How the christ does the Y Combinator work?

Fuck, I've been rereading http://mvanier.livejournal.com/2897.html for the past several hours and it might as well be written in Esperanto. Am I just not cut out for EXPERT PROGRAMMING‽

>>1
I wouldn't worry about it too much. Functional programming is of no real-world value. No one cares but for a few arrogant ivory tower academics.