Fifth Post

Alright, so Bokononism as actually such a complex religion that I decided to make a quick blog dedicated to some info about Bokononism. First off, here is a list of Bokononist terminology that is used throughout the book:

• boko-maru: The mingling of awareness. A Bokononist ritual during which two people press the soles of their bare feet together. Bokononists believe it is impossible to be sole-to-sole with another person without loving that person, provided the feet of both persons are clean and nicely tended. 
• busy, busy, busy: What bokononists whisper whenever they think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is. 
• duffle: The destiny of thousands upon thousands of persons when placed in the hands of a stuppa. 
• duprass: A karass composed of only two persons. 
• dynamic tension: Theory that good societies can be built only by pitting good against evil, and by keeping the tension between the two high at all times. Derived from a theory of Charles Atlas, that muscles can be built without bar bells or spring exercisers, by simply pitting one set of muscles against another. 
• foma: Harmless untruths. Lies. 
• granfalloon: A seeming team that is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done. Textbook examples include the false karass, the Communist party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows and any nation anytime anywhere. 
• kan-kan: The instrument that brings someone into their particular karass. 
• karass: A team which unknowingly executes God's Will. Bokononists believe that all humanity is divided into such teams. 
• pool-pah: Shit storm. Wrath of God. 
• saroon: To aquiesce to the seeming demands of one's vin-dit. 
• sin-wat: One who wants 'all' of somebody's love. 
• sinookas: The tendrils of one's life. 
• stuppa: A fogbound child. 
• vin-dit: A sudden, very personal shove in the direction of Bokononism. 
• wampeter: The pivot of a karass. Anything can be a wampeter: a tree, a rock, an animal, an idea, a book, a melody, the Holy Grail. At any given time a karass actually has two wampeters - one waxing in importance, one waning. 
• wrang-wrang: A person who steers people away from a line of speculation by reducing that line, with the example of the wrang-wrang's own life, to an absurdity. 
• zah-mah-ki-bo: Fate, inevitable destiny.

I also found this site online. It’s basically a compilation of all the various verses and calypsos (songs) that can be found in the Books of Bokonon. Since Vonnegut only gives us bits and pieces and never the entire Books of Bokonon, I’m fairly sure that this site has the most comprehensive version available.

Here’s something else that’s pretty cool. A rock band from the 1970s called Ambrosia took one of the calypsos and turned it into an actual song, crediting Vonnegut as one of the writers. The Calypso, called the “Fifty-third Calypso”, is talking about the Bokononist concept of a karass. I’ve attached a video below. Here are the lyrics (the bolded parts are the actual calypso):

AMBROSIA
"Nice, Nice, Very Nice"

Oh a sleeping drunkard Up in Central Park
Or the lion hunter In the jungle dark

Or the Chinese dentist Or the British Queen
They all fit together In the same machine

Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device

Oh a whirling dervish And a dancing bear
Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire

Or a teenage rocker Or the girls in France
Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance

Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device

I wanted all things to make sense
So we'd be happy instead of tense

Oh a sleeping drunkard Up in Central Park
Or the lion hunter In the jungle dark

Or the Chinese dentist Or the British Queen
They all fit together In the same machine

Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device
So many people in the same device