Sunday Papers early edition Passover Papyrus Preview - Jordi kills the dragon (again)

international | arts and media | opinion/analysis Friday April 22, 2005 18:18 by ipsiphi

the 23rd day of the 4th month is marked by many countries as their day of mythical connection.

This years St Jordi day by which the Catalan people mark their national saint by exchanging gifts of books and roses, is notable for two reasons-

It coincides with the first international year of the Book

It coincides for the first time in many centuries with the Jewish holiday of Passover and the first Pesach of the state of Israel.

this is a black sheep painted on the walls by ONG collective BCN. we are all little black lambs. Our angels are awesome. We're going home.

St jordi is the catalan name given to St George, he is the patron saint of Catalonia, England, Portugal and the foremr soviet republic of Georgia to name a few.

Passover is the english name for "pesach" the day that the jewish people mark the beginning of the exodus which brought them out of slavery in Egypt and to the acceptance of the law of Moses and eventually to the land of milk and honey where they stayed for quite a while.

in Catalonia, St Jordi day is marked by the exchange of gifts.
Boys give girls roses.
And Girls give boys books.
& Hey in a modern tippy toppy civilisation if boys want to give boys roses or books then grrrls will only be happy to exchange roses and books as well.

There is room for us all @ the inn.

Catalonia bears the cross of Jordi, since the crusades and period of the Templers, a much maligned bunch by historical record who well versed in much mumbo jumbo (we remember this was afore the hocus pocus of haec pisces) got a reputation for being a dodgy bunch of witches through their 23 grand masters, the last Guifré really got a roasting by the press and the church of Rome for being errant on liberalism.

Anyway, Portugal, also is one of the lands of Jordi, but in Portuguese Jordi is pronounced diferently and people mark the meaning of Jordi with less enthuasiasm and perhaps less connection to the far and mysterious past.

In England, people don't really do anything at all, there the popular sentiment gets torched on November 5. But Jordi does his trick. With Eulalia everytime. Eulalia is the patroness of Catalonia and she carries as is very significant the X cross which is also known to some as the Paddy's cross and to very few others as the cross of the Tuatha de Danaan. You will see both crosses on the seal of trinity college dublin.

So If Jordi ever existed, what did he do to be remember so much in such strange places?

well every kid knows the tale.

A Dragon, a bad kind of dragon, molested a village and extracted the most cruel tribute from the villagers who in their great fear began to sacrifice their daughters to it.

The dragon we remember is one of the symbols of the city of Barcelona and as well Hong Kong which like Lisbon, and indeed Rome is built on seven hills. As anyone who remembers the Welsh or Cantonese story knows beneath all hills of seven sleep dragons. Please note however the symbol of Rome is a wolf suckling two human children.

Dragons come in many varieties -the good variety, used by the architect Gaudí of Catalonia, referred to in the final psalms of David's harp music, (long after the jewish people escaped the slavery of egypt) and the bad bad nasty variety which does not "sing praise" to the garden but alone extracts tribute.

I told you all about it last year on St Jordi's day.

Most children know the story of how Moses brought his people out of Egypt as well, but just in case you'd like to hear it again, here it is:-

.:. + * € $ @ %

The jewish people worked as slaves for the egyptians who had them doing all the heavy lifting, tending to the gardens, cooking food, fanning them with big ostrich feathers, and filling their baths with milk, some of the prettier ones were called on to pretend they really sighed and had a good time. They didn't get paid much, in fact they got paid nothing, but the Egyptians thought this was "ok", because their civilisation (like that of Rome and Greece long after), could only survive with slave labour. They used to mutter to each other a lot, "who do these "hebrews" think they are?" (jews were called hebrews then). "don't we give them nice camps to live in, and look at them having babies all the time and using up our resources" "there's no such thing as fortress egypt" " i do like their food".

Well along came Moses, he was a schizophrenic and quite probably autistic in the "joseph" (another hebrew) model, but his coat wasn't as eye catching. Now he had made one of the daughters of Pharoah (an official term for the chief executive officer of Egypt) sigh...
and sigh and sigh, sincerely.
& because of that, he could speak egyptian really really well.

He went to see the CEO and said:-

"I want proper papers for my people to leave slavery and go to the promised land".

Well the CEO was having none of it, he said, but who will fan us with ostrich leaves? who will do the heavy lifting? who will rake in the crops? and who will fill our baths and make us feel like super-lover-nietschean-gogo guys?

And this is what Moses said (coz he was getting a bit carried away)

"If you don't let my people go, our God, who Joseph told your ancestor about, will strike ye down, all smoting (for he verily smotes) with plagues and pestilence and tribulations".

At which the CEO laughed. "let's see what happens".

Well the following year, the rivers got all contaminated, and the crops failed, and everyone got really spotty, no matter how much they bathed in milk, and the climate changed a tiny bit and loads of insects came and ate any of the crops that had survived.- At which point, the CEO called for Moses to come along and talk to him again.

"well Moses, it seems we have had a bit of bad luck, and we can after all afford to rationalise sections of our human resources so I'll order my scribes up in Thebes today to put into operation a process of complete regularisation for your people so that they can go to the promised land".

But then he changed his mind. Coz he was a bad muthafuka (and sistahfuka too).

Well Moses was very angry, and let it be known (by postering walls and distributing mini-papyri in the market places) that God was going to smote again. & this time it would be serious.

& yeah verily it came to pass and was woeful.

For God sent one of his really nasty angels to kill the oldest child in every house in the lands of Egypt (which was bigger than the egypt in your atlas today). Coz God sort of liked Moses. But the angel was under strict instructions (they normally are) not to go into any houses with lamb's blood on the lintel (the bit over the door).

And then the following morning while all the egyptians and their other migrant workers who hadn't entrusted their collective political representation to a man with an angelic network like Moses were gnashing their teeth and wailing, the hebrews pissed off.

They didn't even have time to finish baking their bread. so it turned out like pitta but only flatter.

Now "pissed off" is a bit of an exageration, for as slaves they didn't have access to four wheel chariots, and had to carry their old folk and disabled and babies in their arms and made very slow progress.

Meanwhile, the old CEO finished his year long mourning ritual and gnashing of teeth, and decided to give chase, so that he might do some smoting of his own.

At which point the special effects department introduced another nasty angel who put up a firewall like you saw in the remake of planet of the apes between the very fast moving egyptians in their 4 wheel chariots and the very slow moving hebrews.

Eventually moses parted the Red sea for them as well, by which stage he was mythic. It took them about 40 years (with delays for cancellations, and security alerts) to get to the land of milk and honey.
And along the way, Moses saw God up a mountain. He was very special, most people didn't get to see God. He got given 10 rules which were really useful, and told his people not to worship the bull market or stuff like that and he got instructions on how to build a nuclear reactor like you saw in the movie indiana jones.

As soon as he was dead, his people decided to make 613 rules out of the 10, so that in this weeks preparations for passover, some ultra-orthodox jews won't use tap water coz it aint kosher, and having a "kosher" label on your product increases sales by almost 12.5%!
A leading rabbi has confirmed that Viagra is "kosher" since the people who make viagra, have changed the coating on the pill so it has no potential for "rising" in the dough sense, but will still mean a rise, and hopefully a sigh.

¿where does joseph ratzinger come into all this I hear you fans of the sunday papers ask?

well, as luck would have it, the first pope to be elected by a landslide in what we call the XXI century, is also a fluent speaker of latin, and committed to peace, has a great big heart, and is lovely under all the mud raking, and will get crowned pontiff of Rome on Sunday banned folk music in RC churches last year on this day and has an email account and is getting a copy of this passover papyrus preview edition.
.:. his first test is his last test .:.

coz he's traditional.

It is great to be literate.
It is great to leave Egypt.
It is great to be numerate.
It is great to have roses.


this is copyright coz I sold it already but i made wee changes to it so you could enjoy your kosher copyleft version ©

I heartily recommend "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" a novel by Mark haddon, which i was given the other day, and have thoroughly enjoyed reading. = moltes gracies L.

& I recommend not burning books or papyrus. and @ this back issue of "the Sunday Papers" you'll find links to some sites where you can read books for free.
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64031

and never you forget-

Ná díol caora dhubh, ná ceannaigh caora dhubh, agus ná bí gan caora dhubh.

Neither buy or sell a black sheep but never be without one.

(it looks really cool in latin you know)