The Distributive Passions

NOTES: Enewetak. Rough landing, but I guess I’ve lived through worse. Took us a few minutes to get cleared for the Recovery Area. Might be here a couple of days. Might be a blessing in disguise.

There’s no preparing for this. I can get my rap down for the Intergalactic, but it’s like going to a conference on another planet. We were hardly into our descent before I could feel the ocean and, frankly, I’m freaked the f*ck out.

THE WATER: “Looks like piss. Tastes like paradise.” Not exactly the most couth of slogans, but whatever works. A dirty joked, passed around, and waterbars are packing ‘em in in no time flat. It’s a good joke, a Fourierist Free-Four joke, teasing and sly. “From the Sea of Lemonade” would hardly have hooked anyone over the age of about seven. “Gimme a pint of the Wondrous” on the other hand. . .

THE CAMPAIGN: Worth thinking about, here on the Free Fourierist’s doorstep. With Nato and the Bloc doing their level bests to contain whatever is brewing out here, I would have bet on real urine getting by the FDA before “the wondrous.” But, sell it to the Japanese, always ready to buck the trend for risky eats. No amount of negative propaganda could make Isles water look half as dangerous as, say, fugu. Then sell the idea to all the alternatechs, hemp farmers flush from legalization, the natural health crowd, anti-genies, and to the free traders. Smuggle a bottle or two in a diplomatic pouch, and make sure the right folks get a taste. It doesn’t hurt if, like the Free-Fours, you’re not averse to a little urine-drinking, assuming the passions lead that way. It doesn’t hurt if, like the Free-Fours, you seem to be sitting at the heart of some sort of miracle. Brash is good. Kink is good. The bloggers love it, and the surfers love the bloggers when they latch onto something good. And suddenly it’s like the gov’t is holding back the water of the Fountain of Youth (not that there’s any scientific evidence for that yet) and something gives way in Washington and the President is talking about turning WTO rules on the FDA. Wham-bam, Congress authorizes the WATER talks, and it’s no time before the GATI initiative is hammered out, and the alternatechs suddenly take all the stock markets on a rocket ride. It’s on! The Isles weren’t starving anyway, but they were isolated. Now it seems like everybody’s in the game. And when folks stop to think about that, it isn’t clear who exactly is likely to be served. Which makes the 2010 Intergalactic, out here on Toupki-Ameeko (Kwajalein, for you Old Nomenclature types), about the least likely must-attend summit imaginable. What does it all mean? Why the sudden reversal on the part of The Established Powers?

MY GUESS: If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em.

The Network needs to get it’s stuff together. I need to get used to this crazy place. The test craters bubble and glow. That tingle you feel when you drink your “pint of wondrous” is a force out here, and whatever is happening out around the craters feel like some epic, manichaean struggle. Coming down in the dusk I think i had a bit of a panic attack. The whole scene took on a rather Lovecraftian cast. “Too much life,” the pilot said. Too much fecundity, maybe, which is just a little different.