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OPEN_HOUSE

                                              December 30, 2012

Here's a case where I was
directly influenced by Sturgeon's
dreams of the house open to the
environment...
                                              SKILLS_OF_XANADU
   
One summer, in the days when I was                   Similar to the house in
a basement dwelling teenager, I                      "Forbidden Planet", but
decided to experiment with leaving                   without Robbie's laser
the cellar door completely open at                   to chase away vermin.
all times, so I could wander       
outside at any time, completely    
unimpeded.                        
          
I should call this The Summer of The Flies.

This was in New York, and Sturgeon, I suspect,
had already become a California dweller
by the time he wrote "Skills of Xanadu".

  You hear much about the warm
  weather of California, but just
  as striking is the lack of            But you know, we've been pumping
  insects: there are flies and          water into this stinking desert
  mosquitos, but very few               for over a hundred years now...
  compared to the more water-rich       you'd think that we're overdue
  regions of the East.                  to be colonized by some bugs in
                                        need of a new niche...
  My screenless-summer was spent
  living in a cloud of black flies.

     This is                     (I started doing things like
     unfortunately               shooting them with a dart
     a common                    gun pistol, squishing them
     syndrome with               against the wall with the
     these sorts                 suction cups.)
     of romantic
     experiments.

         The traditions of the straight world often seems
         like they're just the result of irrational manias
         for cleanliness and order-- and often they really
         are just that, but frequently they're not:
         there's often a hidden, barely understood reason
         behind the conventional rules, and often no one
         can really give you a convincing argument for why
         things have to be this way... because after all
         the rules are often evolved rather than planned.


         But before you sneer... how are
         we to make any progress if the
         freaks like myself don't
         occasionally experiment with
         flouting conventional wisdom?

         Still, take it from me:

         Screens on open windows: a good
         idea. (Though not so critical in
         most of California).

                                              There's a Gary Synder
                                              essay where he describes
                                              living the outdoor, natural
                                              life, just letting the
                                              insects bite.  It doesn't
                                              sound like fun to me-- and
                                              I doubt that he's still
                                              doing it-- but he didn't
                                              regard his experiment as
                                              a failure.

                                                  It could be that a truly
                                                  wide-open living area
                                                  would have the virtue
                                                  of letting the flies
                                                  escape.






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