savage utopias

 heres a novel called savage utopias  its only defect is that it has punctuation  we tried to take out the punctuation but a curse has been put on those who try to take punctuation out of savage utopias and 胡仙 would personally avenge anyone attempting to remove the punctuation even though as everyone knows removing punctuation is one of the best things a whonym can do in life but 胡仙 is less concerned with life than a kind of personal and idiosyncratic propriety   savage utopias an important novel in novel sadoo which in its turn is an unimportant novel in novel which itself is beyond unimportance and importance

 

 

in a city somewhere  somewhere on a planet  is a village  a commune of sorts  green and strange and older than time   many lives would be required to describe it  and we have only one  and analyzing?   well   impossible!

 

what would you say is its primary attribute?

 

a battle for sanity

 

isn’t this humanitys also?

 

yes   but in the world sanitys simply the struggle for power   the more sane points you have, the more money, fame, and love you’re given … the fewer   less money, fame, love.  in the balm though – for that’s what our village is called – sanity’s a matter of life and death.  every year the 10 villagers with the fewest sane points (or the most insane, depending how you look at it) are taken to the incinerator to be burned and the fire used to fuel a village-wide barbeque – the 10 members of the village council (who have the highest sanity rankings) serve the food and there’s dancing and everyone gets drunk and forgets for the night the brutality of the annual sanity competitions

 

and for those with the most sanity points?

 

there’s a woman – speth strawcloud – who has been on council longer than anyone can remember.  she seems pleasant enough at first – if you say hi she twitches back in the kind of way that could be taken as a sign of acknowledgment.  she has devoted her life to achieving the balm’s highest sanity ranking and been shockingly successful!  year after year when the rankings are posted – the day before the barbeque – strawcloud’s always #1.  her chief privilege at this elevation is to veto anyone from the top or bottom 10 – though even her power is not so great as to be able to catapult someone directly from the bottom to the top, or to freefall someone the other way – a right she exercises by being able to see the list prior to its posting.  of course the rest of the year she’s busy lobbying – twitching around the village saying, oh yes, frida’s mad, totally mad or frank, oh yes, we like him.

 

naturally, a rebellious group – wholly ineffective, ever hopeful – with anarchoprimitivist tendencies formed near the advent of the balm.  intentionally nameless, leaderless, and disorganized, it doesn’t stop at objecting to the unnecessary deaths and privileges, but questions the ground of sanity itself.  at least the general populace has the battle of sanity to unite them – but the rebels only have vast, disparate, and frequently contradictory dissatisfactions.  nevertheless, over the years they have managed to assemble a loose list of definitions of madness.  none of the group agrees on them and any attempts to publish them have been hindered by disputes over wording of the definitions, the number of definitions to include, the nature and function of a definition, the form of the pamphlet and method of its dissemination, font and point size, and whether the convention of the spelling of definition is itself an offense and should the word be provocatively altered to be daffynition, deaf-ignition, de fin-a-shun, anti- and uncle-def.  some have had their favourite tattooed on a body part, on a pet, engraved on walls.  there was a multi-year phase during which the majority of the rebels argued that any definition, by virtue of being a definition, further entrenched the wholly malevolent and barbaric sanity system already in place and thus were against any attempts to even use words to define madness.  form must match content! some reasoned.  these ones, on the margins of the margins, painted, sang, screamed, danced, or – if escape was possible, and it rarely is – retreated into the woods far from the village and the city, eventually grew silent, and died.  regardless, the following six definitions had in some fashion managed to mostly persist among the majority of rebels.

 

1. that which thinks or claims or feels it is primarily guided by reason
2. that which thinks its membership in a particular species, sex, ethnicity, profession, class, club, stratum, sphere – its membership in anything social or biological – grants it any ontological priority
3. that which thinks thinking thinks more thinkly than flesh
4. that – whether an individual or a species – which thinks and behaves (through the structures and processes it aligns itself with and the mores it embodies) as if its singularity is more than its singularity – that is, like all singularities, a transient and tiny piece of fluff in an almost infinite universe
5. any system, any action leading to or from that system, that does not accept (and through that acceptance embody) an irreducible seemingly contradictory and vast plurality, without any legitimate head
6. that which applies principles of equality, plurality, diversity only to certain aspects of the universe (e.g. sex, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc.) and not to all aspects (e.g. cognitive, emotional, and physical configurations and habitats)

 

membership among the rebels is inevitably loose and a few among them are lost to the annual barbeque.  a further difficulty is the rebels can’t help but be suspicious that other rebels are devoted more to engaging in the competitions than fighting against them.  who actually is a rebel? is a question that often undermines the other – seemingly more central – question, what actually is sanity? 

 

jo, a long-term rebel who has just barely managed to escape the barbeque on three or four occasions, is talking one day on a walkway to rael, whose position is murky but certainly at times seems to indicate he is unsure what sanity is.  this counts for something.  they are talking of innocent things this moment – of tulips … for flowers and vegetables are one of the safest topics in the balm, and people resort to them routinely to escape the oppression of having to appear sane.

 

my grandmother was a great tulip lover, says jo.

 

yup, says rael.  tulips aren’t really part of my family.  i’m probably the biggest tulip person there’s been so far … and i’m not much of one so that’s probably not saying much.

 

are those yours over there?

 

nope, those are shasha’s.

 

shasha does tulips?

 

well, to say shasha does anything …

 

jo and rael laugh and their laughter betrays that even rebels sometimes enter sanity’s wars.  everyone knows shasha’s nuts.

 

did you see him yesterday with the eavestrough cleaners?

 

i heard about it – wasn’t he throwing zucchinis at them?

 

it was eggplants actually but i’ve heard people are saying zucchinis, cukes, spaghetti squash, even stuffed snakes.

 

wouldn’t matter to the eavestrough cleaners though.

 

it’s not nice having vegetables thrown at you on a ladder.

 

stuffed snakes?

 

shasha’s mom died recently and he got all her snakes.

 

she was into snakes?

 

people get into shit, you know.

 

that’s it? all he got was snakes?

 

she had a few hundred bucks under her mattress.

 

not really worth a death.

 

depends.

 

but shasha was coming, as he did, from the east.  jo spotted him first.  shhh, he’s coming, behind you, don’t look.

 

rael looks.  hey shasha, how’re things.

 

shasha smiles and cackles briefly.  i know the two of you.  i know what you’re up to.

 

what are we up to shasha?

 

yeah, we don’t know.

 

you … you two … always trouble … shasha pauses for another smile, which shatters any relationship between smiling and camaraderie, and the two wait with a learned and anticipative anxiety, for shasha could abuse and amuse almost in the same breath … you two … you’re just like the rest of them.  and he spits on his tulips and walks off, yelling at a cat, go to havana and light one up like the americans.  and he cackles a few more times.  havana.  he stops and looks into space as if the cat has already boarded a plane.  those were the days.  he walks west and disappears.

 

how has he ever avoided the barbeque?

 

there’s been lots of talk about that.

 

speth?

 

probably.

 

she needs shasha around?

 

word is that she vetoes him – each and every year.

 

how come he gets immunity?

 

maybe he knows something.

 

they have a deal?

 

i don’t mean anything explicit, that would be impossible.  but like so many things around here, a kind of understanding.  they balance each other out you know.

 

speth would never admit that.

 

not even to herself.

 

she’s smart in her weird way.

 

everybody is.

 

and jo knows for the moment that rael is a real rebel, part of that obscure democracy that reveals the official democracy for what it truly is – a pack of lies, neatly packaged to keep the people far from freedom.

 

well, got to mosey off to membership now.

 

you’re on membership? are you masochistic?

 

it’s espionage actually.  i get to see how the decisions are made.

 

how are they made?

 

i still don’t know and i’ve been on it for three years.  waiting for the light.  jo sings and laughs in short and slightly unhinged tones, and rael, who needed to talk about tulips more, edges away.

 

i forgot, i’m stewing rutabagas, i got to see how they’re doing.

 

you’re stewing rutabagas?  nobody stews rutabagas.

 

that’s not true, they do in the ukraine.

 

oh, the ukraine … we’re not there though.

 

it’s been good talking with you jo, hope membership goes well.

 

yeah, you too, i’ll give you all the juicy details.

 

rael walks carefully back to his unit and shuts the door.  christ, he says to his cat.  you just go out to get some vegenaise.

 

meow.

 

yeah, you’re the only sane one in the balm.

 

jo, however, was in the best of moods after her conversation with rael and shasha.  while she did not believe in sanity, she was feeling extremely sane – that perfect imbalanced interstice between disbelief and feeling, when the best things happen.

 

membership meets in the office, which serves as the chambers for village council, all the committees that are actually functioning, ad hoc groups, alliances with the outside, and the administrative and management tasks of the village staff.  the office is a white and derelict affair, files and minutes from buried epochs stacked in tottering impossibilities, a low fluorescent ceiling made of stucco and black holes, wires curiously poking out, a lost window to the east, undesirable machines on every surface – an overall effect of the headquarters of an alcoholic private detective working for the secret service of a dying communist republic.

 

three members huddle outside the doors, huddling not because it is cold outside but because they are, having been given poorly tuned thermostats and the world’s pharmaceuticals insufficient for the tuning.

 

there’s jo, says one of the huddlers.

 

jo!!! screams another.

 

shush.

 

why should i shush?

 

you don’t want everyone to hear you.

 

it’s jo.

 

hi jo.

 

how are you old communists doing?

 

you’re the communist.

 

if only.

 

it would be nice to have something to believe in, wouldn’t it jo?  silta has joined the group; she is chair of membership and has been ever since klapifa relinquished the privilege after a television fell on her.

 

are we adding the 31 shturm issue to the agenda?  jo feels pleased with how she has sidestepped silta’s jab and silently congratulates herself.  it’s going to be a good meeting.

 

we can’t talk about that yet.  ruma’s here.

 

aren’t you on membership ruma?

 

why would i be on membership?

 

we’re on membership.

 

that doesn’t answer ruma’s question jo.  why aren’t we in?  are the doors locked?

 

do you think we’d be standing out here if they weren’t?

 

silta tries the doors.  they’re unlocked.  idiots.

 

jo and limt exchange glances.  jo’s never been sure about limt – he was on council for a year a while ago and is the only male on membership.  he’s not horrible looking and is single and doesn’t seem to be gay.  she and froow had discussed this over daffodils last tuesday.

 

he doesn’t even seem to have anyone over.

 

or leave the village.

 

but he doesn’t seem nuts.  does he?

 

what about speth?

 

what do you mean?

 

does she like him?

 

word is he’s off the radar.

 

for now.

 

it’s always for now.

 

jo doesn’t know froow had, in her own way, tried to seduce limt last winter when the two had been the last ones cleaning up in the village hall after a potluck.  she hadn’t been sure if limt hadn’t got her signals, if she hadn’t sent them, or if he was playing dumb.  but why would he play dumb?  the broom closet was just over there.  everyone used it.  the only person she had told about the failure was rael, who lived below her and seemed safe.  rael had told her to give it a bit of time and try again – seduction’s like the weather, he had said.  which had given froow a lot to think about.

 

big agenda tonight, says limt.

 

i’m looking forward to it, says jo.

 

i’m leaving at 9, i don’t care if 31 shturm hasn’t come up.

 

don’t you want to know?

 

someone’ll brief me.

 

yabut you won’t have your say.

 

my say.  i’m only on membership because i promised vork after he had to quit and paid for option’s vet bills and llibi stole his lemongrass and there was that leak in irim’s basement and veda cheated on him and … i don’t know why i’m on membership, let’s just say …

 

but now they’re at the table and silta’s not looking at them in that focused way of hers, so they sit down as other committee members arrive and greetings and insults are exchanged and everyone braces themselves for the immediate future.

 

yes, meetings at the balm are renowned.  even people in other villages, themselves hardly known for order, speak in asides of the balm and its ways.  when new members enter, the more experienced warn them quietly of the meetings, saying if they know what’s best for them, they’ll just tend the tulips and keep their units in good condition and not say much.  but alongside this, the calmly rabid few of the political tribe offer encouragements.

 

it’s not as bad as they say you know.

 

if no one helped, the village would fall apart.

 

oh, they’re just grumblers.  come and see for yourself.  everything works just fine.

 

you have a background in architecture.  you’d be perfect on property.

 

even speth was not unknown to cast some random hope into the frothy mix of doubt.  on lusor’s third day, for example, after vorette had hinted that musp had already got to lusor and trashed everyone and had suggested that perhaps lusor, with her connections, might be useful somewhere – at least for a time, speth had angled over as lusor was returning from laundry and had commented favourably on lusor’s boots.  for speth, and as lusor would discover, this was significant.

 

it’s a long one folks, silta says.

 

when is it not a long one?

 

when it’s in digger’s pants.

 

some members laugh, others frown, still others pretend not to have heard, and silta sits beyond, officially pretending to frown while allowing sufficient time for the joke to penetrate those who might be slow on such matters.

 

we need to add 31 shturm.

 

make a motion.

 

you can’t make a motion until the meeting’s begun.  can you?

 

has the meeting begun?

 

may i have a motion to approve the agenda, i believe we have quorum.

 

where’s murqle?

 

murqle is not necessary for quorum.

 

i didn’t say she was necessary, i just want to know … her cat died last week.

 

no. kerfluffle is gone?

 

she has left us.

 

oh dear.

 

may i have a motion to approve the agenda.

 

i have so many fond memories.  kerfluffle was amazing, her speckled paws, her …

 

i move to approve the agenda.

 

thanks limt.  do i have a seconder?

 

four hands are raised.

 

jo seconded, did you get that speth?

 

speth moves in that way silta knows is acknowledgement.

 

jo hadn’t put up her hand but says, we need to add 31 shturm.

 

make a motion.

 

i move that we add 31 shturm.

 

seconder?

 

limt seconds.  put it under 11g speth.

 

we’ll never get to it if it’s that far down, says jo.

 

yes we will, says silta.

 

silta is chair of membership and property and the village council and thus one of the supreme sane; her relationship with speth – who plays minute-taker and thus controls the official words – is long and arduous.  silta does not like speth but can’t do anything about it for reasons that might become clear.  speth hates everybody – a key criterion of highest sanity in the village – but in the case of silta must veil her feelings, for even speth is not invulnerable should she too egregiously misstep.

 

while even the earliest records of the balm contain page after page of speth’s name, silta is not there.  for she arrived from farflung wineries many years later, slowly working her way to the highest rungs of sanity.  it’s an old relationship – one taking the visible chieftain’s robes while the true #1 lurks to the side, a dagger sheathed in its lips, pulling strings.

 

yet you have not spoken of another, one who also lurks and is not around the membership table, but will know all that is spoken there.

 

the meeting is long, painful, circuitous, argumentative, bilious, with invisible threads of ignorance and injustice tying the mess together in a package stamped productive, but empty inside.

 

they discuss psast’s supposed medical requirement to move to a larger unit because of a recent outbreak of herpes, …