Page 100 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

One Born Every Minute

“For a long time,” began Cyril Kornfleck, “I have harbored a
desire to write an alternate history of the United States. I’m well
aware of the pitfalls of this sub-genre; despite the hundreds or
thousands of attempts to pull it off convincingly, very few have
much to demonstrate but a well-ground author’s axe, and they
devolve into dystopias or unintended consequences on a cosmic
scale—the well-known butterfly effect, when syncretized with tales
of time travel. The illogic of that seems to have resulted in writers
allowing their heroes to hop off our universe into a parallel one
somehow permitting history to change just at the point of their
arrival. No one seems to have realized that accepting the infinite-
worlds version of the multiverse fantasy by definition includes
acknowledging the existence of every possible universe already. But
that is not my modus operandi. I would like simply to tweak a
couple of synapses in one man’s head, circa 1880. That man is
Phineas T. Barnum.”
“He was a man as oddly curious as any of the exhibitions in his
museums, and as blissfully unaware of his internal contradictions as
his contemporaries—or of ours, for that matter. He was a crass
exploiter of humanity, both the real and contrived freaks on display
and the wildly enthusiastic crowds of paying customers. After being
a cruel slave-owner for years, he converted to social egalitarianism
with a religious bent. He convinced at least himself that he was an
honest businessman, giving the public good entertainment for their
money. As a promoter, he seems to have understood intuitively
how to get publicity for his attractions, from the hoax nursemaid of
George Washington to the opera singer Jenny Lind. And self-
promotion was not the least of his talents. By the late 1870s he had
also held public office in his native Connecticut twice, and had a
good idea of the politics of his era. And here I will take leave of the
historical record, for it is my point of departure that he finds a
reason to make himself available to run on the presidential ticket in
1880 with James A. Garfield, instead of Chester Arthur.”

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