Very much a Mary, Queen of Scots, not dead yet posting — but in fact a wildly celebratory one. Explanations after the main event, in which eccentrically costumed (but neatly attired) enthusiastic young men have appeared at the front door to push their niche religious beliefs on the resident (who views them dubiously):
(#1) Offering the (good) word / the (good) news to the heathen — feel free to imagine the emphatic pronunciations that are often represented by initial caps on Good, Word, and News — in a goofy cross of dead-serious LDS evangelism and the jokey belief system of the Pastafarians (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page)
Background: door-to-door evangelism. From Wikipedia on “Approaches to evangelism”):
Groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of the LDS movement are famous in particular for spreading their beliefs by door to door evangelism at people’s homes, often in pairs or small groups. Both groups’ main organizations use door-to-door preaching to a great extent. Full-time missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints use this, and other techniques, to find people to teach.
Among the LDS opening lines at the front door (the one parodied in #1 is in bold face):
Have you heard about Jesus?
Have you heard the word (about Jesus (Christ))?
Have you heard the good news of / about Jesus (Christ)?
Have you found Jesus?
We’d like to talk to you about Jesus.
We’d like to talk to you about the good news of Jesus (Christ).
Digression on Jesus > cheeses puns. Based on various of the LDS opening lines. Two examples:
(#2) A Phil Selby cartoon, using mice
(#3) A Bizarro cartoon, with cheeses, neatly dressed, at the door
Background: Pastafarianism. From Wikipedia:
(#4)
The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism, a social movement that promotes a light-hearted view of religion. It originated [in 2005] in opposition to the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. According to adherents, Pastafarianism (a portmanteau of pasta and Rastafarianism) is a “real, legitimate religion, as much as any other”. It has received some limited recognition as such.
So: Pastafarianism is a parody of Rastafarianism. And then Piñatarianism is a (loony) parody of both Mormonism (in its language) and Pastafarianism (in the form of its deity and his adherents).
But the piñatas… From NOAD:
(#5) Fiesta bull piñata from the Oriental Trading Co.noun piñata: mainly North American (especially in Spanish-speaking communities) a decorated figure of an animal [AZ: made of paper, papier-mâché, pottery, or cloth] containing toys and candy that is suspended from a height and broken open by blindfolded children as part of a celebration.
From which, the papier-mâché in #1.
Wayno’s title for #1: Hollow Roller — a pun on Holy Roller (NOAD: ‘a member of an evangelical Christian group which expresses religious fervor by frenzied excitement or trances’) and an allusion to beliefs in a hollow earth, inhabited by another race of beings (see the lengthy Wikipedia entry on “hollow earth”, with very wide-ranging references).
A celebration of staying alive. (I’ve treated myself to the length Wikiped watching a performance of Stephen Sondheim’s Company while I did my work this morning.) I reported on this blog yesterday (in my posting “Welcome to Thursday” on getting up irrevocably at midnight and then throwing myself into a frenzy of activity and accomplishment.
I assumed that I would be needing a nap somewhere along the line, but no. Despite an affliction of the joints in my right hand and wrist that had my hand curled up uselessly in pain, so that I had to shift to working left-handed, I plunged on with the program for the day, which ultimately included writing four blog postings, assembling materials for four more, coping with the arrival of three different shipments of new household goods (cups, mugs, and dish brushes) ordering groceries for the week (at 6 a.m.), doing two loads of laundry, managing some garden work, and much much more.
At 3 in the afternoon my caregiver Erick Barros came by for an hour, kept me company, and did various useful things for me, including taking some photographs that you’ll eventually see. When he left, I had a very light dinner, then subsided into sleep at 5, after working 17 unbroken hours. With energy and enthusiasm, moving fast and confidently in my walker. And, according to people who’ve seen me in the past few days (including my rheumatologist) looking just great. Obviously in a fine frame of mind, despite a huge amount of joint pain, needing to whizz every 20-25 minutes, having to treat my legs and arms with coconut oil every morning, and so on.
I appear to be experiencing a wonderful bounceback from the ghastly apraxia tremens (as I’ve decided to call it) that afflicted me so badly only a little while ago — a particularly satisfying return to normal awful.
But then today. I slept beautifully from 5 pm yesterday to midnight (whizzing out 2 liters during the night), when I once again was irrevocably up and awake at midnight, so dived right into the new day, starting various pieces of work and breakfasting at 2.
Ah! At 2:30 I was seized with an undeniable desire for more sleep, put on my warm velour bathrobe, stretched out in my recliner chair, and dropped instantly into deep sleep, coming out only very briefly for whizz breaks. When I came to, I felt wonderfully refreshed but was startled to see that it was now 5:30 (and I had a liter of urine to dispose of; Otto is a 1-liter guy, and he was full).
On with the day! And now my right hand is merely sore, not in fierce pain. The balm of sleep, I guess.
May 26, 2023 at 1:43 pm |
May I suggest that perhaps the “hollow” part of Wayno’s “Hollow Roller” was a reference to the hollow piñatas the missionaries are wearing and presumably worship? (Incidentally, two of Wayno’s special symbols were also partly piñatas.)