MSTed: Contra Cabal; Manos review Part 4/4
Joseph Nebus
[ ALL come back into the theater. ]
>
>Conclusion
TOM: Deep down, I'm really a badger.
>
>When one understands the nature of thought,
MIKE: One has spent over seven hours staring at the lava lamp and will
need professional eye care.
TOM: That a pain you know, Mike?
CROW: Well, I sure as heck do.
> then one understands the nature
>of reality as a whole.
CROW: Man, it's like...this *placemat*, only it's different, 'cause
all the bread crumbs on it belong someplace, and some aren't gonna
move out but others are gonna stay right there, get it, man?
> The rational mind manifests itself in the subjective
>consciousness and develops
MIKE: Hobbies and side activities, such as the Mountain Time Zone.
> from a materialistic and subjectivistic state to
>a state of universal and rational consciousness.
ALL: [ Chanting ] Oooohwaaaa tagoooooo seeeeiiiisssss...
> Irrational Cabalism
>reverses this procedure so that purely materialistic and subjectivistic
>outcomes become the goal.
TOM: I think he's coming out against buying the 'naming rights' to
sports facilities.
MIKE: Oh, well, then he's just won me back.
CROW: Yeah, me too. I've left strict orders for me to be killed if
I ever call Candlestick Park by that other name.
> The cabalistic impulse forces the individual to
>submerge the ego as a constant element of survival.
MIKE: Cabalistic impulse...from Calvin Klein.
> This causes a
>distillation of the primitive, irrational drives that menace a democratic
>society.(20) In the academe, cabalism occurs because
TOM: They got nothing better to do.
> both faculty members
>and students supinely accept the loss of individual freedom. Instead, they
>accept group ideologies
MIKE: I am Locutus of Academe. You will be put on Pass/No Credit.
> that bring absolute corruption ever near.(21)
>Nemesis, like Orwell, condemns psychotic cabalism, transformation of
>historical truth into ideological myth,
CROW: So if the quality of English majors produced by Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute were to decline it would worsen our lives how,
exactly?
> and intellectual barbarism. However,
>Orwell found such irrationality liberating.
TOM: Would *somebody* please buy ol' Nemesis here a couple of
"Peanuts" books, please?
MIKE: Nah, you wouldn't want to hear what this guy would make out of
the kite-eating tree.
> For example, he praised the
>savage and hallucinatory qualities of
CROW: Holding your breath while driving above the speed limit.
> other authors. Subsequently, his
>creative energy manifested itself most powerfully in near-surrealistic
>expressions of disgust, terror, power hunger, sadism, and violence.(22)
>Nemesis has found a different type of liberation,
CROW: And now he encourages everyone to sleep with a teddy bear.
> one of transcendence over
>humiliation and harassment that uplifts and directs him toward
TOM: A bright light, just like a moth. Oh wait, that's not a light, it's
a bug zapper!
MIKE, CROW: BZZZZZZZT!
> a true
>vocation. Orwell's essays surely made his public aware, perhaps Nemesis will
>achieve a similar result with Contra Cabal.
MIKE: Mmm...what do you think, guys?
TOM: Well, he has a chance.
CROW: Yeah, I guess.
MIKE: Really?
TOM: Bear in mind that--since it would not violate any laws of physics--
there is a chance that you are really a giant, dancing pangolin and
we just *think* we see you as Mike Nelson.
MIKE: Ah, I understand.
>
>Letters to Nemesis
CROW: Dollars to Doughnuts.
MIKE: Captain to Engineering.
TOM: Ground Control to Major ME!
>
>Since the last issue of Contra Cabal some members of the Rensselaer
>community have
TOM: Hacked into my VISA records and had me billed for the Gadsen
Purchase. Not funny, guys!
> challenged Nemesis to reveal the names of individual members
>of the Rensselaer Cabal. Others have
CROW: Wanted an episode guide for "DangerMouse."
> complained that public disclosure of
>official wrongdoing injures
MIKE: Those who fail to warm up properly first.
TOM: Ooh! Spot me! Spot me!
CROW: You're right over there, where you always are.
TOM: Crow, I will have words with you later. That's all I'll say.
> innocent faculty members and students: that they
>become guilty by association. Unfortunately,
MIKE: We specialize in frontier justice in this town, and we can't be
too concerned about the innocent bystanders we don't mean to accuse
of anything.
> innocent people do have their
>reputations damaged by these occurrences.
CROW: Again, he's making the assumption that people are hanging on
every word here.
> However, many of them have only
>themselves to blame. They have allowed absolutist administrators
MIKE: Around Albuquerque, appreciably associating about an
apple arrangement.
CROW: What is with you today?
MIKE: I don't know, it just happened.
> to deny
>academic freedom and due process for many years. Now they will probably pay
>the price for their benign neglect.
TOM: Again, the giant, dancing pangolin comes to mind.
> The names of the members of the
>Rensselaer Cabal follow. In fairness, Nemesis informs readers that
MIKE: He cannot tell a cabbage from a lettuce.
>Professors Rubens and Zappen remain both intellectually and pedagogically
>above the incompetent, unpublished vermin that comprise the Cabal.
CROW: I bet Rubens and Zappen feel great after that outburst of praise.
> However,
>they have succumbed to the coercive persuasion and dysfunctional behavior of
>their colleagues and then acted in
MIKE: A production of "Me and My Girl."
> ways inconsistent with their usual
>integrity.
TOM: For instance, they went to the balcony and spit on my head as
I walked by.
> Consequently, they have earned the title "honorary ass" pending
>cabalistic retention, tenure, and promotion.
CROW: Well, hey, that's really great to hea--huh?
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The Rensselaer Cabal of Asses
TOM: Can he use that language here?
>"More intellectually challenged than intellectual".
>Department of Language, Literature, and Communication
MIKE: Motto, "We've heard the joke about how we can't get jobs. Find
a new one or we poke you in the tummy."
>School of Humanities and Social Sciences Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
CROW: 'Cause when you think top-rank engineering schools, you think,
"How do William Faulkner and Flannery O'Conner utilize the notion
of 'the old child,' anyway?"
>
>Compleat Asses
MIKE: Oh yeah, this is one of the "Canterbury Tales" you never get
to in high school.
>
>David L. Carson
> Associate Professor, Language, Literature, and Communication.*
MIKE: Nick Bottom, Tailor.
CROW: Francis, Talking Mule.
>Ellen J. Esrock
> Associate Professor, Language, Literature, and Communication
TOM: Midas, King of Phrygia.
MIKE: Ba Ba Looey, sidekick to Quick Draw McGraw.
CROW: Aw, man! All through this and we didn't make even one
"El Cabal" joke!
MIKE: Your loss, Crow.
>S. Michael Halloran
> Associate Dean, Humanities and Social Sciences.*
CROW: Mavra Chang, space pilot and sometimes goddess.
MIKE: She got better, though.
>Teresa M. Harrison
> Associate Professor, Language, Literature, and Communication.
TOM: Oooh, the ninth President of the United States.
>William C. Jennings
> Dean, Computing and Information Technology.
CROW: Hey! And he's the guy who sang the theme on "The Dukes Of
Hazard."
>Gary Judd
> Dean of the Faculty and Graduate School.
MIKE: Starring as Urkel.
>Robert Krull
> Associate Dean, Graduate Programs, Humanities and Social Sciences.
TOM: As astronaut Scott Carpenter.
>C. Lee Odell
> Director, Graduate Program, Language, Literature, and Communication.
CROW: As "Tank Girl."
>Thomas Phelan
> Dean, Humanities and Social Sciences.*
TOM: He has a booger on the end of his department.
>Merrill D. Whitburn
> Chair, Language, Literature, and Communication.
MIKE: Bet he mumbles on his answering machine messages.
>
>Honorary Asses
>
CROW: Would that be like what happened to Bugs Bunny when he was up in
the airplane with the Gremlin and the Gremlin tricked him into running
outside without a parachute or anything?
MIKE: I guess so, sure.
>Philip M. Rubens,
> Professor, Language, Literature, and Communication.
CROW: Also sandwiches.
>James P. Zappen
> Doctoral Program Director, Language, Literature, and Communication.
TOM: And his children, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Moon Unit Zappen.
>
>*Former Position.
CROW: Prone.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Endnotes
>
>1. Sonia B. Orwell, and Ian Angus, 39. Letter to H. J. Willmett. As I
>Please: 1943-1945, The Collected Essays, Journalism and
TOM: Omlette recipes.
> Letters of George
>Orwell 3, (London, England: Secker & Warburg (Penguin). 1970), 3:177-178.
>
>2. Zeitgeist.
CROW: [ Singing ] Don't bother me!
TOM, MIKE: Zeitgeist!
CROW: Don't bother me!
TOM, MIKE: Zeitgeist!
CROW: Don't bother me!
ALL: [ Fading out ] Gotta be back to...old...sunshine...
TOM: Well, that was depressing.
> The spirit, tastes, and outlook, characteristic of a
>generation. Prevailing academic world view.
CROW: I'm going to go out on a limb and guess "round" here.
>
>3. Sonia B. Orwell, and Ian Angus, 101. Notes on Nationalism: As I Please,
>The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell 3,
TOM: Yes, Orwell cloned himself three times over, providing the real-life
basis for the movie "Multiplicity."
> (London,
>England: Secker & Warburg (Penguin). 1970), 3:410-427.
>
>4. See note 3.
TOM: What if I don't want to?
>
>5. See note 3.
TOM: Can't make me! Can't make me!
>
>6. See note 3.
TOM: I'm not listening! La la la la la la la la la!
>
>7. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great
>men are almost always bad man. Lord Acton (1834-1902),
CROW: You can claim that if you want, but I'm pretty sure it was
Bartlett's who said that one.
> Letter, 3 April 1887,
>to Bishop Mandell Creighton (published in
TOM: Silurian Park, an eerie tale of technology bringing long-extinct
sea corals back to life.
> The Life and Letters of Mandell
>Creighton, 1904).
>
>8. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, claims itself as a
>leader among engineering universities.
TOM: It achieved this status in a much-watched fooseball game against
M.I.T.
>
>9. Academic hogwash. Worthless, false, or ridiculous speech or writing
MIKE: A ball that easy we don't swing at, buddy.
>based upon political correctness, lack of scholarship, speech codes,
CROW: Oh yeah, remember all that talk about speech codes?
TOM: Right, yeah, it was in the part where he...uh...
> and
>cabalistic propaganda.
>
>10. See note 3.
MIKE: Look, note 3 does not contain *all* the answers to life.
>
>11. Gary Judd, Dean of the Faculty and Graduate School, Rensselaer
>Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.
TOM: He has an "outie" belly button and so must be executed.
>
>12. Merrill D. Whitburn, Chair, Department of Language, Literature, and
>Communication, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.
TOM: Merrill has an "innie" belly button and would be spared except
that we don't know if "Merrill" is a boy's or a girl's name.
>
>13. See note 1.
CROW: But he's thinking 3.
>
>14. Authentic Jews remain Jews
CROW: Aw, no...
MIKE: C'mon, Nemesis, pull yourself out of this tangent.
> by moral choice despite the martyrdom
>involved. Their ethics, however, serve no purpose
TOM: This was related to the subject *how*?
MIKE: It involved words.
> for them in hostile social
>and political environments. Inauthentic Jews flee
CROW: Before the might of Nemesis' powerful "Jew-O-Meter."
> Jewish reality and
>antisemites make them Jews despite themselves. They become Gentiles with a
>Jewish label.
TOM: If I went through this again I might understand it, but then...
MIKE: I know. We might actually understand what he was talking about.
> Antisemitic Semites
CROW: Are torn internally and spend all day sitting in a dark room,
giggling.
> stake everything on self-aggrandizement
>and create an unlivable life that derives
TOM: From the repeated combination of antithetical properties.
> pride from their humiliation. They
>relate to neither authentic nor inauthentic Jews because they
MIKE: Are produced by cloning from skin samples left on the side of a
container of a Dilbert toy.
> have no
>affinity and no purpose other than parasitic survival.
CROW: Like a certain raving newsletter we've heard about?
> Judd fits into this
>third category precisely.
TOM: But he looks better in the stuff we ordered from "Victoria's
Secret," so we're using that instead.
>
>15. weasel words.
CROW: Well, there's 'musteline.'
MIKE: Also 'Gramogale.'
TOM: Don't forget 'Lutreola.'
MIKE: And 'Putorius,' for that matter.
> Words of an equivocal nature used to
TOM: Make mice, squirrels and chickens very nervous.
> deprive a statement
>of their force or to evade a direct commitment. Weasels have a habit of
>sucking the contents out of an egg without breaking the shell.
CROW: Hey, do biologists believe this, or have they proved it yet
another endearing but wrong story, like raccoons washing food?
MIKE: Well...it's Sunday, right?
CROW: Yeah.
MIKE: Okay, I think they believe in it today.
> Substituting
>the charactonym
TOM: [ Leaning over ] Ooh! Ooh! My charactonym! Get the heating pad!
> "Whitrack the Weasel" (whitrack an old English term meaning
>white rat) for Merrill D. Whitburn
MIKE: Is pointless.
> characterizes his sneaky, treacherous,
>ferocious, and bloodthirsty attributes. This personally identifies him with
>the weasel.
CROW: Well, I'm getting to admire weasels more and more.
> In real life his rhetoric contains equivocating, prevaricating,
>ambiguous, and quibbling "weasel words"
TOM: From a department chair? *Never*!
> that take away the force or meaning
>from expression. His words "weasel" meaning from the words preceding them
>and, consequently, fail to support
CROW: His pants. The Alumni Club is *so* cross with him now.
> a conclusion. Just like a weasel,
>Whitrack (sorry, Whitburn)
MIKE: Well, that's an honest enough mistake, I guess.
> sucks all the meat out of the rhetorical egg and
>then leaves an empty shell.
>
>16. mumbo jumbo.
TOM: Do we really need *this* defined?
> Unintelligible or incomprehensible language intended to
>confuse and obscure
MIKE: Again, you're insulting us, tossing out something like that.
> cabalistic intent.
>
>17. Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Mirra Ginsberg (trans),
CROW: Team Captains of the 1974 Canadian Football League Champion
Montreal Allouettes team.
> Notes from Underground,
TOM: Where it's so dark we don't know quite what we read.
>(New York, NY: Bantam Books. 1974).
>
>18. Bertrand Russell, Power: A New Social Analysis, (New York, NY: W. W.
>Norton & Company,1939), 1:376.
CROW: Oh, great, that "Rainbow Hair Guy" snuck into the credits right
up there.
>
>19. Sonia B. Orwell and Ian Angus, 108. Writers and Leviathan. In Front of
>Your Nose: 1945-1950,
MIKE: Well, okay, by now 1945 through 1950 are off to the side of your
nose, we'll grant that.
> The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George
>Orwell 4, (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1968), 4:412.
>
>20. Richard I. Smyer, Primal Dream and Primal Crime:
TOM: Subtitled, "Even My Mom Only Pretended To Read This Book."
> Orwell's Development
>as a Psychological Novelist, (Columbia, MI: University of Missouri Press.
>1979), 113.
>
>21. See note 1.
CROW: Make me.
MIKE: Careful. He might.
>
>22. Richard I. Smyer, Primal Dream and Primal Crime: Orwell's Development
>as a Psychological Novelist, (Columbia, MI: University of Missouri Press.
>1979), 135.
TOM: Is there any point to these endless cites of Orwell?
MIKE: I think he's trying to prove he's right by quoting stuff that's
only vaguely related to whatever it was he was talking about.
TOM: Did it work?
MIKE: If you gotta ask...
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Nemesis
TOM: He did say "conclusion" about a half hour back, didn't he?
MIKE: Who remembers?
>
>Contra Cabal contains the personal experiences and opinions of Nemesis, a
CROW: Hey, we saw this already. Do we have to sit through it again?
>former associate professor of communication and rhetoric. He previously
MIKE: Well, Vladimer Nabokov, the literature critic, would encourage us
to do that.
>attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Washington
TOM: Nabokov wasn't ever trapped on a spaceship five centuries in the
future being forced to watch bad movies and read bad writing by the
insane leader of a deceased ape civilization.
>as a doctoral student. Nemesis has held international press credentials
MIKE: Well, not that we know about, anyway.
>since 1959. Since 1947, he has worked as a journalist, an editor, a
CROW: And where do you get off citing Nabokov in any of this?
>technical communicator, also as a university professor and administrator. He
TOM: Yeah, you're trying to do the same thing this guy's doing with Orwell.
>holds a terminal degree equivalency, a US graduate degree, and two
MIKE: I am not! I just read an essay where he said in order to be a good
reader, you had to reread, over and over and over again.
>international fellowships from the communication industry. He conforms with
CROW: Was he really talking about 'Nemesis' in that, though?
>the code of conduct and ethics of the journalism profession, mainly tested
MIKE: Granted, no, he was talking more about Jane Austen or Charles
Dickens.
>by courts in both England and the United States. After many months of
TOM: Is there any way careful reading of this is going to improve your
life?
>investigation and deliberation, the American Civil Liberties Union of
MIKE: I don't know, I was just noting that something was kind of
relevant.
[ Some quiet ]
>Washington Legal Committee has now authorized a lawsuit in his behalf
>against the University of Washington. Seven other organizations have shown
CROW: You're turning into a nerd on us, aren't you, Mike?
>an interest in filing amici curiae. His case against Rensselaer Polytechnic
MIKE: No! I am not. I just read a book is all.
>Institute now receives the attention of the Civil Rights Bureau, Department
TOM: So the lesson of our little exchange here is...
>of Law, State of New York.
MIKE: Reading will bring you ridicule and make you socially
ostracized, I guess.
CROW: That's a good lesson for the kids.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Administrative Note
TOM: Pick up eggs, soda, administration.
>
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CROW: Bore yourself...
MIKE: Lose a little bit more of your preciously finite time alive...
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TOM: Destruct sequence one, code one one A.
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MIKE: You must be legally insane.
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TOM: Go out, get a hobby, and forget about it. You'll be glad you did.
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TOM: You'll have to lower your standards.
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CROW: Bring a really big mallet with you.
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>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>) Copyright 1996 by Paul Trummel
CROW: Isn't he the guy who had the cooking show on PBS?
MIKE: No, that's Paul Prudhomme.
CROW: Oh. So who was I thinking of?
MIKE: Paul Trummel.
>
>First Published 12 Dec 96/15:04.
>Revised 24 Jan 97/10:04.
TOM: Yes, kids, it took two tries to get this up to spec. Remember that.
CROW: And we're outta here.
MIKE: Yay!
[ 6.. 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. ]
[ INT SOL. TOM, CROW at the desk with a gadget, a Spirograph with props
added to it to bulk it up. There are some plastic filters
on the table. MIKE, holding a letter, enters. ]
TOM: MIKE!
CROW: MIKE! Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike!
MIKE: Yeah? What's up?
TOM: Mike! We came up with a brilliant idea and we want you to help
us make money from it.
CROW: Yeah, we figure we could make as much as thirty dollars!
MIKE: Well, uh...what is it?
TOM: Michael, we were inspired by today's experiment; we studied
the available resources and identified a market segment in need
of an innovation easily based on a pre-existing product--
CROW: We took that fun kid's toy, the Spirograph, and added in
some Internet capacity to make it...The Conspirograph!
MIKE: Neat. How's it work?
TOM: Just put in a pattern filter and twirl the thing around. It randomly
mixes various key elements to come up with a brand new and completely
groundless conspiracy!
[ MIKE picks up the Conspirograph; puts a plastic filter in and plays
with it. ]
MIKE: [ Reading ] U.S. Congressional Republicans packed the 15-member
committee chosen to award 20 contested electoral votes from
the 1876 election with eight party loyalists in order to assure
Rutherford B. Hayes' victory over Samuel J. Tilden...
[ MIKE frowns. ]
TOM: There you go!
MIKE: But...
CROW: Try mine!
[ MIKE shrugs and puts in another filter and plays with it again. ]
MIKE: [ Reading ] At the height of the 60s space race, CIA agents
snuck into the facility in which the Soviets were keeping their
Luna 5 space probe, stole it, examined it, and then returned it
before the launch date...
TOM: Astonishing, isn't it?
MIKE: But these are--
CROW: Yeah, we figure with four or five of these cranking out
insane paranoid ravings we can replace nearly eight elevenths
of all Usenet!
MIKE: Uhm, right. Okay. Well, we have a letter here, can we put that
up on Still-Store, please, Cambot?
[ INSERT of a letter ]
MIKE: Okay. This one is from Alyssa Nebus of Marlboro, New Jersey.
CROW: Hi, Alyssa!
MIKE: I don't know how we got her letter, but, anyway. She says
"Hello; how are you?"
TOM: Ahem. We're fine.
MIKE: "How do you get stuff to eat?"
CROW: We just go to the kitchen.
MIKE: "And when the kitchen is empty, where do you go?"
TOM: Uh, then we go to the pantry.
MIKE: Pantry. Right. Glad we could help you, Alyssa. Well, Mrs. Forrester,
Bobo, Observer Brain Guy Being? You still there?
[ INT VAN. MRS. FORRESTER is driving, looking bored, resting her head on
her fist and her elbow on the door; BOBO and the OBSERVER are in the
back seat, waving their fingers in each others' face and saying
"Woowooooweewoooweewoooweee," et cetera. ]
PEARL: No, I've got something better to do. Well, boys, my top-notch
secret cabal here... [ She looks back and sneers ] and I will
have to get back to you. Until next week, then.
[ FADE OUT ]
Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its related characters and situations are
trademarks of and Copyright 1997 by Best Brains, Inc. All rights reserved.
Use of copyrighted and trademarked material is for entertainment purposes
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Best Brains, Inc., the El Paso Times, or Paul Trummel is intended or should
be inferred.
> When a man is hit over
>the head and falls to the floor, the audience has come to expect a
>"thud."