Words and Thoughts: Theater of the Absurd, the Squround Files
Hello again, alleged readers! I’ve just spent the past business week reading the Talk Page on Wikipedia (where commentary on Wikipedia Article edits is discussed) for the Wikipedia entry on “Squround”. There are only three brief entries on the Talk Page, but they sure were fun to re-read several times.
For those of you that have not spent the past business week reading about Squrounds, and the discussion thereof, the word “Squround” is a portmanteau of the other words “Square” and “Round”. It is the name of a container that is, as you may have guessed, square, but also round… like an ice cream tub.
What’s really stepping on my tail here though is the fact that, as of the time I draft this fax to you all, Wikipedia has the following flagged message at the top of the page on Squround: “The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.” A worldwide view of the subject? It’s a shape. You know ol’ Stav here is always up for a rousing discussion regarding the varying geopolitical lenses through which we view world events, however the only differing lenses worth noting here is whether the Squround of Bryers Rocky Road is stuck on my head yet or not.
“Does not represent a worldwide view of the subject”. Unreal. In Mandarin Chinese, “Square Round” is pronounced Fāng Yuán. And with absolutely no disrespect to the feelings of the People of China, while “Fāng Yuán” clearly doesn’t possess the charming eloquence of “Squround”, I’m pretty sure a rectangular tub with rounded edges, whatever you call it in your own language, easily eschews nearly all of the cultural relativism we could throw at it from either square, be it Times or Tiananmen.
We, the collective inhabitants of this Earth, have had just about enough of this manufactured wedge driving dissent between differing cultures. We must find common ground, and from there we must endeavour to not find un-commonality where no un-commonality exists! Wikipedia, tear down this message at the top of the article about the shape of ice cream tubs!
Oops, I spelled “endeavour” with a “u” just then. That was very silly and ridiculous of me. Apologies.
To be honest with you, alleged readers, I’ve lost my train of thought. I started writing this fax to tell you one thing, told you about another thing, but for the life of me can’t remember what my original point was. No idea. I recently learned that train drivers control the train with a control panel rather than motivating it to move by yelling, “Ho-on now train, here go, time a get on doin’ train stuff and movin’ now train, ho-on now get!” But that is not what I was going to fax you all about. Maybe the color green, and some discussion on whether or not it exists? I don’t think so. I honestly have no idea what I was going to discuss here today.
Wait! Wow! My bad. I do remember: I saw a video where a person was dressed up like a penguin, and they were addressing a group of actual penguins at a zoo. The penguins have no idea what’s going on, because they’re penguins. And the person, dressed like a penguin… there’s no actual communication going on, but the premise is that there might be, just because the person looks like a penguin, flapping around and pointing at the penguins. Truly theater of the absurd. Comedy gold.
