Penny Waivers Plus Anubis
May. 19th, 2007 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraYou wanna know the real difference between your generation and my generation?
My generation, when we see a quarter lying in the gutter, we bend down to pick it up!
Also we pick up dimes and nickels.
Pennies, not so much. But sometimes, sure. Why not?
###
So. I had this dream about an itinerant preacher in the nineteenth century named Malachi Blandish, a charismatic of the Joseph Smith I Invented Mormons! variety. The religion Malachi Blandish invented was so underground it had never practiced in any congregational setting. Rather it was disseminated through a series of cryptic aphorisms called “penny waivers” whispered from ear to ear, kind of like those ritualistic Masonic Order sayings you read in dated Rudyard Kipling novels, you know, I am the brother of the widow's son! or At midnight the crow flies north!, seeped in secret history. As penny waivers were passed from believer to believer, they changed the way all oral communications change – you played Telephone when you were a kid, right? – and as they changed, they became… prophecies. Some were personal prophecies: at 4:31pm this afternoon, your car’s going to catch on fire in the middle of the Bay Bridge, some stranger might murmur to you in a train station before dodging back into the crowd. Other penny waivers became Nostradamus-like quatrains, foretellings of a mass, impersonal doom. Penny waivers were the religion of the masses. Absolutely nobody with any degree of political or social power knew anything about them.
###
Something called the Heritage Shoppe has opened in the commercial space that used to be occupied by the Egyptian Store. It sells pedigrees. The business owners, who look like Mr. and Mrs. American Gothic minus the pitchfork, will hunt down your ancestors for free in what I assume are the extensive LDS genealogical databases. Then they will try to sell you one of any number of fine ancestor-pride products, ranging from the Armorial History with Coat of Arms at $21.95 to the Framed Surname History and Coat of Arms at $99.95.
It used to be that you could only get a Coat of Arms if your name was something like "McWhirter" or "Redesdale." But today through the magic of the Heritage Shoppe, you can celebrate your very own heraldic tradition even if your name is "Garcia" or "Ramirez." Sadly, you can't if your name is "DiLucchio" – I did ask – or "Ptashnikov" (which was what my mother's family was called before they landed on Ellis Island.) So despite all recent and miraculous improvements in genealogical science, I remain what I have always been – a mongrel, a changeling and the consummate outsider.
I was kind of sad to see the Egyptian Store go. It was only open to the public for six weeks total but then it remained shuttered but intact for six more months. I used to peer through its windows on my trips to the bathroom: little inlaid mother-of-pearl boxes from Alexandria, reproductions of the animal gods – obvious prototypes for today's cartoon characters for what's Scooby Doo except Anubis on Quaaludes, right? – blue pottery ankhs.
I have a soft spot for artifacts like these. In 1978, Ann Duerr and I spent three weeks in Luxor. We had all manner of wacky adventures there that culminated in being smuggled into a small Coptic village – out of bounds for tourists – in the trunk of a car.
The Egyptian Store brought back those memories even though even I knew it was a dreadful model for a small business. I mean, come on – if Californians want Egyptian artifacts, they'll book three nights at the Luxor casino in Vegas, right? That way they can buy ankhs and see stripper nipplage cum (ha-ha! She said "cum") areola.
My generation, when we see a quarter lying in the gutter, we bend down to pick it up!
Also we pick up dimes and nickels.
Pennies, not so much. But sometimes, sure. Why not?
So. I had this dream about an itinerant preacher in the nineteenth century named Malachi Blandish, a charismatic of the Joseph Smith I Invented Mormons! variety. The religion Malachi Blandish invented was so underground it had never practiced in any congregational setting. Rather it was disseminated through a series of cryptic aphorisms called “penny waivers” whispered from ear to ear, kind of like those ritualistic Masonic Order sayings you read in dated Rudyard Kipling novels, you know, I am the brother of the widow's son! or At midnight the crow flies north!, seeped in secret history. As penny waivers were passed from believer to believer, they changed the way all oral communications change – you played Telephone when you were a kid, right? – and as they changed, they became… prophecies. Some were personal prophecies: at 4:31pm this afternoon, your car’s going to catch on fire in the middle of the Bay Bridge, some stranger might murmur to you in a train station before dodging back into the crowd. Other penny waivers became Nostradamus-like quatrains, foretellings of a mass, impersonal doom. Penny waivers were the religion of the masses. Absolutely nobody with any degree of political or social power knew anything about them.
Something called the Heritage Shoppe has opened in the commercial space that used to be occupied by the Egyptian Store. It sells pedigrees. The business owners, who look like Mr. and Mrs. American Gothic minus the pitchfork, will hunt down your ancestors for free in what I assume are the extensive LDS genealogical databases. Then they will try to sell you one of any number of fine ancestor-pride products, ranging from the Armorial History with Coat of Arms at $21.95 to the Framed Surname History and Coat of Arms at $99.95.
It used to be that you could only get a Coat of Arms if your name was something like "McWhirter" or "Redesdale." But today through the magic of the Heritage Shoppe, you can celebrate your very own heraldic tradition even if your name is "Garcia" or "Ramirez." Sadly, you can't if your name is "DiLucchio" – I did ask – or "Ptashnikov" (which was what my mother's family was called before they landed on Ellis Island.) So despite all recent and miraculous improvements in genealogical science, I remain what I have always been – a mongrel, a changeling and the consummate outsider.
I was kind of sad to see the Egyptian Store go. It was only open to the public for six weeks total but then it remained shuttered but intact for six more months. I used to peer through its windows on my trips to the bathroom: little inlaid mother-of-pearl boxes from Alexandria, reproductions of the animal gods – obvious prototypes for today's cartoon characters for what's Scooby Doo except Anubis on Quaaludes, right? – blue pottery ankhs.
I have a soft spot for artifacts like these. In 1978, Ann Duerr and I spent three weeks in Luxor. We had all manner of wacky adventures there that culminated in being smuggled into a small Coptic village – out of bounds for tourists – in the trunk of a car.
The Egyptian Store brought back those memories even though even I knew it was a dreadful model for a small business. I mean, come on – if Californians want Egyptian artifacts, they'll book three nights at the Luxor casino in Vegas, right? That way they can buy ankhs and see stripper nipplage cum (ha-ha! She said "cum") areola.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 05:06 pm (UTC)I can't imagine that the business model of the Heritage Shoppe is a good one. It seems like far too much time spent per dollar of income.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 05:07 pm (UTC)Our coat of arms would be the leek rampant, the potato and the Alsatian beer.
It is a blessing to *not* be born into anything. The expectations are nil and we still all managed to get multiple college degrees.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 08:57 pm (UTC)Mongrels Rule, Dude
Date: 2007-05-20 11:17 am (UTC)Re: Mongrels Rule, Dude
Date: 2007-05-21 09:14 pm (UTC)Re: Mongrels Rule, Dude
Date: 2007-05-22 12:21 am (UTC)After informing this person that I was pretty sure what she was telling me was entirely illegal, I said, "fine, put her down as black. Red hair, blue eyes and all" --thinking only of scholarship opportunities in her future and the absurdity of my pink baby being labeled black by some racist state employee.
So we're octaroons too, except I believe my aunties and uncles used to call it "quadroon", but that's probably a coloquilism. We're not generally from Louisiana, my Big Daddy was just a lumber man and he had the gov't contract to clear Ft. Polk a million years ago.