The Future Of Past-Life Regression

My brother and sister bloggers have begun posting Halloween thoughts and I decided to join them. October is time for such things. This haunted world is bound to share some secrets, some enigmas, but you mustn't be too scared. I will begin with a spooky picture!

It happened while I was driving. Old VW air-cooled aluminum-magnesium engines are noisy beasts at best and, after 40, 50 years of driving them, one learns to listen for anomalies, the enigmatic, the supernatural. There was a thin, high-pitched, hesitant voice coming from the back of my mind or number three piston was unscrewing its spark plug again. Both have happened before and I knew the drill. I marshalled as much mind-power as I could spare from traffic and thought in my best I-AM-OZ commanding mentation, "Who ARE you?" To which a startled voice replied:

"Poppy."

Geo.: Well, that's a pretty flower and a pretty name. Where are you, and when are you?

Poppy: I'm at personnel, interviewing for my first job out of high school and it's October, 3014.

Geo.: And you're in my head because?

Poppy: Because that's how they select and place employees now, by examining past lives of applicants.

Geo.: And we share a soul.

Poppy: I guess. I don't know. I'm really nervous and scared. They're asking me stuff.

Geo.: Who?

Poppy: The panel from Human Resources, but mainly this lady from Psychic Administration. I'm all hypnotized and I don't like it one bit. Help?

Geo.: Hah! Funny old mess to get born and find yourself in. Of course I'll help. What's she asking?

Poppy: I told her I felt I was moving. She wants to know what I'm moving in.

Geo.: Tell her it's the Official Grand Oscar Meyer Popemobile of the Emperor Of Planet Earth. Can you show her the picture?

Poppy: Y..Yes, but she'll never believe...oh my gosh! She's clapping and jumping up and down!

Geo.: Good. She's weak in history. Now I'm going to pull into a little park and send another pic. Tell her I'm banishing the big bad old dinosaurs.

Poppy: Yikes! She's raising one eyebrow. Bad sign, Geo.

Geo.: You're catching on quick, Poppy. Tell her I'm still a half-mile away, wait a minute and show her THIS:

Poppy: Oh my gosh, she's buying it!

Geo.: Ok Poppy. Now tell her, as Emperor Of Earth I'm invoking a Multimillenial Paradigm Shift-Singularity Confluence Quantum New Age Coherence to insure universal supremacy of whatever dumbass company you're applying to.

Poppy: Got it! Oh no, she wants to know what regulative authority to consult! I'm frightened.

Geo.: You still fasten things with screws in 3014?

Poppy: (sniff) Uh huh.

Geo.: Then tell her to follow guidelines of the International Screw Thread Committee. They've kept things standardized throughout past history. Empires rise and fall but the world can't do without standardized screw threads.

Poppy: Screw threads, ok. Anything else?

Geo.: Yeah Poppy. Listen. Much as I like you, I don't want you regressing to this past life of yours again for the same reason I don't regress to mine. We all share a soul but each plenipotentiary is entitled to his or her privacy. Understand?

Poppy: Yes Geo., I...I think so. Goodbye... thanks for helping me.

Geo.: My privilege, my pleasure. Now get outta here, I gotta drive.

Poppy's Tardy Yuletide Time Travel Enigma

I was awakened from deep meditation by an unusual sound. Vintage Western Electric telephone outrang my snores. I picked up: "Poppy, is it you?"

"Uh huh. Yes Geo., I need some advice."
"Poppy, you know I don't give advice --only suggestions--so we'll do this by the book."
"Ok (sniff)."
"Now, what is the nature of your temporal enigma?"
"I don't quite know. I'm not sure."
"Alright, where are you and when are you?"
"I'm in London. It's 1905."
"And what are you doing there?"
"Well, I was monitoring and sort of assisting Nellie Bly's 1887 journalistic effort,  'Trying to Be a Servant: My Strange Experience at Two Employment Agencies'."
"On view-screen, please Poppy."
"Ok, Geo. Here:"

"Yes, I see you Poppy."
"Then I tried going uptime 23 years to see how things turned out."
"Standard procedure. I believe the first labor exchanges in the UK opened in 1910. Good job!"
"Thanks, but there's a problem."
"Again, please describe the nature of..."
"Oh shut up! Look!

"Gosh, you're five years short and kissing Santa Claus. Tell me about it."
"Well, it's still February first but only four years short. Santa  --at least I think he's Santa-- had a problem in 1905."
"Poppy, I am all attention."
"Oh, I met him when he came down the chimney in the house I rented. He said his reindeer were stolen from the roof top. We fell in love. Then..."
"Poppy, I'm a bit surprised. Time travelers aren't supposed to get quite so involved."
"What should I do? Can you fix this, Geo.?"
"Hmm, perhaps. Is  he there? Is he with you now?"
"Uh huh."
"Put him on the phone."

"Hello?"
"Hello,  uh sir, I am Geo. and would like to ask a couple questions."
"Of course, but only two questions?"
"Two should suffice. What color are the eyes of your missing reindeer?"
"Blue."
"Hmmm. What color were their eyes six months ago?"
"Goldy-yellow, sort of."

"Thank you, Santa. Please get Poppy back on the line."

"Poppy?"
"Yes, Geo."
"Poppy, he's the real deal. I suggest you take him to Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, 1851, where a student author, whose name is given only as A. B., writes of the appearance, at a Christmas party, of  'that jolly... old elf, Santa Claus... and... Mrs. Santa Claus to help him.' That is the earliest reference I can find to his female companion." 

"We're on our way."
"And Poppy, do send me some sign of your progress."

There was a slight pause, then this appeared on the view-screen:

Only a true resident of the Arctic would so readily supply the little-known differences in reindeer eye-color from winter to summer. And of course, temporal regression to 1851 allowed all concerned to circumvent the theft of that magical team. From 1851, Poppy and Santa lived happily ever after --and even after that and, of course, before as well. Good thing, too --I like getting presents.




  

Poppy's Evaluaton

[Time Traveler Evaluation Transcript]

Computer screen went momentarily blank and static fizzed from the speaker. I was not alarmed. That is what one may expect when the cross-time circuit engages in the router.  Still, I hazarded a cautionary sniff, no burning insulation, just a hint of ozone and sea air. I addressed the little microphone: "Poppy, is it you?" Readers wishing to familiarize themselves with Poppy may click here.

A soft, thin voice issued from the speaker. "Geo. It's evaluation time and I might need some help."

"Of course, Poppy. Where are you, and when are you?"

"I'm in my little apartment in San Francisco, looking out the window. It's 1956. I just came back up after checking my mailbox downstairs. One of the envelopes was unsealed and there was just a note inside."

"No address?

"No. No names either. The note was penciled on a little strip of paper.

"Torn or cut?"

"Both. Torn, but on top there's a tiny sawtooth cut. And there are a couple smudges like ink. Oh, I know! It's newsprint --a bit of newspaper margin torn from a page!"

"What's it say, Poppy?"

"It says, 'Sidewalk cafe across the street. See me.' All I need to do is find a person there with a newspaper."

"Very good! Now what do you see out your window?"

"Ten people sitting at the cafe, all with newspapers! Oh gosh, there must be some other identifying feature."

"Hold your communicator lens close to the note and e-mail it through the time-router. It'll appear over this transcript. Got it, thanks."

"I think it only got one word, Geo. Is that ok?"

"It's enough, Poppy. Look at the shape of the three letters. See anything unusual?"

"Yes, all upper case and all either shorter on the left or leaning to the right, as if...as if..."

"As if whoever wrote them is accustomed to leaving room for some other notation. Something that always appears at the upper left corner of... "

"A crossword square number! Yes, out the window, one of the ten people with newspapers has a pencil and is working the puzzle page!"

"Go! and tell me what happens. I'll wait."

Ten minutes passed. Poppy resumed transmission: "Geo., I went up to the puzzle lady and handed her the note. She said, 'Bingo!' Then I asked her if I had passed my evaluation and she said it wasn't her call. Whom do I talk with? How do I find out?

"Poppy, there was more to the exercise than tracing the note. It also tested your readiness to use available resources to solve the problem. I'm sure you'll receive a glowing evaluation."

"But she said it wasn't her call."

"She's right."

"So how can you be sure I passed?"

"Because it was my call, Poppy, and my privilege."



 

Poppy's Gender

In an effort to resolve last month's ambiguity regarding Poppy, I offer the following transcript:

It begins with a few favorite objects, a brass leaf that one holds and twiddles in avoidance of nicotinic meditation, a smooth stone from the French Riviera and a little wooden plug that popped out of the furniture. One sets them side by side. One gets out the watercolors and pencil and it begins.

I draw them. I doodle. I paint. I return the enchanted objects to their place on the sideboard and return myself to the sketch pad. Decidedly, I doodle some more. After I label the doodle, the eyes appear. I recognize them immediately.

"Poppy?"

"Geo.?"

"Yes?"

"What's this thing on my nose?"

I could say it's nothing --hardly noticeable-- but one look at her eyes and one understands the danger of casual falsehood. I can't lie to Poppy, not because she won't believe me but because she WILL, utterly and profoundly. Lying to Poppy and having her believe it is not something one wants on one's conscience.

"It is a doodle, a doodle of a very smooth pebble from the French Riviera."

"It's not very big, is it?"

"Each stone is a study of the world done in little, Poppy."

"Well, I have a question."

"Okeydoke, what?"

"It's about a report you sent in a while back, called 'Pumpkin Pants, Evolution Or Creation?' Was that entirely factual?"

"Well Poppy, I'm a bit surprised. You know the present is only marginally dependent upon the relative past, but past and present both are predicated on another temporal area."

"You're saying the past..."

"Falls out of the future, Poppy, as does the present."

"Wait a second, you know I'm writing this down, don't you?"

"This is my evaluation, isn't it?"

"Yep, and you passed, Geo."

"Thanks, kid."

"Oh boy, now I get to say it: My pleasure, and my privilege."

"Everybody knows you're a girl now too, Poppy."

"Oh yeah? Well...well...same to them!"

Poppy Works The Now Harvest

To resume: "Hello Poppy!"

"Hello Geo.! So glad I finally got through."

"Poppy, the backporch phone is calibrated for the Hawking radiation signal spectrum."

"Uh huh... That's the only frequency that can escape from where I am."

"Did you fall in a hole? Poppy, you ok?"

"I guess. It's these shoes. I was assigned to explore humanity's place, its role in the Cosmos. I walked and walked, poked into ages and eons then walked some more. I was walking across The Einstein-Rosen Bridge when I realized I'd worn out my footwear. I stopped to lean on the railing. The view was wonderful! That's when it happened."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No...Yes, I fell through a hole in my shoe! A Black Hole! Is your view-screen still in the living room, Geo.?"

"Yes, of course. I'll patch your x-ray transmissions through to my hearing aids and go down the hall...

....What am I looking at here, Poppy? It's blurry!"

"Well, Geo., they're sunflowers that bloom above the clouds, and put your glasses on. No offense, but your photos are crappy. Could you get Norma to do the rest?"

"Ok, better. What's that thing flying around?"

"That's my rocket ship, Geo. It's called "Harvester".

"Gee, the sunflowers are huge."

"No Geo., they're normal, only about ten, twelve feet high. Everything else is miniaturized by gravitational compression. Sunflowers thrive on all the trapped light in here. Their seeds are the only form of local currency and are collected in rocket ships. Lookee:"

"Gosh, Poppy, it's like watching a hummingbird go from blossom to blossom."

"Yes, very close analogy. Except this isn't seasonal; this is all the time."

"Ah, as in a Black Hole, time doesn't proceed sidereally --as determined by the stars."

"Right. It's always just NOW. I know worlds go through adolescent phases where everybody wants to live in the present, the exclusive now, and that's ok, I guess."

"But?"

"But, Geo., even though NOW is just fine, I hate being stranded in it. Seed harvest is hard work!"

"There's no tragedy in hard work, Poppy. I've done enough of it. What you need is a plan." 

"I'm open to suggestions, Geo."

"Land, spend your seeds, get your shoes resoled, refuel Harvester and put the pedal to the metal."

"What heading?"

"Hmmm,  Barrie good question. 'Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning.'"

"But I can't see any stars from here. It's all one light! No up. No down!"

 "Then try forward, Poppy."

"Oh my gosh it WORKED!!!!!"

"Thought it might. Forward has always been one of my favorite directions."

"Should I go back to the Einstein-Rosen Bridge?"


"If you wish, but I'd steer clear of this part of it."

"Because?"

"Superbowl's coming to Santa Clara. All Bay Area bridges will be clogged up."

"Even theoretical ones, Geo.?"

"Especially theoretical ones, Poppy. Now look for that star."

"Second on the right, right?"

"Right, and straight on 'til morning."

Poppy At Esterháza

"My advisor  sent me to find you."

"Your advisor sent you to find the gardener?"

"Uh huh. You are the gardener, aren't you?

"Yes, er..."

"Poppy*. I'm Poppy. They said to give you this. I don't know why."

"Well Poppy, it's a hall pass with a question mark on the back. Don't worry, gardeners don't give tests. It means I should ask you some things. First, what am I doing?"

"Ha! don't you know?

"You first."

"You're trimming an Italian Cypress into a candlestick shape. I like the little topknot. It looks like flame.

"Thanks, that was the effect I was after. How did you identify the shrub?"

"I have a good memory for patterns...how things grow...but, I'm..."

"Shy perhaps?" 

"Who told you that, Girls League Council? Did they tell you I'm shy, that I didn't make the cut on their Precision Giggling Team?"

"Their what?"

"Where they walk around in a group and look at someone and laugh all at once. It makes people feel awful. It's destructive! I thought I could join up and change it."

"You did."

"Huh? I...did what?"

"You made the cut, Poppy. They didn't. Here, take this rake, get the clippings into a little pile there."

"I'm confused. Is this like work-study? I help the gardener? What's going on?"

"Look, on the giggling team you learned how groups work in unison, achieve power, and you learned how to improve them, humanize them from within, person by person. You live in a world remote from privation, war, injustice and greed, where people may live their lives to full measure. How do you think that happened?"

"Government by discussion?"

"Very good! But the threats of the past did not disappear by themselves. Agents are dispatched into the past to join it, to persuade individuals to make adjustments, private adjustments toward tolerance, peace, generosity and kindness. Here, keep this."

"You just wrote 'Esterházy' on my hall pass."

"You know Haydn? The Farewell Symphony?"

"Yes, from orchestra class."

"What happens in the final movement?"

"It, um, goes about four minutes and then strange things happen."

"That's right, the group changes from within, stages a protest but never misses a note and it will be successful because you'll be there. That's your assignment. Check with me afterwards --I'll be in the garden at Esterháza. Look for candlestick Cypresses."

"This is crazy. That's over a thousand years ago!"

"Which is why I won't know you, Poppy. We will not have met yet. Just grab a rake and show me your hall pass. I'll sign it and all temporal variables will  reset so neither of us remembers the other."

"Ok, see ya!"

"See ya."

 
_____________________________________________________
*
Poppy precedent

Poppy Again

"Hello?"

"Hello?"

"It's me, Poppy. Is this a bad time?"

"I've been busy with paperwork and phone calls and suffering a degree of ambivalence, but no."

"Ambivalence?"

"It means I'm of two minds about something but welcome the break."

"Then it is a bad time to contact you."

"Not at all, it's just 2014, an election year between election years. When are you, where are you and what's going on?"

"It's 1517, Geo. I'm in Italy at the house of Francesco del Gioconda."

"Ok, that rings a bell, two bells in fact. But why are you using a computer instead of a telephone or telepathy?"

"Because no telephones and our telepathy splits up at your end lately."

"It'll pass. On second thought, how are you using a computer in 1517? "

"I brought my iPad, and it seems to connect to the internet when the artist is around.

"Artist?"

"Uh huh, he's been painting Mrs. Giocondo's portrait."

"Lisa del Giocondo?"

"They call her Mona here.

"Poppy, Mona is a contraction of  'mia' or 'ma donna', like we shorten 'my dame' to 'madam' to 'ma'am'. It's a title of respect, of rank. But about the artist..."

"You mean Leo? He's really good but getting impatient, I think."

"Leo as in Leonardo."

"Uh huh."

"He's a time traveler, Poppy, and he's packing temporal electronics. That's how your iPad is connecting."

"Leo. Geo. You guys all abbreviate your names!"

"I'm nowhere near his class, Poppy, but that's pretty much it. Why is he impatient?"

"Well, Mrs...I mean Mona is really nervous. She smells smoke all the time (women do) and dashes to shut doors in case of flames in the house. She worries that the kettle's boiling over,  faucet's dripping or the garden behind her doesn't look good enough. She's so worried she can't smile for the painting. Leo says it would help if we got a musician to amuse her, but...wait, he's pointing his brush at my iPad and making hissy noises."

"I understand. Give me a moment and play this for her: 

{clip: Richie Havens performing "Hole In The Future"}
 
Any better, Poppy?"

"Oh my gosh, Geo.! Just look!"

"Wonderful, Poppy! That enigmatic smile will grace even more timelines, more histories. You did good!"

"But Geo., are you feeling any better?"

"Well, yes and no. Either Norma's experimenting at my expense or I really need to go lie down."

Temporal Enigma And Poppy

This post may be considered a public service announcement. When I gardened public places, I got a T.B. skin test or chest xray every 2 years and continued the process into retirement. But recently, I learned a high school 10 miles away turned up 16 active cases among its student body. So I couldn't write a time-travel post without that cautionary element. Good idea to get checked next medical visit.
                       ************************************************



The nickelplate telephone chimed!

"Hello? Please state temporal and geographic coordinates."

"Geo., its Poppy. Am I interrupting?"

 "No, I've received neither email nor comment. Alas, Poppy, it appears nobody loves me, and you?"

"I'm in Paris, or sort of outside Paris. I don't know. I think it's maybe 1885 or 86."

"What's happened?"

"I got into a cab, then this man --a young man..."

"How young?"

"Maybe 25. I don't know, young...got into the cab too and asked where I was going and I said, 'Just around, anywhere, to see the night here and take note of it.' Then he said, 'Good, my destination precisely. May I share? I'll pay both our fares.' "

"Your problem?"

"Geo. I don't know this guy."

"Did he say anything else about destination?"

"Said something about destiny."

"Same thing. Same etymology."

"He said, 'Laissez-nous améliorer sur le destin',then laughed and added, 'ou(?)...renchérissant sur notre sort.' Then he went all thoughtful."

"Scan his face immediately! I'll get my lens!"

"I'll have to be quick. He wants to smoke a cigarette and I told him I'd jump out, so he's going to climb onto  the roof of our cab."

"Not a moment to lose, Poppy! Ah, well done."

"You know him?"

"Not personally, Poppy. But his remark about 'improving upon destiny' and the idea of climbing to the roof of your cab rang some bells. Is the moon up?"

"The moon? Uh, yeah and its a fine night."

"Ok, he's going to lie down on the roof of the moving cab. By the picture, I perceive he's already composing the opening lines that will establish a movement that includes Pound, Eliot, Untermeyer, Ginsberg --too many to enumerate-- a poem, Solo de lune. Offer him this translation: 'On the roof of a coach at night I lie,/My cigarette pointing at the sky/ While my poor bones jostle and roll...O roads, hills, mists, vales./My soul, let's see what it entails.'"

"Yikes! Geo., am I sending Jules Laforgue onto the roof?"

"Very good, Poppy. You remember your literary history."

"But, but, can't I tell him to give up cigarettes or something?"

"Certainly, but what takes him from us is nothing he did to himself, a disease we can't completely eradicate even in the 22nd century. What he does for a living and his recreational studies as a flâneur brings him into constant public contact. Nothing you can do except make sure this poem gets written."

"I...I like him, Geo. --how long?"

"I can't tell you that exactly, but Monsieur Laforgue is on a tight schedule."

"Then so am I. You'll have my report if I have to climb up there myself."

"That's the Poppy I've come to rely on!" 

Pirates, Pleiades And Poppy

"Hello?"

"Hello!"

"It's me, it's Poppy. Is this a bad time?"

"Depends on when it is. When is it, Poppy?"

"Well, it's the year 3025 and it's, uh, kind of 1630 too. But I meant, can I ask you...?"

"For assistance in 2013? Sure. I'm just gardening. Where are you and what are you doing?"

"I'm interviewing crew applicants for a shipping firm. They sent me to Tortuga --lots of sailors used to long journeys in the 1600s."

"Which firm?"

"The Pleiades-Bombay Navigation Company. You've never heard of it."

"Hmmm. Interstellar. Do they build the hulls of their ships by solar-lens refraction super-heating spinning iron asteroids just outside the orbit of Mercury --like clay on a potter's wheel-- then magnetically move them into the planet's shadow to cool?"

"How...how could you know?"

"Lucky guess. What's your applicant like?"

"He's really young, Geo. Clean. Too clean. Says he's a pirate but the scarf on his head says "BSA". He claims it means 'Buccaneer Ship Associaton'."

"Fleur de lis?"

"Uh huh."

"'Boy Scouts of America', Poppy. Is he wearing tennis shoes?"

"Don't know."

"Pretend to drop your pen, pick it up and look under the table. What do you see?"

"Gosh! Tennis shoes! They didn't have tennis shoes in 1630, did they?"

"No, Poppy, nor should they in 3025 --not with him in them. You must not recruit him."

"Another time traveler?"

"I can't comment on that, but be kind. Tell him to take the Einstein-Rosen Bridge home. There's a life waiting for him there that he really shouldn't miss."

 

Scary Halloween Story!!!

Best way to make a long distance call to the past is get an old telephone, like the Western Electric candlestick in the photo, and wire it into something that exploits quantum coherence --a rare Antarctic Albino Pumpkin will do. As we established in a previous post, cats also work but get annoyed with leads and soldering and won't stay put. Then you place your call:

"Hello Poppy! It's Geo. What are you doing in Antarctica?"

"I'm not doing anything there. I'm in Iceland."

"Close enough. How are things?"

"Not too good. I got sent here to interview Skallagrim, son of  Kveldulf Bjalfason,  historical berserker of the 9th century who figures in the Icelandic sagas as a werewolf. We walked and talked about his dad. Skallagrim just seemed like a nice young, prematurely balding farmer, then the full moon came up. I'm really glad you called."

"Kveldulf is Old Norse for "evening wolf" so you thought..."

"I thought he was a wolfman, but he wasn't. He was just very troubled."

"His son, however..."

"Yes! Oh Geo., Skallagrim and I were talking and he was bald and then I thought he was getting asthma or growling and then I looked and he suddenly had this huge hairy head. He shook it at me!"

"So how's it going, Poppy?

"I'm running through the forest because he's chasing me!"

"Ok, slow down. He can't outrun you. He was not growling."

"You mean?"

"That's right, I've researched him. That's why I'm using a pumpkin (have you any idea what land-lines charge for long-distance to the 9th century?).  He's as asthmatic as I am. Just look around you. What's on the ground?"

"Sticks."

"Pick one up."

"Big one, right?"

"Certainly not! Somebody could get hurt. Find a small one that hardly weighs anything. Has he caught up yet?"

"Uh huh. I'm scared, Geo.!"

"Poppy, calm down and follow my instructions carefully. First, give Skallagrim a few moments to catch his wind, then throw the stick back toward the farm."

"Ok, what next?"

"Yell 'FETCH!'"

"Oh wow! He's chasing it. He's bringing it back!"

"Great. Keep doing that 'til the moon goes down."

"Won't it aggravate his asthma?"

"No Poppy, in defiance of all philosophical parameters, the wolfman is only immortal for a few hours every 28 days."

"But immortality is forever. Doesn't that mean always? Moon's full just once a month."

"Beats me. All I know is, when I was a teenager, he deejayed a radio show in Chula Vista. Sounded asthmatic to me."

"Takes one to know one, I guess."

"G'night Poppy."

"Happy Halloween, Geo!"
  

A Theatre Without A Ghost

Prokofiev,"Dance of the Montagues and Capulets"

"This is it," I said, pulling the car to the curb.

"Ok, thanks. I'll be an hour or two. Bye!"

I had no reservations about the theater itself. Some restoration was evident from the street. New paint, aluminum scaffolding up to the eaves, some major work doubtless underway inside. Poppy entered and I drove off on errands.  An hour later, I returned, waited a little while, then locked the car and entered the building. I could hear Poppy's voice and followed it down a darkened lobby, slipped through a door to a back row and sat unnoticed. The script recited was somewhat archaic --period piece, I supposed-- and then silence.

I stood up and walked into the light. Poppy saw me.

"Everybody," she said. "This is my Uncle Geo."

I smiled, a bit nervously, and waved. I asked, "Are we done here?"

She gave an interrogative glance around the stage and said, "Yes."

Back in the car, I said,"Ok, so tell me about it."

"Well", she said. "It was interesting. There were a bunch of people there putting together a hybridization of two plays, Hamlet and Romeo And Juliet. "

"Who came up with that?"

"Two of the guys on that stage, Bill and Fletch.

"Fletch for Fletcher? John Fletcher by any chance?"

"You've heard of him?"

"Not for a while, quite a well-known name at one time, but go on, please."

"They thought it would be a good idea, more modern, to have Hamlet leave Elsinore for Italy instead of England. Then, instead of returning to Denmark and dying, have him fall in love with Juliet in Verona. He would've been clever enough to fool  Capulets into, uh, capitulating --by calling it part of their namesake heritage-- and Montagues into montigulating, which nobody knows what it is. Both families were keen on legacies of all sorts. Besides, he was way sexier than Romeo."

"And what of Romeo?"

"Bill thought Romeo's high school could have a foreign exchange program so Italian kids could learn herring fishing. This would get him to Elsinore to meet Ophelia and they could just hide in corners together and quiver instead of killing themselves and living happily ever after --I mean..."

"No, I get it, an ambitious project! Who else did you meet on that stage?"

"Ummmm. There was an old guy, Paul or 'Polo-oops!' they sometimes called him. Nice lady named Gert. Ty, guy with a temper. 'Nother guy, Merc? Who'd name their kid after an old car? Anyway, 50 people maybe. They decided I was too assertive for Ophelia and too short for Juliet, balconies being lower than they once were. So I asked if I could be the ghost, unless maybe they already had one cast. Every theater is supposed to have a ghost, y'know."

"What did they say to that?"

"Well, Bill says,'My dear, I do fear neither phantom-trod battlements nor pointed merlons of yore are  standing any more, nor would you, young soul, like getting paved in paint for such a role. And A GHOST? None would fear A ghost in this jaded age. Besides, not every  theatre hath but A GHOST!' That's when you came to collect me, Uncle."

We pulled up to Poppy's place and she hopped out. As always, I waited until she was safely through the front door before I drove away. Indeed, back from a theater without a ghost, A ghost --certainly a singular experience. What I refrained from telling her was, while I sat watching the audition and came forward to call her home, Poppy was, on that brightly lit stage, quite alone.

Subnivean Sermon

It is a brassy, woody sound between  ringing and rattling that rarely occurs, but when it does, it means the oldest telephone in the back porch has been called.

"Hello?"

"Hello, have I reached the future?"

"Speaking.  How are you, Poppy?"

"Aging, but still in the game."

"And Santa?"

"Jolly, he's jolly. I need your help with something else."

"At your service, ma'am."

"All right. According to future history --where I was born but only visit on holidays now-- your new administration succeeded in confusing Sweden, of all places, this weekend. It won't stop there because 'alternative truth' has become part of the vulgate."

"Yes, Poppy, that was this weekend. How can I help?"

"You can help by resurrecting a counter-phrase from your youth in North America. Something "Job" and "Snow"? Am I making sense?"

"Snowjob? Sure, like when I used to make up phony quotes in high school essays and attribute them to non-existent authors. But I haven't heard the term in ages."

"Do your best then, Geo., even if you have to doodle and, if you can, suggest a solution to its threat of temporal enigma.  The confusion won't stop at Sweden. Bye!"

Hence my doodle:

Observe its four layers: the sky does a snowjob; tree metabolism and residual ground temperature create a relatively comfortable hollow under the packed snow.  Under the snowpack is better protected from predators than above it --and warmer. The hollow is called the subnivean zone. It contains the little creatures who seek shelter from the cold upper air when there are no attics available --or when attics are claimed by larger creatures like bison or low-flying aircraft.  In the doodle, you may notice the weathermouse reporting down a snow-tunnel to the twig-ladder-holding mouse --who relays meteorological information to squirrels, bugs, reptiles and other refugees in the subnivean zone.

Lesson is, we must learn from our little forest friends how to survive in subnivean security when inundated with incessant snowjobs. Your regular pastor will return next Sunday, or whenever weathermouse says it's safe to dig out.

Go in peace.
 
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Addendum: To readers who wish a background to our time-traveling friend, Poppy, please click here.

Information Enigma Or Even More Reasons I Am A Pacifist

I live in a crazy old farmhouse. It has wall-phones in the back porch from various eras. Some are quite old and I'm cautious about what era I phone --sometimes a pressure from without can upset an equilibrium within. One needs help, direction --directory assistance, yes, but sometimes one needs more. In the photo below, I am dialing a three-digit number familiar to everyone in the USA and Canada born after 1930: " Information. What city, please?"

"All of them. Any will do."

"Are you a Chuck Berry fan, sir?"

"Always and forever, but...what does that...?"

"Please listen to the tutorial while I connect your call, Geo.:"

Chuck Berry- Memphis Tennessee


"Information. What city, please?"

"Excuse me..."

"Yes, Geo.?"

"Wait a minute, how'd you know my name?"

"Because you once called from a Paso Robles filling station in 1969 when you misplaced Norma's phone number that year and I recognize your voice. How may I direct your call?"

"You, you're the same operator...47 years later?"

"Sir, I have been the only information operator on the North American Continent since 1930."

"So that's why you always sound the same?"

"Of course. Will you be needing further information? I do have calls waiting."

"How could that be?"

"It's because I know everything. All information comes from me, and I know why you called."

"I called because I have the jumps, ma'am."

"I know, Geo., North Korea sent a missile over the Superbowl on Sunday. Ask your question."

"Does the United States Military intend to invade my family's country of origin?"

"You mean Portugal?"

"Yes, specifically the Azores."

"They did at one time, 1940-41, under War Plan Gray.  The idea was to set up bases behind Navy blockades (oooh, you should get a load of War plan Red ), but this is classified information. However, I'll go back to some year nobody cares about and declassify it. One moment please....yes, the year all the Ford Pintos exploded, 1974."

"Mine didn't!"

"You're welcome!"

"What have you, ma'am?

"This map, Geo. I'm rather pleased with it:"

"Impressive! But how does this help?"

"I simply changed the photographic vista from nautical to aerial . Lighter shades of blue were subsequently seen as clouds instead of shallows. This took the Azores from islands in the sea to islands floating around in the sky."

"Amazing, so my great grandparents descended from the sky?"

"Information depends upon on accuracy, Geo. Whatever I say becomes true. But right now I have other information to address."

"Like what?"

"Like changing the first line of Hamlet from "Hey, remember that time in Denmark when I got so nervous?" from flashbacks to something better. Then I have to convince all life that they own the world equally with all other life. But most of all, right now, I have a search to conduct in 1959. Let's see: south side; ridge; 1/2 mile from Mississippi Bridge. Should be no problem...Hello, Marie?"

"Hello?"

"(sotto voce) Bye Geo."

"Bye Poppy."

The Great Kale Shortage Of '16

I don't ordinarily write about economics but this month has been exceptional. We have, for some time, been warned of a growing shortage of Kale seeds, leading to a shortage of growing Kale --or was it of growing short Kale? I don't recall exactly, and economists stayed quiet about it, which is ominous and unusual but I was able to find some snippets from the news: 

Medical Daily-Jan, 2016---"Like all superfoods, kale exploded in popularity when nutritionists started to reveal its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory ..."

"... the demand for kale has gotten so huge it's in danger of outstripping its supply – kale farmers are having problems...."---Iowa Now-Mar, 2016.

Vogue.com-Mar, 2016---"...Making up for any shortage of juicy drama was the three-course meal that followed, complete with Tuscan kale salad and sea bass with risotto."

So I consulted one of Norma's seed packets and called "Information":
  
"Information."

"Yes, could you connect me with Colonel 'Ragged Jack' Rizada, please?"

"Of course, one moment please."

"Thanks, Poppy."

"Bueno!"

"Is this Col. Rizada?"

"Si."

"Sir, I need some information about the worldwide Kale shortage."

"Lo Siento. Creo que usted tiene el número de teléfono incorrecto, señor."

I thanked him but knew I hadn't called the wrong number --his name is right there on the seed packet-- so I called the opposite direction, North!

"Hello, Canada?"

"Speaking."

"Ragged Jack says he's at a wrong number!"

"Is this about the Kale Shortage?"

"Yeah!"

"Thanks, Geo.! It's a crisis then. What should we do?"

"Sell off all your Gold Reserves right away!"

And they DID!!!  (Bank of Canada, March,----"The weekly Reserves data will be posted on the Bank of Canada's Web site ... Gold, 0..".)

I didn't mean to cause this strange chain-reaction. I was only trying to help. There is a difference, I suppose, between deliberate hindrance and no help at all, but only in motive --my intentions were good. I get nervous on the phone and just blurted out something I never thought Canada would do. Ah well, gardeners who give out financial advice to large countries "aft gang agley" (which is how Robert Burns said "Down the hall on the left."). 

I have decided to stop being a Hobbyist-Economist and return to Gardening. Too much danger in economics. There is an old saying among even older gardeners: You can flirt with disaster but it's lousy at returning your affections.

Geo.-Archival Enigma #3, Columbus 1893

I've been traveling, which confuses me, but not enough to launch a new post so I waited and fiddled around a few days and got into the stereoviews again. Got to thinking --especially after a phone confabulation with my sister this morning-- about forgetting, remembering and what makes us do one instead of the other. Let's begin with a view at Washington Park in Chicago from 1893.

We are looking at the world done up as an horticultural effect in a hand-colored view at the 1892 Columbia Exposition in commemoration of Christopher Columbus discovering the American continent. I should mention here that the 1892 Fair in Chicago didn't open until the middle of 1893. This was not due to negligence or indolence; it was because people were simply not so nervous about details as they are now. Colors are pretty but, even though --or perhaps because-- I was a career gardener, there is a feeling of inadequacy and forgetfulness in the photo. However...

...if you go round to a different topiarian hemisphere and arrange a family in front of it and don't charge anything extra, the world assumes a more memorable aspect. Color, then, would appear to be incidental to sentient composition. This group braving summer humidity in Sunday clothes impresses the viewer with convention and seriousness that was expected of people of all ages being photographed in 1893. Time to switch to a crowd shot, Opening Day!

And we do see a surging sea here of derbies and fruit-salad hats, but crowd-shots are not just about hats. They are about HER.

Oh, surely we might forget the demobbed soldier (#1.), the clerk in banking or mercantile (#2), the drover from a cattle-based kakistocracy that ruled west of the Mississippi (#3), a northeastern sheep rancher (#4), the athlete in sculling cap (#5), the farmer loosening his tie in crowded heat (#6), but surely the image that sends this crowd-shot into the future --that conforms to my sister's and my phone conclusion that forgetting bits of who we try to become is part of what we are-- is of one person laughing, delighted, as if suddenly materialized from cooler climes, or an air-conditioned wardrobe room, HER:

Hello Poppy!

Hello Geo.!
 

Black Hole

What you see here is a gravitational vortex in our universe, our plenum. Rather fine, isn't it? I've been wanting to use that question ever since  I first heard it in a favorite film, posted in my previous entry --click here-- and yes, it is a Black Hole. Don't be alarmed. It's quite far away, but precautions should be observed. For example, I try not to bump my head on a Black Hole --not again, anyway.

The hole is black because gravitational force inside is so strong it won't allow light to escape. Starlight at its rim is accumulated from all the galaxies it has drawn down, but cannot pull away. Because we receive no information about the universe smaller than a photon (a quantum of light), this is their last visible event --and is called the event horizon. Galaxies are made of energy and matter, as are we. What became of them? After they fell in, they were compressed into an irreducible form and all the laws of physics were repealed.

In normal space physical law operates in a universe where all possibilities are assembled, even those possibilities that are mutually exclusive --as when something cannot exist because something else exists that prevents it --but there's room and time for them to avoid each other. In a Black Hole, those events are equal and compressed into singularity. Singularity is what a Black Hole squeezes into existence. Doesn't matter how many Black Holes are in the universe, they all compress their contents into the same indivisible, lawless and timeless state, by definition.

You don't get two singularities.

When that happens, the backporch phone rings:

I always answer it: "Hello, Poppy!"  And a new adventure begins.

Stay tuned!

Archive and Return Of UFO

I had not seen UFO ("UFOs Like Riddles") since its visit over my garden gate in January and was surprised to find it buzzing the kitchen table. So I did what any right-minded Earthling would do, reached out and caught it between my thumb and forefinger.

"Bonsoir, Georges. Ça fait longtemps."

"Yes...but why are you speaking French?"

"Ah, das ist ein Stückchen des Rätsel!"

"Rätsel? Hmmm, now German for riddle...You have a riddle for me! What mischief are you up to now, U?"

"You-Eff-Oh, please, but permit me to interface with your primitive human computer and I'll show you."

"Proceed."

"Siehe da!"

"Et voilà!" I replied,"You have been in the Bas Rhin."

"Obviously, Geo., but remember clues come from within. Look closely."

"Very well," I said casually (because this Jarvis view is in my collection). "In this view of Kleber Place --judging by shadows, a sunny day-- in the late 1880s, Strasbourg was a German town (Strassburg). Twenty years earlier it was a French town and, twenty years later, would be again. Since the collapse and break-up of Charlemagne's empire, the Alsace-Lorraine has changed nationality many times."

"However?"

"There! There's something going on, in the distance beyond the fountain plume. I see him."

"Yes, and what is he doing?"

"He is bowing." 

"Hat on head, heels together --a bow-- how many cultures?"

"German and French, U, there was a common protocol to bows in the 1800s. According to its rules, the man is acquainted with one or both ladies approaching. They have made eye-contact, a signal of recognition inviting response. The ladies will acknowledge his profound bow with slighter inclinations of their own. The scene is far away and fuzzy but its genuine, unstaged bow affords a privileged glimpse of the moment --and voilà, siehe da and behold, it comes to life."

"Very good, Geo. But look around the bowing man. What do you see?"

"Well, the woman on the right seems to have some authority over the woman she guides with her arm. There is a large man in uniform purposefully approaching the man who has recognized at least one of the ladies."

"The man who bows, he's a time traveler, Geo."

"Then the lady on the left is..."

"Yes, that is Poppy, your temporal correspondent."

"And an arrest is about to be made!"

"That, I cannot ascertain. It is a probability I wanted to test through you. I left both area and era immediately and hid in a 1950s tinplate toy factory where the machinery snatched me and turned me out like this, enameled! Could you please take me outside and pitch me into outer space? I'll return soonest and help set this right."

"Of course."

"Thanks, any other questions?"

"Many, but just now I wonder why I got so few clicks and comments on my previous post."

"Élémentaire, mon pauvre Georges, there are days it seems nobody loves us."

"Oh go get an overhaul!"

"Schnellstmöglich!"

I went back indoors, thinking: If not sooner, I hope. 

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{Please excuse any inaccuracies in my recollection of You-Eff-Oh's utterances. I have it on good authority that only 4 people in the known universe (none of whom is me) understands the declension of German articles except Herr Thornock, my high school German teacher, who --unlike my English teacher, Willie-- has not followed up and checked my usage for 50 years.} --thanks Will!
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