During the Trans*Cend workshop, two short stories from the American literary "canon" were assigned to the participants: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s brutal dystopian tale, Harrison Bergeron (1961), and Shirley Jackson's chilling allegory, The Lottery (1948.) Reactions to both of these works were poignant because they hit so close to home. Harrison Bergeron told of a police state where citizens are guaranteed equality by way of institutionalized mediocrity. When anything extraordinary