Several readers were so appreciative of our encyclopedic, full-scale capsule coverage of Zen, that they've asked for enlightenment in the matter of the great war of words which rages around the in-group versus out-group stalemate. Here you are, then: -- in the form of a game in which you can score yourself to find out where you stand.
People who are in, according to their own accounting, are bound to be out. This puts them 2 points ahead of people who still think shoe is an in word, and 2 points behind (and slightly west of) people who think the opposite of square is cool.
If you thought the opposite of cool was square until you read the foregoing paragraph, but you are now unsure, you are more square than hip, twice as frantic as you are cool, and probably non-u to boot (we mean black-shoe). So subtract 4 points from your score and go directly to Jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
If you think it's ivy to consider people who say hep less hip than those who say u or shoe, unbuckle the back of your cap and move three places down. If you deem it non-ivy to worry about people who act so out that they're in, add 3 points to your score and beware of codfish -- it doesn't agree with you.
If you think beat ranks bop, add 3 points to your score and help yourself to one gold star for your toothbrush chart -- Mother won't mind. If you hate to part with your one hand-painted tie but won't wear it, deduct 3 points from your score or throw the tie away and go to the head of the In-Shoe-Cool-U-Hip-Ivy class -- along with all the other upward strivers who aren't sure that it's more chic to be outré than it is frantic to be beat. Clear?
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Speaking of in, anyone who gives it any thought will realize that by its very nature it can't be static; like the Queen told Alice, you have to keep running to stay in the same place. What's in today is out tomorrow or the next day simply because in-ness depends on exclusivity: the more people who dig the newest and latest, the less new and recent it becomes -- for by the fact of their dawning awareness they kill the thing they seek. It's automatic. Happened most recently to sick jokes, which had a brief career as very inside indeed, then became dangerously popular for their own survival, were finally canonized as worthy of the national attention in Time, and promptly expired. To be replaced by what? The "well joke," of course. This is usually a simple-minded, childlike riddle with a sardonic-moronic answer. Sample: "What's shaped like a box, smells like lox and flies through the air?" Answer: "A flying lox box." Or, "What's red and green and eats rocks?" Answer: "A red-and-green rock eater." Simple? "What has four wheels, a steering wheel and an engine?" If the patsy you've asked this one answers, "An automobile," that's your cue to look crestfallen and say, "Oh, you've heard it before."
