The cavernous carrion birds passed them, then the hovering swarms of light, the bestial rompers, the stilt-tall fire dancers; the revelers, the hangers-on, the wannabes, and the vendors; followed by the bookies’ barkers, freelance serendipity coordinators, matchmakers, balloon-sellers, portraitists, commemorative body-garden architects, rowdies, reactants, and school outings with their teachers in tow; and the blue and red and black rent-a-bodies holding hands, the ones with mouths eating sourspun fluffity from a vendor’s cart.

Baaa-RUMP, ba-chiggity-chiggity-whuppity-chiggity-chiggity-BOOM!

Baaa-RUMP, ba-chiggity-chiggity-whuppity-chiggity-chiggity-BOOM!

Hhrang, hrrang, de-da-de hhrang, hhrang dada-dooda-de,

Woodle-deedly, woodle-deedly, woodle-deedle, hhrang!

Interlude

Insider’s Market Report

HELLO and welcome to ZANGO JANGO’s little corner of the world-of-ideas! THANKS FOR VISITING, because NOT MANY DO, may Groon regret it! But that’s THEIR LOSS and YOUR GAIN because—say it with me, my puppies—THE BEST DIRT IS THE DIRT LEAST SEEN!

That’s right, my kittens: with ZANGO JANGO’S MARKET TIPS you’ll be ahead of the game, making the bets of a lifetime, the ones that’ll burrow you into DEPTHS OF SUCCESS you never knew you HAD IN YOU!

Now . . . I say that every week. And that’s because it’s always true. Week in and week out, JANGO brings you that teetering-on-the-edge-of-the-byway contrarian bite. But this week . . . this week, my puppies. Well. This week . . . is different.

What I’ve got for you today is so big and so wild my predictive agents say half of you are going to abandon old ZANGO’s spot, never to return, before I’m done. But I’m begging you: HEAR ME OUT. If you close your ears on old Fathersibling Jango now, you’ll regret it later, may Groon mourn!

So what’s the BIG BET?

. . . let me lead up to it, turtles.

If you missed a little thing called THE UNRAVELING this week, you need to enter the World Hermit Derby, and ZANGO will bet on your bid. I’ll admit, the clowns’ shindig wasn’t my cup of fluffy; but whether you loved it or loathed it, the question for us BETTING FOOLS is, what OPPORTUNITIES does it present?

Everyone knows the markets will react. The SAPPY PUNTERS we love to tweak are taking the obvo bets, putting their chips on the collapse of a few more tottering cohorts, or sell-offs in feedgardener confidence. Maybe a few are venturing a bit farther, wondering about a POLITICAL REALIGNMENT. Will the Clowns collapse as a political force altogether? Contrariwise, do the Midwives look so helpless that the Clowns will surge ahead? Or even—and this is as close to the brink as SAPPY PUNTERS can bring themselves to think—will BOTH sides of the Fun/​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Safety axis lose out, and a long-awaited THIRD FORCE arise in our weak tea of Age of Digging politics? Maybe cobbled together out of those disgruntled staidophobic Vails and their creaky, strutting old-soldier heroes . . . ?

But puppies: that’s all MEAGER PIE.