For some decades now, at more or less random times and in more or less random places, I’ve been asking people “Why would you care if your baby’s name reads the same upside down as rightside up?”. I have never gotten an answer that rang true.
One of the various unsatisfactory answers I keep getting is something like: “Umm. You wouldn’t care.” But I know that’s wrong, because I’ve read Clown Town.
Clown Town was my most favorite book since before I could read. Fortunately for the various adults who were called upon to read it to me morning, noon and night, I managed to memorize it before I could even read it myself. The key dilemma faced by the residents of Clown Town is what to name the baby. The day is saved by the baby’s father, who invents the name “pood”, which, of course, is perfect, because it reads the same in both directions.
In my memory, I was an exceptionally dull and unquestioning child (I remember asking exactly one intelligent question in my first ten years on this earth; unfortunately my parents couldn’t figure out what I was asking, so I figured there was no point in ever asking another) but even I could see that there was a gap in the reasoning here. I remember being bothered by it then, and I’ve been bothered by it ever since.
Fast forward to the modern age, when my increasingly internet-savvy parents managed to find me a copy of my beloved book. (Of course, it might have been better to just not throw it out in the first place, but I’ll take what I can get.) And I just reread the story (as can you if you follow the link). And here’s what I found out:
ALTHOUGH I READ THIS BOOK 94,578 TIMES AS A CHILD, I MANAGED TO MISS THE ENTIRE POINT EVERY SINGLE GODDAM TIME.
Because, you see, here’s what actually happens in this story: The town meets to discuss a name. The schoolmaster shows up to record the proceedings. But he insists on writing all the names upside down on his blackboard, making them entirely indecipherable to the masses. He does this, basically, just to be a dick. (It’s been suggested that this part of the story might have had a formative influence on my personality.) But the child’s father saves the day by inventing the name “pood” which utterly defeats the schoolmaster’s diabolical joke.
It took awhile, but I get it now. My next project is to reread Jack and the Beanstalk.
1. Why are the residents of Clown Town unable to read words upside down, whereas it comes so easily to the rest of us normal human beings that we can’t help reading the upside-down names even if we don’t want to?
2. How was it that the dick schoolmaster somehow happened to write “pood” in lower case, despite having written every other name in upper case? You might think Bo suggested it, but the holy text gives an exact quote, and Bo did not do that.
3. I think that Bo is the REAL dick for forcing his child to go through like with the name “pood,” which, after all, is the past tense of “to poo”. He should have asked for “otto”. Or, “Doug”:
http://ambigfx.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/ambigram-doug/
Is this the line about the schoolmaster that reminds people of you:
“And so the more he wrote, the more everybody stared because they couldn’t read one thing he was writing! They more they stared, the more clever he thought he was.”
Ah, belated understanding.
I see, said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw.
This phrase was uttered frequently by both my grandmother and my father (often when he, a carpenter, had just figured out where to make a cut). I didn’t get the joke until at least my mid-twenties, having always assumed it was just another nonsense phrase like “I had one of those but the wheels fell off” — another house favorite.
Jack and the Beanstalk is a metaphor for socialist governments. The giant represents the working class. They are bigger and more powerful than government (represented by Jack), but slow to move and not very intelligent. Jack stealing from him is a representation of taxing, which he gives to his elderly mother (and conveniently gets to enjoy himself).
The treasures all have very special meaning too. The golden hen is the banking industry. Under governments roof, they can just make money magically appear. The harp represents how all great art came from struggle.
Chopping down the beanstalk at the end is some sort of Randian message of Atlas Shrugging. Once we tax the working class too hard, it will kill them, cutting off access to the clouds.
It’s all that, or my mind wanders too much when reading to my daughter :)
Was the schoolmaster really being a dick? Or wasn’t teaching the children to stand on their heads an important part of the clown curriculum?
And if he still wanted to be a dick, why didn’t you write the baby’s name in capital letters, like he did with all the other suggestions?
ALTHOUGH I READ THIS BOOK 94,578 TIMES AS A CHILD, I MANAGED TO MISS THE ENTIRE POINT EVERY SINGLE GODDAM TIME.
You counted?
Charlie (Colorado):
You counted?
I was very good with numbers.