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2025-09-13, Saturday! 16²th day of 45²th year

Musical Emergency * Saturday 2025 September 13 * Omino, Santa Cruz * david poly@omino.com * deb debkakes@gmail.com * 8313326077

Please forgive our roundabout announcement. Under the circumstances we must, for now, speak elliptically. We hope to soon speak plainly and square up with you. These are forbidden topics; there could be consequences if word got to the wrong Circles. There are more dimensions to this than you may realize.

Until then, this topic must remain anchored in thoughtland.

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From: OMINO and Musical Emergency HQ
To: You

THE WORLD IS FLAT!

The characters are 2-dimensional!

Yet Edwin Abbot's 1884 masterpiece of mathematical wonders and political satire reveals unrecognized dimensions in our own world!

Only one thing is missing: YOUR musical contributions and multimedia ideas!

Yes, the good people at OMINO and the unspecified participants of the Emergency Arts Collective (*cough* THAT'S YOU *cough*) will bring this flat tale to life! * * * * *

Q: Do I have to write/perform a song?

A: Nope! Bring some food and enjoy the show!

Q: Can I write and perform a song?

A: Yes! Check out the story, let the ideas percolate and watch this space for details!

Q: Can I invite all my friends?!?

A: PLEASE DO NOT INVITE ALL YOUR FRIENDS. You're welcome to invite specific friends if you think they'd appreciate it, but this is a private event for people who know people we know.

Q: Is it OK for kids?

A: Generally speaking it's fine and they'll be welcome, but there will be some naughty language, FYI.

Q: Can I bring food to share?!? Can I dress as a 2-dimensional creature?!?

A: Yes and yes! Covid details: gathering is indoors! Masks not expected or required but always fashionable! Please be considerate of others if you're not feeling well! Please let us know if you have any further questions! Hope you can join us! See less

A Square. A Square is literally a square, perhaps a foot across, in the country of Flatland. He is a mathematician and geometer, and, perhaps unfortunately, learns of the third dimension. After being punished for his beliefs, he now obsessively seeks the truth. Or perhaps merely some sort of closure.

Little H. Little H is A Square's precocious hexagonal grandson. As a child, he played a part in his father's downfall. As an adult, a physicist, he, like his father, knows that the third dimension is real.

Eta aka Tiny H. Eta is A Square's lineal granddaughter. Girls in Flatland are denied education, but she has learned much from A Square's notes, while he was imprisoned. Behind the scenes, Little H owes her much for his success.

The Sphere. A visitor from the Third Dimension. The Sphere descends, and condescends, to reveal to A Square the truth of the Third Dimension, but takes great umbrance at the suggestion that there might be even higher dimensions, the 4th and the 5th, yae even the 8th.

Quee Queg. The hired harpooneer of A Square's later mission of "discovery". They present as a low-grade isoscelese triangle... or are they?

PQ. The PQ is a Flatship built by Little H, Eta, and R, under the command of "Captain" A Square. It has novel capabilities.

Captain Aha's Irregulars. Various men of all classes, rounded up to seek their fortune on thie perilous and questionable mission.

A. Introduction to Part 1 click for excerpt

Mr A. Square, who is a four-sided square in the country of Flatland, is now a grizzled old shape of a man. A long and difficult life has brought him here, to this disreputable tavern here in Northern Port. We see him now, surrounded by workers, irregulars, the fallen and the merely curious. Perhaps he is interesting, or inspiring. At any rate, he's bought the whole house a round of flatbeer, and perhaps there's more where that came from.

"Let me tell you about my land and its inhabitants," he begins.

The heckling begins as usual. "What? Again? We live here." "So I'm an irregular polygon, what of it?"

"Aye, well, yes, but humor me and let me restate these axioms. There may be unseen listeners to, aah, educate. Another round! And also, today, I may just have a proposition for thems of ye that might be brave or curious." 

"Or hungry!"

"Ye-essss."

1. In which A Square introduce you to himself and to Flatland click for excerpt

Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows—only hard and with luminous edges—and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said "my universe": but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things.

In such a country, you will perceive at once that it is impossible that there should be anything of what you call a "solid" kind; but I dare say you will suppose that we could at least distinguish by sight the Triangles, Squares, and other figures, moving about as I have described them. On the contrary, we could see nothing of the kind, not at least so as to distinguish one figure from another. Nothing was visible, nor could be visible, to us, except Straight Lines; and the necessity of this I will speedily demonstrate.

2. Of Women

3. On Recognition And Social Intercourse

4. Little H Foolishly Postulates a Third Dimension

5. A Square Rests Uneasily click for excerpt

distressed by his grandson's notion of a third dimension

6. The Boy is No Fool, says the Sphere click for excerpt

the sphere appears in A Square's house, and tells him of the third dimension

7. Once, Twice, Thrice, 'Tis Done! click for excerpt

A Square must be SHOWN the Third Dimension. But when A Square suggests there might be even Higher Dimensions, The Sphere, offended, flings A Square back to Flatland.

8. A Square's Manifesto click for excerpt

A Square toils to remember and explain the Third Dimension.

9. A Square's Great Fall click for excerpt

When he tries to explain the Third Dimension to his grandson, Little H, his grandson flees the house A Square is arrested for Unortodoxy.

10. A Square's Trial click for excerpt

A Square fails to convince the High Court of Circles of his innocence. "And this sphere, is it in the room with us now?"

B. End of Part I click for excerpt

That was 25 years of misery. But here iI am. Which brings us to now, to here, to this tavern. I have some considerable resources, let’s just attribute it to exponential interest. 

You've come to know me these past months, and I know some of you. We are preparing a great expedition. It will be dangerous.. but we must do this .. 

"For knowledge!"

“Who cares?”

"To prove the hypocrisy of the circles, the oppressive status quo, we’re all equal!"

“yeah um, we’re fine here”  “we’ve all got color tattoos, nobody cares” “i don’t even know what shape i am”

I pondered. It was a last gambit, but not untrue.

"Well, then I’ve heard the anglefishing isn’t what it used to be --"

“Now he’s gonna tell us about edge warming” “you can’t deny the catch is getting smaller”

"And the best source of blubber. the blobfish, are all but gone."

“Daddy triangle got one once, but i’ve never seen one”

"Well this Spherefish I’m after… it’s the biggest fish that… you literally can’t imagine."

“ohhhhhhhhh!”

And now I had them.

C. Interlude

D. Beginning of Part II

11. That Day of A Square’s Arrest click for excerpt

When grandfather tried, those many years ago, to show me his explanation of higher dimensions, oh, I was clever enough. I knew what he said was right. But also I understood it was wrong. When I ran away and into the street with those enforcers… of course I can never undo that. They took Grandfather A away.

But I must tell you plainly more of that day, and its effect upon the course of my life.

We ambled back inside after a time, to his empty study. But not so empty. It was a mess, he had barely left it for months, and certainly had not given it proper cleaning. It did stink. Crusted into the corners was some sort of goo… Tiny H said it was an impossible color but it just looked grey to me. But I was a young boy and I did love goo, I tried to scrape it all up into a jar. It kept changing shape and size while I gathered it up. Super neato!!

Tiny H just wanted to get Grandfather’s manifesto. "You always were whining that you wanted to go to Lower School," I taunted her. "Now at least you have a book. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Over the years my jar of goo grew and shrank; I brought it to a chemistry lab in Higher School and in a bit of tussle with a particularly irritating classmate I aah may have shot a little of it onto him, he aah may have „disappeared.“ X was never found I’m afraid.

In retrospect I understand the goo must have come from The Sphere, rubbed off on our sharp edges when it visited.

12. Signing On to the Ship's Crew click for excerpt

In gathering hands for our flatship, PQ, my brother and I interviewed dozens of applicants. Little H is clever enough with theoretical physics, but, well, he’s not so good with business. Payment is distributed by Shares of the voyages profits, with one fourth spoken for by the Owners, our anonymous patron. Our grandfather, by now he went by „Captain“ A, did not want to accept any payment at all, but I explained the optics and assigned him, also, one fourth.

A first time sailor might receive, say, a 256th share. Experienced irregulars, who’ve been out a time or three before typically got a 64th.

We did have a couple of hands with, ah hah, specialized knowledge, including some chums of Little H’s from Higher School and from his days at the National Lab, our Rotor Men as we called them. Although they’d never been to sea, their understanding of our ship and the geometry we’d encounter warranted them 16th shares.

On any Blobbing voyage the one man you depend on most is the harpooneer. The whole enterprise depends on him. And on our voyage, stranger knowledge still was required. Our harpooneer, Quee Queg was a special case. They received, that his, HE received, a full eighth share.

13. A Brief Digression on the Various and Sundry Varieties of Angle-Fish & Other Topics click for excerpt

The various angle-fish, Obtuse, Acute, and the Right Anglefish, as well as the Flatfish, and their various merits. Sea Blobbing is indeed a rich topic.

14. The PQ Readies for Departure click for excerpt

I said to them, My Dear Little H, Tiny H. I have known your grandfather A Square for some little time now. When we met in prison he was, despite all that, still at heart a mathematician. But I say only at heart.

It was understood that the first aim our endeavor was not necessarily profit… but beyond I feel we each of us had different motives. Little H, in pursuing his education in science, and his fall from grace within the, wished to in some way compensate for his rash actions when but a child. And for his efforts he, like is grandfather, found himself rejected by the academic establishment, and we’ll learn of that in a soon chapter…

For myself, well, as member of the so-called Nobility I found it increasingly unpalatable to condone the ignorance they foisted upon the masses. Of course we know of the third dimension. But how to breach that divide and expose the lies…

And dear Tiny H, she was perhaps the truest scientist among us. Her hard earned education, carried out in secret, ignited by her grandfather’s meticulous and closely reasoned notes.

As for A Square… naturally he had to lead the voyage. But after styling himself „Captain A“ it his motivations became increasingly unclear. All the more so as he secludes himself in the PQ’s Captain’s Cabin nearly continuously; few of the crew have even seen him.

But in good fun, some of the men do jest about him. A Square has this little habit of saying "A-Ha!“ Now they’re calling him Captain Aha!

15. The Flat National Laboratory click for excerpt

Over time, my reputation grew, in no small part, I must confess if not publicly, to the efforts of my dear younger smarter sister Tiny H. I did let her read my textbooks from time to time, and she did help me solve the occasional difficult integral, from time to time.

Time… those globules of sphere flesh, of course we could never reveal their origin. But they did assist my research more than a little and in time I was named head of the Flat National Laboratory. Many experiments with high forces and nanopolygons and translinear effects.

You wonder about my failure and fall though. Tiny H always counseled me how to present the Laboratory’s findings in an orthodox fashion. Exponents were a challenge however. A length multiplied by an area… I’m ashamed to say I inadvertently used a word only known to grandfather and ourselves… and the High Circle Regents of the Laboratory. I suggested that mass under certain circumstances could be proportional to the CUBE of the velocity and I got no further before my career and my laboratory were terminated.

We did carry on in secret for a time as Alt National Laboratory.

16. A Voyage Extended click for excerpt

Once, twice, thrice, ’Twas done! Their Flatship became a SPACE ship.

… [[ A long voyage, described by week one, week twenty, and so on, some slices of shipboard life to reiterate the crew especially Quee Queq. It is patently obvious to everyone but Captain A that Quee (and) Queg is (are) two women. ]]

17. An Hypothetical Discussion of Hunting in the Third Dimension click for excerpt

(Followed by demonstrative simulation.)

18. No Survivors? click for excerpt

The PQ was dashed to bits. But so was the Sphere. Most of the crew was lost in Captain A’s mad obsession. Captain A and Quee Queg are adrift together on a rotor fragment.

“You know,” says Quee Queg, “It appears we are doomed. So, better late than never, I would like to introduce ourself to you. I’m Quee. And this is Queg.”

“Aha” says A for the last time. “We are the only survivors. I am, you know, slightly able to see in the third dimension. We’re drifting parallel to home. If we were there, I should very much like to introduce you to my grandson, Little H… and… you know… you should meet my… granddaughter. I… I believe she’s a bit of a mathematician.”

“What are you doing now?” Queg asked.

“Well, with a twist like this. Once, twice, thrice, ’tis done! I am going upward not Northward.” They were drifting apart now. “And you! you my dear Quee and my dear Queg, you are going home!”

EPILOGUE. Back On Flatland click for excerpt

Some time later, back in Northern Port, Little H, Tiny H, and Quee Queg were finally meeting again.

Quee: And then he goes, “I think she’s a bit of a mathematician”

Queg: I mean like, yeah, DUH!

Tiny H: It’s ok… it’s fine. He was doing the best he could, you know?

Quee: Anyway, as we fell “downward, not southward”, we saw the sphere splatter all over around here.

Tiny H: With all this evidence, everyone will HAVE to believe in the third dimension!

Queg: Oh look around. This is the Isosceles district. Nobody will believe them about anything.

Little H: But all this sphere meat… let’s start gathering it up. This much in one place? It’ll pack a wallop. I’m sure we will think of something.

Tiny H: Yes. Let’s fund a library.

Bickering ensues.