the Mandrake family

This is the online home for the Mandrake family, part of the Vonnegut Artificial Family Utopia. If you can't find the information you are looking for here, or you want to know more about the Mandrakes or life in general please email Cody.

About Mandrakes
Mandrakes have an impressively rich history — they have been used in medicine and in religious rituals/pagan ceremonies for millenia. The first mention I know of occurs in the Biblical book of Genesis, where Jacob is, well, sold for an evening for a bunch of mandrakes, which then cure one of his wives of her infertility. Which then allowed him to have more children, and propogate the race. We owe it all to mandrakes. So it goes.

Listen: the Mandrake family was formed in late 1998 and it is populated by humans who are sick of the lack of common decency found in the modern world. We believe people should just be nicer to each other — think how much better your day would be if everyone you met was friendly and helpful, instead of self-serving and rude. The artificial extended family idea that we follow was presented in the book Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut. He explains it all like this:

Why are there so many divorces and failed marriages today? Well it used to be that when a two people got married they wouldn't just get each other, they'd get huge extended families on both sides. There were tens or hundreds of relatives you could talk to about everything, pals who wouldn't get so mad at you all the time. Now there are very few large extended families so we don't have as many people to talk to. When a married couple fights they may think they are fighting about the house, or sex, or the kids, but what they are really saying to each other is this: you are not enough people.

The extended family system removes this constraint on life — when you join a family like Mandrake you suddenly gain many relatives who will listen to you talk about everything, and many pals who won't get so mad at you all the time.

It comes down to this: Mandrake is a group of people who have created and environment of good will and companionship to combat the isolation and loneliness so prevalent in the modern world. We treat each other with decency, tolerance, and even love. We always have someone to go to when problems arise, or when life is beating us over our collective heads with a stick. If this seems like something you're interested in, visit the utopia page and sign up.

Extra:
Scientific Stuff: the official latin name is Mandragora officinarum. Mandrakes are also known as Satan's Apple, Dudaim, or Circe's Apple, depending on who you ask.

It is a member of the Nightshade family of plants, and the root of the Mandrake is said at different times to cause everything from uncontrollable sexual desire to complete insanity. Which, if you think about it, are never really all that far apart.

It also looks strangely like a pair of human legs.

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This page created and maintained by Cody.

Last update: 11.20.2002