The Big Rock Candy Theorem

Recent minute blips in the cardiograph of the European markets has the public slowly but surely cocking eyebrows towards economists AS IF they know not what they did, will do, are doing. I must ask the public to be patient. Relax. Have a wheat beer. Take a wide Bertha (or a wide Martha if that's all you got). I learned to take an expansive, patient view of the world during my brief ten-year sojourn in the Swiss Alps.

I was taking the cure at Berghof Schrudrifer Sanatorium for my pathologic gummy addiction (to this day I can't see a swedish berry without salivating like a dog in a jerky factory). Ah, the sweet regulatory life of a patient at the Berghof! Time condensed and expanded in a way you "valley folk" could never understand. Between the five identical and precise meal-times, where we were served everyday with Happy Meals and Fresca, to the long stretches of the "rest cure", where, bundled up in our yak-skin sacks we sat hours on our balconies in all weather, snow or rain, howling at the moon and taking stock of the universe - who among you groundhogs could grasp it?

In short, it was blisteringly boring. But how marvelously so! Still, not all time was solitude. Besides brief conversation at the troughs during meal-times, I also managed to do some Berg steigen, mountainous hiking, although nothing too strenuous for my weakened, gummy-riddled frame. It was during these walks that I met Herr Tortellinni. Clad in a worn but tasteful pea-coat and neon-green neck-kerchief, Herr Tortellinni would harangue me on my mental fructifications and leave with me with plenty of valuable insight to maul over and forget on my own time.

He was a great homo humanus, a passable homo dodgeballicus, and a cringingly greedy homo stealsnapkinicus. He was also a maternal great-grandson of the famed economist Sismondi. His father had been a professional "Connect Four" player who struggled to bring national unity to his home country of Parmesania. Uniting the intellect and fervour of his famed progenitors, Tortellinni served the cause of his country and western civilization as a whole, writing a fifteen volume reference work, The History of Constipation in Literature. "What is all of Greek Tragedy," he would say, "but the mighty constipations of gods and men?"

It was Tortellinni who taught me the true meaning of Economics during one of his humanistic barking sessions -- sine pecunia, of course. I had brought up the subject with reference to the recent universal collapse of markets, sanity, and stability "down below". I went on further to call Economists, bankers, and market-traders alike "greedy sons-of-whores-and-whoremongering donkey eaters." Tortellinni smiled, played with his mustachio in that subtle, Snidely Whiplashesque manner he had, and proceed to correct my peverted opinions with the following lecture:

"Sapperlot, my young Informationist! I do not think you quite grasp the idea of Economics. It was Plato who said Philosophy begins in wonder; he might just as well have said that Economics ends in it. Indeed, one can hardly censure Economists for the unfruitful studies they undertake. At least a Philosopher or a professor of English would have no grounds. Economists are not astrologists. It might very well be that they study the ups and downs of market forces, currencies, and that impenetrable river of numbers and decimals with the same relish that a Classicist laps up from a passage of Homer describing the wine-dark sea. As soon as the critic can tell me the theme of the next great novel before it is yet written, then and only then will I look toward the Economist with regards to the future."

It was a striking thought, I thought, as I struck my thunker on an unseen outcrop of mountain.

"But," I continued, for my sentence was hardly begun, "what then are these Economists good for, Herr Tortellinni?"

He smiled and nodded. "You are playing in dangerous, Bourgeois, urine soaked pool waters, my young Informationist. Asking what a thing is 'good for' is tantamount to intellectual Goonism. However, I will accept your teleological goal-post for the present argument. Let us consider the term from the Poetics that Aristotle uses to define the end of tragedy. The term is katharsis, which might be translated as relief, expulsion, or, in my personal view, the sacred bowel movement of the conscience. It is the feeling that rushes over one after the tragedy, the feeling of joy and release that accompanies the abstracted vision of terror onstage. It affects the whole audience, as if they were figuratively (or in some elderly cases, actually) just waking up from a dyspeptic nap.

"Now you ask me, what are the predictions of Economists good for? I point to Tiresias, to Cassandra, to the prophets of the Old Testament, who underscore the tragic moment by revealing it beforehand. They are our modern capitalistic mystics. It is their place to point at the ghastly, meaningless numbers of the stock ticker, to babble incoherent verses like the Delphic oracle. Above all else they serve to garnish the absolute catastrophe of mankind with a bit of foreshadowed seasoning."

I mentioned casually that as far as the stock ticker on TV goes, I had never learned to discern its meaning. I always read the numbers out like a Bingo man much to the general mirth of the Berghof rumpus room. Some jokes never get old. Tortelinni smiled his wolfish smile. We seperated for lunch, where our Happy Meals and toys were waiting with Swiss precision at our designated seats.

The Shadow over Goonsmouth

子曰、飽食終日、無所用心、難矣哉、不有博弈者乎、為之猶賢 乎已。

'The Master said, 'Hard is it to deal with him, who will stuff himself with food the whole day, without applying his mind to anything good! Are there not gamesters and chess players? To be one of these would still be better than doing nothing at all.'

-Analects, 17.22

Deep in the wooded depths of the Ottawa Valley lies a certain townhouse complex; therein are many units smelling of this or that fried delicacy. However, down at its furthest end, at the door of unit 667, there issues no immediate smell -- of cooking. Yet this was my goal. A rhythmic knock brings a dark hooded figure to the entrance; he slowly opens the gateway and ushers me in with the archaic, nasal dialect of his sect: "Hail, hail." I hailed. Inside, the rooms bespeak sacred rites not bound by social laws of cleanliness or hygiene. Holy books clutter my path as I make my way to the inner sanctum.

My eyes are immediately lifted to the icon of a howling warrior deity plastered on the wall with clear reverence. I use my rudimentary knowledge of Old Nerdish to decipher the gothic script beneath the ghastly Kali-esque image: "Bloody Kombat XV: Voyage to Kill-o-polis". Quickly a chorus of hails snaps my attention to the scene at hand. Along two ancient Ikea couches sit three acolytes equally male, hooded, and neck-bearded, with eyes empty of all save reverence for their avatar. The middle table contains bowls of cheesy-puffed offerings, high-octane sodas, and the mystic scribblings of their latest devotions. At the head, in an armchair of blood-curdling antiquity and historical bespatterment, sits the High Bishop. "Welcome and hail, Brother in Ghanos!" I had done it. I had found at last the remnants of the Old School Nerd Cult.

History would seem to have all but dispensed with the cultural significance of asceticism. That the Monks of Ireland and Old Europe saved Latinate culture through the Dark Ages and into the Carolingian Renaissance is well attested. Ascetic principles, both coenobitic and anchoritic, have played major moves in the chess game of world history and its progress. Yet the modern era seems scarcely aware of its few remnants. We have taken what we like from their doctrines and outer shells, and have tossed aside the inner meaning behind the sweet melismatic chants of the Gregorian era.

Yet most asceticism has been bound in some way with the religions of the Old World. Up until very recently, the Old Nerds were among the few genuinely modern and flourishing examples of asceticism in the later 20th century. Its origins lie in the spiritual reactions of a few deep souls, usually students of mathematics, sciences, and what became computer studies, who though wise in mortal knowledge yet felt resistance against the trending pull of the North American magnetism, that is against materialism, greed, and money. They besought truth from the outer reaches of the Universe in Space, or the sacred archetypes of man's fantastical Mythologies.

The true Patriarchs of the cult had already inscribed the canons and sacred texts by the 50's-60's. Conversion and martyrdom were the first fruits of the 70's. Bullies persecuted the Nerds with a sadistic, Neronian taste for cruelty. According to one of their most respected Theologians, St. Pointdexter, "the sect was built on the wedgies of the martyred." During the 80's regulations of the various orders had been set down; the most significant, among others, were the Ordo Sci-Fiensis, Ordo Fantasticus, and the Ordo Nintendoensis. The present cult of Ghanos which I am studying is a descendant of the last, but, as with many other religious orders, has adopted the eclecticism and protectionist tendencies of a decadent age. As a last, withered branch on a dying tree, they feel the heritage of all Nerdom is their domain.

The Nerds have seen a sickening debasement of their religion no less astounding than the Protestant Reformation. The old rites of true Nerdom have spread to the populace in crude new forms. "Noobs and posers, the lot of them!" I heard one acolyte exclaim. "What do they know of long hours alone, level grinding through the dark soul of the night?" What was once a tacit and subdued display of religious fervour has became a socially acceptable party favour. Who among you has not played on one of the new-fangled systems, a Ninetnedo Woo, Chex-Box, or Playstation Drei? The Old Nerds however stick solely to the oldest systems; Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Gameboy; and the true adepts of the sect play only the original Nintendo Entertainment System and Commodore 64.

Maybe the more adventurous of my readers have even embarked upon a little game of Dungeons and Dragons once in a while, with drinks, good company, and a hearty acceptance of its silliness? Something you can boast about to your friends later, saying how "super nerdy" you are with a wink and a sly reference to your dispensed virginity? Yet therein lies a great gulf; for a true Old Nerd, these things are deadly serious. Chastity, study, and reverence for the import of the Old Rites - these are the holiest of virtues to the sect. Their gaming domain has since been taken over largely by competing sub-cultures: The Frats, The Students, The Izzy-Goths and The Claustro-Goths, Metal-Heads, the Jocks, and even that most antithetical of sects to the Nerd, that is, the Celebrity or Popular Culture sect, has embraced the gaming culture. With such temptations at hand, even Nerds themselves began to fall into apostasy. Some shaved and married. Others joined up with the aforementioned subcultures. Only a small, dedicated core remained true to the old teachings.

Particularly disturbing to Old Nerds is the trend of "girl gamers". That females are strictly forbidden and cast out from all Nerdom is one of their most cherished commandments. "It is the key to the entire Mystery of our Brotherhood," explained the High Bishop. "It is through the sublimation of Earthly desires, especially that one..." and here he glanced down-wards, "That is the Way. That is where the fervour and devotion comes from. That is the key to the Old School, to beating Wizardry 1-2-3, to playing through decade long campaigns, to achieving the ecstatic heights of union with Ghanos!" He continued to harangue against the heresies of Geek Chic, Cosplay, Gamer Weddings, and all such petty fraternizing. "Mere shells without meat" he said.

I asked the High Bishop if he saw a future for the sect. He grimly shook his head. "We do not breed" he said with a hint of longing. "Our doctrines are dissipated and watered down among the masses, preventing new converts. Our spirits and our teachings may live on piecemeal, but the time of the Old Ones has come to an end. It is a new age dawning, and while we seek unity in the timeless bosom of Ghanos, the rest of the world must fend for itself. Perhaps there will come a time, as the prophets predict," and here he took a puff from his inhaler, "Perhaps, when the Phoenix of Dorkdom shall arise once more from the ashes of hedonism and success. Hail Ghanos!" I left the Nerds a sadder and wiser man, feeling a mix of regret, melancholy, and indigestion.