Steve Michel's Journal of
Lateral Modernism********************** Vol. IX No.4 April 2008
Monorail transportation: the flying cars of the future.
Monorail transportation or the transport of people and freight cars with a network of suspended overhead rails makes sense for many reasons. Living in Canada for many years I have seen crumbling pothole ridden roads: commonplace result of harsh winters and freeze and thaw cycles that damage concrete and ashphalt infrastructure in cities. Then I came accross this site that elaborates monorail solutions for congested cities. Send the link to your mayor..
...the swedetrack monorail system..
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Steve's interiors(tm)
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fiction dept.:
Soil Mechanics: PART 6
by Steve Michel
"Waste of time." said Timo not liking the bend of their talk "Thesis time is up soon and five days of detention is enough of a setback."
"I hear the nuns are visiting for the capoeira" Replied Fid in louder tones. "They say at moonlight they enter in a pact with some trees. The conversation turned onto that subject. The other lads at the table joined in each offering graphic speculations on the nuns. Silent, Timo was glad simply to listen to the graphic tidbits Fid proffered on that topic, and let his mind stray from the subject of the Cargias.
And he thought about his project. If his thesis wasn't completed in time he could loose a year. At the center many are chosen and many are culled. The Kitchen swabbies, acolytes, and parsers who plied the tables were once aspirants to the roster.
Timo hurried on afterwards, taking a short cut through the open fence into the junior schoolyard full of children, leaping, running and screaming around him. He walked to the lab area past two gnu cows browsing the grass near the gates.
His signature checkerboard of moss and lichen splattered the rocks like velvet in the quarter hectare patchwork shrub-grassland: Timo's of first growth succession experiment. Carefully he collected soil samples at depth intervals into ceramic receptacles.
He took two steps at a time down the stairwell to the shops in the dank basements. The old attendant was at refection and the other wards were at the yards.
He had the lab to himself for an hour. First he filled a beaker with a tincture solution and made a thorough litmus check of his soil samples. Carbonic acid was forming. He prepared some slides and put them under one of the labs antique nanolens scanners. The bulbous and striated threads of micorhizza fungal growth floated at gigantic scale in the holograph's metallic hues. Timo fed his figures to the mainframe database of past samples, his heart pounded in his ear as the graph confirmed what he suspected the tell tale signs of healthy soil metabolism: the much-sought 'synergy of soil synthesis.'
Buoyed by his optimism, the five days of the punishment passed too slowly for him. Timo, in working with the juniors had gotten a fresh outlook on matters and rediscovered the rigor of direct observation. But was due to his project progressing so well.
That night, the boys in Timo's wing were abuzz. The contingent of nuns and committee members were to arrive at the refectory the next day. Gossip hungry Fid pestered the Brothers for details to no avail. The Brethrens were content to let them conjecture to their hearts content.
By morning of Equinox Timo and the others lined the corridor in their best scrubs and ranking belts for inspection. "No delays! Fall in now" Brother Jay's voice echoed the hallway pulling stragglers from their sloth. Inspecting linens for wrinkles, lint or neglect, Brother Jay signaled each to the lawns outside. Timo accompanied by Fid, Phyto and Mbe, their fourth, scrambled down the stairs through the courtyard to the staging area laid out on the green lawns. They stood at their bright purple wing batik banners, vertically inscribed with their motto: 'Konesans Aksyon' in old lingo. There were fourteen banners in all, each with four compadre. Musicians readied their instruments.
Timo sat on the cool grass lawn and began warm-up visualizations of his capoeira moves. Though his eyes where closed, he could sense some commotion from the boys. His eyes opened as Fid pulled at his sleeve "Come on Timo look at that." Fid and a handful of boys looked high up in the eastern horizon. Timo saw a distant dot grow into a silvery orb. It glinted in the sunlight, as it grew larger. Soon the electric airship landed silently on the luminous paved circle outside the gates. "There they are" said Fid. The ship hovered briefly before extruding down a ladder and a square of light slid open at the top. A half a dozen Committee members in their single striped long shirts came out, tall and thin, their eyes with covered with opaque data lenses. Then a black woman in green and purple garb and an entourage of veiled figures alit in the ship's doorway. "That's the Matron Magistrate and the sisters." Fid said anxiously peering through a squint. The Lectors met them with solemn pomp at ladder's bottom before they retired to the administration wing.
"And the ones in the yellow stripe are from Meriadani" Fid was saying "maybe Gobi I think or Nepal." The wind from the ship's diaphanous prop pressed the sisters' veiled saris to their curvaceous figures.
"We only have an hour till Capoeira" Timo told him before regaining the purple banners" the nuns are here to see you dance not stare like juniors." The raised dais festooned with ribbons was already filling with judges, village officials and Committee members.
Then the nuns arrived in their veils in a proscenium headed by the matron, accompanied by the Lectors. In file they sat under an iridescent silk canopy dazzling in the sunlight. One of the women turned and said something to Lector Gray. With grave mien he stood and walked to the podium. The committee members stood also followed by the Matron -the sisters remained seated.
“Good compadre, Lectors, Brothers and Sisters. And guests. Today marks the day of Equinox when all matters are tallied and progress marked. Our charges have done tremendous work on the frontlines. This year we are pleased to announce six thousand hectares have been reclaimed from the desert. A relentless enemy that knows neither sleep nor rest, the desert through our diligence has relinquished its grip on these hectares. May we continue to march the path of life and not falter in our steps.” The dais filled with clapping and solemn murmurs.....to be continued next month
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