In case you have not looked at the title of my blog, I am an ignoramus. For example, I have never read that mandatory children’s classic, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
But ignorance is not bliss, so I have begun to educate myself. My standard approach to learning is reading to my children: if I want to know about Wyoming, I check out all the Wyoming books in the kids’ section at the library and we have a family Wyoming readathon; if I want to know more about snakes, the same goes. My method has worked particularly well in this case, since what I want to know more about is itself a children’s book.
Even if you have not read Treasure Island—and if you have not, then why are you reading blogs instead of the classics you are missing?—even if you have not read the book, I say, you have felt its influence. Why does X always mark the spot? Because of Treasure Island. Why do pirates have parrots? Because of Treasure Island. And why, to get to the point, do the most villainous pirates have only one leg or only one hand?
Because of Long John Silver, the iconic good bad man of Stevenson’s tale. And yes, that is where the fast food chain got its name.
With my newfound cultural savvitude, I detected the LJS reference in today’s newspaper immediately: “Armless driver faces prison after police pursuit”. The driver in question is a one-legged man with no arms whose penchant for high-speed driving has landed him in prison twice before; his first arrest came when he kicked a police officer after an accident.
That’s right: the one-legged man kicked an officer.
Wiley, our hero’s highly appropriate last name, is a living parody of Long John Silver. Back in the day, if you wanted to flout the law but had a personal disability such as a severed leg or missing eyeball, you just got yourself a parrot and a boat and off you went to terrorize the Caribbean. Now if you want to go pirating, your best bet is ripping CDs; should you do something that actually feels exciting or dangerous, the DMV will not renew your license.
Today's Lost Beauty:
Scathy: "mischievous; applied to a wild, excited, or frantic person."
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2 comments:
Ignoramus, we want to see this story about the one-legged, armless speed demon, but your link won't work. Think you could repair it? :) You got it from "The Onion", right?
Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed the link.
I actually saw this story first in my local newspaper and then went online to find something I could reference on the web.
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