[Geysers] Geyser Report June 15 (Stephens)

[Mike O'Brien]

Lynn Stephens sez:

> Naturally, I get a lot of questions about White Dome from
> people at Great Fountain.  It's amazing how people are so much
> more impressed by that large pile or rocks instead of Great
> Fountain's pool and terraces.

	My friend Michael Gorlick and I pulled off a bit of
street theater/psychodrama/performance art about three years
ago.  We had just caught Great Fountain and were looking for
amusement when we pulled up to White Dome.  We decided that
this poor thing needed an ego boost, so we gave it the full
treatment.  We pulled camping lounge chairs out of our cars,
sodas out of the cooler, sunglasses out of the glovebox,
and camped out on White Dome.  We looked like the Pros from
Dover.

	Now, White Dome had erupted shortly before we got
there.  We knew this, because we'd seen it from Great Fountain.
This was all part of the plan.  Not only did we look like
we were seriously camped on this thing, we were so obviously
enjoying ourselves and looking forward to the next eruption
that we attracted quite a crowd.  It was a phenomenon of
social accretion.  The most unlikely thing was not that the
first two or three carfuls of people who saw us camped out
there stopped and asked what we were doing.  We told them
flat-out that this thing, while an active feature, was not
a spectacular performer, but that we were waiting for it
anyway.  The unlikely thing was that knowing this, they
nevertheless thought we MUST be waiting for something
worthwhile or we wouldn't look so well set-up and
thoroughly ensconced.  So they stayed.

	After that it got much, much easier.  Seeing a
whole crowd, other cars stopped.  The newcomers didn't
say much to us, they just asked the outliers what was up,
and got what you might expect: "Dunno, but these guys
are all waiting."..."I think it erupts soon."..."Don't
really know a thing about it!"

	Well, White Dome did its thing.  Now, from White
Dome proper this isn't as much of a poopout as it looks
from a distance, at Great Fountain.  It's actually rather
pretty.  What impressed the heck out of us was that no
one complained that they'd been rooked.  In fact, a fair
number of the people in the crowd actually thanked us for
drawing their attention to it.

	Advertising.  It's a powerful thing.

Mike O'Brien