June 13, 2006
Behold, I shew you a mystery
Here is a photograph that made its way to Renner bearing the caption Tennessee Yoga. He passed it along to me.
Tennessee Yoga. Get it?
Ah, but before we move on, children, look again.
You may note several curious details . . .
. . . not least of which are the full bottles of Heineken and what may be Tsing Tao, together with at least one bottled water and what I like to imagine is a big ol’ jug of white vinegar hiding behind the beer. None spring to mind as popular brews among the NASCAR crowd.
I am also puzzled by the object on the ground near the left foot of the backward-bent fellow. It appears to be some sort of wooden frame standing precariously on end.
I’m also baffled (oh, there’s no end to it once I get started) by the background structures: a tin (or other metal) pre-fab shed closely surrounded (at least partially) by a green metal barrier that looks as though it belongs in a stable. In the slim gap twixt building and barrier is a wooden pallet.
The perspective is very odd. I’m thinking we’ve got a little of that old parallax effect going on.
Finally, and to my mind of greatest significance: the men appear not to have drunk the beers, though two paper or plastic cups litter the ground under the table. Are they overwhelmed by despair at the prospect of drinking all that Dutch and Chinese beer, then trying to squeeze into the narrow passage behind them in order to move the pallet?
Here are many mysteries.
Renner could not enlighten me.
Maybe it’s just that the spectacle of any beer other than Bud cast the men into a pit of grief and confusion. Beer, beer, every where/Nor any drop to drink , , ,
Say . . . I’m starting to wonder whether those guys are even Americans.
I think they live in the central or eastern reaches of the EU — in some former Soviet satellite, and they are overwhelmed now that, in addition to the traditional burden of alcoholism, they have to contend with a global economy and the terrors of the free market.
What do you think, children?
comments
3 Responses to “Behold, I shew you a mystery”
definitely not tsing tao (or ching dao, or
whatever). note: ching dao is named after the
city on the chinese east coast, formerly a german
“settlement.” the chinese kicked the krauts out
and kept their recipe for beer…really. and, the
germans kept the chinese recipe for sauerkraut,
which translates nicely into chinese, or is that
back into chinese? literally: sour vegetable.
i’m thinking them thar beers on the table is
german….and that feller ain’t doin’ yoga. the
guy at the table is suspiciously awake…but when
you snap 1/64 of a second of eternity, who knows?
in the next 1/64, they could have been up and
about.
and yes, the vinegar bottle is most likely a
heinz product, such as we used to make fancy
windmills out of in effingham and clay county,
illinois. back in the day. you can paste this
into the blog if you like. i refuse to proofread
this.
Perhaps the photograph is a still from the (apocryphal) eleventh episode of The Decalogue.
A Russian former colleague sent this picture around a year or so ago with the caption “Russian yoga.” Our assumption was that the nonbeer bottles contained home-brewed vodka.