Thus did it finally become known that Los Angeles, like some gigantic fungus, was overgrowing the land.
A period of gestation followed during which various publications in the country slowly built up the import of the Los Angeles Movement, until it became a national byword. It was during this period that a fertile-minded columnist dubbed Los Angeles "Ellie, the Meandering Metropolis,"7 a title later reduced merely to "Ellie"-a term which became as common to the American mind as "ham and eggs" or "World War II."
Now began a cycle of data collection and an attempt by various of the prominent sciences to analyze the Los Angeles Movement with a regard to arresting its strange pilgrimage which had now spread into parts of South Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas and as far as the sovereign state of Texas. (To the mass convulsion this caused in the Lone Star State a separate paper might be devoted.)
REPUBLICANS DEMAND FULL INVESTIGATION
Claim L.A. Movement Subversive Camouflage
After a hasty dispatch of agents to all points in the infected area, the American Medical Association promulgated throughout the nation a list of symptoms by which all inhabitants might be forewarned of the approaching terror.
SYMPTOMS OF "ELLIEITIS"7
This list, unfortunately, proved most inadequate for its avowed purpose. It did not mention, for one thing, the adverse effect of excess sunlight on residents of the northern states. With the expected approach to winter being forestalled stalled indefinitely, numerous unfortunates, unable to adjust to this alteration, became neurotic and, often, lost their senses completely.
The story of Matchbox, North Dakota, a small town in the northernmost part of that state, is typical of accounts which flourished throughout the late fall and winter of 1982.
The citizens of this ill-fated town went berserk to a man waiting for the snow and, eventually running amuck, burned their village to the ground.
The pamphlet also failed to mention the psychological phenomenon known later as "Beach Seeking,"8 a delusion under which masses of people, wearing bathing suits and carrying towels and blankets, wandered helplessly across the plains and prairies searching for the Pacific Ocean.
In October, the Los Angeles Movement (the process was given this more staid title in late September by Professor Augustus Wrench in a paper sent to the National Council of American Scientists) picked up momentum and, in a space of ten days, had engulfed Arkansas, Missouri and Minnesota and was creeping rapidly into the borderlands of Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. Smog drifted across the nation.
Up to this point, citizens on the east coast had been interested in the phenomenon but not overly perturbed since distance from the diseased territory had lent detachment. Now, however, as the Los Angeles city limits stalked closer and closer to them, the coastal region became alarmed.
Legislative activity in Washington was virtually terminated as Congressmen were inundated with letters of protest and demand. A special committee, heretofore burdened by general public apathy in the east, now became enlarged by the added membership of several distinguished Congressmen, and a costly probe into the problem ensued.
It was this committee that, during the course of its televised hearings, unearthed a secret group known as the L.A. Firsters.
This insidious organization seemed to have sprung almost spontaneously from the general chaos of the Los Angeles envelopment. General credence was given for a short time that it was another symptom of "Ellieitis." Intense interrogation, however, revealed the existence of L.A. Firster cells in East Coast cities that could not possibly have been subject to the dread virus at that point.
This revelation struck terror into the heart of a nation. The presence of such calculated subversion in this moment of trial almost unnerved the national will. For it was not merely an organization loosely joined by emotional binds. This faction possessed a carefully wrought hierarchy of men and women which was plotting the overthrow of the national government. Nationwide distribution of literature had begun almost with the advent of the Los Angeles Movement. This literature, with the cunning of insurgent casuistry, painted a roseate picture of the future of-The United States of Los Angeles!
PEOPLE ARISE!9
People arise! Cast off the shackles of reaction! What sense is there in opposing the march of progress! It is inevitable!-and you the people of this glorious land-a land bought dearly with your blood and your tears-should realize that Nature herself supports the L.A. FIRSTERS! How?-you ask. How does Nature support this glorious adventure? The question is simple enough to answer.
NATURE HAS SUPPORTED THE L.A. FIRSTER MOVEMENT FOR THE BETTERMENT OF YOU! AND YOU!
Here are a few facts: