Monday, March 14, 2005

Dipci

The story has been flitting around my head for a while, but two weekends ago I saw a photograph that kicked it up into the fully active files.  The photo is from my 11th birthday, I think, and it features me in my backyard with my little friends.  I’m wearing a favorite t-shirt: white, with a puffy cumulonimbus cartoon cloud covering the chestal region.  Emerging from the cloud: a bright yellow lightning bolt; written in the cloud: the cartoon expletive “shazam” - but in the mysterouis shapes of the block-printed hebrew alphabet.  I loved the hebrew shazam shirt and donned it regularly until it was removed from my laundry pile as hopelessly overworn and outgrown. 

That shirt was never truly replaced.... but a few years later I was lucky enough to receive an analogous piece of accessorization that I liked just as much. 

Caveat: this was the ‘70s, an era not known for discretion or subtlety.  For me, part of the style of the time was wearing big belts with big beltbuckles.  I had one, for example, with a big “US” on it, a replica of a civil war relic. 

My favorite, though, was the Coca-Cola buckle.  It was brass and rectangular, featuring the classic traditional “swoop” stripe and lettering that curved into familiar patterns.  It obviously read, “Coca Cola” - but in hebrew script, equally mysterious as the formal block forms but somehow, to me, more inviting, less rigid, warmer.  So it said Coca Cola, in funky curvy hebrew.  And it was a beltbuckle.  And it was around 1978.  That’s the setup.

Ignorance of a phenomenon is typically related either to the novelty of the thing in question, or the density of those in whom said ignorance is evidenced.  And hebrew has been going on for a good long time, so the utter and abject ignorance I encountered regarding it as a language with an alphabet of its own can only be evidence of extraordinary denseness on the part of most everybody in my junior high school.

Dude - your beltbuckle is upsidedown.

Oh, yeah, no - it’s in hebrew.

Yeah well whatever, it’s upsidedown.

Do you know what hebrew is?  It’s not english, you know.  It’s a whole different alphabet.  It’s like.... chinese.

That is not chinese, dude.

Right - but it’s hebrew, so it’s....

Upsidedown.  Dork, don’t argue with me, it’s totally obvious.  Just admit you’re wearing it upsidedown, upsidedown-boy.  Admit you’re wrong.

Okay, take a look at this.

(taking care not to antagonize the snuffling oaf, I remove my belt for buckle-display purposes.)

Look, this is how I was wearing it, right?  The stripe is high on the right, low on the left - same as on Coke cans you can get at any store, the same design exactly except for the lettering. 

Asswipe, it’s still upsidedown, or can’t you tell? 

Oh yes?  When I turn it upsidedown again, then, it should be right side up, right? 

Yeah.

So let’s take a look at this. 

Sort of hard to read, huh?

What the hell?

If this is right, then that must be a “d.” Right?  D - i - c - p - c - i D - i - p - c - i.  Is that what it says?

Yeah.

So do you think this says “dicpci dipci” in english, or Coca Cola in some other language you don’t understand? 

What the hell is “dicpci dipci”? 

okay… it is the Israeli version of Coca Cola. 

Oh!  Now it makes sense!  So, it’s upsidedown because they’re on the other side of the planet?

Yeah.  That’s it.  Pretty clever, right?

No way, man.  You think way too much. 

Uh-huh.  And you don’t think enough.  Between us we average out about right, I’d say.

(Exeunt players, with hoots and beatings.)