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Jest in Literature - The Writing on the Wall
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Gunjan Saraf
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Oct 15, 2002 11:11 PDT
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JEST in LITERATURE
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14th October 2002 # 026
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IN THIS DIGEST :
Relatively Speaking
Square Duncing Part 1
The writing's on the wall
Side Effects
Square Duncing Part 2
Parking Ideas
Square Duncing Part 3
More about the writing on the wall
Poetry Corner
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'Great Speaking'
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and Tips on using Humor in your presentations,
I strongly recommend Tom Antion's 'Great Speaking'
newsletter. With over 1,15,000 subscribers and
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====> Relatively Speaking
Hello everybody.
Time is a pretty relative thing, as we all recognize. I am trying,
at the moment, to think of a novel in which the duration of time,
from the start of the book to the end, is definitive. I'm coming
up blank, probably because I'm not remembering well, but time
is such a token gesture so often. For example, if one charts the
passing of days in Macbeth, the duration of the entire play is
something like eight days.
Eight days isn't much considering an entire reign is overthrown,
another ensues and ends, and a third begins. Duncan to Macbeth
to Malcolm in eight days.
Historically, the real Macbeth was on the throne for something
close to fifteen or twenty years, but the play gives us eight
days. The only place we really have an opportunity to
recognize that time has been passing is in the soliloquies where
the characters refer to things that should have been.
Of course, historically, there is no mention of a Lady Macbeth
either, so history and historically-based fiction often part ways.
What prompted me to think of time as recorded by writers was
a documentary I watched on the search for the tomb of
Imhotep.
Imhotep is a name with which you should become familiar,
because I think his is the next name that will hit the front pages
if his tomb is uncovered.
Imhotep is the guy who designed and built the very first pyramid,
the "step pyramid" as it is referred to by archaeologists. The one
he engineered was the largest man-built structure on earth. It
stood two hundred forty feet tall. Of course, all the kings who
followed had to outdo that, but the one he built was the first.
What researchers hope to find when they open his tomb is
proof that he is the father of medicine (predating Hippocrates
by some two-thousand years), the world's first engineer,
architect, surgeon, astronomer, and inventor. In fact, this guy
was so incredible, the early Egyptians elevated him from simple
man to god. How's that for violating the Great Chain of Being?
We know these things because the hieroglyphs tell us so. You
see, when we discovered the Rosetta Stone, we fell upon the
way to translate hieroglyphs. And that's a good thing... maybe.
As I watched the program, I was reminded of two things:
the pen is mightier than the sword, and history is written by
the victors.
(In case you are interested, Imhotep is also indirectly responsible
for the extinction of the Ibis. I'll get to that in a bit.)
Comments or Questions :
mailto:li-@workinghumor.com?Subject=RelativelySpeaking
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
===> Square Duncing Part 1
Some impromptu responses by panelists on "Hollywood
Squares," This was a t.v.show from some years back. These
are responses made by Paul Linde, an actor I hope some of
you remember. The format was question-and-answer:
Q: When you pat a dog on its head, he will usually wag his tail.
What will a goose do?
A: Make him bark.
Q: Imagine you are a child in your mother's womb.
Can you detect light?
A: Only during ballet practice.
Q: Do female frogs croak?
A: If you hold their little heads under water long enough.
==========**********O**********==========
Have you been putting your audiences to Zzzzzzleep?
Check out www.workinghumor.com/wake.htm
==========**********O**********==========
====> The writing's on the wall
Walter Miller wrote a book titled, A Canticle for Leibowitz.
This is a book about the post-nuclear holocaust and man's
determination to repeat the same mistakes over and over again,
despite the warnings of history. Recorded history becomes a
blueprint of how to act, even if it leads to near annihilation. It
does not act as a warning of what we did wrong, but a
guidepost to lead us back to the same place each time.
In part one of the book, subtitled Fiat Homo (let there be man),
Brother Francis discovers two icons from the post-nuclear winter
he lives in. One is a shopping list, and the other is a diagram of
an electrical circuit penned by an designer named Leibowitz. In
the first one hundred pages (possibly the finest written in the last
fifty years), Leibowitz is elevated to the stature of Saint by the
Pope (whose legacy somehow continues) based on this diagram.
Based on the same drawing, at the end of the third part of the
book, man is once again poised on the brink of nuclear
destruction.
Now, I don't think Miller was satirizing our possible
mistranslations of hieroglyphs, but I think there is a warning
about translations somewhere in all this.
Please notice that whenever an Egyptian hieroglyph is
translated, it is touted as the truth about what the world was
like some five thousand years ago. Let's be careful here, and
remember that what was glyphed was done so at the insistence
of a king who thought he was the sun, the moon, and the stars.
Imhotep was not a king. Let me make that clear. He was
elevated to the stature of a god by the people of his day. He
worked for a king. He pleased a king. Much as Shakespeare
pleased a king. Much as newspaper reporters please a
President. And so on.
Just because it is written does not make it so.
==========**********O**********==========
Does the idea of speaking in front on an audience
make you lose zzzzzleep?
Check out www.workinghumor.com/wake.htm
==========**********O**********==========
===> Side Effects
One weird piece of reliable evidence we have that Imhotep
was sought as a healer, even after his death, is the uncovering of
clay urns which were left as tribute to him by those who sought
relief from various maladies. Each of these clay urns was
constructed around an Ibis. The Ibis was a bird that was held
in high regard as a bird of healing. The bird was sealed into a
clay urn, and the urns were stacked beside what may prove to
be the entrance to Imhotep's tomb. In all, more than one-hundred
thousand of these urns have been recovered, each containing an
Ibis. It's not so good to be known as a symbol of healing.
==========**********O**********==========
Have you Clicked on the wake up link already or are you
zzzzzzzleeping?
www.workinghumor.com/wake.htm
==========**********O**********==========
===> Square Duncing Part 2
Some more impromptu responses by other
Hollywood Squares' panelists:
Q: If you are going to make a parachute jump, you should
be at least how high?
A: Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.
Q: True or false... A pea can last as long as 5,000 years?
A: George Gobel: Boy, it sure seems that way sometimes....
Q: You have been having trouble going to sleep. Are you
probably a man or a woman?
A: Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake.
Q: What are "Do It," "I Can Help," and "Can't Get Enough?"
A: George Gobel: I don't know, but it's coming from the
next apartment.
==========**********O**********==========
===> Parking Ideas
Imhotep perfected embalming. From this practice, he probably
learned a lot about human physiognomy. He apparently learned
enough to perform bone resetting and even brain surgery. (We
have the bones to prove this.) He also used bee honey to
salve wounds and keep them infection free. (Did you know that
bacteria cannot survive in honey?) Researchers hope to find his
medical journals intact in his tomb. But the bit about him healing
the masses is what is written. And, by gum, whatever is written
is suspect.
Suspect also are the stories we have about all the incredible feats
performed by people thousands of years ago. We are too
easily led to believe that some vanished empires had knowledge
far surpassing that of subsequent civilizations. Maybe; maybe
not.
Research shows us that if parking lines are painted in paved lots,
people will park between them, even when they are the only
ones in the lot. We like mysteries, and we like things nice and
tidy. And we too easily believe that if it is written or painted, it
is some kind of truth.
==========**********O**********==========
====> Square Duncing Part 3
Charley Weaver this time.
Q. Is there anything wrong with kissing a lot of people?
A: It got me out of the army!
Q: Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries.
Will you get any your first year?
A: Of course not, Peter. I'm too busy growing strawberries!
Q: When a couple have a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
A: I'll lend him the car. The rest is up to him.
==========**********O**********==========
===> More about the writing on the wall
The second section of Miller's book is called Fiat Lux
(let there be light). The last section of the book, and its most
gloomy, is titled Fiat Voluntas Tua or Thy Will Be Done.
To tie this all together then, the reason we could not translate
hieroglyphs until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone is because
all records of the early Egyptian culture had been completely
incinerated by the Christians who burned and destroyed all
evidence they could find of this culture that had its own gods.
We had no way to translate a language which stopped as
suddenly as those people who created it.
The Christians relied on their translation of "Thy Will Be Done"
in a manner that led to the complete annihilation of a culture.
Beware the written word. And be very wary of those who
translate it. Be not so greedy for direction that you will go the
way any hand points. And remember, for every story, there is
another, and for every story you read, there is one not yet
discovered.
And keep an eye out for word on Imhotep. The last radon readings
taken in the last tunnel discovered at the end of last year's diggings
indicated a passageway of some 80 meters, and the tunnel leads
directly beneath the first pyramid constructed on the face of the earth.
Imhotep, here we come.
==========**********O**********==========
===> Poetry Corner
Two issues ago, we dealt with a woman's view of the penis
through history. That issue prompted a subscriber, who will
remain anonymous for now, to write her own poem referencing
that topic, and here it is....
Her small graceful hands with nails fire engine red
Struggle to make the reach around its circumference.
Adjusting her grasp slightly, she guides her thumb
Carefully calculating the pressure, and secures her grip.
Playfully, like a symphony clarinetist, she pops her fingers
Open and closed, never completely letting go,
Walking in place, a flutter, a cacophony.
Holding firmly again, she rests, waiting for the next measure.
She tilts her head forward allowing her tongue
A stolen taste of her captive prisoner.
Languorously, she works it, circling, swirling,
Stabbing at the smooth surface in a primal rhythm.
Bottom to top and back again she attacks.
One last lick before she springs opens her mouth
Enclosing her hot lips completely over the oval tip,
She drags upward marveling at its delicate firmness.
Licking her lips, she swallows and dives in for more, insatiable.
Sucking, slurping, smiling, she repeats this unchoreographed
Routine over and over until her prize is exhausted.
Satisfaction anxiously waits offstage as she reaches the finale,
Swallows the last succulent juices, looks up demurely and moans,
"Ummm, raspberry sorbet, my favorite!"
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Last Week The Doc asked for submissions
of Great Similes and Metaphors-
mailto:li-@workinghumor.com?Subject=SimMetTree
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Gunjan
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