Symbols &
Ripov
by Albert Russo
Ripov had a fascination for
the written word - whether it be the Code of Ham'o’
Rabies or that of Chameleon Buonapasta, the great
classics from Shake’m Pears to Trust-your-Whisky
- the Russians pronounce it Dusto ... - passing
through the gamut of whatch-its and What-not-bits.
He was so insatiable he
would read government statistics with no less
enthusiasm than the flyers and political
pamphlets handed out in subway stations.
Such variety of literature
- much of it free - boggled Ripov's mind. To say
however that Ripov was a walking encyclopedia
wouldn't be fair. 'Letter gobbler' is more
appropriate, for our hero could read English from
right to left and Arabic upwards. The symptoms of
Ripov's readomania manifested themselves at a
very tender age so that aside from mastering his
native tongue, Ripov learnt the different signs
and alphabets humankind had invented since Sumer.
Though he immediately identified cyrillic vowels
- which he by no means found to be the silliest -
he was utterly unable to comprehend a Bulgarian
sentence. It didn't stop him from munching
Turkish delights. But as time went by and the
readomanic fits intensified, Ripov's malady
developed into word congestion and he gradually
unlearned the English syntax. In spite of the
fact that he couldn't fill out his IRS forms any
longer, Ripov didn't seem to lose his joie de
vivre.
People mistook him for an
excentric. Yet, something was taking place in
Ripov's mind. The world around him became a
landscape of living symbols.
Let the reader grasp (gasp!)
and appreciate Ripov's Codex sui generis from the
following illustrations.
A gal slapping a guy:
“Why didn’t you rape me, already?”
A dog peeing on the frontwheel of a Volkswagen:
ecological gesture; tires should roll back to
their roots, the rubber tree.
A boy on a surfboard: man's envy of the fish
species from which the dynosaurs evolved long
long before his apelike brethren.
Here are other more
primordial examples of Ripov's symbolism:
“Nobody is )) ((: hieroglyphic transcription
for 'perfect'
“Don’t be such an (.)”: asshole
“I'm getting very very !!+!!”
“I really think you need a #”
And if you believe Ripov's
gobbledygook is for the birds, try and decipher
Edward Lear's nonsense poems.
If you've read poetry in
your life, you'd certainly not want to miss Ripov's
more lyrical oris.
“Arv? Argh ... Grunk!”: Will you let me
sleep or should I bash your head? Here, take this!
xxx% Next time I'll crush your bones.
“//-((“: boyoboy am I hungry!
“zzzvish”: You touch my woman and you'll
see the stars just now.
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