By Scott Sullivan
Editor
On the Road
Adopt-A-Highway crews are getting bored with I-5 in Oregon. The human skull they found in a backpack 75 miles south of Portland Nov. 21 was the second such in four years.
Mother was right when I asked her, “Why can’t I bring an AR-15 to school like the other kids?”
She smiled and said softly, “Forget the big stick. Put a human skull in your pack.” No one bullied me after that.
Think how happy holidays would be if we stopped fighting over trifles and shared common interests in being the next Jeffrey Dahmer.
“Look,” I’d saying, pulling out mine. “Male, mid-50s, cured so no flesh remains, but I’ve pulled teeth to thwart ID via dental records.”
“Mine’s female,” a classmate would say as we cross-examined each other’s hollowed craniums.
“Let’s head for I-5 to collect and distribute more holiday gifts,” I’d say.
Think of Bob Cratchit’s eyes lighting up finding stocking stuffers to share with loved ones. “Alas, poor Yorick,” Tiny Tim would say, eyeing his skull while strumming “Tiptoe Through the Mistletoe” on ukulele.
Forward
It’s unfair to call time a negligible dimension as I did last week. It’s been unfair to me, I thought, so fair’s fair, but this weekend my resolve weakened.
Think of length, width, depth as the first three dimensions. Length is a line. Add width or height, you get shapes (square or circle, say); then depth for volume (cube, sphere and so on).
A 2D photo or painting can give the illusion of depth via many means, teasing you to see through it like a window into subject matter of and beyond your imagination. Already the dimension of time’s implicit. How long did it take to create that “window”? Look closer, longer. Go back, revisit.
Negative space matters too. What is not in it? What was removed, and in what context is it presented?
For string theory to work, say physicists, the universe needs 10 dimensions “which could cause real problems,” said the late Stephen Hawking, “if you forget where you parked your car.”
Head Games
Back to my point: skulls beside the highway, the latter a line on maps widened into asphalt lanes leading where you hope to arrive in time unless like me you drive aimlessly. I’m proposing a Christmas scavenger hunt. Need I say for what?
Think of minds no longer encased in bones. Collect 16 for chessboard pieces, assign ranks accordingly.
Find God’s skull? Keep your King — he can move all directions — you win. The Other Side has one too — moves every way but only one square at a time — and the same aim. Lose him, you lose all.
Queens move all ways wherever; Bishops 45 degrees, Knights two forward, one left; Rooks 90 degrees. All are key corollary uses conscribed by board limits, foes’ pieces you can capture or your own that block you. Pawns achieve things too even sacrificing. Choose whose minds in what roles carefully.
Hype
Now sell the games. Which mortal god King survives? His/her Queen must be sexy, whatever sex. Play up their minions’ energy and charisma.
Theological fervor — fanned by smack-down pre-match promos — will have clerics hanging on not nooses any longer.
I’d suggest varied videos: one side growling, glaring and chanting to tribal beats; the other reciting sonnets to a string quartet. Style contrasts can’t glare too subtly.
Head for the Head Games now! You will lose yours too!
Reporting
Setting up for the Games’ live or dead production, mics and cameras must be everywhere, all angles covered and new ones found. Amp sound and videos instantly and aggressively. Pit and pair random articulations with their opposites till all involved dig the Whole.
Should, say, original bones of Plato not be available — which more than one road recycler might encounter — why not glass replicas? Photographer players could use their lenses. Don’t tell your Queen you just ordered another on his/her charge card. What a merry Christmas when you get your pieces to start using/losing.
Think of the tension, release and drama as life or death for your King grows palpable. Games are single-elimination going on forever — or until next season.
Turning calendars keeps hype sustainable. Players recruit new and reconfigure old talent employing other strategies. Regroup and let addicts speculate in your absence. Anticipation will grow crazed for your re-creation.
The Sporting Life
Do things that do things to you.