Sunday, March 3, 2013

bizarre animal tricks

ok gang- let's try and get this thing straightened out once and for all:

p'an ku chiseled the universe as we know it out of simple primordial chaos.  no big deal, ok?  this'll make some of you happy and others not nearly as much- in fact, at this very moment I can detect confused looks stealing over some of your faces.  we were well aware that bewilderment always remained a viable option, but as p'an's press secretary let me just say this once and as clearly as possible:  try and get over yourselves!

as many of you already know, p'an herself was the offspring of the original dual powers of nature: yin/yang, light/dark, soft/hard, even/odd, on and on, doesn't matter.  simple words applied to an even simpler reality.  p'an herself isn't worried about it so there's certainly no need for you to be!

let me just mention in passing that the name "p'an" translates roughly into "the shell of an egg" and "ku" into "secure", "solid", "substantial".  no need to twist these definitions to suit your own petty positions or squabbles.  this has already been taken care of and I ask you to just listen without any particular bias.  knowing full well that this is impossible, I will pause for a moment while the crowd chuckles quietly.  (crowd chuckles quietly.)  

some of p'an's new neighbors hiked the adjoining wilderness area and report has it that many of them enjoyed it immensely.  in fact, a legendary giraffe named "gentle karl" allegedly composed the following poem and carved it into a tree stump just outside p'an's little cave:

the deep       (by gentle karl)

I know somebody dressed in bearskin
and somebody else dressed in sea lillies.
when I first encountered them
they were engaged in a terrible argument.
I borrowed p'an's hammer and chisel
and quickly fashioned a cauldron,
into which I told them I would stuff and cook them
if they didn't shape up.
they didn't, and that's why the world remains so precarious.

earlier on, when p'an was still engaged in her task of creation,
it played out something like this:
her head became the mountains,
breath the winds and the clouds,
voice the thunder,
limbs the four adjacent quarters of earth,
blood the rivers,
flesh the soil,
hair the constellations and other cosmic phenomena,
skin the herbs and the trees,
teeth/bones/marrow the metals/rocks/precious stones,
sweat the rain,
and the insects creeping over her body
the simple human beings, like us.
the origin of all other animals remains
a profound and most likely unsolvable mystery.

ok- I guess we're gonna open it up to questions at this point.

(pause)

(to be continued)

(when?)

(well, whenever there's time.)

(there's not time right now?)

(not for the kind of questions that gentle karl's poem provoked in me.)

(it's just a silly poem composed by a silly giraffe.)

(yeah, I realize that, keng- even so.)

(ok, I think I see where you're coming from.)