<< Stop and Evaluate | Main | Twins, Born and Made >>

There's a place in Seoul where the Olympic flame still burns. It flickers dimly, a wisp sheltering beneath a proud monument to the days when Korea was the centerpiece of the world for a brief instant in history. Unsurprisingly, this place is called Olympic Park. In Hangul it is probably called something else.

Inline skaters in latex whiz around the outside perimeter of smooth asphalt, criss-crossing between families on bikes, possibly training for short-track speed skating. That is, the skaters are training, not the families: I imagine that taking 10 000 photos of your children and crashing a wobbly bicycle into large ceremonial rocks doesn't really boost your Olympic prospects.

Down by the pond, an assembly of young Western kids studiously practice taekwondo. Kick, turn, punch-punch SCREAM. Nearby, the murky waters ripple: an army of bloodthirsty seals lurk beneath the surface. Soon they will emerge under the command of a particularly ornery sea lion, and fierce hand-to-flipper conflict will test the would-be martial artists' skills to their limits. The seals have ambitions too. The 2020 Summer Games in Aquarius.

During the Seal Revolutions, it is best for civilians to take shelter in handily provided lawn sculptures. These stockades are well protected against slapping flippers and, as a side benefit, work nicely as a prop for anyone who ever wanted to be the three-headed knight from Monty Python.

Beyond the edges of the park, industrious Koreans have built an enormous glass prison for God. He presides within a curious synthesis of Old World architecture and hideous lite-steel modernity. God's techno-cathedral proclaims that He is, in fact, a mega-powerful translucent robot with flat-screen LCD displays for eyes. Let us pray to Godatron: deliver us from evil, and perhaps also rampaging seals if we may presume to direct thy Holy Monitors towards a specifically pressing issue.

Big thumbs sometimes look like big penises in certain light. Kindly do not worship the giant thumb-penis. Recall that thou shalt not put any graven image before Godatron. Wonder freely why such a blasphemy exists in the first place: is it a giant thumbs-up over how absolutely fucking rad Korea is? Perhaps a witness to certain overcompensations? Can we even begin to surmise its infinite meaning?

Anyway the important thing is that you don't start worshipping the thumb. Our Lord can totally transform into this crazy psychedelic tiger-mech thing with world-rending claws when he's in a purging mood, so let's not take our chances, okay? We need Him on our side. Remember He lives just down the block and He's already got enough problems on His collection plate, what with the seals and memorializing the Olympics and all.

[Seoul, Korea] [Olympic Park] [the Seal Revolution] [Godatron, may he live forever]

Posted by Chris at 10:08 AM >> Commentations (0)