[Excalibur] Time Travelers Unite! 12-08-07

[Jacob Lefton]

Bienvenidos fellow Time Travelers!

Saturday, December 8th is International Pretend to be a Time Traveler 
Day, which is awesome, because I know all of you really .are. time 
travelers.

Luckily, the East Lecture Hall at 8pm is a safe haven for you after a 
long day spent in costume.

Here are directions directly from the Dresden Codak blog:

"The only rule is that you cannot actually tell anyone that you are a 
time traveler. Other than that, anything's game.

There are three possible options:

1) Utopian/cliché Future - "If the Future did a documentary of the last 
fifty years, this is how badly the reenactors would dress." Think Star 
Trek: TNG or the Time Travelers from Hob. Ever see how the society in 
Futurama sees the 20th century? Run with it. Your job is to dress with 
moderately anachronistic clothing and speak in slang from varying 
decades. Here are some good starters:

- Greet people by referring to things that don't yet exist or haven't 
existed for a long time. Example: "Have you penetrated the atmosphere 
lately?" "What spectrum will today's broadcast be in?" and "Your king 
must be a kindly soul!"

- Show extreme ignorance in operating regular technology. Pay phones 
should be a complete mystery (try placing the receiver in odd places). 
Chuckle knowingly at cell phones.

2) Dystopian Future - This one offers a little more flexibility. It can 
be any kind of future from Terminator to Freejack. The important thing 
to remember is dress like a crazy person with armor. Black spray 
painted football pads, high tech visors, torn up trenchcoats and maybe 
even some dirt here or there. Remember, dystopian future travelers are 
very startled that they've gone back in time. Some starters:

- If you go the "prisoner who's escaped the future" try shaving your 
head and putting a barcode on the back of your neck. Then stagger 
around and stare at the sky, as if you've never seen it before.

- Walk up to random people and say "WHAT YEAR IS THIS?" and when they 
tell you, get quiet and then say "Then there's still time!" and run 
off.

- Stand in front of a statue (any statue, really), fall to your knees, 
and yell "NOOOOOOOOO"

- Stare at newspaper headlines and look astonished.

- Take some trinket with you (it can be anything really), hand it to 
some stranger, along with a phone number and say "In thirty years dial 
this number. You'll know what to do after that." Then slip away.

3) The Past - This one is more for beginners. Basically dress in period 
clothing (preferably Victorian era) and stagger around amazed at 
everything. Since the culture's set in place already, you have more of 
a template to work off of. Some pointers:

- Airplanes are terrifying. Also, carry on conversations with 
televisions for a while.

- Discover and become obsessed with one trivial aspect of technology, 
like automatic grocery doors. Stay there for hours playing with it.

- Be generally terrified of people who are dressed immodestly compared 
to your era. Tattoos and shorts on women are especially scary.


And that's it. Remember, the only real rule is staying in character and 
try to fit in. Never directly admit you're a time traveler, and make 
really, really bad attempts at keeping a low profile. Naturally, the 
dystopian future has a little more leeway. And for the record, I've 
already tried out all of these in real life, in costume. It is so much 
fun you want to pee yourself. '