Performed by Chris Leininger, Dan Margalit, and Tony Várilly-Alvarado.
Lyrics by Dan Margalit.
Dedicated to Prof. Thomas Banchoff, world expert on Flatland, and the greatest teacher I have known.
In the Victorian era,
Dozens of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of squares and circles
No one knows who they were or what they were doing
But their legacy remains
Hewn into the romance of many dimensions: Flatland!
On a flat stretch of highway, roadkill everywhere
My mind sees the shadows, rising up through the air
Now I can’t hit the high notes, and I spilled my flat white
My soda’s fizzled out, my tire’s blown, I had to stop for the night
There in the eastern doorway, it was a sexy curve
And as I tried to flatter her I saw that she was quite flat as it were
Looked her square in her bright eye as she peace-cried and swayed
Never pick up lines with pick up lines; ’cause they just might say:
“Welcome to the Flatland California
It’s a 2D place, why the pointy face?
Things never look up at the Flatland California
If it’s on a sphere, you can draw it here”
She wished that she could play Twister, Mobius Strip Poker, too
I told her bout the spacious spacious space, that I once knew
I could rise from her flat land, proooove her my love
She did not believe me, so I poked her guts!
So I called to the high priests, “Please listen to me”, I said
“There is one other way to move besides the two that you see”
And then those self-centered circles said point us the way
I was flat out of lines of reasoning, when I heard them say:
“Welcome to the Flatland California
Where we don’t cheer up, and we can’t feel down
It’s hip to be square at the Flatland California
No one takes offense to your flatulence”
I thought there could not be, a plainer slice of life, and I said
“You are all just prisoners here, of your 2D minds”
And in the circle’s chambers, they’re circumscribing me
They try to stab the heretic, but they just poke at my feet
Last thing I remember, I was racing for 3D
I open up my eyes next time and horizon is all I can see
“Relax,” little square dude, “there is nothing more than what seems
Please go northward any time you like, your geometry’s but a dream”
Nancy Scherich 