{"id":1964,"date":"2013-04-09T03:50:05","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T03:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=1964"},"modified":"2013-12-30T17:57:33","modified_gmt":"2013-12-30T17:57:33","slug":"on-layers-by-ron-singer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/on-layers-by-ron-singer\/","title":{"rendered":"On Layers by Ron Singer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
From London Street Art by Run<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Layers<\/p>\n

by Ron Singer<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPenny,\u201d said she.<\/p>\n

\u201cChickens. I was thinking of Jeff and Jen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf their chickens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir hens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, aren\u2019t hens that lay eggs called \u2018layers\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course. Hmm, do they become \u2018roasters,\u2019 \u2018broilers,\u2019 or \u2018friers\u2019 only after they stop being layers?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr are \u2018layers\u2019 already \u2018roasters,\u2019 etc?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHyphenated appellation, perhaps. \u2018Millie is a roaster-layer.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think not. Too elaborate for a chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, duh. There are probably cultures where chickens bear the hyphenated name of mother plus mate, perhaps with a first name, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike \u2018Cluckie Penny-Chanticleer.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat smacks of henophobia, you pig!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever. You allude, I take it, not to my \u2026 er, my rooster chauvinism, but to my porcine layer. Not to change the subject, but to change the subject, layers are basic to life. Let\u2019s play The Layers Dozens. You go first.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLayers of meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGeological strata.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPsychological layers: subliminal blah-blah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat gets to the bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCake, skin, history, brick, deceit, understanding. There\u2019s even a technical term in gardening: a bent shoot covered with soil so that it takes root and becomes a new plant. Not to mention \u2018layer\u2019 as a transitive verb.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Speaking of which, would you like to get laid now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHmm, depends. Can I be on top, the layer? Will you be my lay-ee?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not? But, first, one (or twenty) more layers: I was recalling that transformational-generative analysis you did back in grad school of the famous line from Milton. How does it go? \u2018Him the almighty hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky with \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018almighty power hurled\u2019 \u2026 and so on. That\u2019s just the surface structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018Just\u2019!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy analysis, you will recall, was inspired by Roman Jakobson\u2019s famous unpacking of \u201cI like Ike.\u201d I thought, \u2018Ha ha, my sigma is so much bigger than his.\u2019 As I recall, the deep structure begins, THE POWER [THE POWER BE ALMIGHTY]. The rest, as they say, is all in the predicate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr, as you put it, \u2018God is lonely in the diagram.\u2019 How many embedded sigmas did there turn out to be, thirty-eight? With thirty-six of them in the predicate. Talk about a right-heavy structure!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYep, right heavy, podner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut hold! Enough!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMacbeth, Act 5, Scene 8. \u2018At least we\u2019ll die with harness on our back.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no let\u2019s take off all our clothes. Now! \u2026 . Mmm. All set, Ms. Penny-Chanticleer? \u2026 Ouch! Hey!\u201d<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Satire by Ron Singer (www.ronsinger.net<\/a>) has appeared in numerous magazines, e-zines, and newspapers. He has also published three books: A Voice for My Grandmother, The Second Kingdom, and The Rented Pet. Between 2009 and 2011, Singer traveled to six African countries in order to interview pro-democracy activists for Uhuru Revisited (Africa World Press\/Red Sea Press, forthcoming).<\/p>\n

Note: Readers who are interested in receiving a copy of the author’s “Transformational-Generative Analysis of a Famous Line from Milton” should use the email address on the Contact page of www.ronsinger.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

?Penny,? said she.<\/p>\n

?Chickens. I was thinking of Jeff and Jen.?<\/p>\n

?They?re not ??<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2315,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions\/2315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}