Untethered

Yesterday, the SoT household celebrated a little Christmas in late June.  Uncle CreditCard (he goes by Cred) bought us a spanking new laptop, complete with a wireless setup, so now we can walk all over the house browsing our favorite cast fetish sites.  Actually, I spent part of yesterday afternoon accompanying the wife to get her stitches removed.  The remainder of the evening, I wore my techie cap and pretended that I knew just what I was doing.  I got the wireless to work, but I can't figure out the damn network thing.  Oh well.

This means that Syntax of Things can now go remote. Expect posts from various rooms of the SoT headquarters, including the library and the magazine room.  Just as when I'm not carrying around a laptop, I'll probably avoid the exercise room.

Anyway, I have a question for you.  Have you bought the George Singleton novel Novel (about a guy named Novel) yet?  Why not?  To further whet your appetite, I give you this short excerpt for your reading pleasure:

From Chapter 29:

My parents practiced yoga long before it became an American necessity.  They got stoned every Wednesday night, and their friends came over in gym shorts in order to salute the sun or do the crow, cobra, facedown dog.  James and Joyce [Novel's adopted brother and sister{?}] jumped out of their bedroom windows, snuck around the side of the house, and tried to take photographs of my parents' friends' butts without using a flash.  Me, I stood in my upstairs room with a yo-yo above everybody, trying to do tricks.

What pisses me off about neophyte yoga enthusiasts is the same thing that gets me about people who come back to the United States after visiting Paris for a year.  It's not impossible, I believe, to just say the fucking English word that you mean.  It's easy to say at a sit-down formal dinner in Charlotte, "Oh, this duck is great," as opposed to "Oh, this canard is magnifique." In terms of syllables, the English wastes less breath.

So about the last think I thought Gruel [, South Carolina] needed was a slew of thin-headed women and men whose years of psychoanalysis didn't work, showing up to say things in front of Gruel Bakery like, "Boy, today I sure enjoyed my sixteen hours doing Sarvangasana" when they could've A) said, "should stand"; and B) done something goddamn constructive like plant tomatoes on the square for everyone to enjoy.  I didn't want to come across a woman saying, "I'm having problems doing a perfect Upavistha Konasana," when she could've said, "wide-angle seated forward bend," or when she, moreover, could've gone, "I'm having problems helping my elderly wheelchair-bound neighbor understand that it's imperative that I clean her chimney flue so's not to cause a fire this upcoming winter."

Hell--call me stubborn, unyielding, and old-fashioned--I wanted to punch out anyone who said, "This here clarified butter will enhance your Ojas" even if he or she translated it.  By god, just say, "Eat this shit, it'll make you feel better." Why say, "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to fill you up with my Shukra Dhatu," when you could as easily say, "Oops, I just came inside you"?

That's my theory.

Don't ask me how I know these words.  Once upon a time I tried to balance my dosha.  Obviously it didn't work out.

Comments

[Bill Householder]

Dude, don't give it all away!!! Seriously, Singleton is by far one of the funniest, (not just Southern), writers I've ever read. I just bought Novel and am finishing The Half-Mammals of Dixie. Hell, I want to take a trip to Dacusville, SC and worship at the altar. By the way, the latest issues of both Poets and Writers and Oxford American have something with George in them.