Sunday, September 27, 2009

Sneezing Our Way Into The 21st Century

It really warms my heart when people don't capitalize “god.” Cause, like, why should something whose mere existence has been a centerpiece of one of the great ideological debates of the last hundred years, be treated as a real, actual thing—why should it be given a name, like Francis or Rebecca, or... I dunno... Marvin—when, really, no one can even prove it's fucking real?

You don't capitalize stuff like “boogie man,” do you?

Okay, maybe you do. But if you do, that's dumb. I don't.

In light of this, it's interesting to think of a new way to sneeze that I've deivsed. That's right. A new way to fucking sneeze. Or, a new way to be in the presence of someone who sneezes. You know how people say shit like “[G] (sic) od bless you,” whenever anybody sneezes? You know what I'm talkin' 'bout!

That whole thing started back in the days when, like, dudes with rotten-ass teeth and wheelbarrows would walk the streets of every town, piles of dead bodies in tow, calling out “bring outcha dead!” The received wisdom of the day dictated that surely, if a bunch of gross bodily mist is rapidly ejected from a person's nose, this must be their soul, leaving their body. Of course! Makes perfect sense!

Yeah, well, maybe it did a couple hundred years before the Enlightenment. But for reasons I'm having a rough time figuring out, people still do it. Sure, there's been some evolution of exactly how this medieval ignorance is shoved into everyday life (“salud,” etc.), but the notion that condolences are somehow in order whenever anyone spews thousands of tiny mucus particles through their nostrils, remains an intransigent fixture of cultures the world over.

Well, maybe we can't subvert the dominant paradigm just yet. But we are the generation of Vice Magazine and the ironic mustache--so surely we can at least mock it.

My answer to centuries of ignorance? “YOU SNEEZED!” Uh-huh. I just remind people that they've in fact sneezed, since, y'know, you gotta say something.

I guess it'll have to do, since there ain't no way I'm about to take social cues that hark back to days when life expectancy ran somewhere around the age of your average Williamsburger who's soured on two years of post-college bartending and just figured out what their long-lost career should be.

4 comments:

  1. In classic New Yorker fashion I have just always ignored sneezers, while saying "fuck you..shut up..go home" in my head.

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  2. "days when life expectancy ran somewhere around the age of your average Williamsburger who's soured on two years of post-college bartending and just figured out what their long-lost career should be."--Oh dear (uncapitalized) god, that made me laugh.

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  3. The thing is, I could have just said "my age" (cause it's the same thing), but Reading Jacques' review of Shoplifting From American Apparel made me burn with a desire to stick it to the Garden Variety North Brooklyn Schlub whose presence in my fair city daily makes me wanna barf. These people are EVERYWHERE. Recent reports confirm that some of them have made it over Newton Creek and are now in Astoria! But I bet even some of them may take up the Gospel of the Sneeze, if nudged in the right direction.

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  4. It's a sociolinguistic tic, nothing more. I mean, sure, some people may still take being the blesser/-ee quite seriously and may be intentionally invoking god's favor on your behalf lest you die...but I would wager they are in the vast minority.
    - Saren

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