Rufus Silas Wally Review

Welcome Center

2009-07-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

Things just don't stay the same anymore -- but predictions can arm us as we trudge forward into the unknown.

The forecasts made here have been reached through careful consideration, years of study, and much research.

Below, you will see a list of items that will in the future decorate our lawns. Feel free to peruse the archive at your leisure -- for scholarly pursuits, idle pleasure, or emergency measures.

Thanks and Good luck,
R. S. Wally

PS: Remember that all of this, in a way, is your face or your life and probably both.

Permanence

2007-07-25T01:56:00.000-07:00

In the future, the permafrosts of northern nations will creep across the globe in trucks and vans. We will stare into the horizon as they come up along the highways in droves like caterpillars draped on asphalt branches, locusts tiredly crawling to a new home.

The world will unravel around us -- trees splaying and shattering into the wind, the dirt and soil wafting off in cloudy tufts, rocks rolling wildly into the East -- and we will feel our bodies exchanging molecules with the sun, with the neighbors, with the dog shit on the slowly warping sidewalk.

The permafrost trucks will dump their loads onto our fading lawns just as our homes burst open and disperse in chunks of wood and piping. The grass beneath our feet will blow in rhythm with our hair until both are gone, forgotten.

We will step onto the permafrost at the moment our world tapers off to a final point, like a tricycle falling from the edge of something no longer seen, and we will stand there as it melts forever, as it permanently releases methane into an atmosphere that struggles to remain.

Knowledge

2007-07-25T00:04:00.000-07:00

In the future, our heads won't stay in a fixed position. Rather, they'll become fluid and animate.

The ideas in our brains will occur across larger distances, our heads expanding to fill rooms and homes.

Ideas we don't really want anymore will be brushed or swatted out the window and onto the lawn.

And that part of our head will be slung always like a long string of gum out the window.

Go To Your Room!

2007-07-25T00:02:00.000-07:00

Our parents will die.

We will remember the sound of their voices, the nice things they'd said, and also we will remember the fire set underneath us whenever our parents reprimanded or chided us -- and how feeling alone made us strive to get closer.

We will make a place where we are children.

An audio recording of our families will be trees and benches. We will sit or take fruit from the sound of them. Conversations we had long ago will play hopscotch and jump-rope with us.

When there is stress at home, we may send the voices of our parents on small errands or ask them to cook. We will think this okay because it's not really them.

Yet, we will only find comfort because it actually is.

We will be fine with both of these things being true.

The Sinking of The Titanic

2007-07-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

History repeats itself -- not only once, but forever. The universe flies outward until it is so far apart that it couldn't be any closer. Distance being a relationship between things, infinite distance and zero distance will come to be indistinguishable.

As history happens again and again, all exact events occurring like music on loop, some things will begin to fall slightly out of sync. Mistakes will happen. A glass will break that isn't meant to break. A second will be misplaced by time, forgotten. The differences will crop up and the world around us will begin to look like two pictures taken on the same film.

Events from other times will happen all around us, the course of history a kind of odorless gas that is everywhere.

Yet somehow, some mistakes will repeat more often, as if perhaps they aren't random at all, but want to happen.

The sinking of the Titanic for example will continue to over lap with our lives, spilling from an ocean slightly to the left of our homes, and somewhere in the sky, sending people and metal and luggage all about our lawns.

You can't really get on the boat, but you can almost breathe it.

The Uterus

2007-07-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

Replaced with advanced ziplock resealables, the uterus will go the way of the appendix. Suddenly useless, we will put it on the lawn. Just for fun, we'll create life while we BBQ.

And of course we will say we're only joking when we crawl into it, legs first, and never come back.

That

2007-07-22T14:46:00.000-07:00

You want it, you look for it. It shames you and depletes you.

It sits inside you like a bird waiting to peck, gouge, claw -- like a child that has grown larger than you.

You try to ignore it, fight it, erase it -- but doesn't it love you?

It rubs your back when you are sad. It slips meat under the door when you are hungry.

You think it's gone, but it peeks around corners and smells you while you sleep.

You find yourself naked, needing it, smiling to be back home inside your desire for it, covered in the blood of it, the shit and piss of it, breathing the path to find it. You will slam on the brakes, but you will keep going: you already cut the line.

Keep searching.

You will find it -- and you will put it on the lawn.

Lawns

2007-07-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

In the future, we will manage space in entirely different ways. We will place lawns atop our own lawns, but shrunken down so tightly that you can barely see them in the folds of grass.

Yet, when you walk into them, they will expand out around you to their normal size -- or perhaps you will shrink down to fit within them. The sensations will be the same, growing larger and getting smaller.

We will place more and more, such that we might walk forward and never have to stop, never run into an obstacle, lawn stretching out in front of us forever. Yet, at the same time, growing smaller or larger, we will never leave our own homes, moving forward through scale but not distance.

We will be safe there, always in motion and forever still, a moving target on a pinhole position.

You

2007-07-22T14:28:00.000-07:00

We could sew or staple you to it, but most likely you will simply agree to stand there of your own accord.

Take a look around, there's nothing else really.

Breathing

2007-07-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

Someday, we will no longer need to breath. When we are done with it, we will place breathing on the lawn.

Lingering, it will make a song there, a waltz.

Or a tango?

We will clasp hands and dance, close, and our breath will smell wonderful, like freshly cut grass.

Customer Support

2007-07-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

Corporations will have digestive systems spanning miles of field and country. They will be more like enormous people resting in the plains, fat and lazy with food and heart burn.

Whole towns will evolve and revolve around the huge metal body parts that fuel industry and commerce.

The waste and bodily fluids of companies will determine weather, stock market prices and share profits predicting sun or rain.

The drainage and run off will be an issue for many lawns, the fat and enzymes of profit coagulating in the dirt and walkways.

Polite and caring for its customer base, the company -- by way of board meetings and referendums -- will put aside its house-sized chicken thighs, wipe clean its enormous mouth of people-teeth with the rag of the middle class, and set down gently a customer support office on every lawn.

There you can report any problem you are experiencing. The staff, too, as a courtesy will be glad to report any problems that it sees, anything that is not in the interest of the body.

In either case, the T-Cell unit of company security will rush through enormous tubes to snuff out the problem with black gloved hands and an unbeatable sale.

Free Will

2007-07-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

The freedom to choose will be located on the back of our neck -- like a mole grown inwards.

Not needing it anymore, it will be removed and planted as if a nut or kernel, then maintained like a bonsai tree, delicately trimmed and nourished.

When it blooms in spring, decisions will sprout from its branches, unmade and worthless.

We will look at the decisions we didn't make, the ones that have fallen there on our grass, drying out and crunching beneath our feet, and we will wonder how we ever could have done a thing like that.

But we never did, really -- it was the tree throughout.

Mobius Syndrome

2007-07-21T00:55:00.000-07:00

In the future, we will tire of plain gazebos -- we will spruce them up by forming them from Mobius Syndrome, a misconstruction of the facial nerves.

Stepping into it, our faces will fall expressionless, the muscles limp or contracted -- but in either case -- permanently so.

Here on the Mobius Gazebo we will entertain guests. Why bother them with how we feel?

Children will also be talked to here.

But, eventually, we won't need gazebos to achieve the expressionless effect. Either it will happen on its own or we will create a sort of vice or clamp for the face.

Metal holding our cheeks in position and clips forcing our lips to stay closed, we will disassemble the gazebos.

With time, we will desire again perhaps the tiniest expressions of emotion, the slightest twitches of the face. For this, we will attach wires and strings to our vices and clamps -- and we will pull here and there when we feel something, our faces stretching like gloves over bone.

Considerately, we will let Mobius Syndrome sit where the gazebo used to be -- now a little useless cloud that confuses our pets.

Eventually, neighbors will sometimes confuse us for the cloud.

Just for a small second, of course.

SpeakEasies

2007-07-21T00:06:00.000-07:00

Bootleggers will erupt from the underbrush carrying barrels on their backs and spilling cheap lager into the streets.

Their secret hideaways, speakeasies, will fill up with burly men, hussies, and beer in seconds flat. The places will grow strong wooden legs of their own, gears and barrels pushing the inconspicuous rooms upward, badly disguised as clouds or bushy trees.

They will roam the landscape in speakeasy herds, resting and grazing on your grass, still believing that prohibition keeps them on the run.

United by a lie, the throngs of them will laugh and play, fight and makeup, the singular cause, false though it may be, rushing them forward, drunk and determined.

Eventually, for no reason in particular, they will stop, most likely on our lawns, and they will slip back into the foliage like aces up sleeves -- leaving their living saloons to roam the pastures of suburbia, pissing beer and spitting dirt.

Homeowners will toss grappling hooks from open windows and be dragged by the speakeasies through the town and to their jobs, like a carpool.

Masada

2007-07-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

When the Romans invade our lawns, we will take our own lives rather than submit to slavery. Then we will trim the shrubbery and water the flowers, stepping over our own bodies. Later, we will do it again.

Our dead selves will pile up on the lawn, but we will mow and maintain the best we can. If need be, we will hire help.

Mourning

2007-07-20T00:05:00.000-07:00

When we've forgotten everything bad that has ever happened, we will miss the process of grief. We will buy lawn fixtures that transport us to a memory, one we've had or one we've never dreamed of, that fills us with one emotion or another, hopefully at least some sort of pain. We will sit in there until we kind of remember what sadness is.

Later, we will store old Christmas ornaments and winter clothes where the mourning is supposed to happen.

Rainbow Trout

2007-07-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

Wireless networks will fill the atmosphere so thickly that fish will float from the water and into the air, breathing information -- emails and pornography through blood red gills.

Rainbow trouts will flock about our lawns -- where we will put them in our mouths, letting them whisper stock market tips and slip coupons into our throats.

Fidel Castro

2007-07-18T23:08:00.000-07:00

Purchased as dried flakes and bagged air tight, Castro will be brought home and sprinkled into the soil. He will sprout up in early Spring and blossom by May.

Watering him, he will grow up to fifteen feet tall -- with toes stretching and spreading hundreds more into the ground. Harvesting him, we will shear off his beard and boil it down into a fine reduction of hair and dirt.

We will sew him into sweaters and hats. We will wear him and dry him on the line.

Urban Transit

2007-07-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

The tracks will lay themselves -- and trains will come from all directions dumping dumbfounded strangers on our lawns. They will put on our clothes and eat our food, hug our children, kiss our husbands and wives.

Scared and confused, we will board trains and buses as well -- leaving our homes behind only to arrive on a stranger's lawn -- where we will assume the responsibilities of their life.

We will move with the traffic, like fish, from house to house and life to life trying on the shoes of everyone in town.

Every time we slip on a new shoe, we will expect it to feel different, but it won't -- because it's the foot that feels, and the feet don't change with the shoe.

Anger

2007-07-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

Setting out tea for us, Anger will live on our lawns and beckon us to join her. We will sit with her, drink with her, talk with her, and enjoy her company.

Sometimes, she will be the only one home. She will sleep with you if you ask, but only there on the garden table.

Her teeth are enormous, and on some days you will wake up knowing you have lived in them for weeks, wrapped up in enamel blankets.

Crawling out of Anger's mouth, you will fall onto your lawn and sit down for just one more spot of tea before you go.

Skin

2007-07-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

Taught and tight, the skin of our family and friends will be stretched across the lawn and bounced on in the heat of lazy summer Sundays.

The Pitter Patter of Little Feet

2007-07-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

Robot storks will drop the amputated feet of unwanted children like sour grapes across our lawns. Programmed and wired, they will walk lightly about the grass, chased and chewed by neighborhood dogs.

Nothing

2007-07-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

Explorers will head out on safari, digging deeper into the most unknown places on Earth with rifles and canons and lasers and bombs. Lives will be lost and many hardships endured, yet they will find nothing.

Determined, they will hunt it down and capture it. Ankles wrapped in twine, nothing will be dragged by its spindly legs back to the civilized world and displayed on museum tours around the globe.

Soon, it will be all the rage to venture into the wilderness with a rented guide, rifle in hand, and seek out nothing. Like deer head mounts and stuffed birds, tourists will display their nothings as trophy kills, adorned with gold plaques -- and set majestically on the lawn as a symbol of their power.

Everything

2007-07-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

Children will cut through the fabric of space and time with candy and streamers, diving in through a sandbox.

We will follow them and stand on the outside of everything. Our new cities beyond the cloth of existence will roll outward in all directions -- people, buildings, and shopping malls spiraling inward, forward, backwards and through one another, wrapped around strings of enormous space and endless time.

Men will chase women around the curve of the universe barefoot and screaming forever, and we will tether our dogs to all places, leashes strung around the thick trunk of everything.

Manufacturing moguls will manage to mass produce it, selling for cheap. Our lawns will be littered with used up everythings, put aside out of boredom or apathy like used condoms or orange peels.

There's better things to do.

The Shroud of Turin

2007-07-16T10:01:00.001-07:00

From the rose bush, the Shroud of Turin will rise like a ghost demanding authenticity.

We will harness it, tame it, and hang it from a pole.

Its sacrifice will benefit no one save for a few moths who slowly eat it.

Snipers

2007-07-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

Repression isn't easy, and managing it successfully requires hired guns with impeccable aim.

The things we try to forget will hover about our homes waiting to attack. Bad relationships, sexual confusion, regrets, addictions -- all will eventually storm our houses, climbing the ducts and drains, scampering across the gutters and up through the plumbing, then into our heads as dreams or tingling.

We can't arm ourselves enough.

But snipers can: they don't know from our memory -- and they won't mind killing it.

And what a great relief it will be to see our memories dying on the lawn, trapped and wheezing. It's nice at least just to know where they are.

Sex Fog

2007-07-14T23:23:00.000-07:00

Thousands of people will congregate on lawns to copulate, one couple atop another, shimmying and shuffling like snakes or larva rolling up a fleshy embankment.

Like sea weed, the tower of people interlocked and undulating will sway in the breeze, a fine human mist spraying out over the homes, bodies falling here and there, hair splayed out like spilled sauce, toes curling, legs flailing.

The fog will descend over lowlands, a fertile monsoon blanketing the plains, and the crops will be harvested for teeth.

The Feudal System

2007-07-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

The hierarchical governing and land owning system of the middle ages will return to our lawns as comfortable furniture.

The relationship between the farmers, artisans, noblemen, and clergy will form a strong four legged base for chairs and tables.

We will place our food on their bottom heavy society and lay comfortably across their lack of social mobility.

We will rest under the umbrella of their formulaic but endearing fairy tales.

Elevators

2007-07-14T21:48:00.001-07:00

Huge shafts rising from the earth's core into space will emerge on our lawns of their own accord. Timidly, we will enter them, rising upward.

It will be only a matter of time before we realize that the elevators aren't going to go back down. The smarter ones will make a last chance phone call, alerting those beneath of the crisis, but nothing will be able to save anyone in the lawn elevators.

The shafts will keep emerging on our lawns waiting for us to get in, small affectionate notes placed on the floor of the elevators. Smiling high school sweethearts and lotto jackpots will entrap many, but the result will always be the same -- an endless ascension to nowhere.

Later, people will report mysterious and unsigned "Wish You Were Here" post cards emblazoned with golden elevator decals -- much like they report UFO's and crop circles today.

Similarly, people chasing lucrative or emotionally satisfying ends will -- much like today -- quickly become the disappeared, the forgotten.

Swiss Cheese Holes

2007-07-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

Everything will sell in the future, including things that only in a manner of speaking exist. One example will be the holes in swiss cheese, sold via the internet, including free shipping, and comprised of exactly nothing. Many who purchase these holes will sprinkle them on salads in a desperate form of dieting, while most will place the swiss cheese holes on their lawns.

Not existing, they won't take up much space, and when people crawl into them like babies, afraid and alone, wrapped up tight in the smooth no-cheese walls, or screaming to the sky, it won't be embarrassing because they actually aren't doing it.

The cheese isn't there. None of it is, really.

This idea, too, will be sold.

Gambits

2007-07-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

It is important to assert authority -- even in our small communities and neighborhoods. PTA's, town hall meetings, zoning hearings, and co-op organizations are all arenas in which subtle maneuvering on your lawn can make all the difference. Even hobby clubs like bands and reading groups will be subjected to the influence of lawn ornamentation.

In the future, we will setup arms across our lawns in strategic and threatening patterns. Occasionally we will walk into the grass, dew dampening our bare feet, and we will make a blood sacrifice of one of our own -- just to gain the advantage, to have the strongest say in what will be served at the social -- or whether or not the newly available meadowlands are rezoned as commercial.

Our lawns will be alters to public discourse, stained with the blood of ambition and youth.

Guilt

2007-07-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

In the future, you will wake up still drunk -- what you said and did the night before coming back to you slowly and painfully --and you will stumble through the kitchen, wishing you had been more responsible, traipse out the front door on the verge of tears over what you have lost, and in the lawn you will place your guilt, entirely removed like a silk poncho, and set it on the soil, fertilizing budding plants and growth, everything bad you've ever done bringing sweet aromas and agonizingly beautiful flowers into the world, and then you will walk back inside and pour yourself a drink to celebrate the accomplishment.

Gluons

2007-07-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

Some societies and cities will grow ever smaller, shrinking their people down as well. Our cities will rest on protons, buildings reaching through atoms and into the field of electrons. Glorious views of the atomic horizon will be an ever present tourist attraction for miniature cities.

We will place all numbers of elementary particles on our lawns, chief among them being the gluon. This massless particle will inspire us -- it only slightly exists and is its own antimatter.

On our lawns we will both sit and stand, walk and run -- all at the same time, and also none of those things. We will hit our wives and caress their cheeks, but in actuality we will only do one and just as much neither. We will make mistakes, irreversible, that never actually occur. We will take no responsibility and we will take all.

In the future, we become massless, our own nemeses, and also our only friends in a field of blackness -- and of course, neither.

We won't know who or what we are, but that's what holds things together, tight and almost trembling.

Universal Healthcare

2007-07-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

Once we have cured everything, we will laugh at the controversy over universal and socialized healthcare. As a goof, everyone will offer comprehensive medical treatment on their lawns -- fully staffed and equipped clinics for treating just about anything.

Of course, we will expect no one to come looking for healthcare. Just because it's free doesn't mean we're offering. It will be a great faux pas to come to another man's lawn looking for care and help.

Like dirt you'd be. Like scum.

Stillness

2007-07-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

The world only gets faster. Transportation, communication, and everything else will whiz about at enormous speeds and with great precision.

We too will careen through town and cities from job to home and store to store, buying and working and cooking and talking at 1000's of miles per hour, our cheeks stretched to full capacity.

For a moment's respite, we will fly by and desperately cling to our lawn hook, holding us in place to enjoy no motion.

All around us the world will zip by. We need only open our mouths to be fed, our eyes to be entertained, and our arms to be loved . Everything will come to us instantly -- and then leave us just as quickly, arms and mouth open, empty and still.

Shot-put

2007-07-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

The athletic spirit will never leave us. In the future, we will wear it like a shawl or muffler.

When we feel bogged down by it, we will place it on the lawn in the shape of a lean and muscular man in peak physical condition. He will demonstrate his prowess all day, everyday, tossing steal balls from one end of the lawn to the other.

Our lawns will be littered with holes in which the shot-putters can sleep, their heads in the dirt like ostriches. They will suck nutrients from the ground with the enormous tongue of the athletic spirit. Lapping up water and dirt and vitamins from the soil, they will bloat until they are popped by a javelin, sending their nutrients across the lawn like a fertilizer.

And then back to work.

We will swear to high heaven that we are glad our lives are not so useless -- and our tongues not so grotesque -- as we lay in the sun idly watching, sipping a soda.

Fire

2007-07-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

As technology gets better at things, we get worse. Soon cars will drive themselves and food will unwrap, hop in the oven, and saunter to your plate -- all while you rest in a chair that reclines as the chair deems necessary.

Eventually, we will forget fire and how to make it. Robots will know and machines will be capable, but not us. We will be in the dark

Our fascination with it will thus return. We will try to understand it again. Like boyscouts, we will huddle on our lawns with sticks and brush, trying to get it right, becoming superstitious with determination.

When we reinvent fire, though, it will be different -- colder, more distant.

Us and fire, we will sleep in separate rooms.

Mating Rituals

2007-07-12T22:19:00.001-07:00

People love authenticity. In the future, we will have, like everything else, as much of it as is possible.

In courting a lover or partner, we will revert to the natural art of standing on the lawn, wearing antlers on the head and bashing each other about the face until one is dead and the other has sex with someone who wants no part in any of it.

It's natural and it feels good.

Cordyceps

2007-07-12T21:55:00.001-07:00

In the future, a fungus will enter human minds, driving them mad and eventually to death. In the days before their demise, infected people will wander about the streets, climbing buildings and water towers. They will eventually come to rest on our lawns.

Though extremely dangerous, homeowners will allow the fungus that emerges from the exploded head of the corpse to bloom and grow. Reaching over thirty feet into the air and displaying every shade of color in intricate patterns and fractal shapes, the stalks of the fungus will stretch like a social network of business associates and sexual partners, in and out, up and down, tangled and mingled.

Special task forces will roam the streets, removing and destroying ripe stalks -- for when they reach maturity, the spores will cut through the town like silent locusts and infect every person within a twelve mile radius.

For those who miscalculate, who let one stalk go just a moment too long, death will be imminent, but in the throws of madness, the lucky ones will see thousands of blooming cordyceps thrown about lawns and reaching above the houses like roses and chrysanthemums.

Marine Snow

2007-07-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

Detritus falls ever deeper into the ocean, feeding strange and dark creatures, ancient ancestors and forgotten forms. We will cut a hole in their homes, opening the ocean floor into doors above our lawns.

An elaborate filtering system will keep water out and marine snow in. It will cake our lawns with skin and scales and teeth and sand.

From the decaying cells of millions of animals and plants, we will form snowmen, gray and foggy -- replicas of the living made from the dead and wearing a scarf and hat.

Fish will starve, but children will smile -- because marine snow doesn't melt, it just slowly cracks and crumbles.

Villi

2007-07-12T10:12:00.001-07:00

When the world is so populated as to disallow real lawns, we will be forced to redefine the ornaments that rest in front of our homes.

Renting out the poor, we will reach into them and shape their insides to match our mood and lives, leaving them prostrate in front of our doorsteps -- magnifying glasses, tubes, and cameras revealing the artistic rendering of their intestinal villi, little fingers reaching out, trimmed and cut back into dogs and families, cars and fish.

Ribbon

2007-07-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

Entire areas of the country and world will become industrial blockades. From them will pour unused materials and excess chemicals.

Ribbons will collect and knot in bushes and power lines. Once heavy enough, they will swing like rainbows through the countryside and barrel towards where the population thickens.

Children will run into the streets with eight foot nets, screaming, jumping, and swatting for all they are worth when the ribbon comes like a sunset or eclipse.

With children chasing after, the ribbon will wrap around trees and tangle up in buildings, but they will inevitably get torn apart and dragged through the streets and lawns.

Magistrates

2007-07-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

In order to ward off unwanted attacks, crimes, or ideas, the government of the world (GoW) will provide each lawn with two magistrates.

The magistrates will face our homes, blankly staring, eyes wide and in.

They will not move. They will not speak. They will only look.

We will not move. We will not speak. We will close our eyes and count.

Eventually, the magistrates will kind of fade into the backdrop, their suits becoming translucent, but they are still there, watching, whether we can see them or not.

We will eventually learn that the magistrates live and die in our lawns, never sharing information with anyone else, never bringing their findings to the higher ups, but we will nevertheless take precaution against what may or may not actually exist.

Conversations Overheard at a Bar

2007-07-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

Every conceivable job will be held by someone somewhere in the future.

The Recorder, the job of copying and reproducing the sounds of random and useless events, will eventually be a real and filled position.

The Recorder will peddle his wares to lawn owners everywhere.

Most popular of all will be the sounds of conversations overheard at bars. Candid and honest, but also hesitant and false, they will intrigue and challenge listeners.

As well, they will serve as rudimentary time travel devices, drawing us back to times and places in which people were excited and loud, sure and charged.

Others will lounge in kiddie pools, their bar conversations broadcast on loud speakers, and they will listen for phone numbers of voices that sound like something they remember as nice.

Another job, briefly, will be prying such people from their chairs and telling them to go to work.

Clouds

2007-07-11T20:28:00.001-07:00

When the waters and the lands have been filled, our cities will take to the air practically of their own free will.

Soaring at a snail's pace, our homes will dangle from monolithic balloons, slung like shirts across the sky, and clouds will gather and disperse outside our windows like buffalo or geese.

We will lounge on steel patios, not dreaming of animals and things where there are only clouds, but imaging lawns where there is only air.

Nebraska

2007-07-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

Divided up, a piece will be mailed to every American. Some will leave it in the guest room and others will drop it in the trash, but most will place it on their lawns to hide their spare keys beneath.

Former residents will seek out the pieces of land where their homes used to be, traveling the country and visiting chunks here and there, imagining only fractions of their past at a time: this floor board, that carpet, this nail.

The drives will be long and most will return home pretending they got what they wanted.

At the edge of the former Nebraskan border, staring into the hole where the state used to be, people will toss pennies.

The Dead

2007-07-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

Doomed to immortality, we will regard the dead as gems or trophies, riches beyond compare.

We will fish through graveyards pulling bodies from the ground as if apples from trees.

The mining industry will be reborn, carving land away in search of forgotten burial sites -- wheel barrows filled not with coal or silver but coffins and bones.

We will trade and appraise them. We will restore and remodel.

We will place them on our lawns like flamingos and gnomes.

Order

2007-07-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

Entropy is a plague on all things, and order is a spiritual ideal attainable only by brute force. Succumbing to our own indulgences and urges, we will need a greater power than ourselves to bring order to our chaotic lives and lawns.

From steel and flesh, from filing cabinets and geological strata, from wire and broken dishes, Order will thus be formed -- a warrior without match.

We will not have to chase and strive for order -- it will hunt us down and chain us into position. It will clamp its steel teeth around our vices and excesses. It will ram a pole through our digressions and shove bladed fists through our ambiguity.

Order will stalk our lawns, laying waste to entropy, and leave chaos in its wake.

Bleach Panda

2007-07-11T06:09:00.000-07:00

Eventually, we will tire of the fact that animals and household cleaners are separate. Joining the two together will make us feel more efficient.

Setting our bleach pandas on the lawn, we will turn to them when there are spills on the carpet, blouses, or table cloth. They will excrete bleach through every pour, every orifice, into tubes that run throughout the house like secret plumbing.

Windex camels, dish soap horses, and hair pomade finches will be much the same -- strung up in rubber hoses and stretched across the lawn.

Dolphins

2007-07-11T06:05:00.001-07:00

They will swim through the dirt eating rocks and roots.

The Sun

2007-07-11T05:50:00.000-07:00

In the future, size -- not space -- will be the final frontier.

As we construct our deep space homes, we will grow in size, our bodies pushing outward against the lack of pressure. We will fill ever more space, building larger and larger homes from near by comets and asteroids.

Our mass dwarfing even stars, the sun will follow us like a dog across the universe.

We will realize that the mystery of gravity lies not in a particle or super symmetry, but in a choice, a decision.

Gravity is willed.

We shall will the sun in front of us, setting constantly on our lawns as we -- still growing ever larger -- race in search of something bigger than us.

Leper Colonies

2007-07-11T05:11:00.000-07:00

We need human touch and intimacy.

Draped in gowns and robes and sheets and skin and muscle in our beds will not be enough in the future. We will stumble into the yard wanting to be more naked, more touched.

In leprosy colonies on our lawns we will erode or bodies, exposing more to the air, fingers rubbed back to nubs -- whole new, almost fluid, surfaces.

As our bodies take new shape and form, we will press against one another, valleys running over mountains of flesh, pock marks and scars sliding through each other like milk.

As we push closer together, we will also wear away, receding as we step into each other, quarantined by space and time, the only clothing that won't come off.

The Miracle of Birth

2007-07-09T20:03:00.002-07:00

Soon, genetically engineering and producing offspring will be safer, more accurate, and -- most importantly -- more common. Eventually, it will be the only way, leaving birth behind with bloodletting and rock lobotomies.

It will also leave behind the Miracle of birth -- which will have no place to go really, wandering about forests and valleys like a specter, dejected and abandoned.

Handy craftsman will helm the abandoned Miracle into a usable tool, birthing wood from trees, and nails from hammers. Placed on our lawns, the Miracle of birth will generate objects from nothing, will replicate stereos, chairs, and sprinklers. Eventually we will tire of this Miracle and throw it away.

We will see it in the night pecking timidly through our trash and making a nuisance of itself. Old women will shew it away with broom sticks and strong men will set traps and douse neighborhoods with noxious sprays and tinctures.

Animals will go missing, socks will be lost. The Miracle of birth will be under the bed, behind the door, in the closet, its teeth slowly rattling.

Precious Ores

2007-07-09T19:46:00.000-07:00

As we dig further into the Earth, our cities tunneling ever lower, we will build vast and cavernous metropolises that rest across magma rivers and molten plains.

After drinks with friends, fun seekers will climb the cave walls, scaling hundreds of steep sloping stories. In crannies and knotholes will wait elaborate crystals, soft stones and smooth metals. We will take them with us as we run down the embankment, red and black dust billowing out behind us like a drag race.

We will place our rocks on the solid lawns, shining flash lights on them and imagining a moon we've never seen.

Where Trains Turn Around

2007-07-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

Once trains have gone as far as they can go, they have to turn back and go the other way. In the future, this may happen on our lawns.

Steam and ropes, gears and lifts will all work together to send the machine back from where it came.

Eventually, though, trains will just keep going, circling the globe until their metal hearts stop. Grown accustomed to the regularity of train schedules on our lawns, we will bend space and time to place the arctic where the pulleys and gears used to be.

As trains pass through the poles, they will also pass through our lawns -- but mirrored, reversed. Stray seals or delirious polar bears will stumble through where the trains turn around -- and die on our doorsteps.

We will warm our hands over their burning fat, the arctic wind that accompanies inertia whipping against our faces.

Holocaust Denial

2007-07-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

Irony and kitsch are long standing lawn ornament traditions. In the future, what could be more kitschy or ironic than holding a Holocaust denial lecture, seminar series, or panel discussion? Miseducation won't be a problem but a joke.

On our lawns, a place devoid of real facts and figures, we will deny the Holocaust safely and without rebuke.

Tank Chair

2007-07-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

Just as fast as we move toward the future, the future rushes toward us.

Embalming

2007-07-09T09:26:00.001-07:00

As we meld more with our machines, becoming tape recorders, blenders, lamps, and table saws, we will enjoy the practice of embalming the living as well as the dead -- on our lawns.

The Silk Road

2007-07-09T08:10:00.001-07:00

Over 5,000 miles of ancient trade routes will cut a path across our lawns in an effortless expansion of the useless Eurasian silk and spice market.

Once a glorious and prosperous global business, it now pales in comparison to the bigger technology and oil industries. The Silk Road, faded or transformed into highway, is all but a legend.

In the future, this will change.

As places begin to have minds of their own, to relinquish their traditional roles, the Silk Road will wander out of Asia and into our lawns. We will welcome it, awed by the flow of pack mules, camels, and llamas.

The Silk Road will become much like a family pet, playful and responsive.

Shrimp Scampi

2007-07-09T05:59:00.000-07:00

When we begin to populate the oceans, careening across the surface in our floating cities, we will trawl the ocean floor with enormous continent sized nets. Some excess catches will be dispersed to the poor and needy, but much of it will be bought up by homeowners for their waterfront lawns.

Grilled and drenched in garlic butter, thyme sprinkled jumbo shrimps will be scattered across the green grass of our yards like a delicious brush fire.

In the middle of the night, we will wander out onto our lawns, gobbling up the ornaments while we rock gently with the tide.

The Lonely and The Limbless

2007-07-09T05:36:00.000-07:00

Arriving like dust or litter and each with their own reasons, they will roll aimlessly about our lawns singing, "Porque porque porque yo tengo nada, porque porque porque?"

Handlebar Mustache

2007-07-09T05:27:00.001-07:00

Universally known as the face of our lives, some will choose to decorate their lawns with a typical facial ornament: the mustache.

It will be sold as a type of rare fern, and if watered properly will grow like a vine across the front of a house. Its creeping brown limbs and branches will wrap tightly to form bristly handlebars under our windows.

Large trimming and grooming devices will be popular accoutrements, silver and shiny in the sun.

Hecatonchires

2007-07-09T05:05:00.000-07:00

Scarecrows, though useless on cropless lawns, are nonetheless common as lawn ornaments today. In the future, scaring birds away for no reason will be a tradition that is continued via the offspring of heaven and earth.

Whether it is a hundred headed and hundred armed, sword-wielding beast that helped defeat the Titans, or is merely the multitudinous motion of the ocean waves, Hecatonchires will be a fashionable and chic lawn ornament.

Earth and sky will come together on our lawns, opening Gaia's womb to spill the last of the ancient beasts.

Neighborhood groups and clubs, always searching for adventure or controversy and scandal, will join the beast to leer outward, scanning the horizon for threats -- mountain sized rocks and rock sized mountains ready to be flung at a moment's notice.

The blood of Uranus' mutilation will fuel their rage, and when Cronus comes, the nation's book clubs, garden parties, knitting circles, and bridge game members will be ready -- ready for war.

Oil Drills

2007-07-09T04:48:00.001-07:00

When the world's oil supply begins to dwindle, oil rigs across the nation's lawns will be either a beacon of hope or symbol of desperation.

In either case, they will be very tall.

Delis

2007-07-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

Synthetic meats woven from cotton and terrycloth will be the norm in the future. As these "meats" will never spoil, they can be kept for extended periods of time. They will need no refrigeration and no protection from the elements.

As such, delis across the nation will go under, their cases left on street corners and behind dumpsters. Deli workers will roam the night, looking for cold cuts to hawk or fresh produce to mingle.

Once their cases are grabbed up by homeowners and inevitably used as lawn ornaments, the deli workers will appear like zombies behind them, smiling and as if from nowhere.

Some will say it is out of pity or charity that they are left alone, but the truth is that the Deli workers will me immovable. They will be timid at first, but will gain confidence. Soon they will bring a barbecue to grill imaginary lemon and Cajun chicken, then a soup display and a magazine rack.

Just to pass the time, or out of awkward silences and uncomfortable glances, people will pretend to be customers, taking their time ordering from a list of sandwiches that will never be made.

Eventually, the delis will blow away, much like a fog.

Houses

2007-07-08T09:09:00.000-07:00

Lawns are often a respite from what ails us. In the future, there may be many ailments -- and we will need to be on our lawns a bit longer. We will build lawn homes and houses to meet this need.

Our lawn houses will sit in front of our real homes, welcoming us. Once the lawn house is built, people may become disoriented and confused about which home is actually on the lawn -- the lawn house or the original house. Sharing just one plot of grass, it will be difficult to distinguish. To remedy this, we will place grass over the tops of our lawn homes.

Eventually, the vegetation will simply grow over them entirely and we will be satisfied to know that our lawns have conquered any mutinies. The hilltops can only further fortify our lawn strength.

Later we may create new lawn houses on the hills above the old, but again we will bury them because they tower over our own real homes. This pattern may continue onward into the future, and it may be the source of new suburban mountain ranges.

Cancer

2007-07-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

When cancer erupts from its human casing, finally blooming into its own independent species, the first place it will settle is the lawn.

With a mix of antagonism and relief, its former victims -- now free -- will eye it through the curtains suspiciously. Eventually, though, we will warm up to Cancer, petting and grooming it.

Trimmed regularly, large Cancer stalks will be like enormous breathing bushes with teeth.

Kabuki

2007-07-08T08:43:00.000-07:00

Traditional Japanese theater will make its way to our lawns, slithering across the Pacific like an eel over rice.

When most of the land mass of earth has floated away into space, only our lawns will remain, held down by the weight of their ornaments. Kabuki dancers will find sanctuary there in front of our homes, looking toward the sky where states and nations float like little moons.

Cloth flowing and makeup running, they will dance for no one, they will dance for us.

Trundle Beds

2007-07-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

As the population grows, saving space will be an ever present issue. The space saving trundle bed will thus be very popular. Almost every American will own at least one.

Yet, eventually, a barrier will be broken, and we will no longer need to exist within the confines of our bodies -- especially at night. By turning to a mist or gas, we will simply settle about the house in order to sleep, resting on books and furniture like a moist human blanket.

And what shall we do with our trundle beds?

We will place them on the lawns. We will plant gardens in them. We will spend summer afternoons pretending to sleep on them. We will try to remember what they feel like as our nerves slowly recede, more and more evolutionarily useless.

Chupacabra

2007-07-07T17:59:00.001-07:00

Whether or not it is real or shall become real, generated from our thoughts, superstitions, and stories -- the Chupacabra will be captured and placed on lawns.

Miniature el Ninos will encase it, swinging it around and spiraling about the yard.

It will become a cliche to ask whether or not the Chupacabra enjoys the irony of being held captive by "The Little Boy" when he himself has kidnapped so many children.

Yet, on some days, neither the Chupacabra nor el Nino will exist and where they used to twirl will suffice as an ornament.

They will always come back though, like snow.

Wind Spam

2007-07-07T17:17:00.000-07:00

In the past, no one sent spam emails. Currently, many do. In the future, everyone will. We will all spam one another as much as possible. It may eventually be our only form of communication.

Replacing the wind chime, our Wind Spam machines will use the force and energy of the breeze to generate spam emails from a lawn based server. Instead of music, the wind chimes of the future will produce coupons and cheap pharmaceutical ads.

Weather patterns will monitor where the wind is blowing the hardest -- and based on who lives in those areas and what main industries spam from those counties, meteorologists will tell us what type of spam to expect for the day.

The Place Rooms Go When No One Is In Them

2007-07-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

Once it is finally proven exactly where rooms go to when no one is in them, what place they descend or ascend or waft to, we will isolate its location through sonar triangulation and open a connection to it.

On our lawns, slits in the air will look in on the expanse where empty rooms arrive and we will watch them come and go. Bedrooms and dining rooms, ball rooms and conference rooms -- all of them will pass through.

Some rooms will never arrive in this place, while others will be there almost permanently.

Roadies

2007-07-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

Live music will become a thing of the past due to outlawing and the advantages of the digital economy. Waiting for bands to show up, aging men will sit on our lawns drinking beer. Given the chance, they will assemble and rig things, but mostly they will wait because the bands won't come.

Despite their blind faith, there will only be one band and it doesn't need roadies.

The Former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan

2007-07-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

As land becomes an increasingly valuable commodity, poorer nations will be forced to weigh the pros and cons between physical borders and poverty. Time will only exaggerate the inequalities between countries and soon some nations will choose to give up their physicality while still retaining sovereignty.

There will be many methods of achieving this through time-tested diaspora systems, but the most popular will eventually be lawn ornamentation. The idea will spring from the leaders of the Post-Soviet states, most likely because they spent so many years sitting on Russia's lawn. Entire Eastern European nations will disperse across other nations, millions sitting in foreign lawns. They will charge homeowners only a small price to have the exotic feature of real human ornaments -- just enough to keep their traditions and customs alive.

Wanting lawns of their own, however, the people of these nations will eventually embrace poverty in order to have things. Having things will be the end of most of these countries.

Booby Traps

2007-07-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

As the population grows, it will be more difficult to weed out who is worthwhile and who is not. Billions upon billions of people will cross our paths -- how are we to know who we should interact with and who we should avoid?

Booby traps. Only the worthy will pass the battery of physical tests and clever traps you plant on the way to your home. Crossing the lawn will be a testament to intelligence, character, and eventually intimacy.

It will be imperative that we get to know each other before we enter one another's homes. As we gain empathy and understanding for another person, we will be better equipped to dodge the spikes and hop the pits of their lawns.

If on your way to see a friend, you find yourself hanging from a tree by your ankle, dangling on a rope, you will have to ask yourself: how well do I really know this person?

Of course, some will barrel through all the trap doors and flinging rocks just to gain a small understanding of other people. You can learn a lot about a person by the traps they set, and lying at the bottom of a well covered by oversized palm fronds -- you will.

Dopaminergic Neurons

2007-07-06T09:33:00.001-07:00

We cannot always rely on our bodies. Legs give out, lungs get tired, and muscles ache. Just as much, the brain can be strained and have difficulty functioning at peak levels. In that lawns are also meant to be a reflection of who we are, macroscopic webs of our neuro-transmitters will be popular lawn fixtures.

When we are depressed, we will know that our brain is not functioning well or producing enough dopamine, and we will then stand on the lawn suckling from our neural replicas while lightning bolts and chemical reactions spill all around us.

As we drain our neural facsimile of serotonin and dopamine, we will ignore the fact that this enormous deaf, mute, and blind version of ourselves grows ever more depressed the happier we get.

We will be left to wonder what makes the dopamine levels rise when we are done -- what is it thinking about that makes it happy again?

The Sphere of Eternity

2007-07-06T09:16:00.001-07:00

In the future, most people will give up religion and denounce it as ridiculous. Except as novelty, Mary statues and Jesus carvings will be forgotten. People will turn instead to the sphere of eternity, available at wholesale price, and which will be placed on almost every lawn. Emitting blue dots that may or may not make us happy, we will put our faces inside of it and confess our sins. When enough sins have been collected, more blue dots will be released.

In a pinch, the sphere can be used as a lamp, camping tent, or supplement for garlic in most dishes.

Magnets

2007-07-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

The lawn is often a place of relaxation. In the future, we will maximize this property with magnets.

Placed strategically on our lawns, superconducting magnets will make our leisure time even easier. Simply put on your polarized suit and let the forces of nature propel you about the lawn, bouncing from magnet to magnet and limp like a rag doll. Flopping like a fish with our eyes closed and our arms open will be better than any lawn chair.

If planned accurately enough, this may also make simple yard maintenance easier as well. with even greater accuracy and mathematical ingenuity, one might enter into the lawn magnet track and never have to make a decision again.

Buboes and Other Symptoms

2007-07-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

Our lawns will puff up with puss filled bubbles while cocktail parties make small wagers on when it will pop.

In addition to the Plague, by using stem-cell research home-kits we will grow fingers and feet in our rose gardens. Leprosy and scabies will be available online at the same place we buy printer cartridges.

Dreams

2007-07-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

I have had the same dream for over 15 years, but in the future Heart's live reunion performance of Barracuda will be more than just a dream.

In the future, we will sleep with our heads mounted on orbs that send our dreams through wires and bulbs. Holographically projected on our lawns, our dreams will have more fun than we do. Advanced holograms will be able to physically interact with objects, and midnight snacks and beer runs will be common practice of lawn dreams.

Migratory Birds

2007-07-06T00:51:00.001-07:00

Being prone to flight and travel, these lawn ornaments, though popular, will rarely if ever be seen on an actual lawn -- and most certainly not the lawns on which they belong. They will almost always be on someone else's lawn, but they are yours nonetheless.

Don't feel cheated, but rather take comfort in the fact that you have stretched your reach and property into the homes, lives, and lawns of others.

Enormous Carved Pillars of Genoa Salami

2007-07-06T00:39:00.000-07:00

The bigger the better will be the motto in the future. Bigger houses, bigger people -- and bigger salami. Large enough to support a load of over 5,000 pounds, these mammoth meats will be great for lawn partitions and hammock anchors.

High Tide

2007-07-06T00:36:00.000-07:00

It is said that the moon once collided with a young earth. Billions of years later, the two are divorced from one another -- save for the weak bond of the tides.

In the future, we may use hooks and pulleys to draw the moon closer to our homes, thus dragging and dredging up water from the ground beneath. The tides will rise not from the ocean but from the earth and soil.

Our lawns will be the new coastlines, every house beach-front property. Children and pets may be lost in the undertow of their own homes, but they always wash up somewhere. Get in a barrel, close your eyes, and find out where the lawn tide goes.

As well, despite many attempts, surfing will not catch on.

Oven Mitts

2007-07-05T19:10:00.001-07:00

Bury them in the bushes and wait for teeth.

Red Scare

2007-07-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

Historical references are a constant part of lawn decoration. In the future, these references will be ever more vivid.

Fear of communism will be a popular ornament. Via community organization, posters, and lawnside interrogations we will feel the paranoia of thinking everyone in the world is out to get us. This will inspire us to be better citizens.

Blacklisting for fun will be a regular exercise. One idea of an ornament is the refusal of items, and disallowing people and items will be common practice. Things that will never appear on your lawn define your life-facade just as much as those included. A large list of things that are red or start with C or genuinely frighten us will be posted on our lawns to let everyone know they are banned.

In addition, loud air raid horns and people huddling beneath desks will be novelty items popular amongst the less sophisticated home owners. Gulags and lawn censorship will be the preference of those with means despite the inherent irony.

Method Acting

2007-07-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

Lee Strasberg popularized what he thought was merely a great acting tool. He never could have imagined it as a popular lawn ornament of the future.

Or could he? Some posit that it is too perfect for Strasberg not to have planned it.

Accessing our emotions and drawing on previous life events in order to become and add to the character we are supposed to be will be both a recreational and professional necessity.

Practice exercises (Meisner Excercies) in which people say the same thing to one another over and over again every single day in order to be better at the things they aren't saying will be common inside and outside of the home -- but most profoundly redundant on the lawn.

Product Recall

2007-07-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

In the future, products may become deadly at any moment. Sudden-sentience Syndrome (SSS) and nuclear-creeping will be everyday occurrences -- and without instant notification, lives may be lost. Product Recalls on lawns will notify families and pedestrians alike of danger and money to be made through class action suits.

Both as kitsch and fail-safe, reruns of older product recalls will show on loop. Like a visual oldies station, they will remind us of the times when our things didn't hurt us.

Sepsis

2007-07-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

Sepsis, or blood poisoning, will be popular with the youth. Tired of traveling far and annoyed by the excessive preparation needed for the original extreme sports like mountain climbing and skydiving, people will turn to biological excitement.

Bacterial Sepsis will be a hose away on just about every lawn. The medical industry will advocate this practice because almost everything will be cured by then. In order to stay in any type of business, doctors will promote self-induced medical issues.

Like firefighters fixing your smoke detectors so that they will be able to rush to your home in the middle of the night, doctors will gladly maintain your sepsis hose so that they too can rush to your home in the middle of the night.

It makes them appear more useful.

Jim Crow Laws

2007-07-05T01:29:00.000-07:00

Lawns often have signs that read "Don't Step on The Grass" or "Beware of Dog." These rules will only increase over time, slowly developing stronger social construction, while rules like gravity become increasingly optional. People will choose the rules their lawns live by.

Jim Crow Laws will be popular rule systems to replace gravity on household lawns. As racism will be all but nonexistent by then, we will laugh and sing while we float through the air subjugating and exploiting each other for fun.

Autoclaves

2007-07-05T01:08:00.000-07:00

Contamination has never been a stranger to lawns -- and it will not be a stranger to the future. Pollutants, bacteria, and disease will infect as much as possible.

Thus, sterilization via extreme heat will be a necessity. We will heat up anything suspicious using lawn autoclaves.

Of course, the future's autoclaves will not be identical to those of today. Vast conductive metal improvements may eventually allow emotional and psychological sterilization to occur as well.

Setting our heads on fire on the lawn will be like stepping through the sprinklers: briefly, it will help us forget something worth forgetting.

Later we might grow tired of the effect, but we will keep the autoclaves running.

The Eagles' Greatest Hits

2007-07-05T00:51:00.000-07:00

A great record with a great title -- it will be one of many albums to become a physically solid representation of corresponding sound waves. Using advanced 3D printers, families will insert their favorite records into a drive and wait for a plywood version of each song.

Doing the same with voice recordings will allow for speeches to be lawn ornaments as well. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" will be a solid mass of plywood on the grass in front of our homes.

When we grow tired of listening to things, we will lean or sit on them.

And when we grow tired of leaning or sitting on things, we will feed them backward into the 3d printer and wait for a new song to burn in the disc drive. Call it "The Musical Chair Industry" or call it nothing -- regardless, profits will be made.

Real Estate Seminars

2007-07-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

In the future, real estate moguls will not give up trying to reach the public with their message of prosperity. They will look for fresher and more innovative ways of communicating.

In addition, lawn ornaments quite frequently try to educate onlookers through placards or small rocks with inspirational quotes. Over time, lawn ornaments will become increasingly educational. Real Estate Seminars will have a major role in this process.

People will flock to our yards to learn how to buy cheap and sell high. Our yards will appear studious and ambitious. Zoning, subdivision, and land development laws will take center stage.

However, constant discussion of other homes and lawns may in fact disturb any sentient lawn ornaments a house might have. This phenomenon will be an ironic and well documented cause of home value depreciation.

Those who suffer it would be wise to attend a course in a neighbor's lawn.

Precariousness

2007-07-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

The feeling of being on the edge can add ambition and spark to our lives. For those who want a do-or-die attitude -- and those of the future may perish without it -- equipping our lawns with unsettling perches, ill placed objects, and potential-energy rich artifacts will stimulate our adrenaline.

In addition, vertigo inducing gases, jagged walkways, and rickety planks above deep lawn chasms may just give you the preparation you need to deal with what your day holds for you.

If you can't make it out the door, you won't make it out there.

a = x_0 < x_1 < \cdots < x_n = b (Darboux integral)

2007-07-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

As math increases in complexity, knowledge that once seemed specialized will in turn become household knowledge. Just as computer technology was once out of the reach of common people, but is now a presence in every home and office, so too will complex mathematics find its place -- on our lawns.

The Darboux Integral will make a fine lawn ornament. It has upper and lower bounds that will make us comfortable and assured. It has equivalents for comparison and gossip. It's integrability may well determine whether or not you are allowed to integrate into a social circle.

Adorn your gardens with stone busts of this man in order to be invited to block parties and barbecues.

Just as technology trickles down to embolden household knowledge, trivialities will boil up from below to shackle it. Many of these battles will occur on the lawn.

The People You've Slept With

2007-07-04T11:12:00.000-07:00

"Real Dolls" and "Love Dolls" are increasingly realistic. Brothels full not of humans but of fleshy rubber fakes are on the uprise. In addition, AI robotics is increasingly lifelike, just as human modeling, wax work, and sculpting is ever more accurate. In the future, we may not be able to tell the difference between human and replica, able to generate exact likenesses.

Take a picture of the people you have loved and sacrificed for to a local Wal-mart, have them animotronicized, and head home with a new lawn ornament.

Take pictures of those you haven't loved or sacrificed for and do the same. You may love them in time.

Take a picture of yourself, do the same, and have your likeness added to the mix. Stand back and watch yourself love, sacrifice, and create more replicas all on the lawn.

Terrorism

2007-07-03T14:12:00.001-07:00

The Confederate flag is a common lawn ornament, and cannons or commemorative war wreaths are not uncommon either.

As well, political advocacy is a common lawn decoration. "Vote For ____" or "I support ____bill" are lawn staples. In the future our activism and respect for the history of war will come together in lawn terrorism.

We will endorse candidates by blowing up our lawn ornaments, and we will support bills and initiatives by exploding our cars.

Sonic Boom

2007-07-03T14:03:00.001-07:00

Physical marvels such as the wind-sock and the self-propelled drinking bird are common lawn ornaments. In the future, the physical marvels will be at once more physical and more marvelous.

Small fighter jets patroling the lawn will break the sound barrier in front of authentic sunspots and immitation lens flares. Small sonic booms will decorate our lawns and impress the local youth.

Eventually, we may not feel at home unless physical barriers are being broken.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

2007-07-03T08:50:00.001-07:00

Lawn ornaments are often placed in order to bring out emotions. Yet for most of the history of lawn ornaments, there has only been one emotion worked on -- happiness. In the future, we will not be so narrow minded: we will expand the horizon and scope of lawn ornament emotion technology.

Using the power of the seasons, changing rapidly
from winter to summer to spring to fall right on our lawns, we may rapidly effect the emotions of ourselves and our neighbors.

Having our emotions change so quickly will make us not feel any one of them in particular, but a entirely new blend -- much like the spinning spokes of a wheel become one shape the faster they go.

Smellovision

2007-07-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

It could be said that flowers are the original lawn ornament. As well, it might be said that flowers are the root of smellovision -- visual stimuli that smell much the way they look.

Our lawns will not abandon the flower, but they may dissect its elements into distinct parts. Discarding the form, smellovision will become a popular lawn ornament.

Of course, by then it will be much more advanced than its original incarnation. Smellovision of the future will not accompany images but induce them. The smell of Elvis, harnessed through DNA reconstruction and diet analysis, will be coupled with small nano-devices that will infiltrate the brain and make the King appear right in front of your eyes.

He will look and smell more alive than he ever did in life. And thus vicariously, so will you.

My Mother's Furniture and Where it Went

2007-07-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

Both the things we have lost and the places they have been will be placed on our lawns.

An arm chair my mother had for forty years but which was misplaced in a long distance move -- this will be an ornament of the future. As well, whatever township or locker or trailer it found its way to -- this as well will be an ornament on a lawn.

The very idea of these things being lost and/or found will be placed on lawns via holographic MRI systems emanating from the mailbox. All the myriad things we imagined happening to them will be displayed via the same process.

My mother's couch, a Vancouver meat factory, three Mexican businessmen, fire, floods, sex, and asparagus.