There were a few early arrivals: Pamela started the coffee urn, while Giselle unpacked her home-made goodies – oatmeal raisin cookies and some rich-looking brownies (Jim joked with her about the brownies' ingredients). Stu Argyle laid the hymnbooks on the chairs, while Jack Dalrymple set up the speaker's stand and hooked up the laptop projector, in case anybody brought visual material. Setting up went pretty quickly, and the volunteers were soon sipping java from Styrofoam cups while they chatted to the membership, a collection of men and women of pretty much all sizes and ages, dressed mostly in jeans and jumpers, since it was an informal meeting and the fall air was pretty nippy. When everybody had got a coffee, Jim rapped his knuckles on the wooden lectern and called them all to order.
He smiled as he looked around at largely familiar faces. "Welcome. Before we begin, does anybody have anything special to report?" A man Jim didn't know stood up, glancing around nervously, and cleared his throat.
"Er, my name is Alexander...and I'm an alcoholic." He looked down.
There was a brief, embarrassed silence. One of the women patted Alexander's arm gently in empathy. Jim stepped in. "I'm sorry, sir, the AA meeting is next door, at St Eusebius. Dave, there, will help you find it. Give them our best. You folks do fine work."
Alexander, beet-red, nodded as a burly man in construction overalls gestured to him, but stopped to ask, "What do you people have trouble with, then?"
Jim scratched his head. "I guess you might say we all have epistemological problems." Alexander nodded solemnly. "Good luck with that." There were murmurs of thanks as the puzzled visitor was guided out the door to find Bill's other friends. The others laughed, and Jim shrugged as he said, "I declare this meeting of the Pantographic Society to be open for business." He pulled a couple of index cards from his back pocket and consulted his notes.
"Last week, we had three really good recordings, and I got some positive feedback from HQ." Jim coughed. "There were a daisy and an old diaper pin left on my doorstep." The members made approving noises. "Before we get to the reports, have we got any new members?" Jim knew they had, but waited until two shy-looking teenagers, a boy and a girl, raised their hands. He nodded at them. "We'll get to know you later, but if everybody's okay with it, I'll go through the introductory now." Sensing general assent, Jim launched into his spiel.
"And, of course, a card with the meeting time and location on it. You were recruited, or whatever, because something you said, or did, struck the person who gave you that pin as indicating that you had a talent for the project we're working on." He grinned.
"Now, don't get worried, and don't run off yet. It doesn't hurt, it's not illegal in any of the 50 states, and it doesn't cost a penny. Really. Just a little of your time. Now, you newcomers hang around and watch us, see what we do. If it's boring, or makes you uncomfortable, don't come back, and nobody will come calling. That's why we don't ask your names, addresses, or phone numbers. If you don't want to know us, we don't want to bother you. And if sitting in a damp church basement seems a waste of your time – or if what we're doing looks, well, dorky – so be it. We can live with that." Jim rubbed clammy hands on his jeans (he wasn't kidding about the damp basement), and nodded to Dave, who had returned from next door. "Dave's got a report for us, then we'll break, and then Emily will lead us in the Exercise." As Dave walked up to the lectern, a few of the more methodical members got out pads and pencils.
Dave turned on the laptop projector, and somebody dimmed the lights, and the group were treated to a video of Dave's kitchen. For the next half hour, Dave (on the video) demonstrated how to make scratch biscuits. The camera was set up so that the viewer could see inside the oven. 23 people sat in concentration as the dough rose and the biscuits turned brown.
Afterwards, there was applause. There were a few questions, such as, "What do your fingers feel like when you have Crisco and buttermilk stuck on them?" and "What does the kitchen smell like when the biscuits are baking?" Dave closed his eyes while answering thoughtfully.
After the presentation, Jim got up again. "Thanks, Dave, that one spoke to my condition. Which is hungry." Laughter. "I suggest we break for snacks. Be sure to get one of Giselle's brownies, everybody. We'll be doing the Exercise in about 20 minutes." Shuffling of metal on concrete, as members headed for the refreshment table or out into the hall for smokes and visits to the john.
The two teenagers buttonholed Jim by the coffee urn. The girl, a petite brunette, spoke without looking at Jim directly. "Hey, mister..."
"Jim."
She shrugged slightly, with one shoulder. "Jim. We get the video, really cool, and we kinda-sorta think we know what it's about, but could you fill us in a little on the cleartext?"
Giselle sailed by, deposited brownies-onna-napkin in unwary hands, sailed on, while Jim mustered thoughts. "Okay, sure. You know what a pantograph is, and what it does?"
The boy, tall, lanky, shaven head and at least two visible tattoos, nodded as he washed down a brownie with a gulp of coffee – if he hadn't seen it, Jim wouldn't have believed it. "Yep. It's just an analogue copier. Invented in 1603. Cool. What's it got to do with making biscuits?"
Jim grinned. "Well, a pantograph can copy a picture from one flat surface – say a piece of paper – to another. It's analogue, as you say, and low-tech, and involves tracing. Right?"
They nodded, mouths full. Jim noted that Giselle's cooking was a hit. "A drawing itself is a way of recording a kind of experience. The visual kind. But what about other kinds of experience?"
The boy wiped his mouth with a napkin. "I get you. Records for sound – wax cylinders. Discs. That's what they used to have. Movie camera, light, movement." He looked at Jim directly for the first time, to see if he understood. Jim did.
"Quite right. But what if there are aspects to an event, an experience, if you will, that go beyond sound and light? Maybe even beyond the ordinary senses people are used to?"
The girl blinked. Then she got it. "Oh! Like the direct apperception of space-time?"
Jim stared at her for a minute, and then burst out laughing, startling elderly Joe Buchbinder, who was just passing. "Direct appercep-...yes, ma'am, you've got the idea." Before he could say any more, the boy chimed in. "Awesome. Yeah. Like the stuff-in-the-cracks you can't explain to your kid brother about why Chirping Angels is a lame group, when everybody says they're the next hot thing, because the space in their songs is, like, dead, man, totally brain-dead..." He stopped, embarrassed, but Jim was smiling encouragement.
"You guys get it. We're doing it, you see? Making our own pantographic recordings. Using this..." Jim pointed to his head..."and this..." pointing to his heart, "...and probably a few other chakras we haven't discovered yet. You see, we think that most people have gone digital about reality. They expect it to be there without their thinking about it. And we suspect..."
The girl's eyes were shining. "...that there might be holes in the paradigm." She fingered her pin. "I think you're right."
The boy looked thoughtful. "But who's reading the recordings?"
Jim shrugged. "You know, I could say something wise, like 'That would be telling', but I wouldn't kid you. I don't have a clue. I don't think the old guy knew, either – the tramp who handed me the box of pins in the diner. I'd bought him some breakfast, you see, and he ate his bacon and eggs and then just sat there, watching me watch the raindrops run down the window outside. Then he gave me the box of pins and a beat-up paperback by Carlos Castaneda, thanked me for the grub, and took off." He laughed. "Ever since then, all I get are cryptic messages on my doorstep."
The boy grinned, showing crooked teeth. "Like a daisy and a diaper pin. Cool." He looked like he wanted to say more, but Pam came around and shooed them back to their seats, and Jim went to play moderator again.
"I hope everybody enjoyed the refreshments. Were there any other reports?" A tall, gaunt woman in her fifties raised her hand. "Marilyn?"
Marilyn spoke with a clipped accent. "I have found the perfect spot for squirrel-watching. In Clark Park. It's not always quiet, but you can sometimes get an entire 10 minutes' worth of reality over there if you're patient." She flashed large, white teeth. "See me, and I'll show you." She sat down.
There were a few more reports of that type, and then Jim said, "Thanks, everybody. Now I'll hand the meeting over to Emily." Emily, a white-haired woman with glasses, walked to the front carrying a box.
She looked around. "Are you all where you can see? Today's Exercise will involve an object." From the box, she took a largish brass vessel, which rang as she set it on the table.
Joe Buchbinder laughed. "Em, that's a spittoon." Emily shot him a sharp look.
"I know what it is, Joe. You are invited to think any thoughts you like about it. Just don't giggle."
Joe snorted. "I don't giggle."
There was laughter at this, and Pam went to sit by Joe, claiming she could see better from there. Emily took her seat, and for the next half hour, the silence was broken only by the grumbling of the boiler as 23 observers took in the is-ness of a brass cuspidor from a second-hand shop...the old, dull, unpolished surface, the crevices in the decorative pattern...the heft and weight of it to the eye...much was read, but nothing was spoken...
After Emily called time, the meeting broke up, and people helped put up chairs and wash the coffee urn before leaving. The boy and girl – who said their names were Brian and Tiffany – thanked Jim. Tiffany was curious.
"I saw that brass turn a thousand colours. Tell me the truth – what was in those brownies?"
Giselle overheard this, and laughed. "Genuine nut and gluten–free product, that was," she insisted. "Several members have allergies."
And with that, the weekly meeting of the Pantographic Society broke up.
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