Newsreel

This week we begin a minimally related two-part series on people with strange brains.

In the next issue, freelancer Lee Allen will peek inside the Mensa mind, mingling with high-IQ Tucsonans who describe themselves as "very fast people in what we perceive as a very slow world." Mensa offers more than pocket protectors on parade; the members of this genius club get together to gab about just about anything, challenge one another's mental acuity, and watch biker chick movies.

We're still trying to figure out whether that last part makes them freaky or normal.

This week, though, we have a better idea of what sort of people we're dealing with as we focus on subgeniuses--specifically, members of the Church of the SubGenius, who gathered in Tucson last weekend to genuflect before a pyrotechnic piñata, monger conspiracy theories and drink.

Senior writer Jim Nintzel covered the event. He is not a paid-up member of the "church," nor has he even shucked out cash for the organization's holy writ. But he did pick up a SubGenius bumper sticker that says, "Pull the wool over your own eyes."

We're thinking of making that the official motto of the Tucson Weekly.