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SKILLS_OF_XANADU

                                              December 30, 2012
  "The Skills of Xanadu",
  a short by Theodore Sturgeon,        STURGEON
  originally published in Galaxy,      BLACK_MASKS
  in July 1956.

                            YEAR_OF_SYMBIOSIS

      I heard (only recently,
      but I believe it implicitly),
      that this story was the
      inspiration for the naming
      of Ted Nelson's software             XANADU
      project, "Xanadu".


      A quick summary:
                                 SPOLIERS
                                              
      There's this guy, a tight-ass, crew-cut                
      Explorer type, who is checking out the                 
      planet Xanadu, which has a distinct                    
      Utopian-vibe about it: everything seems                
      functional, and everyone seems happy                   
      (and much more relaxed than our viewpoint              
      character, the tight-ass Explorer).                    
                                                             
      They have a remarkable ability to                     
      coordinate their activity without        A less sympathetic view
      a lot of administrative overhead.        might suggest that they
                                               swarm like ants.
      There's a bunch of detail about
      the way they live -- they like
      houses that are open to the
      environment, they wear light
      diaphonous clothes that are
      apparently generated by the belts
      they wear, they've got some sort
      of odd toilets that look like
      rocks, but absorb waste when
      they're flipped on, and so on.

         There's a Xanadu fellow who tries to talk
         the explorer dude into living the way
         they do, but the open houses weird him out,
         he prefers his full body jump suit to their
         light clothes, and so on.

         He requests that they build him a
         spartan shack with barely room for a
         bed and a toilet-rock.  This turns out
         to be grossly impractical, and he
         frequently sits on the rock because he
         neglected to include anywhere else to
         sit down. One day he flips on the rock
         by accident, and it immediately eats
         the seat of his jump suit, leaving him
         stuck inside his shack without any
         socially acceptable (to him) way of
         leaving.

         They pass him one of their belt garments,
         and when he clips it on, he's immediately
         overwhelmed by the experience: it isn't
         just clothing, it's a telepathic device.
         He's now connected to their group mind,
         which is how they pull off their amazing
         feats of co-ordinated activity.


             Okay, now: this is all spun in a
             positive way.  The viewpoint character
             is not at all sympathetic, the people
             of Xanadu really do have a perfect
             society, and it's a wonderful thing to
             be suddenly connected up and
             experience the community of Xanadu.

                                            
             In retrospect, this seems       
             seriously "hippie fascist",          
             perhaps an early warning sign        
             of where such things were going.     
                                                     
             No one explains the deal to our                             
             crew-cut boy, and tight-ass or         There was a 60s           
             not, connecting someone up to a        fantasy about about       
             powerful mind-altering technology      how all would be well     
             without a word of warning would        if they could only        
             seem to be Not Nice.                   spike the punch bowl      
                                                    at the Republican         
                                                    Convention with acid.     
                                                                              
                                                                             
                                                  
                                                  

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