Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Sensory Deprivation II

Most of the senses and their corresponding administrative functions reside in the head, so head-covering has always been an effective first step deprivation of the subject's senses, i.e. cover the head with some sort of sense blocking device. Blindfolding is a time-honored way to stop sight, and enlarging the fold to cover the nose greatly inhibits sniffing (scent-acquisition). I have, on occasion, combined these techniques with a pair of cleverly placed cod-liver oil soaked cotton puffs in order interrupt the hearing function as well.


However, as a scientist/designer/man-about-the-Hague I wish to minimize equipment spending while simultaneously maximizing subject disorientation and overall project unity. To this end, I combine all pertinent sensory deprivation criteria (save touch) in a single, formerly modular, design. My designs have been called revolutionary, inhuman and, on occasion, darkly inspired. Despite global disagreement on the relative Genevate' of my creations, all agree on one aspect. My sensory deprivation helms are delicious.


'Two phone calls and it's done.' This is my motto (among others). It sums up my ariadnic network of spies, cut-throats, doers, movers, thinkers, shakers, and in the present case, wholesale confectionary distributors. The first of my two calls was to a contact in Belgium who was able to lay hands on 30 tonnes of weapon's grade chocolate. The first shipment, 15 tonnes of a bitter chocolate called Serge's Delight, was used to construct the circuitry of the helms. One of our greatest advances in the relevant technologies was the realization that chocolate liqueur (of which Serge's delight was 38%) is an excellent conductor and provides the cocoa infrastructure a higher tensile strength than milk or dark chocolates. The remainder of the shipments were a series of tiny arrivals via local messenger and merchant post--15 tonnes of couverture, referred to on the martial confection black market as Angel's Blood. The beefier cocoa content in this softer and more elegant strain of chocolate allowed us an unprecented interface capability--people can't wait to put the helmets on.


Unfortunately, I got all the chocolate with a single phone call, so in order to maintain my two call rule, I re-contacted the Belgian and thanked him for his role in a previous shipping project involving a marscipone stag being pursued by an olde-worlde hunter. As the hunter approached the prey, the stag turned and gored the hunter, whose wounds would cover the entire piece in a layer of raspberry reduction blood. The confectioner claimed no memory of the sculpture but added that if such a sculpture were to exist, he would not be the man to trace it. He said I should call Heinz-Karl, whoever that is.

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