MiSTing: The Conservative Literary Revolution (CLR) 1/5
Chris Mayfield
camf...@iastate.edu
[General opening antics]
[1...2...3...4...5...6...]
[SOL. A chess board is set up on the desk. Mike and Tom are
studying it while Crow and Gypsy look on.]
Mike: [pondering] Hmm.
Tom: [also pondering] Hmm.
[a minute passes]
Mike: Hmm.
Tom: Hmm.
[several minutes pass]
Mike: Hmm.
Tom: Hmm.
[quite a bit of time passes]
Mike: Hmm.
Tom: Hmm.
[Commercial sign light flashes. Mike absent mindedly hits it.]
Mike: Hmm.
Tom: Hmm.
[Commercials]
[Back on the SOL, Mike and Tom are still looking at the board.]
Tom: Hmm. Well, are you going to make a move?
Mike: Me? It's your move.
Tom: No it's not.
Mike: Yes it is!
Tom: No it's not!
[The two argue while the light goes off]
Crow: Hey! Bobby Fischer is calling!
Mike: No it's--huh? Oh. [hits light]
[Deep 13]
Dr. F: Ah, my models of decorum and tranquillity, have I got a
treat for you. Today's post comes from rec.arts.books.
[SOL]
Crow: Really?
Tom: What is it? A discussion of Shakespeare?
Mike: An analysis of the major themes of Robert Frost?
Gypsy: An essay on the decline of the importance of the author as
an intellectual leader in industrial society due to the ever
increasing role of mass media as a device for trivial
entertainment?
All: Huh?
Gypsy: Oh. I mean, Richard Basehart?
[Deep 13]
Dr. F: You wish. It's a dreadful piece of tripe that thinks it's
art. I liked it so much I visited their homepage and stole--I
mean, borrowed some of their WWW pages. Get out your golden pin
of truth, Deflator Mouse, and stick it to 'em.
[SOL. Chaos.]
All: We've got usenet sign!!
[6...5...4...3...2...1...]
>From: Elliot McGucken <mcgucken>
>Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
>Subject: The Conservative Literary Revolution & Our Declaration
>of Independence from Slackers, Liberals & Grunge
Mike: We, the intellectuals of the United States of America...
>Date: 25 Aug 1995 03:57:19 GMT
>Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>Message-ID: <41jhmv$10...@bigblue.oit.unc.edu>
>
>We're so cool we don't have to do drugs.
Crow: We've found other ways of killing off our brain cells.
> http://sunsite.unc.edu/owl/
>We just think, and Great Literature happens.
Tom: Hey Oedipus, wanna bring the hubris down a few notches?
>
>How did the conservative literary revolution begin?
Mike: You see, when a conservative loves himself very much...
>
>With our declaration of independence from slackers below.
>
>Read it dudes--
Crow: HEYU DOODZ!1! JOIN TEH LITTERARY REVOLUSHUN!! IT'S KOOL!!1
> don't get left in the wake
Mike: riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend
of bay...
Tom: Are you quite finished?
> of The Jolly Roger.
>
> Jolly Roger: http://sunsite.unc.edu/owl/jollyroger.html
>
>
>To sign aboard The Jolly Roger, send the message, "subscribe
>drakeraft your name," to list...@unc.edu.
>*****************************************************************
>The unanimous Declaration of the Red Avengers of All that is
>Right and True.
Mike: And quite a bit more that isn't.
>
>When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
>people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them
>with another,
All: An-ar-ky! An-ar-ky! An-ar-ky!
> and to assume among the powers of the earth,
Tom: Fire, water, air, and heart!
Crow: Oh no! It's the Planeteers! AHHHHHH!!
> the
>separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of
>Nature's God entitle them,
Mike: Oh, so God *wants* us to segregate...
Crow: Well, they *are* posting from Helms country.
> a decent respect to the opinions of
>mankind
Tom: Which we lack.
> requires that they should declare the causes which impel
>them to the separation.
>
>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
>equal,
Tom: Some are just created more equal than others.
Crow: And for those that aren't created equal, there's the
Handicapper General.
> that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
>unalienable Rights,
Crow: Does that include the right to be bloody stupid?
Mike: I'm afraid so.
Crow: [sighs]
> that among these are Life, Liberty, the
>pursuit of Happiness, and a good book.
Tom: *Our* kind of a good book.
> That to secure these
>rights, Governments and Presses (not to be confused with one-
>another)
Crow: You mean that passport Charles Scribner's Sons issued me is
useless?
> are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
>from the consent of the governed.
Mike: It'd be nice if it always worked that way.
> That whenever any Form of
>Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of
>the People to alter or to abolish it,
Mike: Wait a second, guys! I think we've gotten a hold of the
Unabomber's manifesto!
> and to institute new
>Government and Presses,
Tom: The bloody civil war of Bantam Press continued into its
second year.
> laying their foundations on such
>principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
>shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Crow: Come again?
Mike: How can we set this up so we can really screw up our well-
being?
>
>Prudence,
All: [singing] Won't you come out to play-ay-ay-ay?
> indeed, will dictate that Governments long established
>should not be changed for light and transient causes;
Mike: Like the whims of certain UNC students.
> and
>accordingly all experience hath shewn,
Tom: Oh, please impress us with your knowledge of arcane British
spelling.
> that mankind are more
>disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right
>themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Crow: [Brit] Help! Help! I'm bein' oppressed!
>
>But when a long train of abuses
Mike: Like Amtrak?
> and usurpations, pursuing
>invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under
>absolute Despotism, Deconstructionism,
Crow: Deconstructionism? Hey! That's us!
All: Yeahhh!!
Tom: Wait. So we're the enemy?
All: Booooo!!
> and Radical Feminism, it
>is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,
Crow: Let the government go. If it comes back, then it's yours...
>or Commanders of Intellectual Institutions, and to provide new
>Guards for their future security.
Mike: Is this about the notch babies?
>
>Such has been the patient sufferance of our generation and
>American culture at large;
Crow: Yes! Look at Bob P. Doorknob! See how the Radical Feminists
have forced him to sit in front of the TV all day watching
Wrestlemania and Bosom Buddies reruns and stuffing his face with
cheez twigs! Feel his pain!
> and such is now the necessity which
>constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The
>history of the present Publishing Industry in New York is
Mike: Going to be the subject of the next Ken Burns documentary.
> a
>history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in
>direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these
>States, and the intellectual soul of my generation.
Tom: [singing] Talkin' 'bout my generation.
> To prove
>this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Mike: Everything's for the best in the best of all possible
worlds.
Crow: That's "candid," Mike.
>
>They have refused to publish words that mean things,
Tom: Mike, aren't words, by definition, sounds or symbols that
communicate some meaning to another individual?
Mike: He means in a pretentious, artsy way.
> the most
>wholesome and necessary for the public good.
Crow: Yes, world! I have come to save you from yourself! Bow down
and worship me!
>
>They have forbidden us to speak to the people in subtle terms,
Mike: You suck.
>awakening and enhancing the deeper parts of their rationale.
Crow: Speaking of rationale...
>
>They have forbidden their presses to publish our works of
>immediate and pressing importance,
Tom: Uh oh. I see where this is headed.
> unless suspended in their
>operation till their Assent should be obtained, and when so
>suspended, the have utterly neglected to attend to them.
Crow: Obviously the entire LIBERAL mass media is forming a
CONSPIRACY against ME!! ME, DO YOU HEAR?? ME!!
> One of
>our manusciprts has been at St. Martin's press for over six
>months now,
Tom: You're right, Mike. It does sound like the Unabomber.
> and the editor in charge of it, Evie Greenberg, won't
>give us even a hint of an opinion.
All: It stinks!
> She seemed pretty annoyed when
>we called,
Mike: Somewhere between literature and madness lies obsession...
Crow: [falsetto] Leave me alone, you damn weirdoes!!
> like we were bothering her,
Crow: Like, you are.
> but she talked with us for
>an hour when we said we were reporters from Details magazine. We
>have that on tape.
Tom: She keeps swearing and using racial epithets.
Crow: There goes the prosecution's case.
>
>They have refused to publish books for the accommodation of large
>districts of people,
Mike: Yeah! Well, except for all those mass-media publishing
companies...
> unless those people would relinquish the
>right of reading words that mean things,
Crow: Sometimes I wonder if *these* words mean anything.
> a right inestimable to
>them and formidable to tyrants only.
>
>They have called together legislative bodies and faculty meetings
>at places unusual,
Tom: Grand Central Station.
> uncomfortable,
Crow: The North Pole.
> and distant
Mike: Mars.
> from the heartland
>of America,
Tom: Sorry, boys, but the publishing world's not centered in Des
Moines.
> and the citizens of my generation, for the sole
>purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with their measures,
>like Slacker Handbooks.
Mike: Isn't reading a book to find out how to goof off
counterproductive?
>
>They have disappeared conservatives in Creative Writing Classes
Tom: They disappeared them? That doesn't make sense.
Mike: It's isn't even good grammar.
>repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness
Crow: I'm not touching that one.
> the cultural elite's
>invasions on the rights of the people to have good poetry written
>for them.
Tom: These guys think that beer jingles are epic poetry.
>
>They have refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to
>let great texts be published;
Tom: What great texts haven't they let be published?
Mike: We don't know. Since they don't publish them, we never find
out about them.
Crow: I'm sensing a circular argument here.
> whereby the NEA powers, incapable
>of Annihilation,
Mike: I didn't realize the NEA had the power to decide who lives
and who dies.
Tom: He just said that they don't.
Crow: Yeah. I already called dibs.
> have returned to the Creative Writing Teachers
>at large for their exercise;
Mike: Mrs. Teal! I never knew! And all the time she was giving me
constructive advice and emotional support she was really a part
of the evil liberal anti-art conspiracy. I feel used.
> the State of our souls remaining in
>the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without,
>and convulsions within.
Tom: He's a laughing-on-the-outside/epileptic-on-the-inside kind
of guy.
>
>They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing
>their Assent to Laws established by common sense.
Crow: Yeah! What Rush said!
>
>They have made Professors dependent on their Will alone,
Mike: Do what I say, or I'll disinherit you.
> for the
>tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their
>salaries.
Tom: Actually, that's true of all bosses everywhere.
>
>They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither
>swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their
>substance.
Mike: I know it's depressing, but the truth is that people are
*naturally* shallow.
>
>They have kept among us, in times of cultural nihilism, Standing
>Armies of Liberal Novelists,
All: [singing] Oh, when the authors come marchin' in...
> without the consent of our desire to
>read anything they write.
Crow: I really hate it when the Liberal Novelist Army busts in and
forces me to read the latest Maya Angelou poem.
>
>They have affected to render the University independent of and
>superior to the Civil power.
Tom: Are they talking about the same university I'm thinking of?
Mike: Those drunken frat boys are so culturally elite.
>
>They have combined with others to subject us to a nihilism and
>pornography foreign to Western Culture
Mike: Who needs that anime junk? We got the best porn in the world
right here in the good old U.S.A!
> and unacknowledged by our
>higher sensibilities and common sense; giving their Assent to
>their Acts of pretended Intellectualism:
Crow: Speaking of pretended intellectualism...
>
> For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any
> Murders of which they should commit on the Great Texts, by
> devious interpretations:
Mike: Sounds like the guy who rewrote "Huckleberry Finn" in order
to make it more "literary."
Crow: You're kidding, right?
Mike: Sadly, no.
> For cutting off our Thoughts from all parts of the University:
> For publishing books that say nothing,
Tom: For posting long, rambling messages that say nothing.
> and calling them, "The
> Catcher in the Rye of the Grunge Generation."
> For imposing Tuition hikes on us without our Consent:
Crow: Yes! We are conservatives who believe in the free market,
except when practiced by universities!
> For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by a
> Jury of our peers,
Mike: The phrase "Inmates running the asylum" comes to mind...
> when we suggest the books that they market
> towards us suck:
Tom: The succinct, crisp style puts me in mind of Hemingway.
Crow: Yes, but the disillusionment with contemporary
establishments suggests early T.S. Eliot to me.
> For transporting us beyond the context of our peers, and
> calling us out in the hallway before class, to be tried for
> pretended offences:
Crow: [teacher] There'll be no redefining of Western Literature in
my class, young man.
> For abolishing the free System of Western Culture, and Truth,
> and Objectivity in Creative Writing Departments,
Mike: Wow. Such majestic words as Truth and Objectivity.
Tom: For those of you playing along at home, this is known as
"Glittering Generalities." Stay tuned for more fun facts about
propaganda. Up next--the Straw Man!
> establishing
> therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries
Crow: Shaw? No. Faulkner? No. Woolf? No. These Boys learned their
Writing Style from the Master Author Robert McElwaine.
> so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for
> introducing the same absolute rule into the New York
> Publishing Houses and the rest of the Cultural Elite Media
> Industry:
Tom: It certainly *sounds* sinister. I just wish I knew what he
was saying.
> For taking away the rules of higher literature, abolishing our
> most valuable Laws of language,
Mike: I'm guessing they're not Joyceans.
Crow: EX! EX! EX! COMMUNICATION!!
> and altering fundamentally the
> Forms of our Intellectual Institutions:
> For suspending the mind of this generation,
Tom: Alan James CollectiveUnconscious, you go straight to bed!
> and declaring
> themselves invested with power to publish literature for us in
> all cases whatsoever, waging War against our intellect
Crow: The Liberal Media won by default.
> and
> common sense.
All: Death to Thomas Paine!
>
>They have plundered our Universities, ravaged our Heritage, burnt
>our Beliefs,
All: [Brit] Burn the beliefs! Burn the beliefs! Build a bridge out
of 'em!
> and destroyed the Canon.
>
>They are at this time transporting large Armies of Liberals to
>complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny,
Mike: I think the authors have completely lost the literary angle
and are now just freewheeling on their delusions.
> already
>begun with circumstances of televised cruelty and perfidy
Crow: Someone in North Carolina has a thesaurus, I see.
>scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally
>unworthy the Heads of a civilized nation.
Tom: So the televising of Vietnam was evil, but the actual killing
wasn't too bad?
Mike: Don't try to figure them out, Tom.
>
>They have constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive in
>liberal institutions to bear Arms against their Heritage, to
>become the executioners of their friend's ideals and Brethren, or
>to fall themselves by their Hands.
Mike: All those capitalized words make me think they're talking
about something really important.
>
>They have excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and have
>endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the
>merciless Indian Savages,
All: Boooo!!
Tom: I thought they were just windbags; now I know that they're a
bunch of ignorant troglodytes.
> whose known rule of warfare is an
>undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
>
>In every stage of these Oppressions We
Crow: Why is "we" capitalized?
Mike: Because We are Monomaniacal.
> have Petitioned for
>Redress in the most humble terms. Our manuscripts have always
>included nice cover letters,
All: [laugh]
Mike: *This* is what they think great literature is?
> printed on bonded paper.
Tom: James bonded paper.
> Our
>repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
Mike: How many times can you stick the fork into the outlet before
you finally figure out not to do that?
> An
>editor, whose character is thus marked by every act which may
>define a Tyrant,
Crow: He's a TYRANT because he refuses to do EVERYTHING I TELL HIM
TO DO!!
> is unfit to be the editor of a free people.
>
>Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Cultural Elite
>brethren.
Tom: If these guys are so against the ignorance of the masses, why
are they against the Cultural Elite?
Mike: Because anti-intellectualism is as American as apple pie.
Tom: Even among other intellectuals?
Crow: Excuse me? Are you referring to the same authors as I am?
>
>We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their
>electronic media industries to extend an unwarrantable
>jurisdiction over the souls of children.
Crow: One of the lesser known provisions of Disney's buyout of
ABC.
Mike: We'll purchase your entire media base...and the everlasting
souls of all the kids who've seen "The Lion King."
> We have reminded them of
>the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here, to
>intellectual plains beyond MTV,
Crow: The modern Elysian Fields of the mind.
> and Douglas Copland's books. We
>have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we
>have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow
Tom: Any knowledge of our actions.
>these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our
>connections and correspondence.
>
>They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of
>consanguinity.
Crow: And of sesquipedaliality.
> We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity,
>which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the
>rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
Tom: As opposed to most conservatives who find enemies in peace
and friends in war.
>
>We, therefore, the Representatives of the Mutineers of Meaning,
Mike: Make ourselves feel important by giving ourselves
pretentious names.
>in the offices of Beaconway Press, Assembled, appealing to the
>Supreme Judge of the world
Crow: Wapner?
> for the rectitude of our intentions,
>do, in the Name,
Mike: Of the rose!
> and by the authority of the good People of our
>Generation, and all the Americans in fly-over country, too,
Tom: What the hell is fly-over country?
>solemnly publish and declare.
>
>That our Generation is, and of Right ought to be Free and
>Independent People;
Mike: Who buy T-shirts with corporate emblems on them so they can
subjugate themselves to the realm of organic commercials.
> that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to
>Rolling Stone magazine, Cultural Elite Opinions, and any more
>Woodstocks.
Crow: We don't care much for Snoopy, either.
>
>and that all political connection between this Generation and the
>Cultural Elite is and ought to be totally dissolved,
Mike: If it's already dissolved, why should it need to be
dissolved?
> except for
>our Columbia House memberships, for those of us who have almost
>earned a bonus CD;
Tom: [weakly] Ha, ha. You see, it's funny 'cause they're
hypocrites...
>
>and that as Free and Independent People, this generation has full
>Power to levy Intellectual War, conclude Intellectual Peace,
Mike: Collect Intellectual Taxes, fund Intellectual Urban Renewal
Projects...
>contract Alliances, establish Commerce, think for itself,
>
>and to do all other Acts and Things
Crow: *Things?*
Mike: Their elegance washes over me like a mountain brook.
> which Independent People may
>of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm
>reliance on the protection of Divine Providence,
Tom: Separation of Church and State? I DON'T THINK SO.
> we mutually
>pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred
>Honor.
All: Amen.
>
>The signers of the Declaration represent the new Intellectual
>Areas as follows:
>
>Poetry and Physics:
>Drake "Red Avenger" Raft
>Poetry and Philosophy:
>Becket "Bluebeard" Knottingham
>Prose and Physics:
>Elliot "Ahab" McGucken.
Crow: Commentary and sexual innuendo: Crow T. Robot.
Tom: Commentary and cynical rejoinders: Tom Servo.
Mike: Commentary and additional music: Mike Nelson.
>
>
>Send a message to mcgu...@physics.unc.edu to have your name
>added! Don't forget to include your area of expertise!
>
>
>
>
>
>
[6...5...4...3...2...1...]
[Crow and Tom are dressed in pirate clothing. Crow has a patch
over one eye. One of Tom's hands has been replaced with a hook.
The two are situated in a cutout boat on top of the desk.]
Crow: Wow! Now we're real pirates!
Tom: Yeah!
Crow: Uh, so what do we do now?
Tom: Um, let's see. [leans over and reads something] It says here
we dance around, sing some songs, and marry someone's daughter.
Crow: That doesn't sound right. [ducks down, looks at something,
comes back up] That's the linear notes to Pirates of Penzance!
Tom: Well, then you tell me what we're supposed to do.
Crow: I think we're supposed to rape and pillage.
Tom: Who?
Crow: What about Mike and Gypsy?
Tom: Gypsy's off cleaning out the load pan bay and Mike's washing
his clothes.
Crow: Hmm. We could rape and pillage ourselves.
Tom: No thanks. Besides, we're don't exactly have high retail
value.
Crow: Right. Um. Well, how about we sail the seven seas?
Tom: Well, we're sort of stuck here on the desk.
[The two think for a couple of seconds]
Tom: What if we--
Crow: We don't have anywhere to bury it.
Tom: Oh, right.
[They think some more]
Crow: Hmm. [light flashes] Uh, we'll be right back. Now what if we
were pilots...
[commercials]
[continued in part 2]