Case History 8: California, America, Utopia, and other Mythtakes!
Posted: Sunday, October 16, 2011
by Al Case
http://www.alcasebooks.com/
It’s the 1500s, and things are a poppin’! People are roaming all over the world, looking for the edge, or at least a few monsters, and not finding anything. Not a beast nor a monster, not a griffin nor a phoenix...nothing but a few myths.
The first myth is that there is a place called California. The myth came about because of a book (Amandis Cycle) which is about a warrior queen who helps pagans occupy Constantinople. I wonder if, when the peace lovin’ lefties of California find out that they are named after a war mongering be-otch, they are going to be Peeved Off?
Second item in this here history, and a juicy one, is that the hunt for gold, having been so unsuccessful, has waned. Instead, it has been replaced, and the slaves moved out of the mines and onto the fields, to grow...sugar cane! Somehow, I don’t think sugar is the manna (white gold) from heaven.
The third, but biggie when it comes to ‘mythtakes,’ is the naming of America. You see, there’s this here cabin boy, or third mate, or something, and he hitches a ride to the new world. When he returns he writes a bunch of stuff wherein he is the hero, he is the one who actually found America!
Now young Amerigo, before he became a shameless self-promoter, was known only for the fact that he was related to Simonetta Vespucci. You know Simonetta...she was the model for a guy named Botticella. She was the gal who was built like a brick moon house!
Anyway, this Amerigo kid told everybody he had discovered the New World, that old Chris Columbus was a faker. Interestingly enough, people actually believed him! What a hoot...America is named for the cousin of a bimbo! Good thing nobody really wants to go there.
And a bunch of other stuff is going on: explorers sailing all over the place, slavery is big business, and this guy name of Copernicus is actually claiming that the earth revolves around the sun, and not the other way around! As if we hadn’t just got over the flat world stuff, and this idiot comes along! Well, people are starting to disbelieve in the flat world theory, but there is no way they are going to go along with this crackpot Copernicus!
The most interesting of all items in this century, however, is the book Utopia by Thomas More. Utopia is a Greek word which means ‘No place,’ and Old Tom is claiming that there is a place in the new world where Utopia actually exists! And, get this, he actually claims that in Utopia there is: public education; freedom of religion; equal rights for women; and all sorts of other lunatic, never to be and never should have been imagined possibilities!
The first myth is that there is a place called California. The myth came about because of a book (Amandis Cycle) which is about a warrior queen who helps pagans occupy Constantinople. I wonder if, when the peace lovin’ lefties of California find out that they are named after a war mongering be-otch, they are going to be Peeved Off?
The third, but biggie when it comes to ‘mythtakes,’ is the naming of America. You see, there’s this here cabin boy, or third mate, or something, and he hitches a ride to the new world. When he returns he writes a bunch of stuff wherein he is the hero, he is the one who actually found America!
Now young Amerigo, before he became a shameless self-promoter, was known only for the fact that he was related to Simonetta Vespucci. You know Simonetta...she was the model for a guy named Botticella. She was the gal who was built like a brick moon house!
Anyway, this Amerigo kid told everybody he had discovered the New World, that old Chris Columbus was a faker. Interestingly enough, people actually believed him! What a hoot...America is named for the cousin of a bimbo! Good thing nobody really wants to go there.
And a bunch of other stuff is going on: explorers sailing all over the place, slavery is big business, and this guy name of Copernicus is actually claiming that the earth revolves around the sun, and not the other way around! As if we hadn’t just got over the flat world stuff, and this idiot comes along! Well, people are starting to disbelieve in the flat world theory, but there is no way they are going to go along with this crackpot Copernicus!
The most interesting of all items in this century, however, is the book Utopia by Thomas More. Utopia is a Greek word which means ‘No place,’ and Old Tom is claiming that there is a place in the new world where Utopia actually exists! And, get this, he actually claims that in Utopia there is: public education; freedom of religion; equal rights for women; and all sorts of other lunatic, never to be and never should have been imagined possibilities!
This Article has been viewed 206 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I thought Amerigo was a map maker. I'll have to look that story up.Hi Jack. He was actually an observer-he may have been supercargo-meant to take over as captain. Wasn't a mapmaker, but he was a cartographer, whatever that is.There is a good wiki on him. Now, as to scurrilous allegations that I play fast and loose with the truth. That's an outright lie spread by disgruntled third world politicians. BTW, you caught me in an exaggeration, so you get a B. Just think, if you had caught me in a lie you would have gotten an A.Okay. A cartographer is a map maker, by the way. Interesting essay.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.