These short parodies tackle all kinds of issues that often start off with a contemporary topic, and then innovate on this idea until, by the end of the parody, surreal offshoots of these more normal realities appear and the level of hilarity reaches hysteria. Reading satisfaction comes from this effort at popular and literary blends of styles, making meanings easy and jokes properly placed.
Excerpt from The Curious Mystery of Disappearing Socks:
For a long time, the general mood in the world has been dour. The so-called “Arab Spring” unleashed such a tidal wave of change, that even America now has squatters. They have been rent-less on the streets in Manhattan, placards, and strident voices floating around like a child’s balloon wanting to escape to the sky, and yet these prurient protests indict greed as if it were a form of food, perhaps chicken shit smelling durian, that if they could get their mouths around, would swallow the evil Wall Streeters with a piquant desire to masticate and digest.
But the aura of the oraculars has something deeper in mind. People may be experiencing a kind of gnostic awakening, but the inner mysticism goes unrecognized in the inescapable religious minds of our so-called Christian Nation; there is Reagan proclaiming us as a Shining Light on a Hill, subjecting us to a form of narcissism that keeps the world wary of us. But it is the supernatural quality of this mundanity that interests me. The supernatural is like a fictionalized reality straight out of Chaos Theory, butterfly wings and all.
I live in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, having shed all the wretchedness of the American stain to the point that I don’t even identify with the expat community, but consider myself fully Cambodian. I think my eyes are even starting to change as I check the mirror everyday for evidence of Kafkaesque metamorphosis. I really do worry about waking up a bug.
In the cultural milieu I suddenly find myself in, I am ridiculously chanting with monks and carefully depositing joss sticks into clay pots in honor of the ancestors. I’ve even taken to visiting fortunetellers, and once I found a website on astrology, and like a hopeless dupe, I greedily read horoscopes (I am Aquarius Rising) and doing Tarot and Numerology readings. I have fallen for the scam of superstition, and gladly embrace it, obviously shortening my lifespan in the half-life of a prediction that prompts an expectation gullibly waiting in the wings. One prediction audaciously predicted fame and fortune. Even one fortuneteller commanded us to adopt a baby, at our age, my wife and I are 61 and 47 respectively with another promise of fortune and fame should we do this. Luckily, we realized the absurdity and laid aside all thoughts in this direction. But that one lone candle, sitting in the shrine for the house ghost, quivers during breezes with the unfortunate miracle of never snuffing out.
