Mumble Herder

"For most of the city, the morning of May 17, 1978 began like any other Wednesday. Celeste Simon sang to the shoppers at the Cagliari Street Farmer's Market, the bridge schools convened classes promptly at second bell, and the Mayor's convoy of horse-drawn limousines and war bicycles traveled the half-mile from Faldbakken Mansion to City Hall. . . . Across town from Cedar Hill, near the overgrown stretch of interstate which bisects the city, the settlement known as Bus Town had just begun to stir. Populated largely by transients, Bus Town had grown up in one of the transit authority lots, a 'circled-wagon' community centered on a living fire, one of those summoned by Cyril de Saavedra during his infamous rampage (see p.402) and the only one known to have escaped his thrall. . . . The fire had established a bond with the denizens of Bus Town, particularly its de facto mayor, the flautist Toby McGowan, who used to organize recitals for it every evening. The fire, it seemed, was a music-lover. . . . Roberta Stommel AKA 'The Wandering Comic,' was among those living in Bus City at that time. 'The fire would talk to us sometimes,' she said in a recent interview. 'You could hear his voice when you were half-asleep, or drunk, or when the music made you forget yourself. Toby called it Joe. We fed Joe scraps of wood that we didn't have a use for, although he burned fine without any fuel. All he wanted was to hear the music, and to burn.' . . . Stommel believes that it was the general laziness of the Bus Town residents that saved their lives. 'There were a few early risers there,' she says quietly. 'But most of us made a habit of staying up late around Joe, and sleeping until noon. You wouldn't think it, but with enough blankets and pillows, those buses could be really comfy.' . . . In Stommel's own words: 'I might not have noticed when the darkness fell. We might have kept on sleeping if not for Joe. He called out to me, to all of us, and that was when I realized I couldn't see his light. The sun is a pain when you're trying to sleep, but most of us really liked having Joe flickering out there at night. There was a primal sort of comfort in it, even if he was too far away to feel the warmth.' . . . 'Joe's voice was faint, like it was coming through a wall, or from under the ground. He was being smothered by the dark. He was still there, still burning--somehow--but his light was hidden by whatever had happened. I got up and I fumbled around in the dark until I found a window. Some of them were tinted, so I thought maybe I just couldn't see Joe from inside. But all that happened when I opened the window was that the dark came inside. It was in the air; it was like I was breathing it. My lungs felt tight. That's when the rain started.' . . . Those who liken the travails of The Day of Two Nights to the biblical Ten Plagues of Egypt usually count the darkness as the first, and the rain as second. . . . 'We couldn't see it, of course, but it came in a torrent. Have you ever heard rain on the roof of a bus? Except, this was rhythmic. Martial. I put my hand out to feel the rain, and my hand . . .' Stommel trails off, her eyes flickering past the stump where her right hand used to be. 'It was like the rain--instead of making my skin wet, it took all the moisture out of me. I could hear my skin crackling. I mean, I was screaming and I could still hear it. Like someone stepping on dried leaves.' . . . What it was that possessed the rain, even the hydromancer Gwandoya Kyoga has been unable to say with certainty. But where it struck it sucked up moisture, from the ground and from living things. Specifically, living things with blood. . . . Stommel was reluctant to talk of those who died at Bus City that day, but Toby McGowan was among them, and citywide dozens of citizens were caught in the rain that did not soak but rather desiccated. Seventy-four were killed at the Cagliari Street Market alone. . . . 'I managed to shut the window with my other hand,' says Stommel. 'Most of the screaming stopped right away. The rain killed them that quickly. But the fire--Joe--was in agony. He begged us for help. We didn't know what to do. And then someone started swearing. It might have been me. In a few seconds all of us, in all of the buses, were letting loose with the foulest talk you can imagine. Fouler. It was a sort of mass hysteria, only it worked.' . . . The torrent of obscenities poured upwards and seemed to stagger the murderous rain. 'The marching slowed. Some of them were staggering. I never saw them--no one did--but I think they had combined into larger drops. They were shoving at the sides of the bus, trying to tip us over, and when the sun came back there were big dents in the roof where they had been trying to force their way in. When we first moved into the buses a lot of the roofs leaked, but luckily we'd plugged them. But if it hadn't let up they would have broken in anyway'. . . . 'I was scared at first. I don't care if you're afraid of the dark or not, once you can't see anything it's like being buried alive. But once the swearing started'--Invocations professor Denise Pezzelli has referred to the Bus Town defense as 'good old-fashioned cursing'--'I was just mad. It was like a song, after a while. The filthiest song you've ever heard. I used to work blue before that, but I haven't said a nasty word since that day.' . . . While the inventive invective of the Bus Town residents knocked the rain back on its heels, it was not enough to banish it entirely. . . . 'Joe didn't say what he was going to do. He just said goodbye. I think he knew that Toby was gone. I think he wanted to do something to honor his memory.' . . . The nature of the elemental struggle which took place in the darkness of that 'first night' is still unclear. That the Bus Town Fire could have burned away the rain falling all over the city seems unlikely, but Stommel is convinced that it somehow did. 'I think Joe went up into the atmosphere or something. I think he sealed whatever rift in the shell had opened to let that rain in.' . . . The battle at Bus Town continued for some time after the rain stopped falling, and the fire's efforts did not burn off the unnatural darkness. For that part of the story, we must shift our focus to an apartment building at 2312 Honeymoon Avenue." (p.416-417)

"After the Cathedral Basilica was dismantled by the Snake Doctors in June of 1967 (see p.34), the city's archdiocese fell to pieces. Bishop Judge having also been carried off by the winged deconstructionists, the surviving priests were left to find their own roles in the Exile's aftermath. Some became active in establishing or buttressing neighborhood centers to provide food and shelter for the citizenry; others went underground, and over time shed their identities as shepherds of souls. A few became self-professed 'warriors of the lord,' taking up arms in an attempt to drive back those elements of human and extra-human society which they determined to be evil. Notable among these was Father Martin Pereira of St. Sebastian's, martyred during the Day of Two Nights (see p.414-433). . . . One of the few Catholic institutions that remains intact to the present day is the hospice care center of the Bon Secours Sisters on Maple Hill. The sisters even do home care, in some cases, protected by a breed of mastiff named for the order. An adult male Bon Secours stands between 38 and 44 inches high at the shoulder; these dogs are generally reddish or white in color, rarely bark, and have been known to face down roof lions, wood elementals, and on one occasion a pack of rabid (or demon-possessed, depending upon the source) goats. They are good with children and shed little, but are known to drool. . . . One priest whose identity has become woven into the present-day spiritual fabric of the city is Father Peter Frye. Frye was one of the few priests to maintain his parish after the Exile, attracting large crowds to his masses as well as to confessions, prayer meetings, and counseling sessions. Frye was determined that his church should remain a point of stability for his parishioners; when it was reduced to rubble during the May Day Earthquake, the famously level-headed priest lost his mind. He descended into the city's service tunnels, sewers, and subways, never to be seen again. . . . Father Frye's voice was not lost, however, at least according to certain of his parishioners who have made the pilgrimage to what is known as the Whisper Gate. Located in the shallow backwaters east of the Thomas River's widest point, the gate was once a service gate for the city's sanitation department, but today it is rusted shut, keys long missing. . . . In the shadows before dawn, and again at twilight, a voice whispers from inside the gate. 'May God, who has enlightened every heart, help you to know your sins and trust in his mercy.' . . . Not all who hear the voice believe that it belongs to Frye. Some insist that it is god himself, or a long-departed loved one, or even the crocfather Mad Green. . . . Confession, in a city with a damnation complex, is one of the foremost hobbies of the citizenry, and it is not only Catholics who wade into the ankle-deep water to unburden themselves. The confessor, whoever it may be in truth, seems to realize this, offering penance to some, advice to others, and reassurance to many. . . . Recently, the Bottom Feeders (the garbage gang who hold the turf where the gate lies) outraged Whisper Gate regulars by investigating the service tunnel during confession hours. To the surprise of nearly all, the tunnel was entirely empty, save for the voice of the confessor. . . . Some now believe that the voice is that of a spirit; others argue that it issues from somewhere in the depths beneath the city, carried upwards through pipes and ducts to the confessional cage." (p.218-220)

"While there were a handful of diviners at work in the city pre-Exile--Tarot card readers, palmists, carnival-style 'fortune-tellers' complete with crystal balls--in the aftermath, it seems at times that everyone has begun forecasting the future. Some, like the mystics of Compost Oracles Inc., make a living at it. Others, like the Chromatics, treat it as a hobby, comparing the color of the sky-shell to that of days previous and adjusting their expectations accordingly. There are people who predict the weather based upon the drifting of plastic bags, romantic futures based upon Chalkbot battles, and agricultural yields based upon the activities of the crocfather Mad Green. . . . Most of these, professional or otherwise, have demonstrated less accuracy than was once found in the Farmer's Almanac, but there are exceptions. . . . The most successful of the city's prophets is known as the Minfield Park Augur. His real name is unknown--he claims that his real name is unpronounceable by humans--although it appears that up until the time of the Exile he was known to area residents and police mainly as The Bird Guy. His age is similarly indeterminate; those familiar with him pre-Exile estimated that he was in his sixties then, and forty years later he is still gray, sharp-eyed, and agile. He used to panhandle and spend his money on bird feed, but nowadays the feed is donated by fortune-seekers. What the Augur himself lives on is anyone's guess. . . . The MiniAugur (as he is often called) successfully predicted the death of Mayor Faldbakken Jr., the manifestation of the Black Tower, and the catastrophic 'Day of Two Nights.' . . . Most of his predictions are based upon the flights of the Minifield Park blackbirds, which numbered in the thousands until May Day 2002, when an unexplained airborne confusion of gravity resulted in the deaths of 90% of the city's avian population (see p.446 & Appendix). Following that tragedy the MiniAugur stopped giving predictions for a time and went into mourning. . . . Two years later, his renewed predictions saved the staff and students of the Cesar Chavez Boulevard Bridge School when a structural failure led to its collapse." (p.47-8)

"The first invitations arrived in early October of 1978: pumpkins cut from construction paper, the details rendered in bold calligraphy. 'You are cordially invited to a costume ball at Blue Hill Cemetery, October 31st, dusk. Please present your invitation at the gate.' They were delivered, via unknown means, to about a hundred homes. The addressees included locksmiths, large-scale gardeners, childcare professionals, former ad executives, carpenters and a wealthy recluse who had not stuck more than the barrel of a shotgun out his door since the Exile. . . . It is believed that all who were invited (even the recluse, Mr. Martin VanDenElzen) attended. Inspired, perhaps, by the novelty of the event, the costumes they created exhibited an extraordinary level of detail and care. Carol 'Dusty' Lang, 57, a former schoolteacher, went as a squirrel queen, wearing a suit made from the skins of all the acorn-hoarding tree-dwellers she had trapped and eaten over the six years previous. Feodor Samos, 14, attended with his parents as the giant robot Gort from the film 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'; while Feodor stood only 4' 6", in the costume he was more than seven feet tall, towering over his parents (attending as President and Mrs. McQueen, whom many citizens--based upon the quantum reality-roulette of People Magazine--believe won the 1976 election (see p.388)). Mr. VanDenElzen attended as Cathy Gale, a secret agent from a little-known British television show. . . . The invited guests gathered as the sun set, along with a gaggle of curious observers. The first grave opened at 6:03. . . . Blue Hill Cemetery lies within the bounds of the Hawk Heights neighborhood, and as such is populated by that area's dead; over the years Dutch and German immigrants have been joined by stage actors, musicians, and an itinerant group of Hungarian circus performers. As such the ball did not lack for entertainment. . . . A variety of delicacies were provided, ranging from the obligatory pumpkin dishes to stroopwafels, katjes, and Hungarian potato candy. Apple cider of both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic varieties flowed freely as the evening progressed. . . . While some were at first reluctant to engage with the hosts, it was clear that the dead had gone to extraordinary lengths to please. Tailors among them had mended the fine suits and dresses in which they had been interred, and if, during the waltz, one had to contend with the occasional fallen ear or detached foot, it was after all not much to ask. 'As conversationalists, the dead are not to be equaled,' Mrs. Samos reported later, 'though one must also consider the matter of their breath.' . . . The music and feasting lasted until just before dawn, and a few of the revelers were apparently so charmed by their hosts that they chose to remain. . . . The Dead Man's Dance is now an annual affair, and among the most anticipated social events of the season. There are few in the city who do not approach their mailboxes with an extra level of excitement when October arrives. (RSVP not necessary.)" (p.350)

"If the Lancaster Bridge Troll is an example of civic initiative leading to positive change, the case of Maeve Spoondale is an example of the infernal paving of good intentions. Spoondale, a kindergarten teacher and amateur sculptor, spent the days following the Exile in a state of high anxiety, the schools being closed and lacking clay for her usual hobby work. Being, it seems, an unusually anxious person with (in her words) 'nervous hands,' Spoondale worked herself into a frenzy of inactivity. 'I was afraid to leave the house,' she told Channel 8 later, before it all went wrong. 'I couldn't watch my programs, and I couldn't make my babies.' (Spoondale's sculptures before the Exile were of lumpish figures which she referred to as raccoons, despite their closer resemblance to 'fat salamanders wearing Mickey Mouse ears,' according to the famous art critic and drunk Templeton Liu.) . . . In distress Spoondale began to work with the materials at hand, attempting to create a classroom of students made from toothpicks, cotton swabs, and finally several dozen boxes of chalk from school which she had 'in storage' at her home. With these she created simple figures, six pieces each, with a torso, head, arms and legs--all of matching colors, 'So they wouldn't be confused.' Ms. Spoondale has never revealed what substance she used to bind the pieces to one another. . . . Spoondale set her finished creatures up in a classroom on her dining room table and began to lecture them. 'Oh, I was in something of a state,' she told Channel 8. 'I don't recall everything we talked about. Hygiene, and good manners, and neighborhood safety, and fairy stories. A few times I had to scold them. I remember that it was seven-thirty sharp when we started, and three when I let them go.' Upon further questioning from the Channel 8 interviewer, Spoondale revealed that six days had elapsed in addition to those seven-and-a-half hours. . . . Spoondale fell asleep soon after dismissing her class, and when she woke her chalk pupils were gone. Unworried, she began to assemble more students. . . . At first the free-roaming creatures, soon dubbed 'chalkbots,' seemed entirely benign; they scratched hopscotch courts into the sidewalk, wrote 'WASH YOUR HANDS' in public restrooms, and scrawled 'SOMEBODY LOVES YOU' on the streets. A gang of chalkbots wrote the story of Little Red Riding Hood on the concrete next to the Roosevelt Park fountain, while others traveled the neighborhoods tutoring children on basic addition. A pattern emerged: blue chalkbots were concerned with sanitary living, yellow chalkbots with safety, green chalkbots with the recounting of fables. Purples--fond of nursery rhymes and nonsense poems--became associated with good luck, and whites with good weather, thanks to their pronounced timidity during inclement weather. . . . Ms. Spoondale was celebrated for her creations, despite her obvious peculiarity and the fact that whatever she had done seemed to have been accidental. She embraced her new status as a celebrity, only to have it fall to pieces. . . . Soon after her Channel 8 debut, reports began to circulate of chalkbots who, as they left their messages, would scream in agony. A frequent video loop on Channel Spider to this day is that of a pink chalkbot writing 'MIND YOUR PS AND QS' on a bus stop with its head, shrieking continuously; the sound is rather like what one imagines a tooth scraping on a whetstone might produce. . . . Other chalkbots were seen to scrawl obscenities, or to gather in packs to surround and murder squirrels. Messages like 'SMASH THE HINGES' and 'EAT BOTTLE GLASS' began to appear with alarming consistency. Finally, internecine warfare began to take place between armies of different-colored chalkbots. Afterwards, the sites of such battles were strewn with severed limbs, many of which were scavenged by previously wounded chalkbots and reattached; because of this many multi-colored 'bots came into existence. . . . Countless theories have been put forth as to the cause of the breakdown of the chalkbots (most of which include Ms. Spoondale's apparent derangement as a factor): an unusual attunement to the city's confinement, the weakness of the material, even simple existential despair. . . . Today few single-colored chalkbots remain, although there are those who theorize that the legendary Mad Green is not a sewer gator at all, but a stumpy green chalkbot named Aesop. Mêlées consisting of hordes of multicolored 'bots are frequent, and include such innovations as popsicle stick spears and plastic catapults used to launch small fireworks. Despite the size of the combatants, humans and their pets are advised to steer clear of these conflicts. . . . As to Maeve Spoondale, she disappeared from her home one night in 1974. Some believe that she continues to produce chalkbots from hiding, but certain of her neighbors have spoken of odd noises on the night of her disappearance, and colored markings found on her doorstep in the morning. They believe that her creations carried her away." (p.292-4)

"The fact that the riverside neighborhoods are among the most stable and prosperous of the city post-Exile is often explained away by those who think water access and trade are the only important factors, but in truth it is in large part due to the efforts of the Lancaster Bridge Troll. The LBT, as he is known (the trolls as a group have been adamant about not revealing their true names) was living a life of quiet solitude when the Exile occurred; like his fellows, he had moved in at the time of his bridge's construction but chose not to harrass the motorcar. ('It's one thing to demand a toll of a lone pedestrian, and quite another to face down a Mack truck,' he has said.) Instead he spent his days secreted beneath the bridge, enjoying his vast library and living primarily off of Kodiak dipping tobacco. (The source of the trolls' tobacco, which is still delivered regularly, remains mysterious.) . . . Soon after the Exile the LBT noticed the lack of traffic; upon investigating, he discovered a group of schoolchildren playing unsupervised on the bridge, and cars standing still and abandoned for their lack of gas. The children fled when they saw the troll, but returned to watch as he tossed a handful of glittering powder up to observe its fall, summoned a passing pigeon to converse with, and then began carrying the derelict automobiles off the bridge. He carefully lined them up along the empty streets, and when one of the children came near enough, he asked why they were not in school. . . . By the next morning hand-painted signs in neat calligraphic script hung at either end of the bridge, advertising classes in French, Russian, mathematics and etiquette. (The LBT has since demonstrated fluency in some two dozen languages, but he admits that he soft-pedaled his qualifications at first. 'People tend to suspect trolls of trickery towards the ends of eating them,' he once observed to the author. 'Certainly in my day I have eaten my fair share of humans, but I have been a vegetarian since 1846.') Citizens were wary of the large, snaggle-toothed creature who sat at the middle of the bridge, reading Proust through a pair of bifocals. Eventually a group of parents came to meet with the LBT and were won over by his civilized (if gruff) manner as well as his macadamia nut cookies. . . . At this writing the Lancaster Bridge School has expanded to address most standard subjects, the LBT having taken on assistants specializing in everything from self-defense to physics and calculus. The other bridge trolls have set up their own competing schools, and the range of specialities has created a magnet school system of sorts. Lancaster Bridge is known first and foremost for its linguistics and higher mathematics, while the Cagliari Street Bridge Troll (CSBT) is expert in botany, chemistry, and glass blowing. Other schools specialize in jazz music, animal husbandry, and bicycle repair. . . . Most parents are happy to trust their children to what were once considered monsters, though some confess to a distaste for the trollish fondness for chewing tobacco. . . . Over the years the LBT has expanded his enterprise to include both a lending library and a home for children orphaned by the city's intermittent disasters. His bridge, like the others in the city, still has space set aside for those wishing to cross it; the tolls, these days, go towards the purchase of food, books, and other supplies for the students." (p.291-2)

"On November 17th, 1972 a squad of the Dead Donkey Eaters gang was taking a daytime shortcut through the old subway tunnels under Roosevelt Park when they came upon an unseasonal (it was summer at the time) formation of icicles suspended from the ceiling. The air in the tunnel was temperate save for the area nearest the ice, where Dead Donkey Eater Cedric Bell reported that the smell of hot chocolate penetrated his frozen nose hairs. . . . Using one of Swenson and Sing's maps of the area, the gang determined that the source of the moisture and cold must be located on the 1400 block of West Stewart Street--location of the Rostov Ice Plant, which had stood abandoned since shortly after the Exile. The entirety of Roosevelt Park had fallen off the (rapidly shrinking) power grid two years before, and yet in the warehouse cellar the Dead Donkey Eaters found a cold storage chamber which appeared to be working. Not only that, but its outer door was frozen shut; it took the gang the better part of a day to chip away the three inches of ice on its surface, and even after that they were unable to get it open. In the end the entire gang assembled in the warehouse, some fifty of them, aided by a half-dozen members of the Roosevelt Park branch of the Gemini Society. They were forced to remove the door entirely in order to gain access to the chamber. . . . Inside, they found the frozen corpse of one Robert Priest, an exile from the former suburbs. (This was only determined days afterward, when the body was sufficiently thawed for identification to be retrieved.) In addition, they found the work which had apparently consumed Mr. Priest's final days, and which he must have completed only shortly before his death: a miniature reproduction, in ice, of a landscape which in all likelihood existed only in the mind of its creator. Gleaming in the light from the Dead Donkey Eaters' helmets, the ice reflected streets of cozy little houses, candy shops, and human figures which were so lifelike that some described them as 'unnatural.' . . . 'There was a pond, with a hockey game being played on it,' Cedric Bell said. 'I kept looking back at it, because out of the corner of my eye it seemed like they were moving. So I kept my eyes on it for a little while, to convince myself I was imagining it; but instead I started to hear the sound of the skates, and the sticks hitting the ice, and boys shouting. I never played hockey--never even watched it, really--and all of a sudden I missed it something terrible. I realized that pond might not even exist anymore, and if it did, there was no way for me to get to it. . . . One of the guys started shaking me, then, and asked me why I was crying.' . . . The reactions of the Dead Donkey Eaters and Gemini Society members fell entirely into two camps. Most were overwhelmed by a flood of nostalgia and loss so severe that afterwards some of them spent days huddled beneath blankets, shivering, amid 80-degree temperatures; but a few were angered by the carvings, calling them dishonest and manipulative. 'It was the work of a delusional personality,' said Manuel Charcot, the noted 'Mathmagician' whose theories of dimensional-parabolic travel were popular until his apparent disintegration in 1988. 'The past which he has tried to reproduce here, regardless of its technical merit, is a bourgeouis fantasy of a time when existence was simple and safe and free of suffering; a time which never existed. It is a child's vision. Had Mr. Priest dared to depict the interiors of those safe and warm little houses, the picture would have been quite different indeed.' . . . Cedric Bell maintains to this day that Charcot was complicating the matter. 'This was just a guy who was homesick. I like to think that maybe he'd never carved anything before that--that he was just some guy who worked in an office, and one day he couldn't get home. So he found a way to bring home to him. What he made, it made me feel something. I don't think I'll ever forget it.' . . . Shortly after what Charcot referred to as 'the Bobbsey Twins' postcard world' was exposed to the open air, it began to melt--whatever magic had sustained the cold storage chamber seemed to have dissipated, and within two days Priest's work was lost forever. . . . The melted remains play a part in the stories of traveling children's entertainer Diana Kurlansky and her family; the magic water is supposed to have been the origin of the Salamander Cops, who are supposed to police the sewers to promote safety and decency. 'Maybe the magic in that ice was made of dreams, and maybe it was made of memories,' the story goes. 'Either way, when Sergeant Olm drank the cool water, he became possessed with the need to clean up Salamander City.' . . . Other, more cynical storytellers have speculated that Priest's undisciplined magic, once unlocked from the ice, was responsible for the rise of the 'crocfather' Mad Green and his ilk." (p.372-4)

"Although in recent years various parties have seen some success in the creation of alternative fuels, for all practical purposes the Exile marked the end of the internal combustion engine within the city. With no means of delivery, gas stations in the city simply sold out of their ready supplies and shut down, many of them for good. Among their final customers were commuters seeking some exit from the silver-and-gold shell which had hardened around the area. The city limits are still strewn with the debris of their desperation; more than one suburbanite, searching futilely for an alternate route back to home and family, drove until caffeine and exhaust fumes combined in the bitter, starless night to work an alchemy of surrender. Most of them struck the shell head-on; some few survived to walk away from their crumpled vehicles. Most of these undertook long odysseys to join others who had already returned to their offices in high-rises downtown, to sleep in chairs or under desks to the lullaby of dead phone lines. Many of them never recovered. 'Suits and Skirts' became synonymous with ghosts; faces at plate glass windows were understood to be souls set adrift. . . . One such soul, a certain Martin Howe, left a diary typed over the pages of an Employee Manual for the small accounting firm where he worked, a chronicle in palimpsest of meals stolen from the company refrigerator ('Ate Andrea's chicken cacciatore from Thursday,' reads one entry. 'Spent rest of day in men's room.'), coffee made with rainwater collected from the roof, and a terror of 'gremlins' which he believed wandered the offices at night, living off of carbon paper. Howe seemed to believe himself the only survivor left in the city, and apparently never encountered another living soul. His diary was later found by Mayor Faldbakken's Salvage Team, but Howe himself was lost to history after an entry which reads only, 'Twelve six down.' This has been interpreted as some sort of code having to do with elevator travel, but is likely just madness. . . . In the end the city's residents turned to a form of transport which required only themselves as fuel. Some bicycle store owners were able to capitalize on the need through barter, while others realized the opportunity too late and found their stores already looted. Rusted shells of abandoned bicycles were salvaged and repurposed, wheels were fashioned from hubcaps and garbage can lids, and home bike garages sprang up throughout the city. Today these are mostly family businesses, run by folk who piece together frames from fences and old chairs and cannibalize car radials to make tires. (Rubber is scarce in the city these days.) . . . While the traditional design remains the favorite, there are various elaborations. The city, for example, owns a fleet of team-propelled models; most are designed for four-person squads, and consist of five frames welded together in a configuration of three abreast with two stacked behind for a lookout (known to parties hostile to the Mayor as the 'target'). These bicycle 'tanks' can be used to tow small trailers, and are usually protected by groups of scout and light infantry riders. (Bike jousting, contrary to popular belief, is not a common form of engagement in city warfare; the school-child's sport gained iconic status during the long summer of '72-'73 when Patrice Washington painted a somewhat Rockwellian mural of an alley match on the side of what was once the 1st 17th Federal Bank.) . . . Today bicycle building and repair is one of the city's primary industries; another, unsurprisingly, is bicycle theft. The latter is rather severely punished in most areas. The official penalty is one year of indentured service in the city's bike garage, but in other parts of the city the old thieves' justice of a severed hand may be administered, or even death." (p.499-501)

It's no fun being sick if you can't call up the boss-man and say "Nope not today. Suckah!"

One reason it's easy to love the Twins: they have great commercials. Pirahnas, and Carpool. (Via Twinkie Town.)

The book has a working title now: Five Kingdoms. I'm pretty sure it won't stick forever, because it's kind of un-sexy. Also it's a little misleading because it's not actually literally about five different kingdoms. Look, don't get all in my face about it. It's like, you know, calling your friend Hank because of that noise he made that one time when he fell over trying to uncork a bottle of Cabernet. A nickname. I like it for now because it has a bunch of different meanings relevant to what's actually going on in the book, even though they are the sort of meanings that I would have to explain using words like "metaphorically." Also it's nice to not have to say "The book I'm working on right now which is about succession and revolution and stuff."

Crap, I can't even get this stupid tube of Advil open. When I was in Austin David Moles had to open one of these for me. Dave, mind getting on a plane?

For, well, everyone: an alarm clock with wake-up messages from Stephen Fry. (Via Warren Ellis.)

Mo Rocca has a blog.

Oh, and another Secret City excerpt was posted late last night, so you may have missed it. It's about Winter's End. Enjoy.

I am now going back to bed.

Grammys: The Police sounded good (hearing Stewart's drums really makes it seem like everything is going to be all right with the world, somehow) but played for such a short time that I kept the TV on in case they came back. I typed up novel stuff and listened to iTunes, mostly. Was momentarily distracted by Shakira (guh) and my love Christina (DAMN that girl can sing. And she was rockin' the white suit) but mostly I missed it. Not sure how I feel about the Dixie Chicks stormin' the castle like that; I'm a big fan of theirs, but this album is a big upswing on the self-righteous scale, and the music suffers. One of the first things I noticed was that they'd written ALL of the songs. This is a problem because in past albums they did songs by folks like Jim Lauderdale and Lloyd Maines (yeah, Natalie's dad) and Patty effin' Griffin. Great songs, interspersed with the Chicks' own compositions, which were earnest if not as interesting. Which was what the new album turned out to be, sadly. It's good to see some props given for not keeping one's mouth shut, true, and I don't even know who else was nommed, really--I know that they're better than Carrie Underwood and Rascal Flatts, at least.

Yesterday there was a crazy dude at the coffee shop. Actually, I've seen him there before several times, but never with the crazy cranked up all the way. He kept insisting on engaging people in conversation; he had sort of a polite approach, and most people are polite by default, so he had a lot of victims available. He'd take an interest in them ("Oh, are you in school? Oh, where did you get your degree?") until he could relate it back to his fixation with how Jesus is our savior and Ronald Reagan was his prophet. He would keep on until his audience either ignored him or walked away, and then he wandered around drinking his cold coffee, with his hands trembling, scribbling stuff into a notebook. (Incidentally, a woman who visits the coffee shop just about every day spent this entire time snoring in one of the chairs, just as she does every evening. I'm not sure what her story is, but her odor is such that the spaces around her are usually deserted even when the rest of the place is packed.) It occurred to me, between snippets of overheard craziness (One guy asked him where he lived, and he replied "I live in the trees, I always have.") that most people don't have much experience dealing with crazy people. Like, maybe a weird aunt, but not genuinely mentally ill people. Another point in favor of my time spent working at the Rathskeller, where I dealt with deeply disturbed people every day. One woman--one of the harmless ones--spent ten minutes at the cashier stand telling us that her hands were on backwards. Some were just homeless guys who liked to wander the Terrace picking up "dead soldiers" i.e. unfinished beers. Most weren't actually dangerous, although the Fisher King (so-called for the fishing pole he always carried) did shove me once as we were escorting him off the premises. But it occurs to me that maybe most people are insulated from these sorts of folks, so don't notice them or know how to deal with them.

New Secret City excerpt up. Garbage gangs, this time. Enjoy.