  Each oscillator in a linear chain (a string) interacts with a local Ising
spin in contact with a thermal bath. These spins evolve according to Glauber
dynamics. Below a critical temperature, a rippled state in the string is
accompanied by a nonzero spin polarization. The system is shown to form ripples
in the string which, for slow spin relaxation, vibrates rapidly about
quasi-stationary states described as snapshots of a coarse-grained stroboscopic
map. For moderate observation times, ripples are observed irrespective of the
final thermodynamically stable state (rippled or not).
