Hello, and welcome once again to the Ottoman Blind Squirrel Dietz blogcast, which addresses the continuing question of Ottoman “Blind Squirrel” Dietz.
Blogcast 6: The Lost Portal of Nishnabotna, part 2: Expediency and Expeditions
(The soundtrack for this blogcast is Stack 3, from the Stackpole Loop, by Ottoman “Blind Squirrel” Dietz, and can be found on Bandcamp at https://blindsquirrel.bandcamp.com/track/stack-3)
“When the government says you better hunker down,
Smart money says ‘Get out of town.’”
Depending on one’s source of information, the preceding couplet may or may not be part of the chorus from the tune Ottoman “Blind Squirrel” Dietz is currently kicking around, and the credibility of one’s source of information is certainly among the more interesting, and potentially more critical, issues in the latest manifestation of this, the Age of Ultra. With Doom not only inevitable but imminent, Dietz has bet both his present and his future moneys on getting out of town. Way out of town. He has concluded, in fact, that self-quarantine in another cosmos is the safest of all safe bets.
The Blind Squirrel has caught wind of the lost portal of Nishnabotna, which portal swallowed my entire alma mater, the Ethnomusicology College, along with its sole street sign, driveway, and parking lot some forty-seven years ago. The action was surprising not only in its audacity but in its lack of discrimination. The portal’s appetite was ambitious and utterly lacking in critical finesse, not unlike a stoner ordering everything on the What-A-Burger menu.
Dietz has also caught wind of the interest that the people of Kcymaerxthaere expressed in the portal, however briefly, as a link to their parallel universe; he has apparently deduced that their lack of further contact is not the result of their lack of further interest, which would rank very near the top among the conclusions that a reasonable person might draw, but as the result of their being unable to respond. Why, he seems to have asked, would they not be able to reply in this, the Age of Ultra, the age in which response is at least simultaneous to, and often precedes, thought? It seems that he has further supposed that the Kcymaerxthaereians have mounted their own independent and clandestine expedition in search of the Lost Portal of Nishnabotna and have gotten in over their heads – no mean task, given the depth, reported by C. W. McCall to be 4 1/2”, of the headwaters of one of the East branches of the Nishnabotna at which the portal lurks.
As a neurological adjunct to the visionary spirit, Dietz is hardwired to find opportunity in chaos. Among his avatars are visionary assistant Rahm Emanuel, whose most famous quote, “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” is receiving renewed, and even favorable interest in circles with which Emanuel’s traditional relationship has been adversarial, at best; and mythical visionary Bluto Blutarsky, whose soliloquy in “Animal House,” summed up by Otter with the memorable, “… this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part,” is the ultimate expression of Emanuel’s counsel. Dietz has therefore chosen a time at which thoughtfully compliant Americans have been instructed not to venture outdoors, gathered his fortunes, which have suddenly materialized, thanks to the widely anticipated federal emergency check and promises that eviction and utility cutoff actions will be suspended for the foreseeable future, and set out to find the Hypothetically Lost Kcymaerxthaereian Expedition.
I am also told that Dietz, in an attempt to monetize his rescue mission, has persuaded a venture capitalist as yet unschooled in the finer points of collecting dividends from one’s investments to sign off on a Go Pro camera and a Kansas City Chiefs baseball cap with the promise of untold riches and fame by association. The Go-Pro is to record his crossing the portal; the ball cap to which he has attached the camera will, he expects, improve his prospects of being embraced by the natives. The Chiefs cap is a surprisingly astute choice, but not much of a stretch for one whose historical allegiances have been with the Washington Redskins and the Atlanta Braves.
It is a fine point, but worth considering, that there is no evidence that Go-Pro cameras transmit from parallel universes.
Although the prospect of his discovery of the lost portal and the affiliated, and pure, blues musicians who may be languishing in obscurity on its other side is certainly an appealing one, the above caveats, along with the cavalier caveat with which they ride, do not lead me to anticipate much in the way of further communiques regarding his progress. It seems only fitting that Dietz set out on his quest on Wednesday, April Fool’s Day. But I am a thoroughly credentialed and dedicated ethnomusicologist, and I have sworn an oath. More than one, really, but that is a chapter for another day.
Until the next one.