Massless

The language (and test) of Matsui.

Despite the group's hurried exigency in Ocean's Twelve, Linus failed to impress Matsui.

I'll explain. In Ocean's Twelve, the beleaguered criminals find themselves searching for work. During an interview for a job, Danny and Rusty allow the younger, less experienced Linus to sit in while they negotiate a deal.

But Linus soon discovers that their prospective job donor speaks only in absurdities. Some examples:

Matsui
When I was four years old, I watched my mother kill a spider with a tea cozy. Years later, I realized it was not a spider. It was my Uncle Harold.

Rusty Ryan
A doctor who specializes in skin diseases will dream he has fallen asleep in front of the television. Later, he will wake up in front of the television, but not remember his dreams.

Danny Ocean
If all the animals along the equator were capable of flattery, then Thanksgiving and Halloween would fall on the same date.

Linus struggles to respond in kind - it's a language too mysterious, and like Robert Klein in Wordplay Linus tanks as he can't discern meaning from the words he's hearing and flounders terribly, stealing lyrics instead.

Whatevs, fictional character. I was able to think of two responses, cavalierly, though I suppose it's easier without the burden of their desperate situation. I wrote them down:

#1
Outside a makeshift medical camp near Ouagadougou there's a street sign whose presence is inexplicable to nearby native residents. To the wayward observer it is actually the farthest vertice of the nearest bodega in Brooklyn.

#2
A glass sphere within the orbital layer just above the ionosphere rotates at the exact sound of a child's heart.

Snap. I. Totally. Shmooned. That. Glot. I did such a rotation away as to be amazed at the exact sound of a child's heart. I think I should get all of that tattooed somewhere.

posted at June 16, 2006, 3:04 AM