A Guide to City Life # ٣٩ - "City Wisdom"

Welcome to the Guide to City Life # CHARNOTRECOGNIZED! "City Wisdom". In this module, you will learn some of the basic chunks of speakwisdom that will serve as your urban astrolabe. They will help you navigate the steel and concrete sea, avoiding pitfalls, pitbulls, pity parties, and pizzicato murder.

What is wisdom? Wisdom can be defined as a gumball machine for proverbs. What is a gumball machine? A gumball machine was an archaic form of sugar infection that involved the exchange of coins for treated rubber.

A proverb is a punchline for the cosmic joke of inevitable failure. Wisdom is an artform that originated in the desert. In the desert, death was dealt out quickly and harshly to nomadic peoples. When some kind, hoary-bearded patriarch was bitten by an ape spider, his dark bearded relatives would, instead of seeking help or praying to the Lord Johobo, reply with a quick punchline or proverb. Thus the prevalence of proverbs in books of desert divinity:

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Oh snap.

Although wisdom has helped to irritate men for all of history, many of its proverbs have grown irrelevant, if not outright baffling. The city man can hardly expect to relate to the old Arabic proverb الثروة تأتي كالسلحفاة وتذهب كالغزال  because he probably cannot understand old Arabic. If he could, he would  be faced with a new problem of interpretation: what is a turtle? Why a gazelle? Did I run out of staples again?

The city has, happily, grown its own pod of proverbs for the modern proletarian. Here are a few of the better ones, with a commentary to explain their significance.

Kill mosquitoes.
Commentary: Mosquitoes are awful and deserve death.

I've never even seen a goddamn Moose.
Commentary: Less frequently seen than one might suppose, the Moose is a creature of note.

Don't order the beef shawarma are you nuts? That meat has been there for like, 3 days.
Commentary: Vegetarians are usually vindicated through patience and observation.

I like Solange better anyway.
Commentary: In the city, the fine arts are judged by both aesthetic merit, and aesthetic anti-merit (or hype).

Wait, the purple bus tickets expired already? 
Commentary: In the city, "public transportation" is a by-word for death by strangulation.

A fool and his money are easily awesome.
Commentary: No one is impressive by city standards until they make money for spending money.

A stitch in time is a sci-fi novel.
Commentary: Literacy, a common form of improv theatre.

Eat around the Bananas dad, they are just empty calories.
Commentary: This is derived from an old Berlin poem that ends with the lines "girth equals mirth".

Prep your materials and marinate the night before.
Commentary: That which is juicy, is kingly.

Thank you for putting up with A Guide to City Life # CHARNOTRECOGNIZED! "City Wisdom". If this module has been helpful to you, we know a Nigerian prince that could make you quite wealthy. To proceed to the next module, simply think happy thoughts, and then crow.