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high tide

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BEADS JEWELRY UNUSUAL GIFTS MON. SAT. 11-6

321-8500

1832 Coventry Road Cleveland Hts. Ohio

HIGH GEAR/JULY 1977

FUTURE SHOCK

PAGE 18

Vintage clothing, furs, accessories

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1834 Coventry Rd. Apt. #6

Wed. Sot 12-6 Thurs, 12-6" 932-2532

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620 Frankfort Ave. Cleveland

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Monday Monday July 25 10:00

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Downtown between W. 6th and W. 9th Just steps West of Public Square and the Mall

Phone 241-9719

by Leon Stevens

Although it has been the subject of recent debate, astronomical data seems to be confirming the contention (in most scientific circles) that the universe is expanding at a velocity too great for it ever to contract as a result of gravity. This fact will re-shape the course of major future philosophy. What it implies, essentially, is that conditions have never been the same as they now are and will never be the same again. It means that the universe has been evolving in a single, irreversible direction, becoming helplessly and imminently more complex.

The evolution of animal life on this planet is symptomatic of the cosmic trend toward ever more intricate systems. All of existence as we know it is predicated on this uni-directional momentum. For example, animals which adapt increase in complexity as well. Animals which cannot adapt or remain the same ultimately perish as a result of their inability to cope with the changing environment.

As unbelievable as it may seem, death is hereditary. The duration of all living systems is genetically pre-determined. The 2000 year life span of the sequoia redwood and the oneday longevity of the mayfly (it doesn't even have a mouth!) is pre-programmed in their chromosomes. An organism which lived forever, sooner or later, would be suited to its environment and would expire. Immortality is impossible.

Epicureans may find difficult to accept the reality that art, literature, architecture, and the whole of culture is perishable and on a universal scale, incredibly short-lived.

Sexuality, likewise is ephemeral.

The fabled test tube babies coupled with artificial insemination and chromosome manipulation are becoming common scientific fare. As frightening as it may seem to futuro-phobes, future human beings and other animals will be designed much like GM cars. At

first, ideal, "hunky," healthy and brilliant males will be produced and later when these early "Adonis" models reach the point of boring saturation, creativity will set in and rampage!

Biological wings will be added introducing genuine "Winged Victories." Hindu deities will assume flesh in the form of multi-membered humans. Meat designers with a penchant for veins may add exaggerated veins, cascading, dense body hair and finally, anything-goes bio-modes.

Then modular beings will be introduced. Instead of one creature supporting a huge computer-like brain, a large sedentary brain, possibly similar to ours will move about and occasionally plug in to the master unit, nourishing it and caring for it as well.

Almost without notice, sex will be phased out and new carnal sensations will be invented and programmed into advanced forms of life. "Baskin and Robbins 52 Pleasures" will become available to all. In ensuing eons, flesh itself will become inadequate and passe' and intelligence will occupy an entirely unfamilair medium. The very memory of "gender" and "sexual orientations" will prove to be dead weight, superfluous data.

History, art, love, beauty, the Gay Movement, virtue, Southern Baptists and evil are doomed to the status of pitifully banal space trash. In view of this eventuality, the immediacy of which is impressed upon me nightly, as biologists press for accelerated DNA research, I ask myself whether the struggle for gay rights is worth the trouble. Should I perhaps try to hold out "undercover," hoping that there is one gay bar left to cruise at on weekends, hoping that Playgirl keeps publishing and hoping that most of my friends don't move out of town? Am I wasting my whole life to win something which may become obsolete in as short as two full generations?

Perhaps should spend my one shot at consciousness adIvancing science in some way,

R.H

until my barely 300 year old statue is bulldozed to make room for a solar reflector.

When I was an undergraduate in college, I thought of writing a great epic or novel and becoming another Shakespeare or Thomas Mann. Now I can't help experiencing the demoralizing realization that it would only be the next millenia's ground clut-

ter.

What's left then but to exhaust the most immediate and interesting forms of satisfaction? Entertainment, for example, and "safe" excitement, things which require little investment from me but are of maximum service. Plainly, I can see no justification for doing anything else other than watching television, movies, attending parties, going to Cedar Point at least twice a year, collecting antiques (and then smashing them when I'm eighty), getting all the sex I can as soon as I can, accomplishing as much revenge on my enemies as I can without becoming unpopular and trying to get liked for the sheer delight of having people like me, performing acts of daring which are not, however so daring as to get me locked up in a boring, time wasting hoosegow, and getting drunk or stoned without becoming an addict (which would mean confinement and more boredom).

The question is how far will the tide roll in? If I build a castle far enough away from the waves, can I make it last until my seat on the ferris wheel touches ground? I can't see the Orchid room coming back, much less a dingy, grubby Stonewall. History doesn't repeat itself. It merely uses convincing analogies and colorful metaphors. History is full of temporary sets of "leitmotifs" and fugues which seem to involve repetition but come and go and are never seen again. There was no "Hitler" before the Paleozoic Age and there won't be one after 3001.

I'll never go back into the closet again, but I suddenly can see no reason not to quit and keep on dancin'!