The sneeze guard at a members-only gnostic buffet.
So I recently picked up a copy of Atlantis Rising. It was in a Barnes & Noble knock-off in Waupaca, WI (pop 5,676 as of 2000), complete with political biography bestsellers and green signage. The best feature was the magazine rack. It was about half the store. And what do you do when you find a magazine trove like that? Yes, dear reader, you buy a bunch of obscure magazines. What else can you do?
As I was starting to tell you, I picked up a copy of Atlantis Rising, which you should check out if you either believe in or find paranormal activity entertaining. The headlines on the cover of the issue I picked up, Sept/Oct 2011, read like the sneeze guard at a members-only gnostic buffet: “Altantis and the Stars.” “Nuclear Meltdown and Time Dilation.” “Nicholas Roerich & His Tibetan Plan.” Heavy stuff.
Very quickly, the articles bored. I mean, an article about ancient giants entitled “What Do We Really Know About Ancient Giants?” that doesn’t do much beyond string together poorly retold biblical and mythic giant lore. I guess the answer is we don’t know much, and I felt like I knew slightly more before I read it.
But then I found, in the middle of the magazine, a crossword puzzle. This discovery got me excited, because although I never listened to AM Coast to Coast, I’m sure Art Bell would relax with this puzzle before he passed on to the Great Beyond.
The theme was “Afghanistan and Azerbaijan.” OK, I’m excited to solve some word riddles about the paranormal in those places. Taliban werewolves? Yes, please. Aral Sea mermaids? Could be hot. I don’t know. Let’s do this. So I sat down to work on this most intriguing puzzle.
Turns out it’s not so intriguing. Yes, there were a few “on top” clues (62 Across - An Islamist militia group), and even some easy ones (88 Down - __ and behold!). But there were very, very few paranormal ones. Actually, there were none. The clues were weird (“34 Down - An addiction recovery program-abbr.”), but not paranormal. The closest one was “86 Across - The craniometric point.” I looked it up, and here’s what Wikipedia had to say:
“In human anatomy, the asterion is a visible, so-called craniometric, point on the exposed skull, just behind the ear, where three cranial sutures meet”
What sorts of paranormal activity is associated with the craniometric point? They don’t say. It’s probably spelled out very clearly in the answer to the Cryptogram that shares a page with the crossword, but let’s be honest. After reading three or four articles that get less interesting the more you read, and that crossword fiasco, I’m not gonna break out my decoder ring.
So if you ever run into Atlantis Rising, or any of its ilk, don’t buy it. Even if it would be supporting a local bookstore in a small town in Wisconsin. Just read the cover, and then spend the rest of the afternoon imaging what crazy paranormal secrets are unlocked on its newsprint pages, the kinds of secrets that would paradigm shift the universe if we only all read it and believed it and bathed with Egyptian biometric soap (ad, inside back cover).
(One in a series of fake South 12th posts in honor of its third anniversary, written by its most faithful readers. This one is by Peter Hajinian.)
