Ye are hereby granted full permission to print out the Irrefutable Pearls
of Wisdom and tape them on the door of yer favorite resentnik instructor,
thereby presenting them with a fair warning that the Insurrection has
commenced, and that they can leave with their life if they leave afore
sunrise.
--The Good Ship Jolly Roger--
The largest, most feared literary frigate on the WWW.
The favorite cruising vessel of the new minds of the new medium.
The largest, most respected academic journal on the WWW.
Making waves so vast that the Tide is turning in our wake.
Ahoy there! This is Becket here. I'm not too good at the ahoy
stuff, so like I'll leave it alone. Drake and Elliot have been totally
busy this past month with their physics dissertations, so like I've
stepped up to man the wheel of the Good Ship on the first voyage of her
second year. Their dissertations have something to do with the
development of inexpensive, compact video cameras for the WWW, and about
all I know is that whatever they're doing is working, and thus keeping
'em busy. The freaks celebrated the The Jolly Roger's first birthday by
finishing up some sort of patent application thing. I tried to get 'em
to go out with me to this one St. Patrick's party, but they wouldn't.
They finally showed up at 2 am, but that's just 'cause the house was on
the way home. I didn't know it then, but it turned out that the Snoop
Doggy Dogg CD that had been playin' all night was Drake's. A bunch of
his Physics 27 lab students were there, and like when they saw him they
wanted to get him drunk, 'cause that's the way it is in Chapel Hill.
Drake's not like that, though, so like he booked, and hit the eject
button on the way out and grabbed his CD. Everyone thought he was
stealing it, so like half the party took off after him. It was pretty
funny, watchin' him sprint down the street with a bunch of his students
stumblin' after him. Anyway, that's how we celebrated the Roger's first
birthday, pretty much, on case you were wondering. And Drake told us he
didn't order the Snoop, but it was just that he sucks at record clubs.
He'd forgotten to fill out that little card you have to fill out every
month if you don't want Columbia House to start shipping you their
inventory. Some of Snoop's lyrics are pretty liberal.
Anyways, we're off to Nag's Head and Kill Devil Hills for Easter
to get some windsurfing done. If anyone else is heading out there, let
us know! I mean it-- drop us an e-mail if you'll be on the outer banks!
Happy Easter y'all! And now here's the immortal part of this issue
that will be studied from henceforth throughout eternity!
The following text cannot be refuted:
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE PEARLS OF WISDOM
FROM THE JOLLY ROGER TREASURE CHEST
THE PIRATE PROPHETS STRIKE GOLD
© Becket, Drake, and Elliot, 1996
1. If words don't mean anything, like how all the liberal-postmodern-
administrator-instructors are always saying, then how come they never shut
up?
2. Separation of the church and state does not mean the eradication of
moral standards by the state.
3. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and knowledge of it shouldn't be.
4. Bureaucracy breeds mediocrity, and mediocrity returns the favor.
5. The only way to pass a creative writing class is to get kicked out of
it.
6. Necessity is the mother of all invention, and bureaucracy is a son of
a b****.
7. Postmodernists swing a double-edged sword. They swing the sword
screaming there are no truths, leveling all Greatness, and then they
swing it back proclaiming their prejudices.
8. The problem with government grants in the humanities and arts is that
they only ever go to the socialists who are shameless enough to ask for
them.
9. The worst thing a liberal could do to Greatness was not publish us,
and now, with the WWW, that doesn't matter.
10. Freud wrote the Cliffnotes to Shakespeare.
11. The aspect by which knowledge is born, imagination, often becomes
ridiculed, castigated, and impugned in the institutions that are founded
teach the knowledge, unless the leaders of the institution possess the
moral vision to recognize and promote original contributions. 'Tis where
democracy finds its strength, for the leaders are the people, and long
before any administrator, they will recognize and appreciate an
enhancement to their existence.
12. Free love isn't love.
13. The Good Ship Jolly Roger is the only contemporary vessel capable of
delivering Great Literature to the people. This is because
www.jollyroger.com is anchored by zero
resent-laden-liberal-socialist-failed writers turned administrators or something.
14. Future authors of Great Literature will make enemies of the liberals
and their intellectually pernicious ideology.
15. The predominant contribution of feminists to literature has been a
new character type-- the feminist.
16. God helps those who help themselves. Liberals hate those who help
themselves.
17. To be morally indifferent is to be an extremist. For death is an
extreme state.
18. You cannot teach a man respect by denying him his dignity.
19. Tomorrow's money is worth less than today's because you can borrow it
instead of earning it. 'Tis why liberals are so fond of it.
20. Today universities manufacture scholars far faster than thinking
alone ever did.
21. Postmodernists are either dishonest, stupid, or both. For no man who
has felt hunger truly believes that there is no such thing as the Truth.
22. By publishing pornography you are censoring the sacred.
23. The pirate motif allows us to satirize the reign of terror the
liberals have been waging in the academy. Also alternative girls like
guys in red bandannas.
24. When you put a price on education you devalue it.
25. The government cannot create a rugged individual. God alone can do
that. The government can only destroy one.
26. Communists want big government to limit the people's freedom because
they think everyone's as sinister, uncreative, and Godless as themselves.
And what better method than socialism is there for mediocrity to obtain
absolute power?
27. Liberals said that words don't mean anything and that everything is
but politics, and now, for their literature, it is true.
28. You will never witness a liberal deconstructing another liberal's
literature. There is nothing to tear down.
29. Tenure grants professors academic freedom from thinking.
30. According to liberals, the primary role of We the People is not to be
entertained nor exalted by literature, but it is to fund it.
31. A Ph.D. often serves as a license to make one's ignorance one's
arrogance.
32. Tenure means nothing but job security. Academic freedom is guaranteed
to all Americans by the first amendment.
33. Today divorce has a higher approval rating than the president.
34. Not all thoughts are equal in merit. Some, like our own, are better
than others.
35. From God we receive both our freedom and morality. A Godless society
will have neither.
36. Einstein stood on the shoulders of giants to see further. The modern
liberal pedant stands on their shoulders to cut their heads off.
37. The political spectrum is a circle. The far left, and the far, far
right meet at the bottom.
38. There will always exist darkness. Each man decides whether to accept
the darkness, and serve under it, or to dare to strike a match, showing
the way, and exposing the dark deeds of the others.
39. For a match to ignite a fire, the match itself must be spent.
40. Liberals justify making money off of selling smut and their
relentless degradation of culture by saying their art is only reflecting
reality. 'Tis true for the liberal-- their literature reflects the
reality of their movies, and their movies reflect the reality of their
literature. And both reflect the reality of NEA projects.
41. History shows that men often seek to crucify prophets of the Truth.
42. I showed up at Princeton with little more than midwestern common
sense and a yearning for the Truth. When they tried to destroy my
property, I let 'em know that I never hesitate to lay a resentnik on
their back.
43. History also shows that men seek to study the prophets of truth, not
those who crucify them.
44. Compassion alone is not enough to be compassionate with. 'Tis why
liberals must seek to be generous with other people's money.
45. Morality is rooted in the spirit, not in the flesh. 'Tis why the
Bible was written and not sung.
46. Liberalism assuages the guilt of many dressed-in-black ivy-league
students who came from wealthy families and never had to work for a
living. If anybody attempts to take the luxury of their guilt away from
them, they will hold sit-ins, protests, marches and demonstrations for
the Chancellor's benefit.
47. America is great because of her leaders, not because of her
politicians.
48. Liberals fund the problems they seek to solve so that they can
justify taxing you to fund them.
49. Anybody taking anything from aboard the Jolly Roger and reproducing
it out of context shall incur The Curse of The Jolly Roger.
50. If I were on Friends, you would never see me because I'd be in my
room reading Moby Dick, or something, with the Black Sabbath turned up
way loud.
51. Liberalism not only legitimizes envy, jealousy, ignorance, and the
lack of moral standards, but it also makes these attributes virtues. 'Tis
why it has been so successful amongst people who aspire to bureaucracy.
52. These words shall find their way about the globe because they contain
a commodity that all men ultimately value over all else-- the Truth.
53. Moby Dick was the greatest book ever penned upon the American shores.
54. Rush Limbaugh is the world's greatest contemporary intellectual.
55. Few things are as cruel as the bureaucrat's indifference. Except for
their ignorance, and the liberal administrator's willful deceit.
56. Those well acquainted with failure are always anxious to introduce
you to it.
57. Western Science, by creating the electronic mediums which fostered
rock'n roll, enabled Feminist literature. People stopped reading. Thus
it's funny to watch the feminists kick Western Science around.
Especially when they do it from science-studies departments.
58. The reader does not create the text. My words alone define me. As
there is one God the Lord who reigns supreme over this earth, so too is
there one Captain of The Jolly Roger. Those who deny this will soon find
themselves in Davie Jone's Locker.
59. With the long, well-documented history bureaucracies have of
oppressing the individual and totally messing things up, it's amazing how
many people try out for them.
60. Feminism has made it rough on many girls in my generation. Now
they're under pressure to have children while competing with men in their
careers. And if you think it's rough on them, think how rough it is on
the children.
61. Abortion is wrong. This I know because I do onto others as I would
have them do onto me.
62. It's funny that with all the billions and billions of dollars and
presses and universities that the liberals control, www.jollyroger.com is
dominating the world's literary scene for forty bucks a month.
63. If you see that a bureaucracy is falling, step out of its way.
64. The modern liberal artist, embodied by the Rock'n Roll rebel and the
creative writing teacher, is the ultimate conformist.
65. Liberal university presidents who think they won't have to answer to
the people for attempted murder of the Western Soul are just plain nuts.
Ahoy President Shapiro! Cast yer bespectacled gaze out yer ivied window
and ye'll catch a glimpse of the skull'n bones on the horizon. Argghgh!
And look out yer other window and ye'll see the White Whale!
66. Beavis and Butthead are the most intelligent aspect of MTV. And
they're the only performers who don't do drugs to enhance their presence.
67. A thousand thousand vortexes, eddies and whirlpools swirl about in
the wake of a Great Ship. Beware of becoming ensnared in the petty
politics if ye should follow. I mean look at all the fruitloops in the English department.
68. White male liberal administrators are those who have benefited the
most from affirmative action. For individuals of all ethnicities are good
enough to succeed on their own merit, while many white male liberal
administrators wouldn't.
69. By being indifferent towards individual achievement, the bureaucrat
is empowered. It is not important what you do, but that you kiss their
hiney. 'Tis why the power-mongerers tossed academic standards overboard.
70. The individual will always be a minority.
71. If the resentnik professors who dominate academia are so against
capitalism, why do they harbor no hesitation about taking the tax and
tuition dollars generated by the wonderful free market system?
72. There's a strength in ignorance. But those who know this are
stronger.
73. Once upon a time teachers and schools existed to awaken the moral
imagination within their pupils. But today they exist to take advantage
of its absence while robbing the student's tax and tuition dollars, and
degrading the student's soul 'til it votes liberal.
74. Liberals intentionally write books that suck and then fund their
publication with your tax and tuition dollars. Thus they redefine
literature and academia as something that normal people feel alienated
from.
75. While men can be more or less indifferent, ideologies can often be
cruel.
76. The WWW isn't about asking corporations nor agents nor publicists nor
editors nor University presses nor committees for favors. It's about
telling them The Way Things Shall Be.
77. College would be a cooler if they threw away all the exorbitantly
priced liberal
manifesto/textbooks, and made us all read the same Great Books. That way
we'd be united in a common context, we'd have an alternative to MTV and
pop culture, and we'd have something to talk about other than nothing.
78. Liberal administrators are fond of superficial diversity because it
means they don't have to think. All they have to do is differentiate
between skin colors and be able to count.
79. By eradicating standards and demolishing the language, the liberal
administrator/tenured-elite professor is empowered. Until The Jolly Roger
blows them out of the water.
80. Diversity didn't make this country great. Universal freedom for the
human spirit did. That's what attracts people of all nations and creeds
here.
81. MTV is about adults tempting innocent children with sex and drugs in
order to sell products, one of them being liberalism.
82. Liberalism is popular among misguided youths because the liberal
elite market it with sex, condoms, drugs, and automatic A's for agreeing
that there are no truths and thus nothing to study. And the youths are
misguided to begin with because the traditional family atrophied in the
jealous feminist-enforced families-suck context.
83. While professing that "there are no truths" might get the
postmodernist tenure at Princeton, it won't do too much good for the kid
whose dad is lying to her mother.
84. Be it forever known that when we offered President Shapiro of
Princeton the opportunity to allow us to present our Greatness on his
campus for $30,000 a year, he turned it down in favor of promoting Joyce
Carol Oate's pornography for $150,000+ a year, so that he and his liberal
comrades might continue to rob the people of their tax and tuition dollars
while completing the liberal destruction of Western Culture.
85. The reason why higher education costs so much is that the liberal
administrators/lobbyists have arranged it so that students can take out
exorbitant college loans.
86. Never before in all of history have the parents left their children
such a fantastic debt. The liberals ran it up so that they could raise
taxes, thus ensuring that no man would ever live free again.
87. Those who stand in the Way of The Jolly Roger shall soon sink in The
Good Ship's wake.
88. Never before in all of history have so many parents forfeited on
their duties of raising those who they brought into this world. And the
liberals are intent on breaking today's record, so like hand over your
money. Shapiro's violent will to power will not be satiated until there
are no families left, and all are dependent on compassionate bureaucrats.
89. Men and women were put on this earth for one fundamental reason. To
be united in Holy Matrimony and raise children in a moral context.
90. Postmodernism owes its vast success in the academies to the fact that
it empowers jealous idiots, and ambitious fools are fond of socialist
bureaucracies.
91. Rather than trying to create something on their own, the
postmodernist strives to level the playing field by destroying what
others have created.
92. While drugs and debauchery mix well with rock'n roll and alternative
lifestyles, they have no place in Great Literature nor in the traditional
family. Thus drugs and debauchery should be expelled from our
institutions of higher learning.
93. The more esoteric, nonsensical and arrogant you are, the greater
chance you have of being granted tenure in an ivy-league humanities
department. The more indecipherable and useless your creations, the
better they are by liberal criteria, as they won't make any of the other
wackos look bad.
94. Only those who can do can teach.
95. It would be far, far harder for the Roger's crew to not write this
than it is to write it. For that is the nature of Truth.
96. If you attempt to exalt the people without a government grant or the
consent of your neighborhood creative writing department, you will find
yourself in the liberals' crosshairs.
97. After the Civil Rights movement liberals missed racism so much that
they re instituted it.
98. The fundamental roots of Liberalism and Conservatism are religious.
For this reason government should be kept as small as possible, as in the
first amendment it is stated that there should exist the separation of
Church and State.
99. The printed word is the most economical means for transmitting
information, and the most profound. 'Tis why the new medium embodied by
the WWW is a blessing for the rational soul.
100. A picture is worth a thousand words, but the ten commandments
cannot be drawn.
101. Liberal administrators shall soon have to answer to this generation
for robbing us of our money, our heritage, and the sacred.
102. Conservatives don't hold sit-ins and peace-outs and love-fests to
get things done. Nor do they write grant proposals. They forge ahead,
build magnificent ships, and start Literary Revolutions.
103. Because liberalism has its fundamental tenets rooted in free-lovin'
Dionysian rebellion, it has failed in the higher ideological arena, where
the Appolonian dominates.
104. One cannot rebel against the oppressive patriarchy when one doesn't
know one's father.
105. Those who fail at writing for the people often find themselves
writing for a paper.
106. When the ugly make the law beauty often ends up being illegal.
107. The contemporary liberal literary establishment exists to degrade,
destroy and desecrate Greatness, while making the postmodern fog thicker.
If ye write to exalt, ye are on yer own. Ye are on yer own except for the
wonderful people of this country who embrace freedom, the Truth, and
God. And now the WWW let's you address their intellects without the
liberals' permission.
108. If the New York elite literary agents and publishers loved
literature, they'd have high tailed it on out of New York long ago.
109. It is a small minority of people who read to destroy. It is tragic
that they should reign in our institutions of higher learning.
110. Know ye that any man who strikes out on his own shall suffer the
slings and arrows of those who did the same and failed, but even worse
will be the violent wrath of those who lacked the courage to venture
forth in the first place. For those who tried and failed know that at
least they succeeded in being themselves, whereas those who never tried
failed in even that. And thus the jealousy augments.
111. If ye should choose to march to your own drummer, to walk down yer
own chosen path, do not take the vitriolic castigations personally. Take
them as a compliment.
112. Ye cannot battle the postmodern fog by lashing out at it, for ye
will fall into the void of the mere mist. One must construct a noble
beacon upon the bedrock of Western Civilization, embodied by the Great
Books. Thus others might find their way, and democracy shall prevail.
The Roger will take ye there.
113. While the liberal elite enjoy seeing my generation's consciousness
as an anti-intellectual, fallow field, I view it as it is-- fertile earth
upon which nothing has been allowed to grow.
114. The liberal boomers love grunge and plotless, characterless
generation-x nihilism because they created it. And like president
Shapiro they know that there is no better way to control a generation
than to deny it its meaning.
115. Most modern day physicsts are mathematical historians who know as
much about Great Literature as the professors in the English department,
'cause they've never read any either.
116. If ye shoot drugs and write nihilistic prose, the liberal elite
will embrace ye and place ye on a pedestal. If ye ponder, contemplate,
and revel in sobriety, ye will scare the bejesus out of them, and they
will unite in their efforts to destroy ye, or something.
117. You can lead a liberal to Great Literature, but you can't make them
think.
118. The modern university president is the ultimate anti-intellectual.
They value money, pride, and arrogance over the Truth.
119. Avast! The battle for the soul of this generation and all
generations to come has just commenced, and be it known that the captains
could not ask for a more gallant crew than those found aboard The Good
Ship! If it weren't for yer insightful letters, demonstrating a shared
commitment to the Permanent Things, we wouldn't be where we are today!
Avast! And know ye that this we never forget!
120. Postmodernism is the opiate of the liberal elite
121. This generation shall author a renaissance as the postmodern fog
lifts.
122. Arrogance isn't believing in what you do. It's funding what you do with other people's money against their will.
123. Avast! By the time ye solve the Mystery of The Jolly Roger, it will
be too late.
READERS RESPOND: THANK YE THANK YE, YER ALL TOO KIND!
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 1996 11:48:48 +0000
From: 96PARKS@------------------
To: jollyroger-Request@jollyroger.com
Subject: Re: AAAHHH!!!
Please sir, may I have some more?
Hi! Sorry. Sometimes I just Get so carried away with good literature that
I want more! Why does this subscription only have to be 20 pages long?!
I want more! Why does this subscription only have to be 20 pages long?!
: ) Thanks, anyway! Love,
Sheri Parker
xoxo
THE CAPTAIN RESPONDS: Avast! I am at a loss of words.
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 13:16:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Ashley Garner
To: becket@jollyroger.com
Subject: THE WRATH OF THE JOLLY ROGER
I wanted to let you know that with each new issue, the Jolly Roger gets
even better. (Really, can it get any better?!) In the last one, I
especially liked (Drake Raft's) The Rebel on Capitol Hill and The
Verdict. Of course, I'll forward it to everyone I can think of. You know,
reading your work would probably scare the heck out of most of the
English/Lit professors on this liberal campus. Not only are many of them
frightened of seeing the truth printed in such a public way, but (if they
have any ability to recognize talent) they're
probably afraid that someone with your writing ability could steal their
jobs, hands down! Keep up the excellent work!
-- Ashley.
THE CAPTAIN RESPONDS: Argrhrgrh! As long as we have readers such as
yerself, keepin' up the excellent work shall be as much our pleasure as
it is our commitment!
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 11:03:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Coxon
To: The Jolly Roger
Subject: Re: THE JOLLY ROGER Ahoy there Coxon! Welcome aboard!
I've only been on the Internet for about a week now and the Jolly Roger
seems to be really incredible. Thanks for actually showing me that there
are people out there that want some realy literature out there. Oh, I
read the " Catcher in the Rye for the Grunge Generation." Gee, what a
great book, an instant classic. I'm seventeen and that book made me laugh
at the sheer studpidity of Andrea Marr and everyone else in it. I guess I
read it because I needed some kind of escape from my International
Baccaleaurate English class run open-mindedly-closedly by my left-wing
feminist teacher. There are scores of incredible novels, poems, etc. on
the IB booklist, but my school chooses, for the most part, the stupid
ones, about the fact that white people suck. The AP class at the other
high school in our town that offers advanced English gets to read real
literature. Apparently my teacher seems to think that I'm sort of a
decent writer, so I'm one of her nominees for NCTE writing contest. She
hated the story I submitted to her. Honestly, it wasn't very well
written, but it wasn't a bunch of profound metaphoric babble that she
would have wanted. When I want to push the envelope her way I'll kill
myself. I don't know why I picked Coxon, except it's the last name of
Graham Coxon, guitarist for Blur, which happens to be the greatest group
ever put on earth. Damon Albarn, singer for Blur, is one of my biggest
influences. He and Jane Austen. My teacher doesn't like her much, so
there's another reason for liking Jane. Anyways, I'm starting to type
nonsense, so I'll end it here with one question: How did you get kick out
nonsense, so I'll end it here with one question: How did you get kick out
of Oates' writing class?
Coxon
THE CAPTAIN RESPONDS: By writing the truth , me matie! The element
that got us kicked out of creative writing classes is the very same
element that gets us published in the honest soul! Avast! And thus the
123rd Pearl of Wisdom! Help me! Hold us back, somebody! Beacause we
can't, we won't, and we don't stop! I mean it! Help! How can you
stand it!
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 96 09:15:32 -0800
From: Mary S. <------------>
To: becket@jollyroger.com
Subject: KUDOS
Greetings from Central Texas,
Mind if a Baby Boomer eavesdrops occasionally?
On my maiden voyage into treacherous waters, I was fortunate enough to
catch your beacon almost immediately, and spent a delightful two hours
with the Jolly Roger. I found myself laughing out loud one minute and
uttering a thoughtful "hmm..." the next. Can't risk the jolt to my
middle-aged middle-of-the-road complacency too frequently, but I
definitely would like to peek in on you from time to time.
You youngsters are a national treasure. May you ever remain diligent in
your efforts to turn the tide, and may you continue to have a heap o' fun
in the process.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
"Bubba"
THE CAPTAIN RESPONDS: Avast! We welcome men, women, and children of all
ages aboard our gallant schooner without the help of any quotas, for the
Truth herself knows no quotas, and is accessible equally to all who
search for her. It is our sincere pleasure to have ye aboard, Bubba.
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 96 14:10:07 EST
From: Pamela <--------@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu>
To: Becket
Subject: Help
Becket - I recently found the jolly roger home page while surfing the net
and thought I could write a paper on its ideology for rhetorical theory
class. I am attempting to prove in the paper that the jolly roger
literary revolution is indeed a social movement (we've been discussing
the qualities of social movements and the characters of leaders of those
movements). What would be of great help to me is how you and the rest of
the crew - drake and elliot - view yourselves and the jolly
roger/grungervative thing. Do you see yourselves as leaders of a social
movement - do you even think this is a social movement? How are you
trying to gain a following, what kinds of action are you taking to
promote the jolly roger....etc. I know this is an in-depth request, but your input would help my understanding of the jolly roger and allow me to
develop my writing more thoroughly. thanks - Pamela
THE CAPTAIN RESPONDS: Avast! I assure ye that The Jolly Roger is a
bona-fide social movement, and the coolest contemporary one at that.
Included in the package is honest heart-felt rebellion, oppressed
individuals, unrecognized artistic achievements, the arrogance of the
aging liberal elite, and t-shirts at http://jollyroger.com/shirt.html!
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 23:08:07 -0500
From: URF1@aol.com
To: mcgucken@jollyroger.com
Subject: Ahoy!
Ahoy Ahab, Bluebeard and Red Avenger!
I'm back from France and I'm glad to read that you received the postcard
and yes, you may use the image in any way you please.
Unfortunately, I ran out of time in Paris before I could find out where
Michel Foucault is interred. I do know he died in Paris in '84 but I'll
have to do a bit of research to find out where they're hiding the
rascal. As for being arrested for draping the jolly roger o'er his tomb,
I don't think I'll have to worry too much about that happening; the
French are used to visual displays of one sort or another. A country
that allowed the 3200 year-old obelisk from Luxor at the Place de la
Concorde to be enshrouded by a giant condom isn't going get too excited
over the public display of the skull and bones. If anyone does ask
questions I'll say it's performance art where upon I'll run the
embarrassing risk of being proclaimed a post-postmodern genius and
awarded the Legion of Honor.
Since I couldn't get the snapshot, I'm sending you a print of Gericault's
"Le Radeau de la Meduse" (The Raft of the Medusa). The original, which
is about16' x 23.5 feet, hangs in the Louvre. The Medusa was a French
frigate that sank off the coast of Africa in 1816 because of the
incompetence of the captain who was a political appointee. Deserted by
the ship's officers, one hundred and fifty passengers were left adrift on
a raft. Few survived and in 1819 Gericault captured in oil the moment
the survivors spot the faint wisp of a sail on the horizon. I've always
found the painting extremely moving and I know you won't have any trouble
picking up on the allegorical symbolism of the men and their
out-stretched arms on the raft and the far sail on the horizon. For me,
Gericault's Raft is one of the greatest representations of mankind's
eternal reach for Truth ever commited to canvas.
However, when I stood before it (this time partially obscured by an
unrelated construction project) in the Louvre last week and again looked
upon the men on the raft, I thought of the multitude of students set
adrift by the post-modern captains of academia. In particular, I
wondered about those students, remotely, perhaps only instinctively, in
touch with the currents of culture and tradition being denied them
(currents that would lead them to Truth), who, at some particular point
in time during the course of their education, feel in their bones that
Something Is Wrong. I thought of the raft as being that instinct; that
instinct passed along by those that sailed before us that somehow keeps
the spirit afloat, that whispers in your ear that there are Things
Greater Than You. That instant, that epiphany, is the sighting of that
distant ship's sail. And despite the black waves of nihilism, that sail never again seems quite so far away.
As for me, I'd rather happily sink with my friends, a song on our lips
and a poem in our heart in pursuit of Truth, than sail the easy waters on
a ship captained by the liars, fools and sophists of The Great Liberal
Death-Wish.
But not without a fight. So polish your cutlass and let the Culture Wars
begin! And if you squint your eyes hard enough, you just might catch
sight of a jolly roger o'er the sails of the ship on the Far Horizon.
Take care,
Gary "Cap'n Blood" Prange
PS, I've attached a GIF file of a detail from "The Raft of the Medusa".
THE CAPTAIN RESPONDS: Avast Captain Blood! This letter and Gericault's
"Le Radeau de la Meduse" shall soon be honored with their very own page
aboard The Jolly Roger! When this issue gets included on our WWW site,
yer page'll be up at http://jollyroger.com/beaconway/captainblood.html ! Thank ye
very, very much for the poster, me matie!
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 11:39:31 -0500
From: drewg@corel.ca
To: mcgucken@physics.unc.edu
Subject: Hast seen the White Whale; hast seen Moby Dick?
Moby Dick sighting:
OTTAWA--Moby Dick sighted by one Drew Gadoury of Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, 21 March, 1996, swimming up the Ottawa River behind the Prime
Minister's residence. How this is possible is not for me to ask.
Drew Gadoury
drewg@corel.ca
THE CAPTAIN RESPONDS: Avast! Somebody call the Prime Minister!
drakeraftafterdark
Ahoy! Drop the crew a line!
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