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The Essay
Show #112
Meanwhile, Back in Kelgmore
David Gunn
Meanwhile, back in the Klegmore, Northwest Territories, mining shack, three Eskimos are engaged in a heated handed discussion of the Theory of Disputational Distortion and its influence on the tokamak which still sits in partial disarray on the table. Sure enough, the more they debate the importance of the theory, the more the various components of the fusion energy device flow into and out of focus. The stranger who is assembling the contrivance pauses to mop his brow with a chunk of frozen limeade concentrate. As the icy green citric crystals trickle down to and saturate his mustache, he absently sucks on the flavored hairs, thinking abstruse thoughts and whimpering to himself in the key of G minor. Suddenly, the key migrates to A major and the room brightens as a light bulb clicks on in the refrigerator section of the stranger's mind. Mimicking the Eskimos' wordless gesticulationry, he anxiously requests 70 feet of climbing rope, a roll of duct tape, a medical hibachi, and a dogwood tree. As one, the nine other Eskimos spit the rubber worms from their mouths and dash outside into the blazing blue-black Canadian morning. Two of them head for the Foodies Grocery Emporium a half day's hike away in Tuktoyatuk. Two others pry open the door to the adjacent wine cellar -- accessible for the first time in 30 years due to a quixotic thawing of the permafrost -- and descend into its dark and musty interior. A single Eskimo climbs the radio tower for no apparent reason, although the gleam in his eyes suggests an agenda best watched from a distance. As he reaches the particle stream accelerator control panel, he briefly loses his balance and his adobe hat. He regains the latter, but the former falls and hits the tundra with such force that it bursts into flames, swapping its molecular configuration for that of a tweezer. The other four log onto the Global Positioning System computer and locate the 1954 Hudson Wingback buried in a snowbank a kilomile from the shack. Grabbing some shovels and a can of gasoline, they trudge off in the direction of the snowbank, a rounded white monolith easily discernible against the flat, treeless plain. A ray of sunlight gleams off the exposed tailpipe, telling them what the GPS could not -- that the vehicle sits inappropriately perpendicular to the ground. After unearthing -- or rather, unsnowing -- the underbelly of the car, the four are able to persuade it to affirm the Third Pluperfect Law of Gravity, and the Hudson gently rights itself. After rummaging through the trunk, one of the Eskimos triumphantly pulls out the sought-after medical hibachi. But instead of taking it back to the shack, they fill the car's gas tank, then pile in, start the car, and slowly drive off in the opposite direction, north, towards the vast field of crop circles that abut the Beaufort Sea.

What is the stranger in the mining shack really up to? Why was he stymied by last week's reference to le flambeau oriange? For what medical practices is a hibachi best suited? Why are the Eskimos in the wine cellar keening in parallel fifths? How long can a guy stay atop a radio tower without an adobe hat before the blue-black cold causes irrevocable damage to his sense of humor? How far can the Hudson go on a tank of gas? Will the journey to Foodies be put on hold if 1984 is playing at the Tuktoyatuk Cineplex? And what of the Theory of Disputational Distortion? Does it apply to both the tokamak and the limeade concentrate?

Patience, gentle listeners, patience. These questions and more will be answered soon, perhaps on a program subsequent to this, the 112th episode of Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar, this portion of which draws implacably to a close, just as the next bit, the Kalvos bit, doesn't.




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