.

Have you ever been close to a celebrity? I have, many times, and I find it easy to keep my cool because (a) I'm confident (arrogant?) enough to think of them as peers and/or (b) I don't give a shit about them and/or (c) I don't recognize them for the life of me. But there is one thing they all have in common (no matter how immune I am to their charms), celebrities big and small: they have a magnetism that your next door neighbor, your grocery clerk, your Aunt Ida, simply don't have. And that's not to put these Gods on a pedestal, nor is it meant as a knock on sweet, dear Aunt Ida. It's simple: when your face is seen by millions of people, you become and icon, an avatar, a God. You become a memeplex unto yourself, you become a representation of all your fans, you become the sum total of your body of work that is on exhibit for the world to see.

One of the reasons they are afforded this status of Gods on Earth is because they are able to replicate themselves seemingly infinitely using tools that flummox and mystify most of us. Oh, yes: modern communications are all hocus-pocus. Can you really tell me exactly how we hairless mammals are able to capture images and sounds of each other and broadcast them out into the world? The fact that we have made this incredible leap into a New Age that allows us to harness our dreams and make them manifest in these bizarre, abstract, metaphysical ways is ridiculously amazing. So when someone cracks the code, we see them as sorcerers. Jennifer Aniston walks tall over us because she figured out how to become an avatar of the electric kind, and as much as she is made of flesh, blood and bone, she is composed of billions of photographic images.

In one thousand years the Old Gods may still be with us, but I speculate that some will endure from our present era and loom as large as any other. History tells us that the current Empire will one day fall, and through one thousand years of war, revolution, disease and disaster, many ideas and icons will be swept away, some perhaps lost to us forever. The Gods most likely to survive the ravages of time will be those who leave behind the most iconic artefacts, those who have the most fanatical cults, those who weave the most magic, and those whose myths and stories play large roles in the greatest numbers of lives. The Beatles, The Simpsons, The Lord of the Rings are perhaps all prime candidates for future Godhead. Christ may one day appropriate the image of John Lennon, and the Buddha may become one with Homer Simpson. It took humanity over 1500 years to free itself from the chokehold of the Church and return to the ideals that were first expressed in classical antiquity. And it looks like the Gods and their acolytes want to shoot out the lights once again.

Scientific rationalism doesn't stand a chance against the God memes, especially when technology itself is implicated in their perpetuation. The promise was that education, knowledge and progress would eradicate the need for Gods, yet we have seen in the Information Age a resurgence of the most vile, reactionary elements of the biggest religious memeplexes, foreshadowing for many a coming Dystopian Dark Age. While Dawkins has quite righteously raised the alarm bell, he is perhaps underestimating the power of the meme. Is he winning his memetic battle? Dawkins as icon, unfortunately, can't compete with Jesus, and I doubt he'll advance far in his war without a complex of myth and iconography.

My answer? We have to construct new and better Gods.
]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1205&subID=816rss_feed@mungbeing.com (jody franklin) Announcements -- Matt Bray :: Remodernist

A coffee table book of Art by Remodernist extraordinaire Matt Bray is now available. Living and working in the Medway towns (the home of Remodernism) during the summer months, and then India during winter, Matt produces bold, colourful art that both challenges and excites. ]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=821&subID=789 Announcements -- Mark Planisek Holter Museum Of Art in Helena, Montana
The show runs June 4th - August 19th.]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=821&subID=790 Announcements -- Make Love, Not War Make Love, Not War". The goal is to create massive online momentum against the current US "war", which Max considers "Bush's 'toy war', generated out of his 'toy brain,' and which must be stopped asap."
The link to submit is here: http://www.makelovenotwar.tv/u-login.php?redir=%2Fu-submit.php]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=821&subID=791 Announcements -- Avantgarde Festival

The origin of this very informal festival was a private event in 1996 which Jean-Herve Peron, founding member of the original Krautrock band Faust, and his partner Carina Varain had organized for friends, neighbours and colleagues.

The informal character is still there. The food is better and less expensive than at other either commercial or idealistic events. There is no strict division between artists and visitors who meet and talk shop until late into the night or over breakfast. You can borrow bikes to cycle to the next village for small errands. And those who camp on the grounds or sleep in one of the dormitories will enjoy the comfort of a caring almost private accomodation.

The festival has its own extraordinary charm because of this mixture of ambience and art. The emphasis is clearly on music but there will also be installations, stage-acting and new musical versions to films. The programme offers a mix of a well guided cultural event and spontaneous and unpredictable happenings. World famous artists meet newcomers or unknown Faust acquaintances and every evening there will be sessions with musicians whose names will be drawn.

The Schiphorst Avantgarde Festival happens July 27-29th, 2007. Check the low-rate flights to Luebeck (Ryan Air is only 15 km/ 8 miles from Schiphorst!) or to Hamburg (German Wings or BAW) and JOIN THE AVANTGARDE!

A message from Jean-Herve Peron:

One aspect of the festival that is not properly stressed is the quality of the AUDIENCE! Artists dedicated to the experimental art are very often confronted with a noisy, impatient, innattentive or drunken crowd.... filigran changes, subtle nuances are often drowned under ruthless loud private chats in the front rows.... well this is NOT the case at the Schiphorst Avantgarde Festival: you will hear nothing but the sounds created by the artists themselves, no matter how loud or how soft ... you will see people moving, dancing to the music or reacting to the performance but in a "respectful" way. It is most inspiring and encouraging for the performers.
I am sure that they go deeper, further into their art because they are catalysed by the concentration of the listeners .... oh yes. I love the audience at my festival. I love them for their joyful disciplined enthusiasm.
Another aspect of this intimate festival is the familiarity of the event: you will find yourself sitting round the fire next to Zappi or Moebius or Dax, you will be chatting at the bar with the STPO guys. There is no backstage here in Schiphorst. The merchandising room is not a place of "business" but rather a forum for hot discussions and beautiful encounters between the artists and their appreciators.
The last remark: here you will have no right to expect anything! Let me explain: all artists have accumulated during their years of performing a certain "image" so that the audience has a sort of "expectation" when they appear on stage. Well, here at the Schiphorst Avantgarde Festival, I have clearly informed the artists to feel free to realize whatever project or idea they had in mind, be this totally different from their usual repertoire. If Asmus Tietchens chooses to cook an omelette on stage, that will be just fine! All this is possible because of the mutual trust and respect between audience and artists.

All three days of this year's festival will be broadcast on air by Rockradio!
]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=821&subID=656 Announcements -- All History Does Unfold
Some of the works included were painted during Holland's recent visit to Greenbo State Park, where he was commissioned by the state to create a painting of the park's new amphitheatre during Governor Ernie Fletcher's ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 30.

Like most of Holland's work, the images in the exhibition deal with the secret and hidden ways in which the past and the present are interconnected, and does so in obscure ways that are often secret and hidden themselves.

"All History Does Unfold":
June 9-30, 2007

Opening reception: June 9, 2007
6pm-10pm

Information: http://www.jeffreyscottholland.com]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=821&subID=792 Announcements -- Flag Blog http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=821&subID=793 Did The Future Turn Out The Way You Thought It Would? This is a question I've asked over the years, for inclusion in The Duplex Planet, my ongoing publication of conversations with a wide variety of elderly people I meet at senior centers, mealsites, nursing homes, independent living centers, hospitals and private residences. These answers all came from conversations on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard in 2004.
- David Greenberger

DONALD W. VOSE: More or less, more or less, yes. I can't say that I was ahead of things a'tall (chuckles), but when they happened I said to myself, why yes of course, it just follows right along. I think that things really develop and it's careful planning by lots of people.

BETTY GARDNER: The future?! (laughs) No! I wanted one husband and three kids and a white picket fence. Well, I put the white picket fence up on the property I had here, which I've just taken down 'cause the trees grew and they knocked half of it down anyway. But, I had just the opposite: I had three husbands and one child, and no picket fence until I was sixty! (laughs) That was the dream in the forties.

NORMA JONES: Yes, I'll put it we were pleasantly surprised. We came here because our daughter told us it was the time for Mom and Dad to be near one of the children, and we thought long and hard about it, but after seeing what all of our friends were going through back home and having their daughters and everything come from long distance to take care of them, for, you know, when the knee was replaced or whatever and everything, and the distance between the Philadelphia area and the Vineyard, we started to analyze it and we thought it'll happen someday and why not now while we're able to establish a life for ourselves, and we set the precedent that we wanted to do our own thing here and not have a little house or be in the same place as our daughter.

FLORENCE SMITH: Pretty much, I would say.
WARREN SMITH: I think so, essentially. I'm not sure we gave much thought to how it would turn out, except to see what happens. You try to be intelligent about it. We came to like Cape Cod, in my point of view, early on in 1932. She was familiar with it also. It was a place to visit and to be, and so sixty-five years later here we are.
DBG: Originally you'd come out here in the summers, for vacations?
FLORENCE: Yes.
WARREN: Originally.
FLORENCE: We owned a cottage, in North Eastham.
WARREN: In 1945 we bought land in North Eastham. The war was still underway. We bought that half acre of land, kind of overlooking the bay, for four-hundred and twenty-five bucks! Can you believe it!

BILL CLINE: I'm absolutely astounded that I'm where I am now. In terms of geographics, finances, friendships. It's just been an incredible ride. It's just been fun, in lots of ways. There've been rough spots, but it's just been an incredible run. I'm havin' a ball!

DOROTHY WINNETTE: No, not at all. And it's a good thing we can't look over the hill and see what's on the other side.

OLIVE TILGHMAN: Here?
DBG: Just in general, with your life.
OLIVE: Well, yeah, I think it's pretty good, considering all the problems you have when you get older, I think it's good. I've got a nice husband, and kids and stuff. I can't complain. Doesn't do much good anyway, does it? We had a lot of children, too.
DBG: More than four?
OLIVE: Oh yeah. We had three boys and five girls I think, yeah.
DBG: Wow.
OLIVE: But they're all grown.
DBG: That's unusual.
OLIVE: Yes, it is. I think it had something to do with the war, that people had children because they were worried about the future. I don't if that's true, but it had something to do with it, certainly the war had a lot to do with it.
So, I think I've had a good life. I have a nice husband. The children are fine. And a lot of grandchildren, which are delightful. Don't you think they're easier than children, grandchildren? (laughs)

MARY ANN HOXSIE: Pretty much, pretty much. We started out in the city. My husband was a doctor in training in New York City at Cornell Med, and then we moved down to Providence for his residency and we made a decision that the city wasn't for us. So we started looking for rural possibilities and there were a lot. But we were intrigued by an island, so here we came over to Vineyard Haven, after six years in New York City. The difference was just incredible, and we realized we really liked it, and they needed a family practitioner, which he is. And my training had been teaching, so wherever I went there was always an opportunity for anything from having a whole grade or substituting or special needs. So I managed to keep quite busy, although we had a big family so I didn't do much until all of them were at last ten. We had five children. It's a lot.
We've been very happy here. A lot of people would not be, I think. I mean, Ralph's made a reasonable amount of money so that we could live the way we wanted to - which was modest really. In our elder years we didn't want to stay in this big twenty room house where we started out because he had his office in it. And so we took a place we had bought in the early years up in Chilmark, which is a summer place, but we winterized it. We've been there ever since he retired. He gave up his license and went into totally different things, into writing, and he's been quite successful writing. He's about to have a book come out about the trails here on the island. It's more like essays than just go here, go there, and so on. So he's been extremely happy in his retirement, which makes it great for me! (laughs) I didn't have the best of health, I had a lot of arthritis, so I've had four hip operations. I do pretty well. I'll soon be on probably a cane all the time, but I'm not unhappy about it, because it took care of the pain.
DBG: It was a replacement?
MARY ANN: Yeah. When I first had them they only lasted ten years, so the four means two on each side. Other than that, I've poked along, kept up. We have six grandchildren. We don't see enough of them because they're not on the island - two are on the island, two boys are on the island and one of the boys has a little girl, so we see a lot of her. But we see the others, you know, two or three times a year, but we'd like to see more of them. That would be my only sorriness. It's a pretty special place. It's getting more and more like the Cape however, which is overcrowded and over-touristy, but that happens I guess everywhere.

ROSALIE FRANCIS: You know, I never gave it a thought. (laughs)
RUTH SEBELL: Yes. You mean in life?
DBG: Yes, if you even thought about it.
RUTH: Well, the other day I was sitting with my husband, We were sitting on the swing. It was a beautiful day, looking at our garden. And we were thinking about our five children, and we said, "As things go, I think we did it all." And we're thankful for it all. Is this what you're asking me?
DBG: Yes, that's it exactly.
RUTH: Without being Pollyannish, or maudlin, it's been a beautiful life. Beautiful life. Almost sixty years with the same man and we appreciate the fact that we have that we have. We celebrated my eightieth birthday Wednesday night, taking all twenty of our children and grandchildren to The Lion King, in Boston. It was super, it was a great celebration.
I think at this point in my life - our life - it's celebrations that are important, because all the other messiness comes along. We grieve with our friends that are ill. We've had our share of illness of course, but I have got to look at right now - right now, today, September whatever, and hopefully no hurricane - this is how life looks. Okay?
DBG: That's good.
RUTH: So, ah, do I look at reality everyday? Everyday. But do i like what's going on in the world? Terrible. Can I do anything about it? No. Except vote, we all have to vote. Vote, vote.

LAURA WILSON: Not really. I guess I didn't think that far ahead. I just was living from day to day. I don't think I would want to know too far ahead anyway.

HELEN FOSTER: Oh, it did. I'm very contemplative - or I thought I was. Did I think it turned out the way I did? I'd have to think on that before I gave you answer, because it turned out far better than I thought it would, let me say it that way. With one sadness, that he didn't live to be here with me.
DBG: Your husband.
HELEN: Yes, he died I thought too soon, fifty-seven. I'm a widow thirty years now, that's too long. I live too long, I mean, we all live too long.
DBG: You think so?
HELEN: Yeah. Now they're talking about living to be a hundred. Isn't that amazing?
DBG: Do you reach a point where you feel like you've done enough, or is there too much of a sense of loss?
HELEN: No, I haven't reached that stage yet. My husband was in the Air Force, so we traveled a lot and I have a lot of friends all over the world, all over the United States. All mine isn't in one territory as they are here. I'm not a provincial type of person. I find that, also I have a - I think in my life now that you asked me that - I always had friends who were younger than myself, up until a certain age. Before that they were older than myself.
DBG: So you mix easily with a lot of different people.
HELEN: Yes, yes.
DBG: I think one of the things about having friends in faraway places is you don't need to have proximity, someone to be right there to feel like you're close.
HELEN: Yes, I have a lot of friends like that. I talk to them twice a year and it's as though we picked up the thread. It's good to have friends like that. I notice a lot of people here don't have friends like that, and i feel sorry for them, but you can't make them for them. They never miss them, they never wanted them apparently.
DBG: Everybody's got their own priorities and realities.
HELEN: Mmm-hmm. But it would enhance their elderly life, if they had friends like that.
DBG: Except you have to start in early.
HELEN: You give up a lot, too. We moved around so much. People here ask me, well, they're so worried about what happened to my children. Well they all finished college, they all have good jobs, and they're all reasonably good citizens, you know, and have apparently good lives. They're happy. But I don't know what they expect, they think maybe moving around is bad. Not bad in that sense, but like it's a loss in some ways. But I think it's an enhancement, don't you?
DBG: Yes. It can be exciting.
HELEN: Well, older people are reluctant to change. They fight it.
DBG: For what they believe are their own good reasons though.
HELEN: It hurts.
DBG: Well, my grandmother moved at the end of her life and she regretted it, because she didn't have friends in the new place she moved to. She might have preferred to not have her prolonged and stayed around her friends and have different quality of life.
HELEN: But those are the choices.
DBG: Yes, it comes down to choices sometimes that you've had no experience making before.
HELEN: It's regrettable when it doesn't turn out the way they expect.
DBG: I guess the best thing is to be open to the possibilities, and to be flexible, if you can.
HELEN: That first question bothers me. I never thought of it in that way. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would end up on Cape Cod. And yet it's the most beautiful of all the places I've visited. People here just don't appreciate its beauty, its physical beauty - let alone its people, its people are lovely. That's just my observation. Of course I've only been here since '52, '51, somewhere in there.
DBG: So your observation counts for something then, fifty years of observations.
HELEN: I'm experienced. Now I'd like to ask you a lot of questions! (chuckles)
DBG: Well we'll go back and forth then. How about music? Do you like music?
HELEN: Oh yes. People say, oh there's no cultural world down here, but there is. The music comes to us. The plays, we have plays, we have a lot of little theaters here and we travel around and try to pick up each town's little theater. Yes, I think it's very active.
DBG: How about you? Do you play any music?
HELEN: Do I play? No. I did take violin when I was a youngster, but I do listen to operas, and I have CDs out the gazoo - two columns full of them and I listen to them all day long. No, I'm not a musician per se. I wish I were.
DBG: Can you whistle?
HELEN: Oh yes.
DBG: You can? Oh good!
HELEN: Oh yes. We're kind of sad this week because one of our members died, and he - I call him a musician - but he would play all the popular songs from the forties and the fifties. Never had a lesson, played the piano. He had a little organ in his room, he would bring it out on occasion, organ. He'd give us a little recital. But he played the piano almost every evening for an hour after dinner. And we miss him terribly. There's two grand pianos in the building. As a matter of fact, there's music going on right now, 3:30 to 4:30 today. About three times a week we have, you know, a guitarist or a pianist. And we have a pianist come down from Boston who teaches classical music, he comes down and plays for us once a month. Oh, it's very active musically here. They bring it to us, which I think is very nice. We have hoedowns and things like that, with the fiddle. when we have a little chow down on the patio, why they bring their guitar and sing as we eat and all that stuff. Yeah, they have the lowbrow to the highbrow.

EDWARD JACOUBS: The future?
ELIZABETH JACOUBS: Sixty-one years, we just passed it.
EDWARD: We waited until we got out of our graduate schools already, so we got married then. We weren't kids, we were in our thirties, you know, twenty-nine.
ELIZABETH: You weren't thirty-nine.
EDWARD: Twenty-nine.
ELIZABETH: Twenty-nine.

JAMES RIVIELO: I didn't even think about the future - no thought at all or nothin'. We weren't a rich family, you know, we were a poor family, an Italian family. We all worked hard and everything else. In one year I lost three brothers and a father, in one year. One brother, Bill, he died. He was only twenty-four and he died. About a month later, my brother Joe, he had a little saloon, in Yorkville, in Manhattan in New York. He got held up and robbed and he was shot and killed. About a month later, my brother Fred, he was thirty-eight, he drove the hook and ladder at a 125th Street. Goin' to a fire, this guy in a cab, drunk, runs into him. He got killed. A couple weeks later, my dad died, a heart attack. Four in one year. I'll never forget that.

MILDRED ALLEN: I thought that we would find peace after World War Two. My husband served in the air force and his life was spared. And it was glorious, and I think the world - not only America, but all over - there was enjoyment of life. There was a joy in living and the future looked wonderful. Something faulty with the different peace treaties. I think grave errors are made when a country surrenders and there's a peace treaty.

FRANCES BARLOW: Oh yes, I have no complaints. I have a wonderful, perfect daughter. She couldn't be better if I ordered her. And her husband, my son-in-law, is just as good, just as good to me. It's unbelievable, I can't believe that he cares as much as he does. Now they're away and he's the one that calls and talks to me. Donna's on the other end, she's side-by-side with him, but he speaks to me first, and he says, "I hope you're behaving yourself." And I said, "Well I don't have any choice right now, you're away and I have nobody to cuss at!" (laughs) He said, "Well I'll be back," and i said, "I'm all ready for you!" It's all in fun. I love them both.

BETTY DiPIETRO: Well of course every future has a few, you know, my husband died. But I have four great kids who are all well educated. So, you know, I have a good life, and had a good life.

JOE VENEZIA: I really never gave it much thought. I know I was goin' straight to heaven! Most people didn't think so, but, you know, they can be wrong. To tell you the truth, I didn't used to think about the future that much. Really, I think you should enjoy the moment.

HILDA YOUNG: I don't know, I don't remember what I thought about the future. I don't believe when you die your life comes back to you, I don't believe that. When you're dead you're dead as far as I'm concerned. That's all I know. (chuckles)

MARIE LEONE: Well not this part of it! But actually, I retired from teaching after twenty-five years and then I substituted for eight years. We were living in Weymouth then, that's where I taught, that's south of Boston. So we decided we wanted to move down here to the Cape permanently. I've been here for twenty-six years now, and my husband passed away just ten years ago. But the whole family came down here. Then I got involved in things down here in my parish, which is Christ the King, very active parish. I was into a lot of things there. My main object was the senior choir, which I'm still in, that's the only thing I can still do is sing in the choir. I was a Eucharistic minister, but I can't go up on the altar anymore because I have to use this. (taps her hands on her walker in front of her) A lot of other things, too. I worked at the food pantry and several other things too, so I was in and out all day long just about every day of the week. But now I come here five days a week, which I like very much because I like the socializing. and I still sing in the choir on Sundays, and Saturdays I'm home, unless there's something to do.
]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1118rss_feed@mungbeing.com (David Greenberger) People Going Places http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1139rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Ashley Reaks) Behind City Walls The painting visualises how people will live in the future, devoid of nature and a suggestion that they live underground (the opening man-hole cover) like rats.]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1141rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Godfrey Blow) The Lilies arrow-shafts of the god of worry;

who knows if they will fulfill their future
among the hedges, progeny of Diogenes
looking for any wise man-

Who knows if the robins will sing again,
the vexed doves
fly up from the hedge, or

the red fox retreat, drowsy
on his haunches...

Who knows if the yard
will brighten

after the day dies.

The farmer plows the field, the hunter
loads his .22...
and what if the ground doesn't break, what if
the rains don't subside,

what if

there is no resurrection, no angel-sentinel,--
no handmaid/scavenger leaving doubt

like a soiled raiment

as she runs from the cave....

]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1144rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Leonore Wilson) It's Time http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1132rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Liz Parkinson) Helium 3 is the Future I would like to tell you about whats new in the future.Iwas gonna tell you about this dream i had where i added up the future like a maths prifessor and the sum of the future was 147.It was but a dream so i wont tell you about it,ok.
Then i thought i was a poem master and i wroyt this poem about the future.It was all about waves and lighthouses and i was onna be swep[t into the open sea and die.Basically the future is our dreaths ands thats it.
You know how it is when suddenly people you dont know or like or some such thing talk to you about something on your mind? ok.
I was thinking about the future when Tony and Paul told me they had talkeded to the window ckleaner.
Now the window cleaner told my not friends(but i pretend i am) THAT VERY SOON IN THE FUTURE A GREAT THING WOUKD HAPPEN.
This is a secret i think.
Somewh-ere in South America there is some secret Russians.They areliving in a hole several miles ubdergroung.What they are doing is secret so dont you tell too many friends of importance.They are praticing being on the moon.How secret is that?Anyway they are living inb a sort of moon bubble deep down.What wthey do is pretend to mine.
Now this is the great bit.On the moon is helium 3.Helium three is special i think.What is helium 3? Who the fuck knows but if you mix heliun 1 with helium 2 you get helium 3 . fOR SOME REASON YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE MOON TO GET SOMETHING THAT MAKES HELIUM THREE.tHATS wht wth Russians are down a hole fr.Pratice makles perfect.
You might think the chineese will make some helium 3? They cannot.Its a moon thing.
To round this all up for you...... Helium three is on the moon.The russians will get it.They will get it on the moon and bring this extra recipe back.They will use Helium thr3 to replace gas gas.All our houses will be using helium three.
If i round it all up for you again..... Helium three is the power of the future,,its way cool i think but like you im worried about the power struggle that might happen between people.ITS good stuff that new power.
I hope you all enjoyed my talk about the new power of the future that i got from my window cleaner not frinds second hand knowledge. Bacically the the whole thing i told you is great.

For one last time i will tell you i am Rik Abatros the famos writer,poat,drawer and fan of music.Do you like the way i tell you about new power?.YES.
iTS SAHAME REALLY BESCAUSE I FEEL LIKE TELLING YOU ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE.

I wil finish off telling you about girls.Please be good to girls generally.Girl that live in this world have hearts.You have to remember that.Dont think girls are like boys all killy killy.Girls need a kiss and a hand hold very often.Also be very kind to everybody in the world too.People generally need help so help.We are all gonna die very terrible so help everybody die sensibly and geterly. ok. Always help evrbodt.
I GENERALLY LOVE YOU ALL AT mung.

XXXXX R.I.K.]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1112rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Rik Albatros) Collage http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1134rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Bruce New) The Postmodern Paleo-Future Paleo-Future blog ("a look into the future that never was") in January of 2007 to examine the ways that those in the past envisioned the future. I have since become well acquainted with the many promises of generations past. Clean energy, robotic servants and push-button food were the dreams the paleo-future was built on.

However, we've hit a snag of the imagination. It is immensely difficult for me to imagine a world before sarcasm and irony were the norm. American society no longer seems to grab the future by the horns and proclaim that tomorrow holds promise.

In 1966, just a few months before he died, Walt Disney produced a film outlining his vision for the futuristic community of EPCOT. Most people equate the word "Disney" with watered-down conservatism. However, Disney's "Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow" envisioned a world where the pedestrian held sway. Personal vehicles were all relegated to underground passages and clean-energy mass transit allowed people to travel throughout the city efficiently. EPCOT would be a community planned from the ground up and the needs of the people living within it were the highest priority.

The future is only a concept. You can't experience the future with any tangible basis in reality. For this reason, the future is whatever you want it to be.

There is a genuine sense of sadness detectable when you talk with people about flying cars and meal pills. Oddly enough, most people don't want meals-in-a-pill, they simply want the fanciful. We long for the world where anything is possible. We exist in a rather unique age when most American's basic necessities are met. You and I have luxuries unseen in human history and yet we want more.

I would argue that 1997 was a major tipping point for futurism. American consumer culture could no longer get behind the idea of "building a bridge to the 21st century." Such sentimentality made one vulnerable to ridicule. Even Disney, the definition of sentimentality, had abandoned the sincere brand of futurism with it's redesign of Tomorrowland in 1997, replacing the promise of tomorrow with Buck Rogers versions of how we used to view tomorrow.

Warren Belasco, in his book Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food, quotes Disney's head Imagineer as saying, "We used to think Tang was wonderful, but then there came the sense that Tang was all we got out of a multitrillion-dollar space program." The ironic distance from the fantastical future is a byproduct of our postmodern age.

Can we return to an era of sincerity and optimism?

Are sincerity and optimism now relegated to the paleo-future?
]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1151rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Matt Novak) The Future http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1128rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Michael Uhlenkott) Rejected
They weren't my kind of people. I didn't talk much to them, aside from the stories. They called me Quiet Archie and let me sleep on the outside of the huddle, so half my body stayed warm at night.

Someone decided I should be in Old Tina's gaggle. Probably Old Tina, to get back at me for making her skin prickle in front of the others. I told her I wasn't picking on her, and she told me to learn how to lift wallets or I'd be gone.

Apart from me, Old Tina's gaggle had Durn, Broke, and Layla. Durn and Broke were twins, and had twin open sores on their cheeks from eating out of the wrong charity lines. When he met me, Durn pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and made pus come out the wound. Broke had good ideas, and talked about them with Old Tina all the time. He was kind of a brain, and he knew it, and I could tell it made him scared, all that blood in his head instead of his fists. I wasn't a brain -- I just told good stories -- but I kind of knew how he felt.

Layla was something different. She had two long, brown knots in her hair, hand-tied and spilling curls and tangles. We were kind of like twins, too -- she did everything I didn't, acted out on everything that made me look at my shoes. She talked all the time. We were like two halves of a split genetic code. Everyone knew she'd take over the gaggle after Old Tina got graduated. Old Tina was doing her best not to, probably just for that reason.

It was enough. For as much as Old Tina growled at me, she did double to Layla. Layla scored more panhandling than any of us because she was prettier and knew how to pout. When Old Tina tried, her face just sucked into a grimace she couldn't shake loose. Like a puppy, I took to following Layla around on days that Old Tina didn't give me something else to do.

One time, the summer after I joined up, she and I were strolling along a sidewalk in a so-so suburb. We were visiting the cul-de-sacs and asking for donations, but really keeping an eye out for lazy housewives and unlocked doors. That had been bath day at one of the Callows' shelters, so Layla and I both smelled like skin and new sweat. We hit nuclear families and got a few packs of cigarettes, because we told them they were like money. So, we smoked through the stands of catalpa and Russian olive and mostly kept off the grass. I was pretty happy, kind of full, a little high, but Layla wanted more to take back to Old Tina. I told her what I remembered of the grasshopper and the ants.

"Just one more," said Layla. She pointed at a red brick one-storey which was built like a cube in the middle of a yard of fresh asphalt. There wasn't any grass, but part of the driveway was painted green.

"Looks poor," I said.

"Relative to you," said Layla with a grin. She pulled me up the walk. I complained that my feet were tired, because I thought maybe we were at that place where she would give me sympathy. She didn't. She glared at me and pushed me toward the doorbell. I rang it. It was old tech, audio-only. The track was some laughter, high-pitched and cracking like a little dog's bark. Layla put her ear to the door as the sound faded. She shook her head; no one was moving inside. I rang the laughter-bell again.

Layla put her hand on the doorknob. "I heard someone say, 'Come in,'" she said. Turned out the door wasn't locked. Layla was the first through, so I got to watch her jump about three feet through her skin when a voice said, "Welcome to the pit of terror," and cackled.

Layla had a fist-shiv cocked and ready before she had stopped cussing, and I had a grin that hurt my teeth. "That wasn't you," she said, and a little of the fire of profanity died out of her eyes.

"Nope," I said.

"You tell anyone," she said and raised her fist a bit more.

"Nope," I said. I stepped into the house. "Welcome to the pit of terror," said the crackly voice. It was lo-fi, like bounced radio. I looked down at my feet. There was a black box the size of a street puck glued to the door frame, and a speaker mounted on the wall above it. I kicked my foot out in front of the box. "Welcome to the pit of terror."

Layla laughed just to prove she could get there first and told me to heel. The rest of the house was quiet. It smelled like a spiced pie, strong enough to burn out my senses. I could tell that once I left the house everything would be dull for a few hours, same as after leaving one of the run down kitchens.

"Quiet, you," said Layla, and led me into the kitchen. We padded on the balls of our feet, squeaking a little over the linoleum. "It's a man," said Layla. She pointed at the counter tops. They were filthy with old dishes and rotten food. We started picking over the stuff, breathing through our mouths, just in case there was anything good, like bone china or wine. I opened the refrigerator; its light was burnt out. It held row upon row of liter bottles of water and an open box of baking soda. "Check this out," said Layla. She had a small metal basket in her hands. The basket was full of pill bottles, white, and amber, and blue glass. She gave it all a good shake, and it was like castanets.

Someone screamed. I shook my foot, but didn't see any more little black boxes. Layla said, "Down, boy," and then someone screamed again. The sound trickled out into a dozen syllables of pleading, and then there was a meaty thud. I expected an echo, but there wasn't one. Instead, there was full silence, like inside a lead box.

Layla pushed me a couple steps forward. There was a crystal sphere hanging in the kitchen window, and I spun it as I went past. Slivers of rainbows, like tears in cloth, blurred color around the room. It reminded me of the hospital where mum died. The nurses kept the windows flung wide, polarized glass letting in a soft glow that was supposed to make her feel like heaven wasn't so bad, or something.

There was another scream, and Layla shoved me through the archway that led from the kitchen to the rest of the house to see what was going on. She stayed behind the frame, pawing through the basket of meds.

I found myself in a living room. It wasn't much of a place for the living. There was black velvet on the walls, red bulbs screwed into the bare sockets overhead, fake spiders with big goggle-eyes, a coffee table in the shape of a casket, and an old man folded under a deep purple blanket sitting in a recliner. There were two threads of red juice out of the corners of his mouth, and his head was bowed. His skin was pink and splotchy and looked as if it didn't quite fit him. He was watching the television.

"Hey," I said.

"There's some good shit, here," said Layla. "Good money."

The old man breathed in through his nose so long and hard it tipped his head clean back. His mouth fell open and he started to snore. His eyes were closed. The television screamed.

"Hey," I said, and took a step forward. The man's eyes slit open; I could see a thin reflection under each lash, but he was trying hard not to let me. "You all right?" I asked.

"He's a cat," said Layla. "Rank vegetable. Come on. We should tell Old Tina." I could hear that she wanted to be talked out of it, so I just plain ignored her. The old man's head flopped toward me; his skin sloshed waves like a deflated balloon.

"You're new," he said.

"Brand new," said Layla, coming out from behind the archway. Her hands were empty, but her pockets were full. "What are you doing all dead like that?"

"I'm Shooter," said the old man. "Do you have my pills? I need my pills."

I looked at Layla. She shrugged at me. "Just a sec," I said to Shooter. I ducked back into the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" asked Layla. "Tell him he's out. He won't know. He'll order more for us to lift."

"It doesn't work like that," I said. "My mum was in the hospital. You say you're out, they let you be out until your chart says it's okay to have another refill. Got to give him some of it."

"None of this," said Layla, patting the pills. "I know some about medicine, too. This will buy long showers for all the Callows. Do something for Durn and Broke, maybe."

"Maybe it's just for his skin," I said. I looked in the medicine basket. Layla had left a couple of worthless bottles of herbal supplements, and a blister pack of B-complexes. "Should have taken these," I said, giving her the B-pills. I tapped out a handful of Echinacea and something that smelled like raw liver and held them in my fist. "All right, Shooter," I said, stepping into the living room. I held out the pills. The old man stared at them, arranged in a dense constellation on the puffed-out palm of his hand.

"Something's missing," he said. Layla came up behind me with a glass of water, which she gave to Shooter. He took the pills one by one, placing them into the pouch of his lip as if they were dips from a tobacco tin, and swallowing them back with sips from the glass. Layla glared at me, and I looked away from her. Shooter's skin was creeping me out, so my eyes settled on the only other movement in the room: the television. The images were black-and-white; there was blood, but it was a metal gray and made me think of bad nano.

Shooter swallowed his last pill and smacked his lips. "I stopped paying," he said. "Last girl stole from me. Damn kids." I nodded, absently, and watched a young woman tear her flimsy nightgown. "What are you doing here?" Shooter asked.

"Final visit," said Layla. She always could lie off the top of her head. "Need anything?"

"How do I look?" asked Shooter.

"I'd do you," said Layla. Shooter laughed, and he was much more comfortable with the sound than he was with his skin. It rumbled and echoed and didn't fit with the television at all.

"What are you watching?" I asked him.

"This. You've never seen this?" said Shooter. "God, sometimes I'm disappointed," he continued after a pause for breath. "Not even horror has survived your generation."

"Give me a good reality," said Layla. "That's life. Not this shit."

"I like it," I said. That got another chuckle from Shooter and a snort from Layla.

"Come on," she said. "It's time for us to leave."

I tore myself away from the screen and gave Shooter a small wave.

He raised a tired hand to wave back. "You live well when you're scared," he said, almost like an apology. It bothered me, the way he said it, so I had my hands in my pockets, thinking, all the way out to the street. Layla hit me on the shoulder. She rattled like a bone girl with every step, because of the meds.

"We're coming back," she said.

"You got all the good stuff," I said.

"He's all by himself," she said, and that was the end of the argument. If I fought her on it, Old Tina would hear, and accuse me of holding back on the good of the gaggle.

When we got back to the Callow hideout, we told Old Tina about the whole score. She listened hard -- I tried to tell the story right, but Layla kept interrupting me, rushing me to the good parts quicker. I gave up and let her spill. She brought out the pills as a grand finale, and Old Tina looked them over good.

"Wide open?" asked Old Tina.

"As can be," said Layla.

Old Tina tapped open one of the bottles and tipped its contents into her palm. She swirled them around with one finger while she turned something over in her mind. "Give it to the twins. They can sell this stuff in no time. But we're hitting the park tonight."

"Bad idea," said Layla. "Cold tonight. Be like Alaska, population and temp."

"But a greater potential," said Old Tina. "You want to stick with dives and dead folks, you have to take me out of the gaggle." She leaned toward Layla and I saw something flash in both their eyes. "I aim to take Callows way past your suburbs, little girl. I dream big."

"I don't need to," said Layla.

The sun went down about then, and the hideout felt suddenly smaller. I excused myself, more polite than I had to, and went off to find Durn and Broke to tell them about our haul. I was getting well into it when a kid from another gaggle came running through, crowing, "Fight! Fight!"

It was a rite of dominance. Layla and Old Tina were in crouches in the middle of an expanding, contracting ring of other Callows. I couldn't see much of the fight itself, because the audience kept pushing me out to the fringe. They did the same to Durn and Broke. Apparently, gaggle members weren't supposed to see, in case they helped out in the fight. Weapons came out -- I could hear metal scraping like a claw on a tooth -- but most of the screams that followed were deep breaths from the gut. I didn't really want to see what was going on, except that I wouldn't be able to tell the story right to anyone who might ask.

It ended in frustration, a pair of arms thrown up in resignation, and the grumbles of a crowd denied its blood. Old Tina had lost by the rules, given up on her own terms. She pushed through the crowd and knocked me in the shoulder on her way out, not like a friend, but like clearing the last obstacle. I watched her go.

Layla came up behind me. "Saw it coming," she said.

"I didn't," I said.

"Big head, small world," said Layla. "Get the twins. We're going back to Shooter's."

The twins had disappeared before the fight was over, more concerned with selling the meds than in catching on to the politics, so Layla and I waited for them to come back. Durn came in first, and said he had punched some guy in the nuts and sold him a handful of the stuff as pain relievers. Layla scolded him for undervaluing the stuff, and he popped a zit at her and said something about Old Tina, which Layla ignored. Broke wandered in a few minutes later with both pockets full of money. "Doubled the volume," he said to me with a grin as Layla counted the bank notes. "One pocket of pills, two pockets of bills."

Layla slipped her hands down her pants and stowed the money in a secret pocket. Durn and Broke didn't watch her, but I did, and I got a show and a scowl. When she pulled up her jeans again, I could see the rectangular outline of the money through the fabric, and so could everyone else, but they'd have to cut her to get at it.

It was two in the morning before we got underway to Shooter's house. There was dew on the streets, turning the asphalt to ink. Broke and Layla walked in the front, strategizing. Durn and I followed behind, taking turns at complaining about our empty stomachs. When we were a block away from Shooter's, Layla turned to us and said, "Callows eat when they eat." It was one of Old Tina's lines.

Broke looked at the house and shrugged big. "Whatever," he said. "Doesn't look bad. Lights are on. It's one on four, so let's go."

"Dig in," said Layla. She led the way, with Durn at her heels. Broke hung back with me.

"You ought to be up there," he said.

"They've got it," I replied.

Durn was best at picking locks, so he crouched in front of the door and got to work as Broke and I ambled up. Layla crouched near Durn, getting in his light, and hissing orders. First one deadbolt then another were shot back into their shells. The knob turned easily, and Layla got the chain with a pair of handheld wire cutters.

"Someone must have come by," I said, quietly tapping on one half of the dangling chain.

"Or he got up," said Layla. She disappeared behind the door; Durn and Broke jumped out of their skins as the electronic voice said, "Welcome to the pit of terror." I wondered why the hell we had been keeping quiet if we were just going to walk right on in. Broke recovered first and peered down at the black box, as I had done, while Durn started giggling and wagging his foot through the infrared beam. Layla caught him in the ear and shushed him. We all followed her inside.

The lights in the kitchen were on, and they made everything else that much blacker. We couldn't see more than a foot into the living room

"What was wrong with this guy?" asked Durn.

"Looked like he was shrinking," I said. "Except his skin stayed the same size."

Layla led the way into the kitchen. We started opening cabinets, searching for anything of value. I found plastic plates and cups, a set of camp silverware, and a bottle of gin with less than a shot glass' worth in the bottom. Durn and Broke found soap and were fighting over bits of it to rub into their sores. Layla got frustrated fast and stopped talking in whispers.

"Quiet Archie," she said. "Go check out the living room." I didn't have a point from which to argue, so I tossed her the gin and mouse-stepped through the archway. The living room was populated with dull the black shapes of furniture and wisps of wind from some unseen vent. "Go faster, scaredy-man," said Layla. "Even he could call the cops."

I fumbled my hand along the wall and found the familiar plastic of a light switch. I gave it a click. Fluorescent tubes that hadn't seen life in a while stuttered bright. "Shit," said a voice. I shaded my eyes while they adjusted and looked toward the voice.

Shooter was sitting in his chair with a police-grade pistol cocked in his right hand. He looked as if he had been half-boiled in vinegar. His skin was puffy and bruised in some places, drum-head tight and thin in others. Huge blisters had formed on his face and arms, but they were bloodless. It looked as if bubbles of air had been blown between his dermal layers. "What are you doing here?" he asked. The gun was a little shaky.

"Take it easy, man," I said. I tried to think of something to tell him to get him to lower the gun, but all my stories took off right about then. The only thing I could remember was the smell of the room in which my mother had died, and how it seemed to make the bones in all my fingers melt.

With a muttered, "You find anything?" Layla peeked around the archway. I glanced at her just in time to watch her scream. Even though I could see it coming, the rest of my bones went the way of my fingers and I just about fell into the television set. "What the hell is that?" cried Layla.

Shooter's face went all loose, like a sheet in the wind. He was trying to make some expression, but I couldn't tell what it was. My heart was chattering like a bird's because of the gun, no matter the strength or disposition of its owner. "Hey, Layla," I said.

Durn and Broke had come to check out the commotion. Durn shrieked like a girl, worse than Layla had, but Broke just stood there with wide eyes, methodically stroking one of the sores on his cheek. All four of us might as well have been stuck to the floor. Layla's face was contorting through several recognizable expressions, in at least as much flux as Shooter's. I leaned back against the television set, because my legs were shaking, and felt as if they would only be shaking harder in the near future.

Shooter's eyes went back and forth across us and he lowered the gun. He put both his hands against the arms of the chair and started to lever himself up. The skin on his wrists folded and stretched like the scruff of a shar-pei. He winced and I heard a quiet, wet tearing. A fold of gray flesh had sloughed off his arm as the bones and muscles beneath twisted. I felt all the bile in my stomach and hoped it would stay there. Shooter dropped himself back into his chair and, after a moment, reclaimed the gun.

"Get out of my house," he said. Durn had calmed down a bit, so he sneered at Shooter, flipped him off, and stomped back into the kitchen. Broke followed him a moment later. Layla's mouth was open in some combination of horror and fascination, so I nudged her with one of my jittery legs. She closed her mouth. Then, glancing once at me as if for confirmation, she pinched her nose . She started to sneeze, a big fake windup to a massive explosion. She blew saliva all over the room, and then she laughed.

I was the last one out of the room. "Want the light off?" I asked Shooter.

"Leave it on," he said.

I should have turned around to leave, but I couldn't break off my stare. I just stepped backward, leaving Shooter alone with his fake cobwebs, his purple-and-orange lampshades, his gun, and something of his that grew like a chuckle.

"Welcome to the pit of terror," the electronic voice cackled four times as we left.

"We come back after he's dead," Layla said, and led us off to dive in the dumpsters.

Later that morning, I was telling a bedtime story to my gaggles and whoever else was nearby. The story went like this: "We were two steps in when our breathing stopped. It was too quiet to breathe in there, like sneezing in a line-up. I went first and slipped on something wet. The darkness stank of dog shit and landfills, and now my shoe stank, too. I was just gonna whisper to Layla that the coast was clear, if she watched her step, when something touched me on the neck. Not like a bug or a piece of hair, but cold like the tip of a screwdriver. The lower half of me jumped -- you know, like when your muscles all spaz that once before you go to sleep. Someone coughed, a sick cough, full of phlegm or vomit, and the cold against my neck branched and multiplied. Five points rested across my arteries, like five fingers.

"That's when Layla hit the lights. Hold your stomachs. We were standing in the kitchen, and it looked worse than Bromide's downtown. There was this soup on the floor, like tomato mixed with split-pea. Looking at it was like looking at a wrong tag, you know, something that tells you you're out of Callow territory.

"Then I saw what was touching me, and I knew I wouldn't ever feel like I was home again. It was man, sized and shaped, but so dead there should have been flies. It had eyes like greasy soup hanging down at its cheeks on these thin optic nerves like harp strings. Its mouth was hanging open, with sugar-black teeth. It wasn't breathing, but something that smelled awful drifted up out of its throat, and I gagged.

"I didn't scream, but I did have to gag down a cup or so of bile. I took a step back and the thing's fingers slid right off my skin, as if they were made of slick plastic. It took a step forward, and I swear to holy sustenance it moaned. I said something to Layla, but it didn't matter because Layla was already out of there. All of them were. I didn't waste my breath in breathing more of that shit; I took off after them. We ran until we couldn't smell no more, and that was only after I kicked my shoes off."

I beamed at my audience, only a few of which bothered to look down at my feet to see that, yes, I was still wearing my ratty old shoes. A few of the youngers made faces at me to prove how little they believed. "Tell us another," said a girl from another gaggle, so I told the one about the toad and heaven.

Afterward, I looked around for Layla and the twins. I was hungry. I found Durn first, but he wasn't interested in going out. He was trying to make time with two girls. He spit blood at me to scare me off and grinned with red teeth.

I found Broke at the well. He was getting a drink of water. After he was done, he dropped a tablet of something in after the bucket. He turned around and saw me. "Iodine," he said.

"You seen Layla?" I asked.

"You're all right," said Broke. "Layla thinks so, too. But you're out of the gaggle. She asked me to tell you." He looked as if he didn't mind the duty.

"Because of the story," I said.

"It wasn't a very good story," said Broke.

"No, not really," I said. "It worked, though."

"You made fun of Durn and me and Layla, and none of us can figure out why. I don't care much, and Durn doesn't barely know it, but Layla took it bad, man. She stood up for you against Old Tina, when you didn't know it, and you turned her into a 'fraidy-cat in front of other Callows."

"That's not what it did," I said. "What it did was scare people."

"Why would you want to do that?" asked Broke. "Scared kids don't get food, and Callows don't get scared."

"He pointed the gun at me," I said. "I got scared."

"You're out of the gaggle," Broke repeated. He turned away, adding, "You could have stood up for her."

Feeling a bit like the world was too large to fit my body, I ambled around the hideout for a while, figuring I'd run into Layla sooner or later. Everyone who met my eyes had one of two reactions: either they grinned at me, a little like Durn had, or they blinked like they were high on junk they couldn't afford and then passed me as if I were invisible.

I found Layla outside. She was kicking at a piece of rusted metal. "There's a monster called tetanus," I said.

"What do you want?" she asked dully.

"I don't know," I said. "Just to talk."

"Don't tell me no stories," she said.

"I didn't mean nothing bad," I said.

She met my eyes and stamped hard on the metal, sending a strained tone to both our ears. "You think about the wrong things," she said. "You think about what words mean, 'stead of what words do, and you get distracted. You talk to old men 'stead of lifting their china. You scare the wrong people. You didn't grow up Callow, and you can't stay Callow." She rushed by me with one hand to her cheek. Her fingers were spread wide, and I saw a red sore underneath, like those on the twins. She needed medicine, but none of them knew how to ask for it. She slammed the door to the hideout just behind her and I heard something scrape up against it. I gave it a knock or two; it was blocked up tight. There were other doors, but I didn't feel like trying them. I was out of the Callows. I cared about as much as I do at the ends of stories, which is to say, not hardly.

Nervousness, resignation, and something righteous all had settled in my stomach like rubble, but they weren't enough to fill me up. My stomach growled at me every time I took a step. I headed for the nearest kitchen, but it was locked up, and there were young Callows outside that already knew to give me dirty looks. I tried a couple other kitchens, but they were all locked, too, and without Durn my chances of breaking and entering were dead as lies.

There was one door I knew wouldn't be locked. The sky was lightening toward gray when I got to Shooter's house. I knocked and pushed the door open a crack. I triggered, "Welcome to the pit of terror" a couple of times. I called out, "Mister Shooter, it's me."

"Come to finish the job," came a voice from the living room.

"That's right," I said, and then felt a little stupid because it might have been the television speaking.

I crept into the kitchen. It was cold; the linoleum seemed to be pumping ice right through the thin soles of my shoes. "Thanks for not shooting me," I said, sending the words out as a sort of vanguard to test the resistance.

"No problem," said Shooter. A dim light from the living room switched on silently. I followed it to its origin, a small lamp on an end table next to Shooter's chair. The man himself was wrapped up in a blanket, only his eyes visible.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"You kids took my pills," he said.

"Yeah," I said.

Shooter coughed and twisted his face away from me. I heard a wet tearing sound, like damp paper being stripped into segments for papier-m�che. "I needed those pills," he said when it was over.

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry for the others. I'm not with them anymore."

The blanket fell away from his face as he turned to stare at me. I had gagged earlier that night when I saw him; this time my whole body shivered. My eyes filmed over for just a second, to blur out the mess, and then they cleared again. Shooter's cheeks were missing -- not empty air, but the top layers of skin were gone and I could see the ruby-fading-to-pink of fresh wounds. A limp sheet of gray flesh curved from his forehead, nearly covering his eye. He raised a hand to brush it away and I saw brown, gray, and green all mottled on his fingers and wrist. There was a gleam of white bone as he flexed his knuckles.

He stared at me for a long moment, holding the hank of skin out of the way. Then he grinned, a wide sharky grin, and said, "You don't run."

"Not much," I said. "I walk, mostly."

"That's the trouble with you kids, ones I've met. Wouldn't know to get out of the way of a speeding train, were you on the tracks."

"Last longer than you would," I said. Shooter chuckled to himself, but didn't do anything more. "What's wrong with you?" I asked.

"Disgust wearing off?" asked Shooter. I shrugged. "It's a good story." His consonants were beginning to slur. "Let's see if I can't get you back on track. It'll be my good deed for the day. You know the factory out past the bridge?"

"Some gang lives there."

"Not yours?" asked Shooter. "Well, it used to be where I worked. It was a steel plant. We poured girders for building skyscrapers with. Main room's so big it has it's own weather, something like twenty storeys high, a few acres on the ground. I worked on the highest catwalks, maintaining the gears on the pots that poured the molten steel into the channels. Shooter with his grease gun. I worked there twenty years, you know. Had blisters on my calluses, and calluses damn near everywhere.

"Statistics is what got me. You gotta watch out for those. Time I started, there were twelve of us grease monkeys. By the time my story takes place, eleven of them had taken out liability claims, and seven of those were on disability thanks to accidents. I was the last man standing, kinda. But statistics caught up with me. The day it happened, I was on storey seventeen, working on a crankshaft. I was standing in the wrong place, too near the channel, and the automated bucket started pouring while I was standing right in front of it. I got out of the way of the steel, but the bucket tipped me over. I fell, god, I don't know how many storeys. I ended up on my back, staring up into these glimmering shadows, all red from the light of the steel. I had the wind right out of me." Shooter laughed and shook his head; the way the skin of his face moved was obscene, like unwanted nudity. "Then I did the dumbest thing in my life. I rolled over to catch my breath. Guess where I was. Yeah, right next to one of the channels. I rolled myself over into liquid steel. Didn't get too deep, luckily. Had a buddy, a new guy -- I think he's still working for the company -- came and helped me out.

"Most of what I remember after that comes in the hospital. Seventy-percent of my skin was cooked right off, and the rest of it wasn't healing right, so they needed to do a full-body skin graft. Problem is, skin's just an organ like everything else, and my body rejected the transplant. That's what the pills were for, to fool my body into accepting the skin."

"Where'd you get it all?"

Shooter leaned forward and grinned at me. "We waited in alleys for children like you." I closed my eyes and, after a moment, I heard him sit back in his chair. "Moral of the story is don't work in steel, kid."

"My name's Quiet Archie," I said.

"Good name for you." I opened my eyes just as Shooter closed his. "What scares you, Quiet Archie?"

I thought about that for a while. While I did, Shooter breathed evenly. "I'm scared that if I don't get something to eat, my stomach will digest itself," I said.

Shooter smiled behind his mask of skin. "Maybe you're scared you might have to hurt someone to get your belly full."

"Sure, okay," I said.

"There's bread in the kitchen," he said.

I went to get a piece. I ate it out of sight of Shooter, and then returned to his side. He was asleep. A brush of gray light was touching the windows, so I turned the lamp off and made my way to a corner over a heating vent. I curled up and went to sleep smelling the bread on my fingers.

I woke up to the sound of screaming. Shooter had the television on again. His show was in black-and-white, and was zoomed up close on a young girl's eyes. While I was out, he had switched on several chains of orange and black fiber-optic lights; they webbed across one wall like the home of a giant spider. I heard wind outside pressing against the walls and making them creak.

"Happy Halloween," said Shooter.

"What's that?" I asked.

"When I was a kid, last day of October was Halloween. You dress up scary, you make girls fall in love with your courage, you steal candy from children, you try to scare each other to death."

"I'd get you there," I said.

"Yeah," said Shooter. He paused his movie, leaving the poor girl frozen in front of a monster with a long face.

"I can get you more pills," I said.

"It's too late," said Shooter. He grinned at me again. "I'm in the worst pain I've ever been in my life, and I just can't help but grin. I got up and looked at myself in the mirror while you were asleep. I haven't been able to stand up that long for a year, at least."

"Let me get you some more pills," I said.

Shooter shook his head and looked away, toward the window, to sever any of those conversation threads. "It's getting dark," he said. "Tell you what--" he faced me again "--there's a camera in my bedroom. Why don't you go get it."

"Okay," I said.

He pointed toward one of the doors exiting the living room. I headed toward it. "I keep a woman locked in a box under my bed," he added. I knew he was lying, but, after finding the camera sitting charged in cradle on an old wooden dresser, I kicked up the filthy blankets and took a quick peek.

"What am I doing with this?" I asked as I handed the camera to him.

"Hang on to it," he said. "It's better than words." He levered himself up out of the chair. As he stood as straight as he could manage, I heard a wet plop. Part of his scalp had fallen to the floor. "Leave it," he said. Then, "I hope not everyone out there is as docile as you."

He led me through the kitchen, triggered the "pit of terror", and stood for a moment on his front walk, breathing as deeply as he could. He was dressed in filthy, stained pajamas. He tried to unbutton the shirt, but his fingers slipped and bunched over the task. He grunted deeply and tore the fabric, exposing a back that looked like a skinned cat. "Let's go," he said. "Turn the flash on, and get ready."

I followed him at about twenty paces. He shambled through the gloom between streetlights with a limp and a few sentences of muttered pain. At the end of the block, I saw a pair of young girls playing with chalk on the concrete. They were up past their bedtime, and I could hear them giggling as if they knew it. Shooter raised his arms so his elbows were locked out straight, his hands dangling from his wrists. As he approached the girls, I crossed the street to get a better look. Shooter went dark in the shadow and then emerged, moaning terribly into halogen light. The girls looked up as one, and I flashed the expressions on their faces. Shooter took another step closer, and I flashed them again. A small puddle had formed beneath the girls, and one of them dropped everything she had to cry. The other stood up and ran. She pounded on a door as Shooter lowered himself behind a bush. The door opened and the girl slipped inside. I heard someone say, "Who are you--" before the door closed.

I crossed the street to rejoin Shooter, who was laughing so hard he had pissed his pants. They clung to his malformed legs. He was trying to be quiet, but he wasn't very good at it. "Did you see them?" he gasped. I said that I had. "Come on," he said. "Let's do some more." I agreed.

We haunted the neighborhood for a couple of hours, spreading ourselves out, never getting caught by the adults. I had nearly filled the card when we arrived back at Shooter's house. He was having to hang on to me, and I was having to breathe through my mouth because he stank so bad.

"Here," he wheezed. "Set me down here." I was more than glad to. We collapsed on his front walk, and he kept laughing so I joined in. "Show me the pictures," he said. I set the camera to review and handed it to him. His face was illuminated, made more hideous by the angled light from the display. He giggled like a little boy, muttering things like, "Oh, her expression is priceless," and, "Did you see him run." He kept laughing and laughing, and then I noticed that blood was trickling down from his eyes. He died with his mouth open, with his hands loose around the camera.

I left him outside to frighten the police. I pawed through his movie collection before I left, grabbing a few things to sell on the streets, and took what was left of the bread. I didn't take the camera because, despite what Shooter said, I thought that words were better.

I walked into the city, stopping on street corners to sell my wares bit by bit. Folks gave me weird looks when I told them what I had, but some curiosity made them buy, and I managed to get rid of all I had brought. I was just considering going back for some more when I saw someone else making a sale across the street. It was Old Tina. She had her skirt hiked up and her eyes were all dark with bloody makeup. I took a look around me and realized my feet had wandered back into Callow territory. Neither Old Tina nor I were Callows, now, but we were young enough to be a threat.

A pair of guys about Old Tina's age approached her and made low gestures I could barely see. I started across the street. I waved once, but Old Tina didn't see me. She took the two guys by the hands and led them into a dark alley. I called out and got no response.

I used a corner to slip into the alley, outlining myself as little as possible against the street lights. I had picked up a few things from the Callows. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out Old Tina up against the wall, bracing herself with her hands, as the guys peered down between her legs.

"Hey," I said. "You paying?"

"Yeah," grunted one of the guys. "Wait in line." There were two of them, so I didn't try to pick anything. They shoved their money into Old Tina's mouth. I stood by a dumpster and watched until they were finished with her. I didn't think she had recognized me, but the first thing out of her mouth after the money was, "Quiet Archie. What are you doing here?"

"I'm out, too," I said.

As she counted her money, I pulled out what I had made. "Put together, we've got enough for a room somewhere." I couldn't see her very well, but her outline was all hunched like Shooter, and her details were silver from reflected light. It looked as if her eyes were cast down. I wanted to bring them back up but kindness wouldn't cut it. "Can I tell you a story?" I asked. She sighed and I went on ahead. I told her a story about a virgin murderer who, out of envy, slaughters those children who have sex. I tried not to hold anything back, to work the rent flesh of Shooter into the words.

Maybe I should have kept the pictures.

I couldn't scare her, this time. I didn't tell it right. She punched me, as if something were all my fault, said, "There's no place for the self-aware," and sobbed. I touched her face to calm her down and felt wet skin. She hissed through her teeth. She turned away, and I could see the same open sore on her cheek as Durn and Broke had. I brought my face into the same light, looking at her as closely as I dared.

"I need some medicine," she said.

We each pulled our faces back into shadow, not like a race but like a divorce. "You and me both," I replied.
]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1143rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Ian Donnell Arbuckle) intuitive heart intelligence http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1148rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Andrew Taggart) Illegal Death Residue

]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1133rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Muayad Muhsin) Evening sun splash
Time sculpts Sarah's smoking apricot bones forever.
She drinks in the silence of the winter fog, looking for the cottage at the end of the world
Her skin's the color of maybe a million dogs.
Sarah is obscene.
Her skirt bunches up as she holds my mouth on her slender waist.
She swallows my shadow at high tide.
Sarah touches me beside the cold water.
I think I'm going to drown.
My body shivers from the turmoil.
I almost pass out.
]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1145rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Ashley Reaks) Drawing

]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=1150rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Claudio Parentela) Revolting Literature There is a spectre haunting the publishing industry: the spectre of the underground, the small press, the zine, the DIY ethos, the internet. Throughout history some of the most experimental, subversive and original works of literature have been produced outside the canon. Revolting Literature is an ongoing inquiry into books, authors and publishers rousing, transgressive and independent; creators who inflame emotion and intellect; bold iconoclasts, eccentrics and radicals re-visioning and reshaping the face of the literary world. ]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=93 Revolting Literature -- The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics
In The Real Wealth of Nations, Riane Eisler makes a compelling and thorough argument that we need to change from a "dominator" economic model to a "partnership" model. There are huge amounts of data (most of the hard numbers are in the extensive notes), and Eisler writes fluidly and gracefully.

As she lays it out, the dominator economic model is characterized by two assumptions: "that scarcity is inevitable and that human beings are inherently greedy and hence have unlimited wants and demands" (p. 33) The dominator cultural model consists of "a social structure of rigid top-down rankings, a high level of abuse and violence, and male-superior/female-inferior model of our species, and belief that justify domination and violence as inevitable and moral" (p. 97). Under these systems, "the main motivations for work are fear of pain and scarcity" (p. 33). Eisler then goes on to give example after example of how such economic/social paradigms hide their true costs, e.g., by thinking in the short term and by viewing all resources (including workers) as disposable.

The partnership model (or partnerism) that Eisler proposes as an alternative "recognizes that the development of high-quality human capital ... is (in addition to a healthy ecosystem) the most valuable component of a successful economy ... the ultimate goal of economic policy should not be the level of monetary income per person, but developing the human capabilities of each person" (p. 148). This involves ensuring greater equality between the sexes (not just legal but also economic and cultural), a wider social safety net (universal healthcare, flexible work plans, and high-quality early childhood education), market regulation to avoid rapacity on the part of governments and business, and environmental stewardship. She advocates taking a longer view than the next quarter's profits.

She backs this up with data from a bunch of studies, many of which were done in Scandinavia. Now, I can see that this is the place where you are going to make a joke about the high suicide rates in those countries. I looked those rates up: the dubious honor of the highest suicide rates are in former Soviet republics and Japan (the top Scandinavian country is Finland, at #13). So hush.

Eisler particularly argues for the need to eradicate sexism and endemic violence as the only ways to end poverty-that children raised in poverty are not only neurologically damaged by malnutrition and lack of care but are acculturated to be accustomed to violence and, thus, to perpetuate it.

So I really wanted to like this book. Ultimately, however, I found it frustrating. It was not just that I spent a week reading through all of the parts with which I already agreed: certainly the studies cited gave some pretty interesting numbers about how sustainability (both ecological and human) is actually profitable over the long term. But in the end, her call to action left me writing "HOW??" over and over in the margin: "government and business leaders must change economic rules ...", "and essential step ... is launching more accurate measures ...," "these measures must factor in the cost of environmentally and socially destructive products and policies ...," "[w]e must see to it that policymakers make a massive investment in high-quality childcare," "[w]e must show policymakers and the public the enormous benefits of investing in human development" (pp 220, 222).

Those are all great things. I read on eagerly to the section on suggestions about what each of us can do to help bring that about: "Every one of us can talk about caring in our day-to-day conversations, at home, at work, at parties, at meetings, in schools and universities, and in public spaces. If we go to PTA meetings and other places where parents congregate, we can talk about how policies that support parenting are not only good for families but for the economy ... We can write letters to the editor about caring economics. We can put blogs about it on the Internet" (p. 229).

This is profoundly dissatisfying. That's it? Like I said at the beginning, maybe I'm just grumpy, but the notion that the main thing I can do is talk frustrates me. Maybe I was hoping for a magic bullet. Certainly I was hoping for ideas about the creation of mini-economies or descriptions of actions that have worked in the past to effect true change. Riane Eisler might say, however, that she has already countered my frustration: "unless people think something is possible, they won't even try to create it" (p. 233).

PS: I may have to eat my words. In the week since I submitted this review I have done nothing but talk about this book. I've even written letters to senators. It crept up on me, and it has been a great pleasure to talk with my friends and coworkers about what we think is broken in the US and that we feel a similar level of powerlessness about changing anything. Despite my criticisms, this book sank its hooks into me. I still don't know what I think one person can do to convince The Powers that investment in humans is the only way to drive progress, and my generation is notoriously full of slackers, but I was talking about nationalized healthcare plans on the train on Wednesday, and as I looked around, I realized that at least five people were actively listening. That's something---right?

]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=93&subID=787rss_feed@mungbeing.com (Virginia M. Mohlere) Revolting Literature -- Discipline Discipline, claims to enlighten the reader as to the intricate "inter-relatedness-of-it-all" between finance, economics, physics, and Taoism; a feat of post-modern application akin to climbing Everest. Unfortunately, this claim failed to reach the peak of it's possibilities, and Discipline reads like a disjointed journal of angst, personal discovery, and throwing theories in-between paragraphs like glitter: shiny, distracting, and hard to dust off.
There are a lot of dynamic teasers here. Douglas Cole is a special young man born into unfortunate circumstances. His father and brother are killed in a freak car accident, and his mother is a two-timing drunk whore who steals his inheritance. Like everyone around Douglas, his mother dies, as well as his friends. Death seems to follow him everywhere he goes, and to hide from the Reaper's icy breath he finds comfort in booze and the old faithful reality-altering LSD. This is where things stop being emo, and start getting weird.
In Discipline, LSD is not just a part of mental experimentation, but a gateway drug to bending time and space. At the same time LSD was part of a government experiment, a more powerful mind-altering drug was in the works . A mad scientist, by the name of Groeden, saw its potential to allow people to "burst," an event that allows people to transcend all physics, and become somewhat of a Neo Matrix hero. Groeden, however, can never get it to work, and he becomes disgruntled and evil, and stalks those talented few in the world to try and glean their secrets.

One of the few is Douglas. Of course, he doesn't know it, and the rest of the novel features Cole experiencing a philosophical and quantum mechanical bildungsroman, through the guidance of Jack and Jefferson, friends from the future. Of course, one man's bildungsroman is another man's epic battle, and Cole's progress through each step towards transcendence is punctuated by bloody skirmishes with Groeden.
Despite all the suspenseful and thrilling potential, the book packs plot but lacks pacing. The old adage "show, don't tell" is overlooked in the entire novel with hundreds of pages of summation. Cole sees a cute girl, Cole makes love to the girl, but what she looked like or what she, or he, was like in bed is left up to the reader. Of course, Cole's sex life is not important, but it is in instances like those that could make Cole a more interesting character, and make this dimensional-bending book more dimensional.
Ahlgren is obviously a very knowledgeable scholar of eastern philosophy, physics, and finances. Despite Discipline's flaws, he does a great job of explaining and making the theories relevant to the novel's action. However, the marriage of Taoism and Wall Street only loosely exist in Cole's world, and never extends into our own. It's a shame too, I could use a good stock tip.
]]> http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_14.html?articleID=93&subID=788rss_feed@mungbeing.com (SJ Chambers) Declining and Falling CONSTANTIUS I, GALERIUS, SEVERUS, MAXENTIUS, MAXIMINUS DAIA
The fatal bitterness that had come to keep Docletian company at his palace, and turned the balm secreted by his cabbages to gall, was well assisted by the knowledge that his carefully planned succession scheme was collapsing, lost and unmourned in a vast pit excavated by Ambition, redoubled as this elementary portion of human nature cast off its unnatural legislative fetters. Between 305 and 313, a protracted civil war raged in the Empire, a complex yarn of those seeking sole power and those content merely to secure a place in power. It was a welter of alliance, treachery, intrigue and open war that tested the mettle that was the ability of those who entered the fray that devoured the Tetrarchy.

In 305, Galerius succeeded to the Imperial authority in the East as Constantius did so in the West, the new junior partners, Maximinus Daia and Severus assuming their places with only a scant deficiency of purple upon their robes. Constantius was esteemed in a wide manner, a popular and even partly cultured general that had seen battle on a score of fronts and was the darling of his soldiers. His Caesar, Severus, by contrast was a nonentity who could scarcely move the stylus of an historian of the age. Stronger feelings of animosity were directed against Galerius and Daia in the East. Galerius was another of the rough-hewn men of the countryside who had risen in the army ranks and there cultivated a reputation for severity through his intemperate use of discipline and punishments. The purple silk was not able to obscure the form of the bore that wore it. His eyes provided a residence for an almost terrifying fire, alarm and panic the sure condition of anyone who was presented with their full, penetrating gaze. Galerius was alert to the possibilities of persecution and its ability to turn away the glance of an affronted and discontented public, lions pouncing in the amphitheatres to devour his unease and the obstinacy of Christians. His junior partner, Maximinus Daia, was all of swell of belly and greed for wine, and showed little interest in matters removed from the dining table, although he did feign an interest in literature and philosophy, patronizing authors though slumbering through their recitals, in an effort to conceal his origins, as mean and home-spun as his Emperor.

This state of affairs might have continued on with some measure of stability, however, Diocletian had not reckoned on, nor anticipated the rise of two true sons of Ambition, one Maximian's boy, Maxentius, the other the child of Constantius, Constantine. These two had surveyed the Empire and discerned a place for themselves in it, the sole command of the world.

Constantine from very early on had been a beloved figure amongst his fellow troops, impressed by his martial prowess and his easy affability, and such affection would not depart from him, but cleave itself to him all the more closely as the years advanced and serve him well. At the time of Diocletian's abdication in 305, Constantine was serving on the Emperor's staff and entertained notions of a rise to the rank of Caesar. Dashed and inwardly infuriated by the appointment of Daia to the post of Caesar, Constantine sought to quit Diocletian's service and join his father in Britain. Permission granted him, Constantine, whose devoted service to Diocletian yielded a most impressive partiality that excited the jealousy of Galerius and Daia, departed suddenly and rode quickly in order to outpace agents who had pursued him in order to gratify that envy with the sudden thrust of a dagger. Passing into the West, he continued to pound down a rain of hoof until his lathered horses sank legs into the brine of the channel. Passing the channel, Constantine soon reached his father's encampment and joined him at once in planning a punitive campaign against the savage Picts who had again erupted out of the wilds of Scotland and poured down upon Britain, subjecting the island to the fiery arts of predation. Constantine donned helmet and armour and cast himself into battle, proving himself a most formidable warrior, interdicting a thousand thrusts of Pictish spears from the mobile fortress that was his horse, earning acclaim and ensuring victory for Constantius. These triumphs provided a certain habitation upon which Constantine's aspirations strode forth toward the title of Caesar. Constantius had been induced by Galerius to accept Severus as his junior partner; he would much rather have had named Constantine to the post, and these paternal, dynastic feelings were only eand#0110;hanced by the weight of illness, a bout of leukemia crushing him. However, duty to the Tetrarchy and obedience to Galerius overrode these tender familial feelings, and it was Severus who was attired with the name of Caesar and promised that of Emperor in due time.

This was scotched, when in July 306, Constantius' health, collapsing rapidly, suddenly succumbed to the blow of the death goddess Libitina. The love and devotion of his troops at once saluted Constantine as the purple was reverently draped about his shoulders to deafening cheers and the clamour of swords striking against the shields with the most ferocious abandon. Although Constantius had no intention of his son succeeding, Constantine, impelled by his friends and partisans who feared the affront of Galerius, peddled the fiction that Constantine had been embraced by his expiring father and garbed in the name of Emperor.

Galerius' entire face was consumed in the flames that his eyes had birthed upon reading the dispatch passed to him by trembling messenger's hands of Constantine's accession. Galerius' fiery stare met the terrified glance of his ministers, ashen in the recognition that he could do little about Constantine's presumption but relieve Constantine's robe of a fair portion of purple, reducing him to the rank of Caesar. Galerius promptly named Severus Emperor and bade the messenger to cease his trembling and make haste to the West, there to bid Severus to make his appearance at the capital, Milan.

At this time, another complication was to beset the sputtering health of Diocletian's Tetrarchy. Maxentius, the ambitious and scheming son of Maximian, who, much as Constantine, had expected to succeed his father and had been mortified and inwardly outraged at the turn of circumstance that passed him over for another, was installed in a villa not far from Rome. There, amidst the opulent cool of the garden and the porticoes, he plotted with his friends and allies and partisans who expected to enjoy the full measure of his generosity. They were encouraged by Maxentius' partiality to Rome and the favour he would show it as Emperor, gratifying many in the Eternal City who had been offended over Rome's diminishment, and feared the inevitable appearance of the collector for the state revenue in their own municipality. When at last the fortunes of the nobles and Senators dwelling upon the opulent Palatine and Capitoline Hills were exposed to taxation, the gates of Rome swung open to admit Maxentius, who with much acclaim and celebration that reddened goblet and arena sands, assumed the Imperial status in October, 306.

Maxentius was the rare conflation of the ambitious and the calculating, bound up in circumspection and care, and this combination sought to secure the recognition of Galerius. When these latest tidings of usurpation in the West were presented him, Galerius again kindled ferocious flame in eyes and shot out from them, a spray of sparks that sought to alight upon the pretentious robes of Maxentius and set them afire, felling into ash the structure of Maxentius' coup. Galerius commanded Severus to quit Milan, where he had scarcely established himself and marched on Rome. Maxentius deftly and rapidly sought support, obtaining the allegiance of the governors in North Africa and Sicily as Severus sluggishly mustered his soldiers unattached to and unimpressed by his nonentity, vainly informing them of the offense to his Majesty.

Maxentius further courted support by enlisting the aid of his father, Maximian. Maximian had vegetated and decayed in the confines of his provincial rest home with little more to do but extend the purple blot upon his tunic and he eagerly doffed the floppy cap of an old Roman man and donned for a second time the name of Emperor, hastening at once to Rome. There, he appealed to the mob to swarm to the standards in the defense of his title, but Maxentius doubted the efficacy of such a course. Maxentius appealed to Lucre, throwing open the doors of the Mint, and appropriated a vast hoard of coinage as Severus' sullen army approached. The swords of Severus' army melted before the massed glint of coins that were offered them by Maxentius to defect from their sovereign, as Maxentius' agents infiltrated the camp of Severus. The unfortunate Severus, informed of the sudden and easy reversal of his army's adherence, betook himself to a swift steed and attempted a flight, but he was pursued, as Maxentius' agents having slain his reign, now at a tiny, sordid and filthy inn at Tres Tabernae, not far from Rome, pounced upon Severus, slaying the man.

Back at the Eastern capital of Nicomedia, Galerius, in April of 307 resolved to invade Italy. The legions were summoned and led on a rapid march that devoured generations of boots, and soon attained the further confines of Italy. But there, as he encamped with his exhausted army, the effective spies of Maxentius entered the camp, observed the insecure loyalty of Galerius' army and again purchased the transfer of an army's loyalty. Galerius, in his turn was deserted, forced to take to flight, only with the utmost of difficulty extricating himself from the designs of Maxentius' agents and passed the Alps, returning again to Nicomedia. Maxentius attempted to further secure his position in the Empire by concluding an alliance with Constantine, seen as the possessor of the finest arms in the realm. Maxentius' sister, Fausta, grasping and scheming as the pedigree of her family would dictate, and quite afire with passion for Constantine and discerning him already the sole master of the Empire and the sole route that would gratify her ambition was soon married to Constantine. Maxentius felt himself secure and enabled to force the recognition of Galerius, and he strode about Rome, seeking and achieving the acclaim of the populace. His father, Maximian, a by-stander to events, glowered, quaffed large draughts of wine from his goblet, staining his tunic ever more, and sunk into an obscurity. The weight of this set upon and soon crushed any semblance of paternal affection towards Maxentius who seemed not the least inclined to reserve even a sliver of throne for his father. Driven by this recognition, Maximian set down his goblet, gathered a few doddering and ineffective old partisans about him and attempted a coup against his son. This was easily suppressed, and the frantic Maximian was obliged to make a hasty flight from Rome to beseech and beg sanctuary from Constantine and Fausta in Gaul, where they had established a court. Maximian was taken in, the shame of his fall and his status as refugee from his own son vainly drowned in the harsh, biting local vintage, the very taste of humiliation.

Galerius, having returned to his capital, Nicomedia, fumed over the collapse of the Tetrarchy, over which he was to play the leading and ordaining role. At length he roused Diocletian out of retirement and away from the love of his cabbages, to attend a hastily convoked conference near Diocletian's palace where, under a glare of lamps and by a collection of helmet set upon the table, as scrolls were unrolled and passed about, a new state of affairs was to be wrought and ratified. One Licinius, a friend of Galerius, was elevated to the Emperorship of the West, and Constantine was officially confirmed in his title as Caesar. Another scroll was unrolled with particular venom, one that bore upon it an ultimatum for Maxentius to surrender his ill-gotten title that was still strengthened and nourished by the attachment of Italy and Sicily and North Africa to its cause. Licinius stood up from the table, clenching the scroll, and declared that he would seize these territories as his rightful inheritance, donned his helmet and strode out of the hall to commence his advance immediately. In early 309, as Licinius approached the confines of Italy, he slowed the advance of his legions, fearing the venal weapons of Maxentius, and made only tentative forays into Italy. At this point, a rebellion arose in North Africa, and adorned one Alexander Pius Felix with the purple, who was driven by the thought of the consequences of failure to sustain the mutiny for over a year, until it was suppressed in late 309 and Alexander slain by Maxentius' Commander of the Praetorians, Volusianus.

Maximian had by this time recovered his wits and rebuffed the call of despair, settling in quite well with Constantine, acting as an adviser, and when the weight and cares of rule bore down too heavily upon Constantine, Maximian embraced him and tended to him as a devoted father-in-law. But as Maximian revived, his gratitude to Constantine failed and at length perished. In early 310 Maximian again succumbed to visions that pictured him draping the purple about himself for a third time, and made a bid for the Imperial title. Constantine had departed his court to engage in another campaign against the Franks who had again violated the Rhine frontier. Maximian had been invited to accompany Constantine, and had agreed with alacrity. Feigning discomfort in the army camp, Maximian begged leave to return to court, departed, although instead making a speedy journey to Arles in the south of Gaul, there to announce in a face gleamed in tears that Constantine had died, slain in battle with the barbarian, and that he had been called to once more assume the name of Emperor. Constantine, his shade still within the confines of his flesh, leather and armour, learned of the usurpation, cursed the treachery of the old man and moved at once against Maximian. Word was sent ahead to Arles to arrest Maximian, and only by devious arts did he evade the officer, and fled to Massilia, eventually to be known as Marseilles, seeking shelter and a final cordon of defense for his unraveling portion of the purple. The mere approach of Constantine compelled the city to throw open its gates and to surrender the weeping form of Maximian to Constantine. Maximian was bound at Constantine's instruction and cast into prison. There, in the dim confines and dimmer prospects of his incarceration, Maximian sank quickly and did not revive. His desperation shortly thereafter fashioned one of the ties of his capture into an avenue of escape and he hung himself, the once exalted partner of Diocletian perishing by his own hand.

In the East, Maximinus Daia was the name in the ascendant. After Galerius had attempted to stamp with the impress of Order the unraveling condition of the Tetrarchy, he had returned to Nicomedia and there gradually was devoured by a most frightful cancer of the bowels, his once trim and bellicose figure turned to a mass of vanquished, decomposing flesh. By May of 310, his continuing decline compelled the surrender of his authority to Daia. Galerius was transferred to his deathbed shortly thereafter, the food of his malady throwing off a dreadful stench, his belly become a home for worms, and though his eyes had yielded the ability to command, the fire in them having fled through the edicts of illness, Galerius' temper remained to bind his doctors in affright as they approached him and to send them to the axe when they could not lessen his pains. The church historian Lanctantius declared this yet another sign of the divine vengeance directed against a pagan persecutor. Galerius himself, as the ulcers ate deeply into him, by early 311 became inclined to agree, and conceived a notion, hastened by his terror of death and the failure of his own divinities to arrest his affliction, that he had offended the Christian god, and at once, waving an arm runny in decay, summoned his scribes to his bedside and bade them to compose an edict that halted the persecution that had ground steadily on throughout the Empire and declared freedom of worship for all. Galerius at once ceased the manufacture of new martyrs and called upon the Christian priests to invoke the aid of martyrs of old to work his cure, promising all due assistance to the followers of the Nazarene, calling for the construction of churches and the repair of those claimed by his earlier edicts. It was, however, too late for Galerius, who soon thereafter perished.

Maximinus Daia might now have expected to assume the Imperial title in the East, but he was at once challenged by Licinius, who had abandoned his claim to the West with the passing of Galerius and redirected his legions that had tarried at the foggy, pine-clad northeastern extremity of Italy towards the sunnier and wealthier climate of Nicomedia. Daia, seething with rage at this presumption, attempted to woo popular support through a promise to end the excessive taxation of Galerius, and to commence the hosting of games and the bubbling up of wine in fountains. This did not halt the advance of Licinius, and Daia was compelled to draw the sword and glumly follow in the train of his legions. The forces of Daia and Licinius met upon a Balkan plain to cross swords, but the clash was of a short duration, Daia very much alienated from the privations of camp and seeking a rapid return to Nicomedia through accommodation rather than victory. He sent emissaries to Licinius, who admitted them into his tent, and setting his helmet aside on the table listened intently as the messengers declared in the most solemn of tones that Daia was quite prepared to divide the East with Licinius. Licinius would be confirmed in the possession of the Balkans, whilst the remainder of the East would continue in its allegiance to Daia. Licinius agreed to an easy possession of a portion of the East, rising from his chair. As the messengers departed the tent, Licinius beamed broadly and informed his officers gathered about him in a tight knot that the remainder of the East would eventually be his, delivered to him through the behaviour of the swinish Daia. Daia set out at once to effect Licinius' prophecy, increasing the burden of taxation, rekindling the flames of punishment against the enemies of the gods and drowning in a flood tide of wine.

In 312, Constantine, encouraged by Licinius' withdrawal from the West, crossed the Alps in order to gratify his drive towards the supreme and sole power. Maxentius, aware that his weapons of venality and treachery would be useless against the troops of Constantine bound to him ineluctably through devotion, hastily called his soldiers to the standards, and directed them to halt Constantine's advance at the foot of the Alps. Maxentius' army marched sluggishly and with trepidation, the thought of a clash with the invincible legions of Constantine a debilitating one. This made heavy the swords and most slippery the shields in their hands, and when they sighted the army of Constantine outside Verona, the clash of steel was minimal, the flight of Maxentius' army immediate. Constantine's advance on Rome was now certain.

Maxentius was in a dither, pacing the marble and reflecting upon his indiscretions and dalliances in Rome. His years of rule there had coincided with his pursuit of the wives of others and the return of taxation to the Eternal City to refill the coffers that his ambition to rule had emptied. The mob had not been indulged, their penchant to riot had not been rewarded with bread and wine and games but punished with the massacre of them in the thousands. Maxentius gazed out the window of the palace to the westward onto the vast expanse of the city and scanned for signs of support, but saw them minute and fading, as already the thunder of Constantine's advance might be heard.

By the fall of 312, Constantine had pitched camp outside the walls of Rome, as Maxentius had hurriedly impressed a swarm of slaves to increase their height, summoning the support of stones and not soldiers. At length, Maxentius despaired of the prospects of a siege, and of the revolt that would follow as the larders of the city were exhausted. Grimly, he summoned his anxious ministers, donning armour and unsheathing the blade and informed them that he had no choice but to stake all on a battle outside the city with Constantine. A muster of troops was called to the standards to defend the title of Maxentius, but they were of the most doubtful quality, armed with even more questionable implements. To the silence of the populace, they issued out of the main gate of Rome, which redounded to the ears of Maxentius, who with a snarl, spurred on his steed, and galloped out through the gate and leading his doubtful force onto the wooden Mulvian Bridge that spanned the Tiber. He halted at the far end, espying the forces of Constantine in the distance and gaped, as the legions of Constantine were bearing Christian standards. Maxentius muttered imprecations over the sudden and seemingly inexplicable conversion, raised his sword and called the advance. The battle was a most unequal struggle, Constantine's men, driven by their devotion and their zeal to Lords both earthly and heavenly, speedily cut through Maxentius' army, shattering them, quickly converting their advance into a retreat and eventually, a flight. Maxentius' forces cast away their swords, and streamed back across the bridge, flooding in through the main gate that had swung open in a bid to admit them into a sanctuary. The rickety wooden bridge, however, could not bear the weight of such numbers teeming upon it and it collapsed into the Tiber, Maxentius with the better part of his army hurled down into the current of the river, expiring in the foam churned by the drowning amidst the cries of the vanquished. The control of the West had passed exclusively to Constantine.

In 313, affairs in the East were also settled. Licinius had attempted to consolidate his position in the Empire through marriage to Constantine's half-sister. Allied to Constantine, Licinius would be unassailable and the East would pass quickly to him. Daia resolved that Licinius' presumption must be chastised, and called his troops to arms, and swallowed his disdain of an existence in an army camp for the sake of keeping both his crown and head from toppling from his shoulders. Licinius, assuming that the time for seizing sole control of the East had arrived, also gave his soldiers the command to march, and the two armies rapidly met at Hadrianople in Thrace, to the northeast of Greece. Daia's army far outnumbered that of Licinius, but superior tactics and strategy filled the gaps in the line of battle of Licinius swiftly presenting Daia with defeat. Licinius' army also bore the standard of the Cross before them, and drew forth zeal and vigour from it. It was further elevated by the word that Daia, as filled with hatred for Christianity as love for wine, had vowed that after success in battle, to be entirely attributed to Mars, he would stoke another persecution of flame and furor and destroy the foes of Olympus.

Daia quit battle, as the harried and gore-smeared survivors of battle tore into his tent and announced the ruin of his army. He threw away his helmet and tore off his amour, calling for the tattered dress of a slave to cover his escape, and attended by a few devoted officers, slunk out of the camp and sought horses from a nearby village, in a bid to race eastward to Antioch and there appeal for support. Daia had hoped that the rugged pass of the Taurus Mountains in the depths of Asia Minor would bar the advance of Licinius long enough for him to raise yet another army. This might still reve