Welcome to the Pan Historian’s
Mad March 2009 Edition
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here."
[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll]
March
Madness. It seemed like a good idea at the time or perhaps it was just mad.
There were many different ways to interpret the topic—basketball, insanity,
anger, mutual assured destruction, Alfred E. Newman. However, now I am to do an
editorial and have no clue as to where to begin. Being factual I could just say
that in this edition of the PanHistorian, we have tackled a variety of people
and places that might seem mad, but that we hope interest you. That does not
seem to be enough.
Perhaps I should just say that we are all mad. Fifteen years ago, could we have
imagined such a place as Pan? When I first connected to the internet, I had a
package that gave me twenty hours a month; I could not imagine anyone needing to
be online more than that in thirty days. Now some of us connect on our cell
phones as well as our computers. Being away from Pan can bring on withdrawal
symptoms. We are in the best sense of the word mad about this place.
We are
lucky that Wyatt and the other publishers are also “mad” enough to create
this site, keep it going and deal with us all on a daily basis. The time and
energy that they expend in improving the site and more importantly in setting a
tone, is remarkable. We are fortunate that they give a place where we can
indulge our imaginations and become an action hero, a femme fatale, or a fantasy
creature. Here we can live in the past, the present or the future. They also
have created for us a community where we care about each other, worry when
people vanish, and rejoice when members have joyous events to celebrate. What a
great yet mad world we have here!
While this edition of the PanHistorian might celebrate March Madness, we hope
that you all celebrate the wonderful madness of PanHistoria every day of every
month of the year.
~ Clio
Image credits:
The header graphic for this edition is based on 'La Ruptura', by the Spanish-born Mexican Surrealist
painter, Remedios Varo (1908-1963).