7:29 p.m. - 2002-03-04
Those fun loving Raelians
Bruce tells me tonight at dinner that a speaker from the Raelians is coming to the university in a couple of weeks to speak on human cloning. The Raelians are a bizarre little fascination for Bruce and I. They are as close as you can come to a scientific cult group. Many of them are highly trained bioengineers. They just happen to believe that aliens came to the earth and mixed their DNA with that of humans in one big happy breeding experiment.
Their leader, Rael, claims that the space people came and got him one day and flew him around and told him all about the alien DNA. Bruce says that when the group first started they were very big into orgies because the aliens told them to revel in their fertility and the spread of their DNA.
I tell him I think we should stop thinking of ourselves as having a sexual relationship and instead we should revel in our fertility and the spread of our DNA. He does not find that appealing.
One of the students in the university's biotech program is actually a Raelian. Let's just call him Louis. He's kind of a sweet, spacey guy and around his neck he wears a large, bronzey medal that many Raelians wear. I asked him about it at a party once and he told me all the symbolism behind it. Unfortunately I don't remember anything he said because, like many Raelians, Louis is French, and his yummy Parisian accent sent me over the edge.
His accordian playing is what sends most people over the edge, but not in a good way. Louis goes to a lot of parties, and he always brings his faithful accordian, and insists on sitting everyone down to sing French cafe songs. He does this even though, like most good Americans, none of us know French. (Except Bruce, who slinks off before he can be cornered.) But Louis will not be deterred. "Yes! I teach you!" he beams.
A few months ago I was at a party and at one point someone noticed he was missing. "Where's Louis?" they asked.
The hostess looked stricken. "Oh God, no!" she exclaimed. "He's gone to get that, that accordian!!"
My favorite Louis story stems from when he was a teaching assistant for the Genetics labs. Louis was in charge of making sure that the fruitfly cultures, which were essential for a full three weeks worth of the classes lab experiments, were properly growing and reproducing. For weeks Louis assured the professor in charge that the fruitflies were fine, they were happy, no need to worry.
And then, two days before the fruitfly labs were to start, he suddenly announced to the professor: "AH! Zee fruitflies! Zay are dead!!" and then he kind of smiled and shrugged and said in a blithe tone of voice: "But - eet does not matter!!"
For weeks after that it was a tremendous joke. Whenever anything went wrong we would say "AH! Zee fruitflies! Zay are dead! But - eet does not matter!!"
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