NAME DROPPING

"Not just a juice, but a way of life," boasts the peachy promotional pamphlet of Loker's newest cafe. But, what or who is Gaia? The pamphlet points to the Gaia Hypothesis surmised by a hippy British chemist named Dr. Lovelock. Lovelock posits the planet, Gaia, as a large harmonious being, of which all organisms are an integrated part. The fruit juice connection? "It's your earth freshly squeezed," goes the slogan. In exchange for a gift of $3.25, the earth is "yours" to consume. What would the original Gaia think of the trade?

The original Gaia was a femme fatale. Hesiod, a Greek from the 6th century B.C., tells her lurid tale in The Theogony. Born of the state of chaos, Gaia the Earth immaculately conceived her first brood of children, among which was the Sky, Uranus. Earth and Sky "united," giving birth to the Titans, the last of whom was Chronos, Time. Feisty Chronos, seeking to overthrow his father, turned to his mother for help. Gaia, exhausted by repeated strenuous labor and angered by Uranus' tyranny, supplied her son a sickle with which to castrate his father, her husband. Mother Earth proceeded to devour Uranus's dismembered parts. The blood pouring from this violent deed fertilized the goddess, impregnating her with the Furies and the Giants. Gaia's story continues, recounting fertile "unions" with other deities, another son among them. A fruitful, polygamous man-eater, the original Gaia would have Dr. Lovelock's fruity, peaceful nurturer for breakfast.