On Religion
In lieu of actual content, I offer the following from Clifford Geertz:
‘The Christian sees the Nazi movement against the background of The Fall which, though it does not, in a causal explain it, places it in a moral, a cognitive, even an affective sense. An Azande sees the collapse of a granary upon a friend or relative against the background of a concrete and rather special notion of witchcraft and thus avoids the philosophical dilemmas as well as the psychological stress of indeterminism. A Javanese finds in the borrowed and reworked concept of rasa (“sense-taste-feeling-meaning”) a means by which to “see choreograpic, gustatory, emotional, and political phenomena in a new light. A synopsis of cosmic order, a set of religious beliefs, is also a gloss upon the mundane world of social relationships and psychological events. It renders them graspable.’
(The Interpretation of Cultures, pp. 123-4)
And, from William Gibson, a ‘McLuhanist’ reading of medieval Christianity:
‘…organized religion, he saw, back in the day, had been purely a signal-to-noise proposition, at once the medium and the message, a one-channel universe. For Europe, that channel was Christian, and broadcasting from Rome, but nothing could be broadcast faster than a man could travel on horseback. There was a hierarchy in place, and a highly organized methodology of top-down signal dissemination, but the time lag enforced by tech-lack imposed a near disasterous ratio, the noise of heresy constantly threatening to overwhelm the signal.’
(Spook Country, p. 117)
F3: ‘Fortune Cookie’
I know it’s been a couple of weeks since I remembered to take part, but here’s a new entry for Friday Flash Fiction.
FORTUNE COOKIE
To Noah, the Chinese restaurant channelled clips from a hundred badly dubbed kung fu movies. There was the tank of exotic fish into which the katana-wielding goons would be thrown; here was the frosted plate glass from which the elderly kingpin would plummet to his death; and there was the door with the ‘no entry’ sign which would inevitably lead to the ill-lit underground headquarters from which the family coordinated their money laundering / prostitution / drug smuggling activities. He tried explaining this to his date, but she seemed less than entirely convinced.
Clearing her throat, she explained how it was more likely that the fish tank was made from shatter-proof plastic, and how it would be impossible for anyone – even an elderly, moustachioed master criminal – to die from injuries sustained in a fall from the ground floor. She was smiling, though. So perhaps, on some level, she understood what he meant?
He told her about the full extent of his Wuxia collection. She told him about her job in publishing. He explained how it was cheaper for him to live in his parents basement, which was actually quite spacious now that he’d moved the boxes. She smiled encouragingly.
But his suspicions about her were properly confirmed when, in a lull in the conversation, she gestured for him to lean in. Glancing sideways at the waitress, who hovered in the background like some kind of vulture, Noah’s date closed her hand on his. She believed him. And If Noah was willing to distract the girl, she’d go and investigate the underground headquarters, allowing him to follow later. Say, in half an hour. Heart thumping, Noah nodded. He ordered another glass of lemonade, and a couple of fortune cookies. The waitress disappeared into the kitchen, and Noah’s date made a beeline for the door. Glancing back over her shoulder, she winked, and the door swung shut behind her.
The fortune cookies came, along with the drink, but Noah’s date was nowhere to be seen. What if she’d been captured? After twenty-two minutes, he could bear it no longer. While the waitress was engaged in argument with a heavy-set gentleman on a table in the far corner, Noah stood up slowly, sidled over the door, took a deep breath, and leapt into the cleaning cupboard.
There was a mop, a bucket, and several bottles of cleaning fluid. The window was open, and someone had stacked a couple of boxes against the wall. Noah sighed, explained to the irate waitress that he’d simply been looking for the toilet, and returned to his table.
So much for the criminal gang. Heck, so much for his date. Momentarily losing himself in the pattern of gas bubbles rising in his glass of lemonade, Noah broke into the larger of the fortune cookies. Now, that was odd – instead of a piece of paper, there was a small ziploc bag, which seemed to contain some kind of … white … powder.
Shit, thought Noah, as he met the less-than-friendly gaze of the guy at the other table, Not again.
___________
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.