Thursday, October 13, 2005

[TITLE REDACTED]/Run for Your Life, Brother/Sister!

It makes sense, I think, to step back for a minute. There are some things you need to know — about Quechua, for starters. Quechua is the language group of the native South Americans that settled in the Andes. The official language of the Inca Empire was Cuzco Quechua, and that language, along with a dozen or more other related dialects (including Ayacucho and the Ecuadoran and Bolivian argots) survive to this day, notwithstanding the depredations of the Spanish colonials. In fact, some 8 million people in the South American Northwest speak Quechua, making it the most widely spoken Amerindian language.

This isn't the Discovery Channel, Phutatorius.

I realize that. But I was hoping to make a prefatory point, which is this: much of the custom and culture of the Inca Empire lives on in today's Quechuan populations. So much is apparent from the fact that Jimmy's stage-namesake, the Emperor Atahualpa, who was betrayed and — in the estimation of most right-minded people, anyway — murdered by Francisco Pizarro and his entourage of conquistadores in 1533, lamented the perfidy of his Spaniard guests in substantially the same tongue that Jimmy's parents spoke around the house, back when he was taking pipe lessons on Tuesday nights in the Cuzco 'burbs.

And it's not just a common vocabulary that has descended from the Incas of that Golden Age to today's Andean residents. Certain other rich traditions have hung in there through the years. In fact, it's fair to say that certain ancient Incan arts have even flourished over the last half-millennium, as their practitioners' access and exposure to the broader world did not eradicate them, so much as furnish the means and occasion for further refining those arts. To be sure, a lot of the good stuff is lost. But not all of it.

Which brings me, finally, to the subject of *********** ********* — — —

[THE REMAINDER OF THIS POST HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY WITHDRAWN, AT THE REQUEST OF CERTAIN PERSONS I MAY NOT EVEN OBLIQUELY DESCRIBE, MUCH LESS CALL OUT BY NAME. NEGOTIATIONS WITH THESE PERSONS ARE ONGOING, AND I EXPECT A RESOLUTION OF THIS MATTER IN THE COMING DAYS.

If you did happen to visit this site before I pulled the "objectionable" text, you, uh, should consider lying low in an out-of-the-way Best Western over the weekend while I sort all this out. These persons can (so they tell me anyway) trace IP addresses.

Now, if I might be allowed just a brief moment to editoralize:

Really, W.t.F? It's not like I haven't mentioned the Secret Mountain Redoubt about a billion times already — and the training, too. And I could have sworn I held forth on the ***** *** ********* *** in some earlier post. Nobody said a word, then. And now I'm caught up in this big shitstorm. Well, all will be explained by Monday, at the latest — and I'll be sure to tell you straightaway, Brother/Sister, when it's safe for you to go back home. In the meantime, my focus will be on securing the structural integrity of my own thoracic vertebrae . . . if you get my drift.]

2 comments:

Kate said...

Hey - this is not spam...
I just wanted to say hi and that I like your blog. That thing about the written montage made me laugh - thanks. I needed it. Keep it up.

Kate

Phutatorius said...

Thanks for the kind note, Sister! These long training days can be grueling (particularly now that I'm wearing the bumps and bruises of last weekend's interrogation). The knowledge that I'm connecting with my readers gives me the energy I need to post during these brief intervals of repose!

Solidarity,

Phutatorius