Excelsior!: the Newsletter of the All-Seeing Eye Society

Vol. III; No. 9

September 1st, 2025

Welcome to the All-Seeing Eye Society!

We meet every Wednesday evening at 9pm in the Paisano Ballroom of the Piedmont Building, located at 112 E. Houston Street, San Antonio, Texas. You’ll find us in the basement.

During our last general meeting on August 27th, we had seven new visitors! Each one happily signed up for membership. Which, of course, comes with a subscription to Excelsior!

Allow me to make a personal request of those longtime card-carrying All-Seeing Eye Society members who we haven’t seen in a while: please come to the next meeting to help us guide these novitiates into the Light! Or, at least, attend the crucial quarterly meeting on September 24th.

So, let me just take this opportunity to say a few things to our newer members. More than just a welcome. A validation.

Greetings!

You’ve always known you’re different, correct? Those around you seem to simply accept the world the way it is—and by that, I mean the way it has become. Despite this vexing complacency of most other people, you refuse to sit idle. You’re different. Special.

In short, you are like us!

Welcome home!

It is, of course, the Changes that has brought us together.

No one needs the Changes described to them. We all have had our own experiences.

As for the meaning of the Changes…ah, that’s where so many disagree. Obviously, each new member of the All-Seeing Eye Society would like to know what the ASES believes in concerning the Changes—our agreed upon dogma.

If only it were that simple. But it isn’t.

We have discovered that it is most useful to give a basic rundown of what the ASES does NOT believe.

The Changes DO NOT represent a form of divine retribution. We ARE NOT enchanted by some sort of shared hallucination. Prayer and sacrificed WILL NOT return the world to its previous state. There IS NO charismatic guru or “wise one” who has the answer.

However, it is hoped that by discussions and open inquiry we might, as a group, come to understand the underlying nature and meaning of the Changes.

So, the Changes.

That wondrous and terrible year when reality itself broke down.

Many people set the date that the Changes began as Saturday, July 17, 2020 when Yo-Yo Ma treated the world to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5, in C Minor on Ricky Powell’s Variety Hour. Who doesn’t remember that ill-fated night when the famous musician, mid-performance, miraculously turned into a kangaroo?

Some say, a large wallaby.

What is not so generally known is that the Changes had been recorded months earlier at the Sudbury Observatory. The technicians working that day noted a “massive neutrino surge.” But as the general populous had little interest in neutrinos, nothing of consequence was made of the event.

A series of weird happenings were reported over the weeks that followed the “Sudbury Event,” but they were relegated to those tabloids only read by the more gullible.

It took Ricky Powell’s broadcast to get people to realize something was very very wrong.

Of course, from the beginning, various groups of people gathered in more private settings to talk about their unlikely and fantastical experiences.

Edible typewriters! Sentient walnuts! Invisible lederhosen! All seemingly appearing from nowhere.

Such marvels!

Our little group was formed during those chaotic times. We would gather to share stories of the amazing things we had seen during the previous week.

Although there is reason to dispute the exact date and time when the Changes truly began, there is no real dispute that by the morning of February 10th of 2022, the Changers were over.

So, from the “Sudbury Event” to the final cessation of all overt unnatural events and extraordinary behavior, that gave us, poor beleaguered humanity, roughly eighteen months of absurdity; a time of giddy excitement for some, and interminable and ceaseless calamity for others.

Crazy stuff happened all across San Antonio back then. A three-minute loss of gravity isolated to the football field of Harlandale High School during a well-attended game. The infestation of giant sloths in the mezzanine level of North Star Mall. The disappearance of the tallest building in town, which reappeared a few days later in a slightly modified architectural style. An outbreak of spontaneous human combustion along Alamo Street during the Battle of the Flowers Parade. Flying turtles nesting in the live oak trees of Brackenridge Park. All paintings in the McNay Museums’ Hamon Gallery suddenly found to be encased in a particularly ripe Gorgonzola cheese. Squirrels gifted with the power of speech, though their vocabulary was limited to profanity and indelicate slurs. The disappearance of the letter “P” from all street signs. And on and on.

Each of these wonders has been witnessed by the sober and level-headed members of the All-Seeing Eye Society.

And so, for the last three years, we of the ASES have struggled to comprehend a world that is now fundamentally different than the one we were born into.

True, many of the more extraordinary anomalies vanished for good once the Changes ended. Some, though, have decided to stay with us. For instance, only last week, I was informed by one of our more intrepid members who had journeyed far beyond the blight of the Great Expanse, that there exists a swampy oasis where those adorable flying turtles can still be found. How nice to know! I’ve missed those majestic and whimsical creatures.

And, of course, there are those things the Changes took from us—just eradicated from the world. Such as microwave ovens, wicker furniture, Siamese cats, stenographers, genital warts, differential calculus, and so on.

It’s a mixed bag. Like the subjectivity of art, one cannot always predict who will enjoy or despise specific elements of this post-Changes world.

However, I’m fairly certain most of us are charmed when we encounter, even today, our proud seven-fingered postal employees, musical tulips, floating swimming pools, or anything in the color slurkle.

Whether these weird attributes of our fair town are to be found elsewhere around the globe, that remains a question we’re still trying to unravel. We are currently quite isolated from the rest of the world. Other cities exist. Apparently. The train which stops at the station downtown comes from New Orleans—we are told—and continues westward to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, we humble citizens of San Antonio, Texas are not allowed passage. Just another irksome challenge for our ASES researchers in the struggle to make sense of this world.

So, please, members of the ASES, be you new or old, keep showing up on Wednesday nights to add your insights and experiences as we all continue this fascinating inquiry. Our meeting room in the basement of the Piedmont Building is maintained as a safe space to foster meaningful fellowship amongst like-minded souls.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mentioned that we still need people to volunteer to provide snacks for our upcoming meetings in October (if you are interested, please alert Ms. Maribel V., our volunteer supervisor). And, of course, mark your calendars for our big meeting on Wednesday, September 24th, when we’ll open up the nomination for a new slate of officers to run for the December elections. Don’t forget to show up early for coffee and pastries!

Francis K., Membership Coordinator

All-Seeing Eye Society