I may be missing something here
I may be missing something here
I would guess Larson wasn’t a fan, and thought that “new age” practices were mainly performative and non-productive, leading practitioners to get stuck in repetitive little circles, getting nothing done in the end.
If so, it’s a pretty cynical take IMO, and certainly one of his more personal, brassy ones.
I think specifically “new age” here is referring to water-divenation, this is where some person claiming to be able to detect water gets a divining rod, which is often just two sticks and claims the sticks can show them where to dig a well and hit water (you can look up videos of it on YouTube). They often walk on strange paths, or stagger around and around fields in this process.
So I guess these guys are doing something similar with construction related tasks.
EDIT: I’ve seen it suggested elsewhere that Gary Larson was particularly annoyed with New Age music, and found it repetitive:
- They are very specifically walking in circles, not staggering around randomly
- Dowsing is not a New Age thing at all, there was a man in my grandfather’s village that did it and the practice is a lot older than that
Wicca is also linked to very old practices and considered new age, as is tarot, and the zodiac. New Age doesn’t mean new, it’s a polite way to say hippie dippy unscientific bullcrap that was revived by new people in the 60s whom had no traditional connection to it.
Dowsing also works well for finding utilities in the ground, it’s pretty nifty.
I was thinking it was a crystal-dangling thing. Know how they put one on a string and let it swing?
Maybe it’s meaning that the construction workers are just going around in circles and not getting anything really done?
