Off the Inside Track : If You Have to Ask Whether You’re in the Loop, You Can Be Sure You’re Out

WHERE DOES THIS loop everyone keeps talking about come from? It reminds me of those mysterious circles from outer space that television stations short of news are now finding in cornfields. “They form at night when nobody is looking,” an investigative reporter recently explained solemnly on camera.

Why not? Every morning, I read the newspaper and learn the latest high-level loop scoop. James Baker is in the loop. Gen. Dugan got kicked out of the loop for leaking loop poop. President Bush is always in the loop except when the loop is doing something unfortunate, like writing blank checks to S & L operators, at which point he is temporarily unlooped.

As for me, my answering machine just has messages from my dry cleaner, copy editor and grandmother, none of whom were seeking my opinion about a major offensive in Saudi Arabia. The cleaner did want to know if I’d assume responsibility for laundering an embroidered white blouse. Does that make me a player?

Of course, the loop is a lot bigger than the power circle in Washington. It’s bigger than the power circles in every major city combined. The loop has to be at least the size of the Equator. Because almost everybody wants to be in it.

“I worship the loop,” says my sister, Laurie, a publicist who eats, sleeps and breathes inside information. “The loop is power. It’s knowing what’s going to be on the front page of the New York Times two days before it happens. It’s getting a jump on things.” She puts me on hold for the 14th time in our phone conversation. “This might be a call that puts me even further into the loop,” she explains.

Gosh, and last night I had yet another humiliating out-of-loop experience. I was at a screening, the film was late in starting and a woman behind me was getting frantic. “If this doesn’t begin soon, I’ll miss the Steven Wright special,” she complained.

Forgive me, Steven Wright, but I didn’t know who you were. I go to bed early, so I’m out of talk-show loops. I’m not hooked up, so I’m out of the cable loop. I actually had to utter “Steven Who?”--a cardinal sin in the Age of Information.

“It’s tough to be in the loop when you’re a free-lancer,” Laurie says smugly. “You’re like the little house on the prairie.”

I think it’s better that way. Many people spend an awful lot of energy playing a cutthroat version of “Here We Go Loop de Loo”--getting in the loop, staying in the loop, bumping another person out of the loop. Sure, the rewards can be amazing. But no matter how good you get at the game, there’s always someone more on top of it than you.

“The loop is a circular argument that keeps what goes around from coming back around,” my friend David says.

“Wondering if you’re out of the loop is a big pastime in corporate America,” says Doug, who did hard time in an advertising agency. He tells me an “absolutely true story” about a Paranoid Group Head (P. G. H.) who became loop-obsessed.

“The president of the agency sends out a memo to a bunch of people,” he recalls. “And in the distribution list some people have asterisks next to their name. At the bottom it says ‘* group head.’ Only P. G. H. doesn’t have an asterisk. And he panics. He’s sure he’s falling down on the job. He walks around the office asking everyone what we think having no asterisk means. We say it’s probably nothing, but if he really has a problem he should ask the president.

“Finally the paranoia is too much for him. So he asks. And the president plays it perfectly. He says, ‘It’s just a mistake.’ Now P. G. H. knows he’s out of the loop. If you have to ask, you are.”

Maybe the loop is like a computer virus that keeps making copies of itself until it fills up the whole memory. There must be zillions of loops: the Literary Loop, the Ex-Hippie Loop, the Society Loop, the Industry Loop, the Hairdresser Loop, the Fitness Loop, the Art Loop--all the way down to the In-Law Loop. Pretty soon we’re going to run out of loopholes.

“If you’re trying to be in the loop, you suffer anxiety all the time,” says Marjorie, who is super-connected. “Anything I see that leaves me out seems to be worth penetrating.” Well, almost anything. She does admit that the Private School Loop seems to be more of a noose.

“I don’t have a lot of time to devote to working for my son’s school,” Marjorie says. “All the parents participate in certain activities. And if you’re not in the loop, you go there and drift around doing odd jobs and see that everyone is friends except you. It’s like re-creating your own school years. Still, if I went to all the meetings that would get me in that loop, I’d never have time to see my kid.”

Where does the loop come from?

Why should I tell you?