people hated them, feared them, would not associate with them. They .were modern pariahs, unclean.
Their children were shunned. Each camp had only a number to identify it, but the local populace called them all Geigertowns.
I made a long detour to Little Rock to avoid crossing the Strip, though it was safe now as long as you didn't linger. I was issued a pariah's badge by the National Guard-a dosimeter-and file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt (1 of 24)
[2/17/2004 11:43:29 AM]
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt wandered from one Geigertown to the next. The people were pitifully friendly once I made the first move, and I always slept indoors. The food was free at the community messes.
Once at Little Rock, I found that the aversion to picking up strangers--who might be tainted with "radiation disease"-dropped off, and I quickly moved across Arkansas, Oklahome, and Texas. I worked a little here and there, but many of the rides were long. What I saw of Texas was through a car window.
I was a little tired of that by the time I reached New Mexico. I decided to do some more walking. By then I was leas interested in California than in the trip itself.
I left the roads and went cross-country where there were no fences to stop me. I found that it wasn't easy, even in New Mexico, to get far from signs of civilization.
Taos was the center, back in the '60's, of cultural experiments in alternative living.
Many communes and cooperatives were set up in the surrounding hills during that time. Most of them fell apart in a few months or years, but a few survived. In later years, any group with a new theory of living and a yen to try it out seemed to gravitate to that part of New Mexico. As a result, the land was dotted with ramshackle windmill, solar heating panels, geodesic domes, group marriages, nudists, philosophers, theoreticians, messiahs, hermits, and more than a few just plain nuts.
Taos was great. I could drop into most of the communes and stay for a day or a week, eating organic rice and beans and drinking goat's milk. When I got tired of one, a few hours' walk in any direction would bring me to another. There, I might be offered a night of prayer and chanting or a ritualistic orgy. Some of the groups had spotless barns with automatic milkers for the herds of cows. Others didn't even have latrines; they just squatted. In some, the members dressed like nuns, or Quakers in early Pennsylvania. Else-where, they went nude and shaved all their body hair and painted themselves purple. There were all-male and allfemale groups. I was urged to stay at most of the former; at the latter, the responses ranged from a bed for the night and good conversation to being met at a barbed-wire fence with a shotgun.
I tried not to make judgments. These people were doing something important, all of them.
They were testing ways whereby people didn't have to live in Chicago. That was a wonder to me.
I
had thought Chicago was inevitable, like diarrhea.
This is not to say they were all successful. Some made Chicago look like Shangri-La. There was one group who seemed to feel that getting back to nature consisted of sleeping in pigshit and eating food a buzzard wouldn't touch. Many were obviously doomed. They would leave behind a group of empty hovels and the memory of cholera.
So the place wasn't paradise, not by a long way. But there were successes. Cane or two had been there since '63 or '64 and were raising their third generation. I was disappointed to see that most of these were the ones that departed least from established norms of behavior, though some of the differences could be startling. I suppose the most radical experiments are the least likely to Page 2
bear fruit.
I stayed through the winter. No one was surprised to see me a second time. It seems that many people came to Taos and shopped around. I seldom stayed more than three weeks at any one place, and always pulled my
Their children were shunned. Each camp had only a number to identify it, but the local populace called them all Geigertowns.
I made a long detour to Little Rock to avoid crossing the Strip, though it was safe now as long as you didn't linger. I was issued a pariah's badge by the National Guard-a dosimeter-and file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt (1 of 24)
[2/17/2004 11:43:29 AM]
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt wandered from one Geigertown to the next. The people were pitifully friendly once I made the first move, and I always slept indoors. The food was free at the community messes.
Once at Little Rock, I found that the aversion to picking up strangers--who might be tainted with "radiation disease"-dropped off, and I quickly moved across Arkansas, Oklahome, and Texas. I worked a little here and there, but many of the rides were long. What I saw of Texas was through a car window.
I was a little tired of that by the time I reached New Mexico. I decided to do some more walking. By then I was leas interested in California than in the trip itself.
I left the roads and went cross-country where there were no fences to stop me. I found that it wasn't easy, even in New Mexico, to get far from signs of civilization.
Taos was the center, back in the '60's, of cultural experiments in alternative living.
Many communes and cooperatives were set up in the surrounding hills during that time. Most of them fell apart in a few months or years, but a few survived. In later years, any group with a new theory of living and a yen to try it out seemed to gravitate to that part of New Mexico. As a result, the land was dotted with ramshackle windmill, solar heating panels, geodesic domes, group marriages, nudists, philosophers, theoreticians, messiahs, hermits, and more than a few just plain nuts.
Taos was great. I could drop into most of the communes and stay for a day or a week, eating organic rice and beans and drinking goat's milk. When I got tired of one, a few hours' walk in any direction would bring me to another. There, I might be offered a night of prayer and chanting or a ritualistic orgy. Some of the groups had spotless barns with automatic milkers for the herds of cows. Others didn't even have latrines; they just squatted. In some, the members dressed like nuns, or Quakers in early Pennsylvania. Else-where, they went nude and shaved all their body hair and painted themselves purple. There were all-male and allfemale groups. I was urged to stay at most of the former; at the latter, the responses ranged from a bed for the night and good conversation to being met at a barbed-wire fence with a shotgun.
I tried not to make judgments. These people were doing something important, all of them.
They were testing ways whereby people didn't have to live in Chicago. That was a wonder to me.
I
had thought Chicago was inevitable, like diarrhea.
This is not to say they were all successful. Some made Chicago look like Shangri-La. There was one group who seemed to feel that getting back to nature consisted of sleeping in pigshit and eating food a buzzard wouldn't touch. Many were obviously doomed. They would leave behind a group of empty hovels and the memory of cholera.
So the place wasn't paradise, not by a long way. But there were successes. Cane or two had been there since '63 or '64 and were raising their third generation. I was disappointed to see that most of these were the ones that departed least from established norms of behavior, though some of the differences could be startling. I suppose the most radical experiments are the least likely to Page 2
bear fruit.
I stayed through the winter. No one was surprised to see me a second time. It seems that many people came to Taos and shopped around. I seldom stayed more than three weeks at any one place, and always pulled my
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