NAVIGATING AN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE: SAILING BEYOND POSTMODERNISM: THE NY & HOLLYWOOD RENAISSANCE! SHAKESPEARE & THE BIBLE RULE!

[Captain Ranger McCoy]

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JOLLYROGER.COM: NAVIGATING AN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE

post tenebras lux

He saw the townlands
And learned the minds of many distant men
And weathered many bitter nights and days
In his deep heart at sea, while he fought only
To save his life, to bring his shipmates home.
-Book I, The Odyssey

Introduction

Ahoy there mates! Contained herein are the captain's logs of The
Jolly Roger, flagship of Classicals & jollyroger.com LLC. The words
were set down during a five year voyage of fantastic romance, peril,
and adventure, as the Good Ship sailed the WWW on towards an American
Renaissance. Beyond the fogs of cynicism we've navigated, and at the
breaking edge of postmodern liberalism, we've sighted the dawning of
a classical revival that shall be known by the rising generation, as
well as by all who count themselves members of the community of eternal
souls.

It's good to be back on shore for the moment, as we always shall be
whenever a fellow seafarer reads this introduction. Perhaps ye'll
meet us out tonight at The Jolly Roger Piano & Poetry Pub or our Great
Books Brewery, before we arise at the crack of dawn to ferry ye on out
towards the greatest treasure of this silicon revolution-the eternity
in a grain of sand. We have seen the future away out there, in yer
hearts and spirits, and it belongs to the honest, while the poetry
belongs to the profound.

In 1995 Jollyroger.com set sail from Hatteras as a labor of love, and
now, by the Grace of God and the loyalty of all our intrepid readers,
the Good Ship has evolved into a profitable venture that allows us to
do that which we were born to do-write. Unlike most dot-com startups
originating from MBA homework assignments, jollyroger.com was not
launched to line the pockets of venture capitalists, but rather she set
sail to serve the eternal popular culture with a renaissance-an
entity which the bankers could not afford to invest in, as enduring
literature must be funded by the courage of poetic passion. Very few
MBAs ever comprehend the business of eternity-the subtleties of how a
world may be born from a grain of sand-and thus it is left up to CEO
Statesmen and Poets to captain literary ships. Business ventures tend
to be considered in terms of monetary risks and rewards, whereas words
of eternity must be written, come hell or high water. It was not mere
information that the Good Ship sought to deliver over the internet, but
poetry, and so instead heading West to Silicon Valley and raising VC,
we raised The Jolly Roger to strike fear into the hearts of Truth's
opponents, and we sailed forth from Hatteras one pristine September
day, beneath a Carolina-blue sky. And we never looked back.

In an era where cool has been commodified and postmodernism has
triumphed in the literary, cultural, and financial arenas, where
inherent worth is oft dismissed and new-age hype rules the day,
jollyroger.com has stuck by the guns of fundamental principle. She has
sailed steadily along her foreordained course, signing aboard loyal
crew members one by one, firing broadsides from the Western Canon to
defend the embattled Great Books, and laying the foundations of the
world's classical portal with the most valuable kind of seed
capital-heartfelt poetry.

In the postmodern culture's pervasive gray, it's often difficult to
perceive the Permanent Things; and thus on the foggier nights over the
past five years, faith in the ancient's words came in handy upon this
deck. In the deepest darkness of the most ironic ironies, where the fog
itself is concealed, there yet exists an inner light in the form of a
classical yearning for Truths greater than ourselves-many know her as
Faith. And like the wind and waves of an approaching hurricane, the
Bible, Plato, Shakespeare, the Founding Fathers, and Melville reminded
us of her-the Words of the Greats let us know that something
all-powerful and great existed just beyond our mortal sight. And by
Faith's inner light and the steady winds of immortal words, we were
able to navigate beyond the postmodern fog, through the popular
culture's sound and fury, on towards the center of our souls-the
placid eye of existence's storm-on towards the eternal peace of
immutable words written and read in the solitude and splendor of
Truth's Freedom. Thus we know firsthand that the greatest literature
serves a higher purpose than the bottom line or the advancement of
political causes-words exist not only to entertain, advertise,
exhort, and explain, but also to light Faith's beacons and fill the
sails of God's Grace. From Words we have fashioned the Jolly
Roger's Oak planks of reason, riveted them with rhyme, and designed a
ship to voyage across all of time.

All generations are united by the classical elements, and the poets and
prophets of each age are those who perform the timeless truths in the
living language, adding to and enriching the context of the eternal
popular culture heralded by the Great Books. Joining in this venture
has always been a risky endeavor, and thus few prudent parents have
ever encouraged their children to become poets. But in this era
especially, ambitious proponents of the postmodern ideology actively
seek to scuttle the souls of young poets embarking on eternity's
favorite venture. The postmodern blockade serves to protect the
degraded trade of the liberal industrial cultural complex, while their
fog shrouds the beacons of timeless truth, thereby rendering the
context for contemporary classical literature all but impossible to
navigate, while endangering the very hulls of morality and Western
Civilization.

Postmodernism is the corruption of democracy, just as deconstruction is
the violence of the weak-both cultural movements owe their popularity
to their ability to empower anyone harboring intellectual or artistic
ambitions overshadowing their talents. Postmodern culture is like an
internet pyramid scheme, wherein cultural creations possessing no
inherent worth are given vast valuations by the insider critics and
cliques who subsist upon and profit from the ephemeral hype, which is
often tax, tuition, and smut subsidized. But eventually all true art,
like all true companies, must create real and lasting benefits for the
public, or fade away, like communism. "One cannot pray a lie," noted
Huckleberry Finn, but without faith in God's Invisible Hand,
postmodernists believe that it's possible, as long as the requisite
mob is assembled and promised a cut. And while the insiders benefit in
the short-term when worthless companies, fallacious systems of
government, and meaningless art are hyped and sold to a duped public,
the public is oft left holding the bag, with their investments
diminished, their classical religions tarnished, their armies
demoralized, the sacred institution of marriage defiled, and the
curriculums of their children's schools gutted.

When the higher ideals and fundamental precepts are forsaken, the
entire democratic ship of state may drift along happily through the
fog, navigating by polls reminiscent of the one given by Pontius
Pilate, not aware of the nature nor consequences of the errant
direction. And when a few in the rising generation begin to seek the
fixed stars above, which they've read about in antiquity's forsaken
myths and felt deep within their souls, they will be branded crazy. And
when the classical rebels see the stars through the breaking fog, and
seek to navigate a straighter course by the Permanent Things, they will
encounter violent opposition from the postmodern culture czars who
benefit from the lack of higher standards, who prefer their arbitrary
will to the rule of Law in cultural entities ranging from politics, to
architecture, to education, to poetry. The relativistic oligarchy shall
view the rising poets' loyalty to God as insolent rebellion, and the
postmodern media shall be commanded to destroy them. And on that day,
the postmodern critics' souls shall be tested, as they choose to be
loyal to tyrants or Truths greater than themselves, as they choose to
remain upon postmodern liberalism's sinking ship or sign aboard a
fighting frigate bound for eternity.

One could spend several volumes chronicling the nature of
postmodernism's adherents and their predilection for bureaucracy, and
the dark character of their political, cultural, and literary ponzi
schemes, but that is not jollyroger.com's destination. We all know
what the fog looks like-too many know nothing else-and the nobler
and more pertinent task becomes taking us beyond it. To criticize
nihilism is to exalt it to undeserved heights, and rather than studying
the ephemeral, poets would be wise to devoted themselves to penning the
eternal.

Whether it's inevitable as fate or it hinges upon perseverance and
free will, we do not know, but jollyroger.com must gain a popular
culture worthy of the Great Books' context. And the only way to do
that is to navigate by the same timeless beacon that yesterday's
poets navigated by-honesty's courage.

The contemporary poet's task is not only to pen the eternal verities
in the era's language, but it is also to resurrect the context in
which those timeless truths may freely navigate and gain the home ports
of the children's souls. And that is where the WWW has played an
invaluable role, for it has allowed us to establish a universe
perpendicular to the contemporary popular culture-a universe wherein
words mean things and the classical context thrives, but which also
intersects with the popular culture. For Great Books growing dusty upon
shelves are of little use, and the classical sentiments must be
continually performed in the living language. While the majority of
contemporary editors, agents, critics and literary officials yet remain
loyal to the degraded postmodern-MFA mentality and the fleeting
insta-classic literary fashions, the greater spirits of the rising
generation are classical in nature, as children's souls always are.
And by allowing The Jolly Roger to circumvent the literary
middleman's cynical vortex, the WWW has allowed a renaissance to set
sail.

Although all enduring truth must by definition be robust, history has
shown that its messengers have often been castigated and impugned. But
upon these American shores, it has ever been our right, as it has been
our duty, to continually foster and defend the classical context
wherein the foundational documents serve the people, come hell or high
water. The Greats have all agreed upon this-liberty demands eternal
vigilance. The pursuit of smaller government, less taxes, rhyming
poetry, and more freedom is as long and arduous a voyage as it is a
noble one.

As a beacon in history's darker contexts, America was founded as a
haven for truth's messengers, thereby becoming the world's
wellspring for science, religion, and freedom. The Declaration of
Independence and Constitution, which may be found at the end of this
book, were penned in tribute to higher principles superior to all
politics and time. Even though the Founding Fathers believed in the
existence of higher laws, they were humble about their ability to
discern them, and thus they presented us with a Constitution which
could be amended. They had as much faith in their children as they had
in the timeless truths, and thus they bestowed us with the tools to
pursue justice and happiness in a free marketplace of ideas, which they
perceived to be ultimately governed by Nature and Nature's God. The
eloquent words of America's founding documents provide for the civil
structure that protects and promotes the acknowledgement of higher
principles by which natural rights are defined, thereby preserving the
sacred freedom of all individuals who are humble before the higher
ideals. And thus upon these shores the honest have always been promised
the freedom to pursue the exalted American dream.

But when the language is degraded until the poetry no longer rhymes
except in vulgar rap, when sacred customs are honored more in the
breach than in the observance, when words and their meanings part on
their separate ways, when the bottom line is placed above the higher
ideals, when the base bass beats over the melody in the music we listen
to, in the clubs we frequent, and in our hearts and souls; when
innocence is lost before it is known, when cynicism is loaded upon hope
and hope is ballasted with irony, and we're exhorted by tax, tuition,
and smut-subsidized cultural officials to carry this pyramid's load
down the road to serfdom, shall we still be free to dream those greater
dreams? When under this burden America is then cut free from her
religious anchors in the name of secular economic freedom, and women
are sent off to raise the Dow Jones to pay taxes rather than raise
moral children, can America long survive and prosper as the flagship of
free republics, even if all the postmodern pyramid schemes never
collapse? Science and history have suggested otherwise-that where
God's morality is eroded, the eternal Bureaucracy marches forth to
become the stolid regulator of human interaction. When people cease to
govern themselves according to higher principles, they lose the ability
to be guarantors of their own wellness and happiness, and they soon
find themselves subject to a political order determined by other
mortals-the rule of Law gives way to the rule by men.

Where the Word-the sacred vessel of all poetry and politics-was
diminished or deconstructed, bullets and slogans oft became the new
brushes with which humanity painted upon history's canvas. And as the
past is prologue, any optimist of human affairs would be wise to aspire
to the wisdom of those who gave us not the gift of freedom, but the
documents which define and defend the freedom that they perceived as
being a gift from God.

In asking what is best for the future of a democratic republic, we are
really contemplating the best way in which to pass along freedom's
traditions. How might we rebuild the classical context wherein children
learn to love reading the Greats, and teachers are given the necessary
authority to teach them? How do we reinstall the killer-app open-source
software of the soul-the classics-which teach not by dictating how
to think, but by inspiring free thought in a rational context?

Today, too many of our peers reside in a superficial context of image
and sound, wherein the popular art, movies, music, and literature make
circular references to the same superficial brands in a self-contained
cultural whirlpool in history's greater context, where ephemeral
lusts, common degradation, and wayward feelings overrule rational
thought and the higher ideals. So how shall we introduce our friends to
a far more profound culture in the context of the Great Books? How
shall we revive the center and circumference of civilization, the crux
of conscience, the jury of justice, the romance of marriage, the honor
of honor, and the device by which we mark the pinnacles of our
aspirations-the written Word? We're not sure of the exact mechanism
nor means to accomplish this, but the crew here believes the answer
lies more in art than in scholarship, more in poetry than in politics.
For intellectuals study yesterday's renaissances far more often than
they inspire today's, and politicians follow the popular culture far
more often than they lead it.

At the dawn of the internet in 1995, the three sonneteers set out upon
a fleet frigate, seeking to pirate the profound and establish a brave
new website where the eternal optimism of the literary classics would
prevail-where the news of the day would always be that the world's
grown honest and Hamlet's gone mad. We saw the chance to marry the
greatest that has ever been written and spoken to the greatest
publishing medium ever known to the individual, and to create a
classical context wherein the glory of words would resound. We saw the
opportunity to circumnavigate the postmodern nonbelievers and cynics,
to appeal to the nobler aspects of humanity's conscience, and prove
that the world yet loves common sense embroidered in eloquence. We saw
the opportunity for a renaissance wherein dignity and honor would be
restored to public office, and the poetry would rhyme once again.

And with a little bit of that Midwest humor which walks hand-in-hand
with Midwest honor, we decided we'd have fun following the dream that
Providence had enabled. We would salute the passing postmodern era from
the decks of a pirate ship, acknowledging postmodernism's vast
success in pervading all aspects of contemporary culture; and with
broadsides of truth fired from the Western Canon, we'd let them know
we considered it good sport to play along with their irony-the irony
that a lover of the Great Books could be considered a barbarous
buccaneer upon Princeton's ivied campus. We were ruthless rebels
because we sought Truth's Traditions.

Postmodern liberalism had won the day, but as a fundamentally
secular-materialist philosophy, that was all that it had ever sought,
and tomorrow shall belong to the classics. For however fun the
postmodern era was, I don't think we'll be making a tradition out
of it. Political rhetoric is soon forgotten, while poetry is that which
endures.

We figured the best way to communicate our exalted vision would be to
combine the cutting-edge technology with the exact same literary
devices used by the sages of all ages. We'd use the common language
and the colloquial to sign sailors aboard, and we'd endow the poetry
at jollyroger.com with rhyme and meter. Whispering reason is far louder
than pompous pedantry, just as poetry is far more adept at winning a
girl's heart than polemics. The greatest writers had adorned their
works not with thesauruses, but with wit. If a preacher knows something
of poetry, then we'll listen, for they must know that deeper meaning
behind the sacred scripture-that law and order exist to protect
beauty's fundamental freedom.

A contemporary literary renaissance presents itself as a formidable
task-one cannot do it alone. For the fashionable relativists are
right in that truth and custom must have an appropriate societal
context within which to exist. And the concurrent relativistic societal
context, fortified with the entrenched prejudices of a maturing,
tenured generation that ushered in a Dionysian revolution via the
pre-internet electronic media, along with a plethora of ideological
"isms" to replace God's simple grace, coupled with a fading popular
culture centered about the printed word and an enforced cynicism
amongst a generation who for the most part only know of the Greats in
their deconstructed, corrupted form, makes the Apollonian renaissance
that jollyroger.com's sailing towards seem all but unreachable.

But then again, as the ancients noted, "post tenebras lux." After
darkness light. Just as God and the Greats originally sprang forth in
tradition's void, so it is that they might be born again in the midst
of a deconstructed culture. For poetry, religion, and romance are
sought by the immortal parts of all souls, and they never have greater
cause to be than when they are not. In the long run, without Truth men
cannot have those possessions most coveted by all deeper
souls-meaning and freedom. With this bold vision and humble hope,
jollyroger.com has set out to resurrect a classical context.

Though jollyroger.com's destination is pristine, the voyage has not
always been and will not always be so. It is a wonderful time to be
alive for the author and entrepreneur, with abundant wealth and
opportunity being fostered by the internet revolution, but even so, it
is a sobering mission to be called upon to serve poetry. For there are
those powerful elite today, and their ambitious disciples, who so
vehemently oppose the first Two Amendments of the United States
Constitution, who have it as their mission to prevent the honest from
lifting those pens which are mightier than the sword.

Neither Wall Street nor the postmodern academy nor publishing
industry-the iron triangle-will invest time nor money nor faith in
a renaissance, but that is OK, as a renaissance has little use for
money, and eternity's time will do just fine. Wall Street prudently
considers the poetry of a cultural renaissance a financial risk in
today's cultural conditions, while the academic MFA postmodernists
consider it a dire threat, and the corporate conglomerates of the
publishing industry have one foot in either camp. But we foresee the
dawn of a new era, wherein those who join in serving and enlightening
the public with the classical sentiments will profit immensely, both
spiritually and monetarily. It is time for a sea change, matey, and
time for the poetry to rhyme once again.

There have been and there are yet to be cruel nights out there in the
postmodern fog, where the Good Ship will seem all but lost, and where
the winds of elite and popular opinion will rage and blow in
opposition, while the critic's cannons blaze away with all the fury
of an MFA scorned. But such is the rugged nature of all greater
adventures, and as of late the seaward signs suggest that the wind is
shifting towards a more favorable direction.

Where men are yet free, they must have poetry equal to that freedom,
and where men yet have poetry, they must be free. Thus exalted poetry
is worth fighting for, and too, these are the reasons why those who
serve the darker powers shall always oppose pristine poetry. The
relativist's favorite tactic in cultural warfare is to redefine
sacred institutions as degraded, corrupted, political entities, from
poetry to the Presidency, until it appears that there is nothing to
defend, until only the dishonorable seem fit to slouch towards office.
Thus they win the war by convincing the common man that there is no war
to be fought, by deconstructing honor and chivalry, by proclaiming
poetry to be no more than politics, by teaching that Presidents were
always corrupt and will always be corrupt, and then enforcing their
dismal science throughout the culture. They deconstruct God and appoint
their friends to all the newly-minted bureaucracies which seek to
overrule His Decree, and which exacerbate the problems they seek to
solve, thereby providing coveted opportunities for more taxation, more
government programs, and more bureaucracy. With a snide smile they call
it irony and cynicism as they benefit in the shadows of the postmodern
fog, but we see it as something much darker than that, as their methods
rebel against God's Will.

Jefferson once stated that from time to time freedom's fields must be
fertilized with the blood of Tyrants and Patriots, and thus in order to
defend the profound prose of this renaissance, treacherous battles
shall be waged against the ferocious prejudices of pedants and
postmodernists for the right to write, publish, and disseminate poetry
written with words that rhyme and mean things. Postmodernists consider
the rhyming truth's shining light a violent assault upon their fogged
territory, and they will fight back viciously according to their
fundamental rules, which state that there are none but for what they
feel. A tyranny of liberal thought exists in the contemporary
publishing and academic industries, which is equal parts ignorance and
resentment, and which may best be defeated by light and truth rendered
with poetry and humor. God's Patriots must learn these gentle ways of
war.

Though these words will not be directly censored, pristine poetry may
be effectively banned by the erosion of the context which supports
it-when pornography is published, the sacred is censored. The Great
Books have been banned far more often by ignorance than by law. Many in
my generation shall never hear this melody as it's drowned out in the
base pounding bass of this week's corporate rock'n'roll, but it
shall be their loss, and not the words'. While we feel sympathy for
the cultural conformists lost in the apathy and cynicism of the
swirling fog, we nevertheless believe that as individuals it is
ultimately their choice, and may God help them find the Better Way. To
those who have, more shall be given, and to those who have not, even
that shall be taken away. May God inspire their moral imaginations to
dream beyond the gray on gray that has come to define their indifferent
universe, wherein spurious definitions of irony have become their
bigoted religion.

Postmodernists know that in order to defend their arbitrary power
structure, where exalted critics wield influence by hyping the value of
degraded literary works, they must defend to the death their
deconstructed context. They have learned that as long as the common
water source is poisoned with their politics, nothing will be allowed
to grow upon the private property of our souls but for barren cynicism.
They know that were the fog to break, the ideals of fidelity, honor,
and lasting romance would begin to blossom in the rising generation's
spirits. As the powerful architects of contemporary corruption, they
must disparage and destroy all who do not ultimately agree that black
is white and white is black, and thus noble romance and honest
innocence are their dire enemies.

The greatest postmodernists have never been the most beautiful nor
talented nor honest-they have ever been those with the least to lose
in the absence of beauty's truth and truth's beauty. Having little
in the way of the fundamental decencies and Natural private property,
as relativist critics they seek to gain by deconstructing others'
private property. And eventually there comes a time when there is
nothing left to deconstruct, but for the true living poets, who shall
be invincibly wicked in seeking vengeance for the razing of their
spiritual heritage and the cold-blooded murders of their cultural
fathers. So it is that the entire postmodern army of deans, agents,
editors, critics, and publishers today fear a lone poet by the name of
Drake Raft. For last night I saw his ghost in midtown Manhattan,
crossing Madison Avenue in cowboy boots, with his hat's brim hiding
his eyes.

Convoluted ironies and swirling vortexes will be encountered on the
high seas of postmodern culture, wherein it will yet once more be
observed that institutions which purport to cherish and transmit the
truth can easily be turned right around in the fog and become those
entities which most oppose it. As it must take an honest stand before
reality, some of the poetry and prose contained herein details the more
macabre customs particular to this generation, raised in the jaded wake
of free love, a declining reverence for the eternal soul, the
crassification of the popular cultural and political arena, and the
spiritual casualties of abortion.

At times aboard the decks of jollyroger.com, we peered a bit too deeply
into the fog's void, and as it looked back into us, we learned
firsthand how postmodern cynicism may breed the most powerful
enemy-one's very own conscience. For even when a man has slain all
the external demons, often the battle is only beginning, and never has
the enemy within known a better ally than postmodern relativism. We
kind of know where a lot of the postmodern priests are coming from. We
were in a grunge band and all that-we saw what the theories sung from
the secular pulpits on high could do to the souls of one's friends,
and we lost more than a few friends at the edge-to the classic
clichés of drinking and drugs, to the all-out pursuit of the material
high, to a few too many girls, and to the
Freudian-Darwinian-Nietzschean cynicism that God is no more than a
myth, and that we're no more than random chemical reactions, sans
intrinsic nor extrinsic meaning. Alas, without faith they joined the
living dead. Raised in the gray void sans tradition nor religion, they
never could discern the very grayness of the void, and so certain of
postmodern indifference, they were convinced that the eternal soul did
not exist, and they sold out for nothing at all. Such is the arrogance
of the small mind which never knows a context greater than itself, and
though conscious, never apprehends conscience.

We'd tasted that pseudo-scientific-secular atheism as physics majors
at Princeton, and we'll tell you that it was a natural faith in
something greater that saved us-wherefrom we also learned that virtue
is not to be found within revenge, but rather it is to be gained by
forgiving one's enemies. Never shall one prevail against the darkness
by answering with darkness, but only by lighting a light. We bear the
postmodern oligarchy and army-the deans, editors, professors,
lifetime politicians, cultural czars, MFA officials, professional
administrators, and all their eager students of decline-no malice,
but we only wish to inspire a literary movement that will grant the
children something greater than was given our generation.

This renaissance is by no means a generational war, but rather it's a
generational peace, as classics are written for all generations. It is
a recent marketing myth which ordains that every fifteen minutes the
new generation must be different (consume different things) from the
preceding one, for there is no difference in the continuum of eternal
souls. Justice is justice is justice, as it has always been, and as it
shall always be. By no means are the boomers in general to be held
responsible for postmodernism's obligatory cynicism, for I sense that
most of them are on our side, such as my mother and father, and the
high school teachers back in Ohio, who were humble before Shakespeare
and taught him by setting his words free within our souls.

And never forget-no matter what postmodernism's fading oligarchy
ordains, they cannot keep young poets from enjoying aesthetic freedom.
They can degrade the romantic to no end, assaulting the ideals of
pristine femininity and noble masculinity in the greater culture, but
young lovers' hearts belong to God alone, and the poetry of this
renaissance shall blossom in their souls. For I saw it in her deep
brown eyes just last night, walking the streets of Davidson, North
Carolina. If ye manage to keep objectivity's even keel-as our
conscientious teachers and parents did-knowing that the Greats are
yer crew members and God is the captain, then the eternal treasures at
jollyroger.com shall be yers for the keeping.

Poets are the fundamental leaders of all cultural transitions, and all
noble leaders must begin by voyaging beyond the contemporary in their
dreams, on towards the higher ideals; and from these spiritual
pinnacles they can hope to appeal to the better angels of human nature.
Fortune and chance play a decisive role in setting the stage, but once
set, all those who follow the call to set the truth down in words
proceed by creative endeavor and luck, on towards the same immutable,
classical elements that all poets and prophets have ever sought. Though
ye might sometimes feel yer walking the straight and narrow alone, know
ye that this voyage is eternity's most popular journey amongst the
Greats, and thus yer always in good company.

We were fortunate in that we began harboring dreams of a literary
renaissance at the dawn of the internet revolution, and too, we were
fortunate to be living in beautiful North Carolina, where we could meld
the natural romance emanating from places like Kill Devil Hill and
Chapel Hill and Boone, and the majestic lighthouses and mountains-all
reaching for the Carolina blue skies-into the jollyroger.com aura.
And the power and fury of September's hurricanes always served to
remind us of beauty's fundamental fragility.

Back in 1994, rejection slips were piling up for our more traditional
and refined literature, when suddenly a channel out towards a popular
renaissance opened upon the internet. We took advantage of the Linux
knowledge which becomes second nature to all physicists, and we set
about creating a classical context in the popular culture. And out upon
the web, we found that greatest treasure of all-a live global
audience to serve. Upon the open seas, all yer appreciative emails
combined to form the favorable winds that filled jollyroger.com's
sails in its formative years. And never for a moment do we
forget-were it not for all of ye out there, we might've made it out
beyond the postmodern fog, but we would've never made it back to
shore. For writing is the voyage out, and being read is the voyage back
on home.

While the revolutions in online commerce have been trumpeted far and
wide, and while jollyroger.com has certainly benefited from them, we
see a spiritual revolution in the culture as a nobler opportunity. As
the ecommerce infrastructure solidifies, with the thousands of
high-tech pyramid schemes collapsing, and the useful websites achieving
global dominance, the renaissance beyond the postmodern fog shall take
a bit longer to realize, as it is easier to change how people shop for
books rather than change the books they shop for, and the context they
read books in. It is perhaps impossible to change an aging
generations' heart, and thus the culture must wait for the rising
generation to resurrect those permanent beacons which endow life with
its richer meanings. Have faith we will, mate, for God springs eternal.

Before the internet, it was difficult to imagine a locale upon this
globe where people from all walks of life could gather to discuss the
Great Books, but now such a timeless, ubiquitous entity exists, an
equidistant one-click away from everywhere in the world. And though the
conversations range in quality and tenor, the Great Books don't seem
to mind, as they have changed not one word, nor their unyielding,
eternal context of Freedom's Truths. And now and then we receive the
email that makes it all worthwhile: "Thanks for inspiring me to read
Moby Dick. . ."

Some critics contend that literature serves no moral purpose and that
words should be read for mere enjoyment, and we hope that they enjoy
these words. And too, we hope jollyroger.com serves as a map that helps
the reader find a safe passage out towards their dreams. Always
remember this-even though our greater dreams are sometimes
unobtainable, there is yet vast beauty left in the wake of their
pursuit. For although Einstein, Socrates, and Captain Ahab never
apprehended the white whales they originally set sail seeking, they yet
left behind immortal art and science within the records of their
pursuit of the Truth.

It hasn't always been smooth sailing away out here, but it would have
been far more perilous had we not had the vast inheritance of the
priceless maps created by all the poets and philosophers who have
sailed before us. If ye haven't read the Greats, let jollyroger.com
be the portal out to great adventures, and if ye have read them, may
these words accompany ye on yer next voyage; for the Great Books are
the ones worth returning to time and again. From Hamlet, to the
Declaration of Independence, to the Bible-those were the charts by
which we navigated the Good Ship, and ye'll find many of the same
prominent markers throughout the words which follow.

Contained herein are essays, articles, and poetry written during the
five years we've spent before the mast of jollyroger.com-many of
the passages and poems were composed close to land's end, in places
like Ocracoke, Kill Devil Hills, Hatteras, and Nantucket, and perhaps
the words would best be read in close proximity to the wind and waves.
The final chapter was written as our band was being evacuated from the
Outer Banks during Hurricane Floyd-the last major hurricane of the
millennium-and though there's no need to duplicate those extreme
conditions while perusing this prose, there's certainly a
poetry-enhancing magic to be found a stone's-throw from the ocean.
The vastness of eternity becalms the spirit, and the ocean's expanse
reflects the eternal dimensions of our souls, reminding us that our
spirits are far greater than the daily trifles and worries which so
often obscure life's grander picture.

Some of the passages are a bit more angst-ridden or satirical than we
would write now, but at the same time, many of the youthful sentiments
we could never quite express again, so we have left them mostly intact.
For that which seems trite or naïve to the more experienced conscience
is often beautiful to those just setting sail-and after all, what is
angst but vital hope that yet perseveres in the midst of overarching
irony and corruption? At any rate, passion did most of the work for us,
and thus we should be grateful to her and not overstep our bounds in
editing someone else's work. We have faith that with the great
diversity of readers out there, of all ages and from all continents,
the words which follow shall find appropriate minds and spirits to
reside within.

Although jollyroger.com is a profitable business, the words which
follow constitute the most valuable treasures ever transported within
the Good Ship's holds. They are the intangible, eternal, ungraspable
part-we set out not to make money, but to publish these verities
which we felt would be of use to others also harboring dreams of a
cultural resurgence. Each chapter views an aspect of contemporary
society from the deeper context of the classics; and as relationships,
art, the environment, poetry, ghost stories, business, music,
philosophy, science, the classics, publishing, politics, breweries,
piano pubs, and God are all inextricably woven into the quilt of
existence, the chapters share many common elements.

The chief aim of science and literature are to unify and explain the
mysterious without denying it-to make everything as simple as
possible, but not more so. And in its simplest form this renaissance
must be a collection of renaissances-literary, political,
technological, architectural, and spiritual-within the poet and the
reader alike. For we only know the definition of a word within the
context of others. Hence our new domain: renaissances.com.

Once upon a time, when we would have sent this manuscript out to agents
and publishers, our journey on out towards yer deeper souls would have
ended at the blockade of their reluctance to believe in the prospects
or possibility of this renaissance. But today the revolutions in
electronic publishing are rendering the postmodern literary bureaucrats
insignificant. Neither Plato nor Shakespeare nor Thoreau nor Jefferson
nor Melville ever had to work through MFA agents and editors who must
relentlessly publish and hype temporal books so as to earn their keep.
The contemporary abundance of literary middlemen and general literary
decline is in part a symptom of the plethora of creative writing
workshops, which mass produce marketers and critics who are sympathetic
to the postmodern cause. Sensing the threat to their elite culture
clubs and lumbering bureaucracies, which are as close to eternity as
they'll ever come, the literary elite must try to convince themselves
that these words shall be unable to find a market within the hearts and
souls of the public-that is their job. By devaluing Truth and the
Word, they were able to temporarily enhance the relative worth of their
liberal politics. As uncreative administrators and redistributors of
literary wealth, they are of course sympathetic to relativistic and
communistic causes, as these are the ideologies by which the untalented
ambitious can band together and share the spoils of others' labor and
craftsmanship, or spoil others' labor and craftsmanship, and hype
vulgar nihilism. The postmodern era has been the golden era of
middlemen critics and politicians, but it is foolish for them to
believe that it can last forever, especially when they failed in their
central task of deconstructing the Permanent Things, which are now
again beginning to blossom.

The internet, by providing a clear passage out towards a classical
renaissance, has exposed their arrogant uselessness in eternal matters
better than any words ever could have. They had ample chance to sign
aboard, or even set up renaissance sites of their own, and they'll
always be welcome aboard as deckhands, but for now jollyroger.com sails
on towards eternity without them. All artists must make choices, to
serve the fleeting fashions or the thundering eternities felt deep
within their souls, and it are those rarer spirits, who have the
courage and strength to follow eternity's calling rather than the
critic's ephemeral editorials and the banker's temporal lusts, who
end up penning the poetry for eternity's popular culture. It's
nothing more than fate, matey, and it would be hubris to fight it.

We've hung out in New York enough to know how the future is presented
in the slackademic MFA/MBA marketing departments' PowerPoint
presentations, but from high atop the crow's nest, we've glimpsed
the dawn beyond the breaking fog. Literature in its most sublime form
has never been about following markets, but it has ever been about
creating them. The hundreds of thousands of visitors to jollyroger.com
may receive these words immediately with a simple click, and these
words of optimism may be forwarded and downloaded endlessly about the
watery globe, spreading like wildfire throughout the contemporary
conscience. So it is that in the internet age we no longer approach
publishers so much as to ask to have a book published, but instead we
invite them to join us aboard an entire context-for this ship has
left port.

We know it's just a small ship, and its contribution towards any
renaissance will be far smaller than the daily contributions of all the
hard-working, innovative people who make this country work. Machiavelli
once stated that a man's intelligence can be assessed by the quality
of men he surrounds himself with, and in that regard, the three
sonneteers have been very fortunate. And if we can be of any assistance
in helping parents inspire their children to read, or entertaining and
exalting a cynical college student with a few words of contemporary
wisdom from their peers, then all the better. If jollyroger.com serves
to introduce a couple of people to the beauty of the classics, then
I'll know the Good Ship is headed in the right direction. If the
rising generations seek to engage in the Apollonian arts and once again
return to rhyming, metered verse; and narratives with plots, and heroes
with moral dreams and flawed natures rather than anti-heroes with
perfect cynicism; and if a new scholarship arises, wherein words once
again mean things, promises are made to be kept, and professors
illuminate the greater moral truths in the Great Books; and if politics
follows the poetry's lead, and just beauty is again found in
eternity's higher order, and tomorrow's statesmen are again
schooled amongst the Greats, then jollyroger.com shall be well on her
way. And we think she is.

There's a poem which scrolls across the bottom of the jollyroger.com
pages, which has scrolled hundreds of thousands of times over the past
five years. Now a lot of sailors have expressed admiration for it, and
many have requested printouts, so we would like to conclude this
introduction with the poem, which also opens our first volume of
collected jollyroger.com poetry entitled Eternity in a Grain of Sand:
The Most Perfect Silence of Jollyroger.com Poetry. Neither this
manuscript nor the volume of poetry were ever even sent off to the
traditional publishers for consideration, but instead they were both
sent directly to you, via a myriad of new technologies ranging from
HTML to XML to PDF to print-on-demand. The lumbering conglomerate
fleet, anchored by postmodern prejudices and loaded with thousands of
faceless middlemen hypesters, has proven too dilatory and demented to
navigate a renaissance upon the high seas of the WWW. They had their
chance to get in on the ground floor, but now it's going to cost them
millions, and even then, maybe something that you just can't buy.
Again, poetry's profound peril and glory, and literature's wondrous
risks and rewards, are left to the rugged individual-the rugged
individual who one day awakens to realize that they have no choice but
to follow God's Will.

Not only were we the first to pen these sentiments, but we were also
the first to publish them, which of course will be viewed as a
liability by our critics. But we contend that if yer man enough to
write a book yerself, ye might as well be man enough to publish it
yerself.

In lecturing about the purpose and beauty of poetry, in defending the
rational foundations of noble civility and exalted existence, we pledge
to never forget the most perfect silence which resides at the center
and circumference of jollyroger.com's reason to be-eternal poetry
for all the stalwart sailors. In war, one must never forget the peace
one is fighting for. Welcome aboard an American Renaissance, mate.

-At yer service, Captain Becket Knottingham

Standing on Hatteras, North Carolina

The Most Perfect Silence

I know where the most perfect silence is,
Seen it in the wild blue off Hatteras,
A mile out, rainbowed sails in silent bliss,
Looked like they'd collide, but they safely passed.
I know when the most perfect silence is,
Down a dusty Ohio road, high noon,
No shirt on, being burned by the sun's kiss,
Sixteen, takin' my time-it was still June.
I know what the most perfect silence is,
It's what we say when falling out of love,
It roars and thunders right through the kiss,
Says all that no words can ever speak of.
I know why the most perfect silence is,
It is there for the whisper to be born,
The whisper in her ear became the kiss,
Just a dream in DC early one morn.
I know who the perfect silence is for,
It is for the ones whom we love the best,
It is there to protect them from our core,
By the silent trust we all seek to rest.
And I know how rare that silence can be,
With everyone talkin', it's hard to hear,
But I know I felt it, on the streets of DC,
The sound in her eyes-it was crystal clear.
And it brought back to mind the rainbowed sails,
And the way it looked like they would collide,
Like two souls set upon fate's iron rails,
But the most perfect silence never died.

Discuss @ http://jollyrogerwest.com !

[Captain Ranger McCoy]

HA HA HA HA! NY PUBLISHING SINKS TO NEW LOWS!!!

HYPE! HYPE! HYPE!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/business/media/27traveler.html?

How does a company market a science fiction-tinged novel that it thinks
could be the next "Da Vinci Code" if the author refuses to do
publicity?

By pretending the book is a movie.
Skip to next paragraph
Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Jason Kaufman, the editor of "The Traveler" and "The Da Vinci Code."

To promote "The Traveler," a story set in a futuristic society written
by John Twelve Hawks, Doubleday turned to the film and television
industries for inspiration.

"If you're going to look to an industry for innovative and aggressive
marketing tactics, it's definitely those industries - not the
publishing industry," said John Pitts, the marketing director at
Doubleday, an imprint of Random House.

The tactics Doubleday has adopted to promote Mr. Twelve Hawks's first
novel include the use of street teams - groups of young people armed
with posters dispatched to talk up the book at events like concerts -
and a Web campaign to start discussions of the book in forums like the
Alternate Reality Gaming Network.

The publisher is hoping to convince readers that the novel is "The
Matrix crossed with Alias," said Alison Rich, the Doubleday publicity
director. However, the company would be happy to settle for simply
convincing elusive young male readers to pick up the book, which goes
on sale tomorrow.

Doubleday worked out a low seven-figure deal for the worldwide rights
to "The Traveler" and its two planned sequels, according to Publishers
Weekly. The book is being published in 18 countries, and has been
optioned by Universal for a film. All that hype does not mean the book
will succeed. Publishers and booksellers often have few hard clues
about which book will become popular and which will languish on
shelves.

Discuss @ http://jollyroger.com

[jollyro...@yahoo.com]

Hype hype hype.

The pomo publishing industry is running out of options.

Join the renaissance: http://starbuck.com

[greatbook...@yahoo.com]

Moby Dick & the Great American Classics Rock!!!

http://jollyrogerwest.com

You all know how Captain Ahab is the captain of The Jolly Roger. We
chose the name for a reason. All that Ahab wanted to do when he was
young was go a-whaling, and bring home to the people a valuable
commodity which lit their lamps at night. All that the crew of The
Jolly Roger wished to do as college students was to serve our
generation with Great contemporary literature, to learn of the Greats
who wrote before us, to write in their context, to light the lamps of
our peer's moral consciences, and to enrich their existence. And just
as Moby Dick demasted Ahab, cleaving his right leg while Ahab was yet a
young whaler, so too is it that the postmodern boomer bureaucracy has
cleaved the rational aesthetic of this generation, denying it its
Natural Right to words that mean things, along with families in which
those who brought us into the world still hang out. Without hesitation,
aspiring liberal university presidents traded the rich Western heritage
for personal gain in the liberal resentnik context. Perhaps they did
not agree with everything that was said and done, but they did not
speak up, and that, matey, is the leader's responsibility, which was
once upon a time married to the title. They hired all their friends and
did their best to do away with the conscientious publishing industry
and profound press so that they could reign supreme in a politicized,
polemical context, as that is the bureaucrat's favorite type of
context. Where all were to be ruled by pleasure and pain, and reason
and logic were but for the insane. Without any consideration for the
future of their country, for the spiritual health of their children,
and for their responsibility towards God and the community of eternal
souls, the postmodern smooth-talking leaders sold out to the liberal
deconstructionist and polemical resentnik. This Fact shall be Attested
to by the Fallen State of contemporary Culture, as well as their
pretended innocence and extreme silence on the Dervish Matter. For
grave cultural crimes occurred in the deep of the night, beneath their
intellectually indifferent command. We were all kicked out of creative
writing class by Joyce Carol Oates, but we bear her no malice, for it
was all kind of funny. As a fringe feminist, she was but a pawn in the
greater liberal crusade. Here's this hideous woman who cannot write,
and what President Shapiro of Princeton does is he sets her up as the
paragon of all writers, so that when the honest, rational soul comments
on her literary atrocities, the liberals can accuse that honest,
rational soul of being sexist. Liberals want you to be sexist. They
need you to be. If you were to admit that the Eternal Soul knows no
color nor gender, you would contradict their theories, and they would
dismiss you as a right-wing wacko for not judging people by their skin
color and gender. It's part of the postmodern paradox, part of the
industry, part of the joke. The fringe feminists' dominant presence
upon the gothic grounds of Princeton is but a microscopic symptom of a
far more profound cultural decay, where pornographers and embittered
deconstructionists dictate the tenor of the literary culture, while
idle, amoral administrators are paid huge salaries to keep their
silence in the face of their crew's cultural pillages, rampages, and
burnings. And so it is that the White Whale is the massive postmodern
bureaucracy, and the crew of The Jolly Roger, as well as the entire
generation which floats in the wake of the
liberal-boomer-educational-CEOs, have been demasted by it. And while so
many are today bent on "profitable cruises paid with dollars to be
counted down from the mint" when they got out of college, we have
higher standards, for we value our sacred honor and our heritage over
our monetary wage. We sail The Jolly Roger , on the wild seas of the
WWW bent on "imitigable and supernatural revenge." Argrhrghrgh!

But too, as we sailed onwards, achieving world dominance without
registering on the liberal's radar, we grew to recognize softer
sentiments aboard The Jolly Roger, such as those likened to First Mate
Starbuck's nature. And I say that it is no small coincidence that on
that gusty night by the Corolla Light, the chapter of Moby Dick which
the wind had finally settled upon was was entitled Knights and Squires,
and you can find it here, or ye can continue with this exposition. It
is the chapter which elaborates on Starbuck's character. I urge ye to
make a sincere, valiant effort in completing it, as only in its context
will the profundities of this essay manifest themselves. Ye might as
well get used to one thing, matey. Only in the context of the Great
Books will ye gain the full riches of yer seafaring adventures aboard
The Good Ship Jolly Roger.

It was the First Mate Starbuck who realized,

I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and
not to be killed by them for theirs; and that hundreds of men had been
so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom was his own father's? Where, in
the bottomless deeps, could he find the torn limbs of his brother?

For look what the liberals have done to our fathers and brothers, to
Shakespeare, Homer, Milton, Dante, Donne, and Melville upon the college
campuses. Is it any wonder that they would not hesitate to do the same
to us? It is they who are out for vengeance, against that near-extinct
species, the Great White Male.

Nay, it is not us who seek vengeance. I have realized what F. Scott
Fitzgerald meant when he stated that "all fundamental decencies are
parceled out unevenly at birth." For the postmodern resentniks, fringe
feminists, and bureaucrats thrive in the political and polemical
because they know not how to appreciate poetry. A true poet risks
losing his soul and right to write when entering the administrative
politicized world, whereas the politcian is unburdened with this
artistic integrity and calling to render the Truth. No fringe feminist
who ever witnessed the romantic glory of a storm blowing in off the
Atlantic would seek to deconstruct Shakespeare, for they are but one
and the same. And without a grounding in the ineffable romance of young
love, without a foundation in the wondrous mysteriousness which
Einstein saw lying at the base of all art and science, without an
appreciation of God's subtleties, without a sterling memory of Misty's
silhouette high-lighted by the sweeping Corolla light, without the
private property afforded by a resolutely honest spirit, they are but
the dumb brutes of society, a herd of polemical cowards. And the Good
Angel of Starbuck's voice rings out across the open waters of the Web:

"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote
thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing,
Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."-- Chapter 36 The Quarterdeck

Starbuck reminds us that it is not in God's plan for us to seek
retribution for having been kicked out of creative writing class-- to
forever berate the fringe feminists and expose the boomer generation's
void of intellectual leadership. God's Time will take care of them and
all they create, as sure as Time's God will resurrect all that they
have dismantled. The Good Ship's Mission is to build the world's
largest classical community, and resurrect the traditions, works,
masterpieces, and ideals which set man free, endowed him with morality,
and which have made his life richer, his soul eternal, and this country
Great. And one of these ideals is forgiveness.

Towards the magnificent end of Moby Dick, when Ahab has already lowered
twice on two consecutive days in pursuit of the white whale, only to
have his boat smashed to splinters by the great white Leviathan, Ahab
lowers once again on the third day of the chase.

"Great God! but for one single instant show thyself," cried
Starbuck; "never, never wilt thou capture him, old man- In Jesus's name
no more of this, that's worse than devil's madness. Two days chased;
twice stove to splinters; thy very leg once more snatched from under
thee; thy evil shadow gone- all good angels mobbing thee with
warnings:- what more wouldst thou have?- Shall we keep chasing this
murderous fish till he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him
to the bottom of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal
world? Oh, oh,- Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him more!"

And considering that the postmodern bureaucracy is a "dumb brute,"
immune to reason, having expelled it at its inception, would it not be
mad to take vengeance upon that which has no conscience to comprehend
justice? For their sole intent today is to distract us from our Purpose
of laying the foundations for the Millennium's Renaissance. They would
like to drag us down in their politics, and thus the best vengeance is
to turn the other cheek, forgive them, and let Eternity judge their
doings. For vengeance is the postmodern liberal deconstructionist's
game, and envy and materialistic ambition is their sustenance. But lest
we become like them, we must remind ourselves that our mission is not
their deconstruction, for there is nothing to deconstruct, but rather
our mission is the creation of the world's largest classical community.
So we forgive them in this world, and may God have mercy on them in the
next.

And so we alter our course and turn towards a far greater cause-- to
serve the community of eternal souls. We turn away from the aging,
passionless pedants, and towards the nobler souls of the rising
generation. For we, the prematurely labeled slacker generation-x, have
yet to speak for ourselves. We turn away from the fading illiterate
boomer corporate grunge culture, towards the millennium's renaissance.
For within the kids exists all that the liberals removed from the
university, and I say that the teenagers shall understand the silent,
sober beauty of that foggy night beside the Corolla Light, long before
the hippy turned management consultant develops the capacity to
appreciate rhyming, metered verse. I am haunted. I can neither forget
nor comprehend the way the great sweeping light silhouetted her
profile, as the beacon revolved about on its endless voyage. All I know
is that I've got to tell you about it. And below these words from me
mighty crew, ye'll find me final biddings.

From: Becket Knottingham
To: cecilia lynn comstock
Subject: Re: your mail

I just read Kill devil hill by becket knottingham. It was very
moving for me. Finally, my thoughts and fears have been put into words
by someone. We are not all as the boomers would have people believe.
Most of us are desperately trying to be moral and just human beings, in
a society that tells us to be the opposite.The boomers generation was
about money, money, money. If there is a lack of love, compassion, and
justice within our generation, it is only because they raised us that
way. I applaud your effort . Keep sailing, with GOD as your mate, for
he is surely mine.

From: Bidlack To: bec...@killdevilhill.com
Subject: wow

becket--

you are the absolute voice of truth; you speak straight to my soul.
i've been sitting here for the past couple hours just in awe of your
work. being only a freshman in high school, i'm often encouraged by
both friends and adults to just slack off because it's not worth the
trouble, but you have been the inspiration and verification that i
needed that it's going to be up to me to find what's inside of me.
thanks a lot. belinda bidlack, an already struggling artist

From: Mary Cohutt
To: dr...@jollyroger.com
Subject: The most perfect silence.....

I know what the perfect silence is.......silent words that
touch.....tears that fall unnoticed... a softening heart...

Thank you for your words

From: Adam Jones
To: cap...@jollyroger.com
Subject: A cancer within the literary world

Mr Raft and fellow JR mariners:

For some weeks now fellow JR deckhand Seymour Jacklin and I have
been conducting a campaign against 'poet' Murray Lachlan Young. For
your sake I hope you have not yet come across him as I am sure his
rabid, vapid, drug fueled rantings would drive you into apoplexy.
Murray was recently signed to EMI for around 1m pounds sterling, and, I
believe, appears occasionally on MTV in the States reading his
abominations between programs. He is being promoted as a poet and sees
himself as one. To think that a man who is clearly an idiot is lining
himself up with Whitman and Pound makes me nauseous.

Unfortunately some of his poetry is now on the net, and the
following URL will refer you to one of his better (but still dreadful)
offerings. URL will refer you to one of his better (but still dreadful)
offerings. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bookworm/juggler.htm.

So far the reaction to MLY has run along the following lines:

In a number of media interviews Young has painted a picture of
serious poets - the majority of whom, naturally, do not like him - as
stuffy reactionaries opposing the man who heralds the renaissance of
poetry. However poetry requires a certain amount of intellectual rigour
and crafting; I doubt that even Young himself would consider claiming
his 'poetry' contains a modicum of either. (from my web pages).

Although you must be very busy, Seymour and I would be very happy
to see opposition to 'the bimbo of poetry' championed by the great JR
crew. Failing that, a few words would be very much appreciated as an
indication to the crazed supporters of this fraud that the poetry world
isn't going to lie down and let MLY urinate all over it.

The saddest thing is that some elements of the press seem to think
MLY represents the future of English poetry and are pushing him as 'the
modern Byron'.

Thanks - regards to the great floating bastion of literature and
all who sail with her...

Adam....@durham.ac.uk http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d61m4w/
From: Greg and Jan Millsaps
To: mcgu...@jollyroger.com

Elliot,

I thoroughly enjoyed your massive website. I am a North Carolinian
and can appreciate your love for our Outer Banks and Blue Ridge
mountains. I am an avid backpacker and surfer so I enjoy these extremes
as well!

This site is definitely a wake up call to an apathetic and snoozing
generation. I think the neo-conservative/classical liberal/libertarian
type views are gaining a hold on the hearts and imaginations of our
generation (I consider myself part of the so-called "Gen X" even though
I just turned 30). I found the articles in "Hatteras" intriguing. Do
you have a creative writing type of journal? If so I would love to
submit some poems and/or short stories for consideration.

Thanks again for the hard work you folks have put into this site...
I know this level of eloquent insight doesn't come cheaply! Please
email me back when you get time.

- Greg
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 12:06:32 -0500
From: Ville Platte High School Library
To: dr...@jollyroger.com
Subject: on the really cool pirate theme of the web-site

Avast,maties and yo ho ho! This is the infamous Bloody eye billy.
This the best ship Ive seen from Canary to James town. What inspired
the pirate theme and do you have a a musical like the Pirates of
Penzance? If you do E-mail the lyrics to me at VPHSL@7. Ahoy, throw the
liberals to the sharks and sail on the seven cyberseas! My favorite
book is Le Miserables but only after treasure island! Shiver me
timbers, Its a mutiny Ive got to skin a few wharf rats!
From: SARAH SCHAEFFER
To: bec...@jollyroger.com
Subject: Ahoy jollyroger!

Ahoy!. Thank you for the letter. It was awesome. I cannot tell you
how relieved I am at yer words! In an effort to love me fellow man I
was becoming liberal minded. I was gettin' pulled down in mire of
creature worship. Ah thank you man, you saved me from a fate worse than
death. I think I accidentally sent your message back to you. I'm new at
steering me rutter on the internet seas. Not since I've read George
Macdonald, have I seen anything so thought provoking. I don't know what
I'm going to do with ya you bonnie man. I was thinking that there is
some one you'd like to meet. He 's a pastor over here in Seattle
Washington (USA). He's 26 and endeavors to make the Book of all books
relevant to our generation. I call us the orphaned generation. Left in
front of the one eyed babysitter while our parents went to accumulate
all the material possessions they rallied against in the 60's. Anyway
his name is Mark Driscoll, and he teaches near the University District.
He's real intelligent and has a knack with words. They also have a
discussion philosophical group on campus. The web site is
Marshil...@aol.com I think you'd really enjoy yerself. His friend
Lief reminds me of the Red Avenger. He has a talk show to reach out to
the orphaned generation. He gets down to the brass tacks too, cuts
right to it. Anyway, thanks again for your frank reply to the
Postmodern porno graphic 'slackers' who's 'words don't mean anything.'
I would say one thing thou. It's real easy to get into the rut of
railing against the jerks and forget to promote the good. I'm not
worried though. You've got a good head on your shoulders and I thought
all you needed is the merest whisper of a suggestion. I look forward to
your next hail. If there's anything I can do for ya just whistle. Ayla
the Jem piping off.

From: Kristen
To: bec...@jollyroger.com
Subject: Love to all!!!!!1

This is amazing I never knew of your site till I stumbled upon it
this day. I am amazed and can not think of a greater place to find out
the Truth! I am definitely going to make sure my friends read this. I
am a junior in high school and fear the plot of liberals against me
when I go to enter college. I have already confronted extreme liberals
in my current school, and I was given an undeserved lower grade because
of it (but I got him back by telling the Truth in front of the class
every time he said something stupid, I mean liberal. I would love to
receive your newsletter or be notified if this site is updated. I am
sorry, but I do not know my e-mail, but as soon as I know I will write
again (we just rerouted our entire computer) Well, I'll be looking for
more later and thank you for the wonderful site!

Kirstin
From: Nat Carswell
To: bec...@jollyroger.com
Cc: na...@iglou.com
Subject: AHOY!!!!!

I love this!! I have found my home on the world-wide web. My name
is John Carswell, and I am an eighteen year old high school senior at
an all-male Catholic high school in Louisville, KY. The cooling sting
of the sea-breeze, the gentle roar of the Atlantic shore... the
possibility of the high seas!!! This is madness!!! I have grown up with
the ocean a part of my soul!! No man-made music is sweeter to me than
the jollity of the Jamaican steel drum. All of these things I associate
with literature, the poetry of Shakespeare, with my own endeavours into
the world of beautiful, painful truth, which is the Word!!!

I will be in contact with ye; rest assured of that!

The Dread Pirate Carswell
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 23:49:57 -0500
From: Fred Hallett
To: bec...@jollyroger.com
Subject: Sailor's Shakedown Cruise: A bit of wisdom from John
Stuart Mill

Doolies (the lowest form of cadet life) at the U.S.Air Force
Academy must memorize this cogent bit of philosophy written by one of
England's foremost thinkers. It bears repeating in this good company:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that
nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for
which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his
own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has little chance of
being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than
himself. " Sailor
From: barbara macauley
To: bec...@jollyroger.com
Subject: Re: Duplicate Registration

Thanks for your letter. I am a grandmother, who received WEBTV from
my 15 -year-old grandson last July for my 70th birthday. I am having
great fun with it, and found your website thereon. My husband and I
retired here to Chapel Hill in l982 to be near our only son. Then he
moved to Switzerland, London, New York, and lives in Connecticut at
present. DON'T ever try to follow your children...as they might MOVE.
Anyway, we are still here in Chapel Hill...and probably will stay here
now. I don't have any interest in starting a literary cafe, although
this town might be ripe for one. This is a very strange and diverse
place.. as you know. We are among the few Republicans in these parts...
and the liberal professors abound. But it is kind of fun to be
different! Sincerely, Barbara (The Blonde) Macauley.
From: Renee Gilbert
To: bec...@jollyroger.com
Subject: English Major Burnout

Hello. I was browsing through your webpage while looking for things
for my paper. It was good enough for me to bookmark it. I'm an English
major at Indiana Univeristy. It is absolutely amazing how much red tape
and hassles I have gone through while attending this stupid university.
The thing that really burned me up was the fact that if one were to
transfer between campuses of the SAME university, the credits won't
even transfer!!! I was knocked a whole grade level because of it. Most
of the profs are bland. The reason why they have the "My way of no way"
mind frame is laziness. They don't want to take the time to even
explore what anybody has to say. I have one more year and I'm burned
out. I even feel regret for even attending university, but that stupid
degree is needed. Enough of my whining. For aboard your ship, I find
myself beyond it all. Renee
From: Philip A. Brown
To: bec...@killdevilhill.com
Subject: think you

Thank you for putting a kick-ass site on the web. It's great to
find people I can actually discuss my studies with. This is what makes
learning such a great experience.

From: Kurt
To: bec...@killdevilhill.com
Subject: motivation

It is nice to see that literature is not dead. Finding anything of
bookmarking Killdevilhill, I find it much easier. Thanks for helping
keep books alive.
From: The Boryan's
To: bec...@jollyroger.com
Subject: Ahoy there matey

Dear becket,

I just simply love your web page. There are a lot of fun things to
do. I like that greeting card w\ the lighthouse and the sonnet. That
was a brilliant idea. I haven't had time to explore your entire site,
but I have bookmarked it and plan to return many times. I appreciate
the work you must put in to send people (including myself) the sonnet
of the day. That was also a neat idea. I can appreciate your site even
more, because I have been to every one of those lighthouses you
mentioned and have pictured, and have stayed on the Outer Banks many
times. We usually stay in Duck. Well have fun keeping your site up. Yea
drop me a line if you get time at abo...@hotmail.com

[jollyro...@yahoo.com]

http://jollyrogerwest.com

Ahoy there literary seafarers and welcome aboard the renaissance fleet
at Carolinanavy.com. Aboard our fine ships of the line ye'll encounter
thousands of literary and technological tributes to the classics,
ranging from classicgreetings.com, to the poems of the day series, to
discussions pertaining to all of mankind's greatest artistic and
intellectual endeavors. And while the thousands of ships range in
design and destination, the original poetry and prose, penned by the
three sonneteers, shall remain ruggedly constructed from, "Oak planks
of reason, riveted with rhyme, designed to voyage across all of time."
For the truest way to live the Great Books is not to merely talk about
and read them, but it is to create within their rich context-- and that
is the destination of this enterprise. Upon this glorious new medium
words are free as never before to voyage to the far reaches of the
seven seas, and thus the Truth knows no natural barriers but for a
local lack of Faith. With the rising cultural and technological winds
at our backs, we'll strive to keep an even keel as we marry eternity's
meaning to this brave new medium. And I say there'll be no turning back
'til we've gained the renaissance.

In addition to being a launching site for our words, may our classical
portals become a destination-- a temperate tavern for all wind-whipped
poets, philosophers, and statesmen. For I say it's always those brave,
salty sailors and soldiers of the soul who have the best stories to
tell, and where better to hear a tale of everlasting honor than beside
the sea? There's an infinite peace to be found in the ocean there, a
permanence and invincibility which reflects and buoys the nobler
aspects of mankind while drowning the baser, and it's this same
infinite grandeur which is the hallmark of all Great Literature. Go
running along the beach, alongside the rolling surf where no stone
monument endures, and ye'll soon notice that all the leeward sounds of
punditry and politics, the millions of contemporary quips, quotations,
and distortions of pedants and litigators, can no longer be heard. For
already the muddled buzz of those words have begun fading, fading since
the moment they were uttered, destined to be replaced by the steady,
leveling wind of the Great Books.

Some souls are born to be seafarers, ceaselessly drawn towards the
freedom in the boundless infinite, endlessly seeking to walk with the
eternal, and it are these souls who keep the context of the Greats
alive. This they do in their daily lives, in their daily efforts, in
their daily acts of nobility which are far more often accompanied by
humility and hard work than by pomp and circumstance. Some of them have
read little of the Greats, as Shakespeare had never read much
Shakespeare, but if they did, they would immediately find themselves in
a friendly harbor. For the Greats rarely tell us things we did not
know, but rather they so beautifully bolster and eloquently affirm
those things which we always knew to be true. So let these classical
ports become places where we voyage to strengthen our souls.

Though they often sail in silence, the Greats remain perpetually poised
on the brink of formidable action, and I say these vigilant minutemen
are about to be awakened by this renaissance's call to arms. Those now
training within our ports to become privateer poets shall possess the
weapons of wit, wisdom, and eloquence that shall prove essential in
winning the imminent literary battle. Victory shall provide us with the
pristine territory and cultural positions which so many congressman,
pundits, lawyers, and professors aspire to by inferior means. For
poetry is only ever won by poetry, and as the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution were written by poets and
philosophers, so it is that the documents might be best apprehended and
defended by the same. The magnificent magic of the foundational
documents stems from the reality that rather than being written for
journals, or pedants, or lawyers, or bureaucrats, they were beautiful
poems written for the people, marked by subtlety, brevity, profundity,
and eloquent beauty. Take this to heart mates-- if ye seek to join us
in this battle, write not for the scholars, nor for the newspapers, nor
for the state, but write for the people. And when ye go to sleep
tonight, be prepared to rise when the lone horseman takes his midnight
ride through the streets.

The WWW has ushered in a brand new art form-- the creation of a portal.
Like all true art, it is not created by government agencies, nor
committees, nor corporations, but it springs forth from that vital
element for which there is no substitution-- the Individual's Vision
and Hard Work. The primary purpose of venture capital is to hire other
talented people to help realize a vision, but those in the business of
writing literature can rarely, if ever, afford to do this, even if they
had all of Kleiner-Perkins' money. For in order to withstand eternity,
the entirety of a work, be it a sculpture, play, poem, painting, novel,
or internet portal, must derive from the soul of a single artist. From
the software, to the graphics, to the prose, this is truly an infinite
medium to work in, where a poet-programmer may engineer a Classical
Portal, creating a boundless community of the eternal. And to a greater
degree than any previous art form, the WWW allows an individual to
create an entire context with which to surround his poetry. The
economic benefits of the internet are manifest, and the crew here
believes that the cultural benefits shall prove to be even greater, for
wherever freedom reigns and industry and honest enterprise are
rewarded, the Greats shall triumph.

However, freedom must be perpetually defended, and stalwart statesmen
can only exist in a context fought for and forged by soldiers of the
soul-- those who readily turn away from fame and fortune so as to
attend to their honor and the poetic pursuit of truth. Those common men
of higher character who, though opposed by prevailing winds and tossed
upon tempestuous seas, remain steadfastly loyal to the their art,
steadfastly dedicated to uniting words and actions in holy matrimony.
Thomas Jefferson, while contemplating the sacred source of freedom,
penned, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with
the blood of patriots and tyrants." And in pondering the diminished
value of life lived without Truth and Honor, John Stuart Mill wrote,
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing
worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about
than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has
no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of
better men than himself." This is the same sentiment Mel Gibson
expressed in Braveheart, when, as William Wallace, he said, "All men
die, but some men never live." George Washington, during the twilight
of the revolutionary war, when the American forces were all but
victorious, declared, "The readiest way to procure a lasting and
honorable peace is to be fully prepared to vigorously prosecute war."
And Robert Frost, in contemplating the ultimate purpose of poetry,
wrote, "Sometimes I have my doubts of words altogether, and I ask
myself what is the place of them. They are worse than nothing unless
they do something; unless they amount to deeds, as in ultimatums or
battle-cries. They must be flat and final like the show-down in poker,
from which there is no appeal. My definition of poetry (if I were
forced to give one) would be this: words that become deeds."

So it is that Admiral Drake Raft shall soon take the offensive as
captain of the imminent gunboat USSCONSTITUTIONS.COM, while Captain
McGucken and I shall remain aboard The Jolly Roger, presiding over our
home portals, from starbuck.com, to westerncanon.com, to
carolinanavy.com, to killdevilhill.com, to classicals.com. This
division of duties, between soldiering and statesmanship, time hath now
made appropriate within the context of our success in settling brand
new literary territory on the WWW. When we first set sail aboard The
Jolly Roger about four years ago, a home port devoted to the classics
did not exist. But now, by the grace of God and all our thousands of
merry maties, a bustling classical portal has come to be, and thus the
original pirate motif has played itself out to some extent. For within
the context of Classicals & jollyroger.com LLC, we are no longer
primarily cultural rebels, seeking to pirate the profound from
waterlogged postmodern institutions, but we're now the colleagues,
friends, and fellow-citizens of the thousands upon thousands of
literary seafarers who frequent our sites. And make no mistake, mate--
we are forever thankful for the ceaseless fair weather and favorable
winds provided by yer emails. Captains Knottingham and McGucken shall
henceforth devote themselves to the governing of our home ports,
content to be serving the seafaring settlers in peace and harmony,
while Captain Drake shall boldly lead the Carolina Navy all-out
campaign against the Postmodern Elite, from the gundecks of the
USSCONSTITUTIONS.COM.

Admiral Drake Raft would like nothing better than to remain at home and
raise a family in an upright, traditional manner while writing poetry
for The New Yorker, but before bringing children into this world,
somebody from this generation must venture forth to rediscover,
rebuild, and reinforce America's moral foundations. For these
fundamental, precious entities are far too fragile and pretty to be
forever trusted to vacillating, craven, poll-driven politicians and
their spiritually-barren economic and administrative advisors. Men
willing to pledge their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honours
are the only ones fit to lead a literary renaissance. Men who Read,
Write, Think, and Act in eternity's context.

For there is yet a war to be won within the greater culture, and the
spoils of victory are nothing less than the college campuses, the
romance in all deep, forsaken literature, the greater culture, the
hearts and minds of the Good People, the children's innocence, the
millenium's renaissance, and the correct continuity of a relatively
short, simple document-- the United States Constitution. Considering
the extent of the entrenched positions and annealed attitudes of the
Postmodern Elite, winning this war shall prove to be as formidable a
task as it is necessary. Their advantageous positions are well-funded
by our tax and tuition dollars as well as by their conscienceless
marketing of temptations of extensive reach to all ages. From their
well-fortified academic and cultural posts, they lead a relentless,
ubiquitious assault on behalf of ignorance in both education and
entertainment, all the while eroding the classical context of the Great
Books. But fear not, maties, for with God and the Greats on our side,
any sailor endowed with a soul shall emerge victorious. For nobody can
ever take from us the Honor gained by defending Truth and Beauty. And
what can be more beautiful than a girl reading a Great Book?

Literary wars, much like the definitive wars which this country fought
for freedom, are always inevitably won by those fighting for morality,
honor, and Truth. So it is that the noble United States has so far
defeated tyranny, slavery, communism, and fascism, all to defend the
basic precepts and principles of the U.S. Constitution. And in
defending this very same sublime piece of literature, America shall
defeat postmodernism. Though the former conflicts were all won by the
sword, which is protected by the Second Amendment, this contemporary
conflict shall be won by the pen, which is protected by the First
Amendment. So it is that those fundamental freedoms which the
Constitution protects remain free to protect the Constitution.

[jollyro...@yahoo.com]

http://jollyroger.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

Rock out with the renaissnace!!!!!!!!!

[greatbook...@yahoo.com]

http://killdevilhill.com

KILLDEVILHILL.COM
On a bright blue, blustery February day, I'm standing on top of Kill
Devil Hill, looking out over towards Cape Point, Hatteras, witnessing
from afar the eternal battle being performed by two opposing oceans.
Just off Cape Point the northbound Gulf Stream and the cold currents
hailing from the Arctic meet head on, sending white spray over
one-hundred feet into the air. Over the years these conflicting
currents have been depositing sand off Hatteras, and the resulting
diamond-shaped sand bar has come to be known as the Diamond Shoals,
it's fang-like shifting sand bars pushing seaward to snare the unwary
mariner. While the shoals are the largest and most formidable hazard,
the entire Carolina coast is marked by such eternally shifting,
submerged features, and thus long ago sailors were inspired to call it,
"The Graveyard of the Atlantic." And as I look out over the clashing
currents, which are indiscernible but for the mist they throw
one-hundred feet into the air, I am reminded of how it are those
invisible inner conflicts between the polar opposites of our souls from
which the visible art departs, aspiring towards the heavens. Art is the
eternal piece of us striving to be free, and thus all generations seek
a renaissance, so as to join Edmund Burke's community of eternal souls.

I found out about Cape Point from a book my girlfriend gave me for
Christmas entitled, THE GRAVEYARD OF THE ATLANTIC. The book narrates
the stories of the numerous shipwrecks off the Carolina coast. She'd
also given me a poetry anthology, which is a cool one, because it's
small and there aren't any of those tedious introductions to the
poems-- there're only the poet's words. In it I finally found that one
Robert Frost poem about making your avocation your vocation, and that's
exactly what the WWW's allowing us to do-- to make our passion our
profession... CONTINUED

THE MOST PERFECT SILENCE

I know where the most perfect silence is,
Seen it in the wild blue off Hatteras,
A mile out, rainbowed sails in silent bliss,
Looked like they'd collide, but they safely passed.
I know when the most perfect silence is,
Down a dusty Ohio road, high noon,
No shirt on, being burned by the sun's kiss,

Sixteen, takin' my time-- it was still June.

I know what the most perfect silence is,
It's what we say when falling out of love,
It roars and thunders right through the kiss,
Says all that no words can ever speak of.
I know why the most perfect silence is,
It is there for the whisper to be born,
The whisper in her ear became the kiss,
Just a dream in DC early one morn.
I know who the perfect silence is for,
It is for the ones whom we love the best,
It is there to protect them from our core,
By the silent trust we all seek to rest.
And I know how rare that silence can be,
With everyone talkin', it's hard to hear,
But I know I felt it, on the streets of DC,

The sound in her eyes-- it was crystal clear.

And it brought back to mind the rainbowed sails,
And the way it looked like they would collide,
Like two souls set upon fate's iron rails,
But the most perfect silence never died.

--Drake Raft
GATHERING WOOD
Gathering wood as a cold dusk descends,
A crisp October 'neath a powdered sky,
Carolina mountains, so the day ends,
Beside a fire you pause to wonder why.
Staring together at glowing embers,
Then both looking up at the milky way,
You look at her and hope she remembers,
After the embers have faded away.
For you know there'll be nights colder than this,
And shadows that thought cannot apprehend,
When the only thing you can do is miss,
Wondering why beside your campfire friend.
For hard work is part of all that is good,
And I look forward to gathering wood.
--Becket Knottingham