Friday, June 16, 2006

THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY


This was my site meter the other day.

Unknown Country -- WHERE ARE YOU? I feel like I'm being deluged -- paratrooped? -- by SPACE INVADERS. Has someone at Guantanamo Bay taken a liking for me? Which of Bush's not-so-secret European prisons is this one? If I open up my atlas, will I suddenly see this little pimple -- or great expanse -- called UNKNOWN C.?

I imagine this Unknown Scene from a Shakespear play (typo, but he did spell his name that way, sometimes, I'll leave it) -- say Macbeth:

Dunsinane. A room in the castle.

Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants
MACBETH
Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear...

Enter a Servant

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
Where got'st thou that goose look?
Servant
There is ten thousand--
MACBETH
Geese, villain!
Servant
Soldiers, sir.
MACBETH
Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,
Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?
Death of thy soul! What soldiers, whey-face?
Servant From the Unknown Country, so please you.
As I've said before, that's be gotta my favourite place -- the country I'm from.

Land of muses?

Land of spooks?

Or ... some odd place whose every inhabitant is shaped like a question mark?...???

5 comments:

Archambeau said...

When I look at a weather map of the USA on television, I never see anything north of our long, 49th parallel border, where all weahte patterns seem simply to end. But once, when I drove up to Minnessota, I glimpsed a mysterious wonderland of lakes, forests, and universal health care north of that line, where the great void resides on our maps. Perhaps this is the "Unknown Country," the legendary, mythical land of Keh-Na-Dha...

Brian Campbell said...

Funny, our weather maps usually include at least part of the US. This pininsula I'm on (or rather was on, when I was in Toronto) sticks down into the US, and warm fronts cross over from down there.

However, if you look closely, you'll see "Montral, Canada" on that list (they can't seem to get the e in there, maybe the accent throws them)... so could Unknown Country be that nether world of ex-patriots???

Brian Campbell said...

Woops! I didn't look closely enough myself. It says "Montral, Quebec". And as we know, Quebec is un pais distinct, with different money, passport requirements, etc.

Brian Campbell said...

... so you could be right.

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