In Search of Mandelbrot

On Friday I went to see the Davis Whole Earth Festival, an all-weekend event that's likened to the hippie equivalent of Picnic Day. I credit WEF with my epiphany that drum circles can sound incredible, but this year's revelation is of a different sort. Every year the quad is lined with stalls selling art, homemade soaps, hemp clothing, jewelry, henna tattoos and, of course, tie-dye. I should preface this by saying that the vendors are a bunch of hippie carnies with enough artistic talent and environmental awareness to fill a modestly-sized thimble. I'm sure their hearts are in the right place, I'm just disappointed that they find customers for their incredibly expensive wares.

That said, the soap smells awesome and you would not believe the patterns that can be made with tie-dye. I saw shirts with crisply illustrated guitars and peace signs wreathed with seeming fractal complexity. It occurred to me that while tie-dye is passe even by hippie standards, a shirt with a tie-dyed Mandelbrot series would be patently awesome. I asked each and every vendor if they had one, and I was met with universally blank stares.

"A what series?"
Once I explained what a Mandelbrot fractal is, the first guy replied that he only tie-dyed natural shapes, not something "generated by computer programs". I'm sure he'd seen the peace sign and guitar in one of his "natural" visions inspired by natural substances and misplaced one too many brain cells along the way. Don't worry, though, being clever is unnatural.