This is possibly, the *funniest* thing I have ever read

Ok, this is long, but worth it

semiotically aroused,

				Bitter Spice

>Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 16:19:41 -0500 (EST)
>From: Catullus <pnghyyhf@gvnp.arg>
>To: u@ncbpnylcfr.bet
>Subject: This is possibly, the *funniest* thing I have ever read
>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 10:14:36 -0800 (PST)
>From: shpryyn@fbpengrf.orexryrl.rqh
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>   JENNY JONES: Boy, we have a show for you today! 
>   Recently, the University of Virginia philosopher Richard Rorty made the
>stunning declaration that nobody has "the foggiest idea" what
>postmodernism means.  "It would be nice to get rid of it," he said. "It
>isn't exactly an idea; it's a word that pretends to stand for an idea." 
>This shocking admission that there is no such thing as postmodernism has
>produced a firestorm of protest around the country. Thousands of authors,
>critics and graduate students who'd considered themselves postmodernists
>are outraged at the betrayal. 
>   Today we have with us a writer -- a recovering postmodernist-- who
>believes that his literary career and personal life have been irreparably
>damaged by the theory, and who feels defrauded by the academics who
>promulgated it. He wishes to remain anonymous, so we'll call him "Alex." 
>Alex, as an adolescent, before you began experimenting with postmodernism,
>you considered yourself -- what? 
>       Close shot of ALEX. 
>   An electronic blob obscures his face. Words appear at bottom of screen: 
>"Says he was traumatized by postmodernism and blames academics." 
>   ALEX (his voice electronically altered): A high modernist.  Y'know,
>Pound, Eliot, Georges Braque, Wallace Stevens, Arnold Schoenberg, Mies van
>der Rohe. I had all of Schoenberg's 78's. 
>   JENNY JONES: And then you started reading people like Jean-Francois
>Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard -- how did that change your feelings about
>your modernist heroes? 
>   ALEX: I suddenly felt that they were, like, stifling and canonical. 
>JENNY JONES: Stifling and canonical? That is so sad, such a waste. How old
>were you when you first read Fredric Jameson? 
>   ALEX: Nine, I think. 
>   The AUDIENCE gasps. 
>   JENNY JONES: We have some pictures of young Alex. ... 
>   We see snapshots of 14-year-old ALEX reading Gilles Deleuze and Felix
>Guattari's "Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia." The AUDIENCE oohs
>and ahs. 
>   ALEX: We used to go to a friend's house after school -- y'know, his
>parents were never home -- and we'd read, like, Paul Virilio and Julia
>Kristeva. 
>   JENNY JONES: So you're only 14, and you're already skeptical toward the
>"grand narratives" of modernity, you're questioning any belief system that
>claims universality or transcendence. Why? 
>   ALEX: I guess -- to be cool. 
>   JENNY JONES: So, peer pressure? 
>   ALEX: I guess. 
>   JENNY JONES: And do you remember how you felt the very first time you
>entertained the notion that you and your universe are constituted by
>language -- that reality is a cultural construct, a "text" whose meaning
>is determined by infinite associations with other"texts"? 
>   ALEX: Uh, it felt, like, good. I wanted to do it again. The AUDIENCE
>groans. 
>   JENNY JONES: You were arrested at about this time? 
>   ALEX: For spray-painting "The Hermeneutics of Indeterminacy" on an
>overpass. 
>   JENNY JONES: You're the child of a mixed marriage -- is that right? 
>ALEX: My father was a de Stijl Wittgensteinian and my mom was a
>neo-pre-Raphaelite. 
>   JENNY JONES: Do you think that growing up in a mixed marriage made you
>more vulnerable to the siren song of postmodernism? 
>   ALEX: Absolutely. It's hard when you're a little kid not to be able to
>just come right out and say (sniffles), y'know, I'm an Imagist or I'm a
>phenomenologist or I'm a post-painterly abstractionist. It's really hard
>-- especially around the holidays. (He cries.) 
>   JENNY JONES: I hear you. Was your wife a postmodernist? 
>   ALEX: Yes. She was raised avant-pop, which is a fundamentalist offshoot
>of postmodernism. 
>   JENNY JONES: How did she react to Rorty's admission that postmodernism
>was essentially a hoax? 
>   ALEX: She was devastated. I mean, she's got all the John Zorn albums
>and the entire Semiotext(e) series. She was crushed. 
>   We see ALEX'S WIFE in the audience, weeping softly, her hands covering
>her face. 
>   JENNY JONES: And you were raising your daughter as a postmodernist? 
>   ALEX: Of course. That's what makes this particularly tragic.  I mean,
>how do you explain to a 5-year-old that self-consciously recycling
>cultural detritus is suddenly no longer a valid art form when, for her
>entire life, she's been taught that it is? 
>   JENNY JONES: Tell us how you think postmodernism affected your career
>as a novelist. 
>   ALEX: I disavowed writing that contained real ideas or any real
>passion.  My work became disjunctive, facetious and nihilistic.  It was
>all blank parody, irony enveloped in more irony. 
>   It merely recapitulated the pernicious banality of television and
>advertising. I found myself indiscriminately incorporating any and all
>kinds of pop kitsch and shlock. (He begins to weep again.) 
>   JENNY JONES: And this spilled over into your personal life? 
>   ALEX: It was impossible for me to experience life with any emotional
>intensity. I couldn't control the irony anymore. I perceived my own
>feelings as if they were in quotes. 
>   I italicized everything and everyone. It became impossible for me to
>appraise the quality of anything. To me everything was equivalent -- the
>Brandenburg Concertos and the Lysol jingle had the same value.... (He
>breaks down, sobbing.) 
>   JENNY JONES: Now, you're involved in a lawsuit, aren't you?  ALEX: Yes.
>I'm suing the Modern Language Association. 
>   JENNY JONES: How confident are you about winning? 
>   ALEX: We need to prove that, while they were actively propounding it,
>academics knew all along that postmodernism was a specious theory. If we
>can unearth some intradepartmental memos -- y'know, a paper trail-- any
>corroboration that they knew postmodernism was worthless cant at the same
>time they were teaching it, then I think we have an excellent shot at
>establishing liability. 
>   JENNY JONES wades into audience and proffers microphone to a woman. 
>WOMAN (with lateral head-bobbing): It's ironic that Barry Scheck is
>representing the M.L.A. in this litigation because Scheck is the
>postmodern attorney par excellence. This is the guy who's made a career of
>volatilizing truth in the simulacrum of exculpation! 
>   VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: You go, girl! 
>   WOMAN: Scheck is the guy who came up with the quintessentially
>postmodern re-bleed defense for O.J., which claims that O.J. merely
>vigorously shook Ron and Nicole, thereby re-aggravating pre-existing knife
>wounds.  I'd just like to say to any client of Barry -- lose that zero and
>get a hero!  The AUDIENCE cheers wildly. 
>   WOMAN: Uh, I forgot my question. 
>   Dissolve to message on screen:  If you believe that mathematician
>Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem has caused you or a member of
>your family to dress too provocatively, call (800) 555-9455. 
>   Dissolve back to studio. In the audience, JENNY JONES extends the
>microphone to a man in his mid-30's with a scruffy beard and a bandana
>around his head. 
>   MAN WITH BANDANA: I'd like to say that this "Alex" is the single worst
>example of pointless irony in American literature, and this whole
>heartfelt renunciation of postmodernism is a ploy -- it's just more irony. 
>The AUDIENCE whistles and hoots. 
>   ALEX: You think this is a ploy?! (He tears futilely at the electronic
>blob.) This is my face! 
>   The AUDIENCE recoils in horror. 
>   ALEX: This is what can happen to people who naively embrace
>postmodernism, to people who believe that the individual-- the autonomous,
>individualist subject -- is dead. They become a palimpsest of media
>pastiche -- a mask of metastatic irony... 
>   JENNY JONES (biting lip and shaking her head): That is so sad.  Alex --
>final words? 
>   ALEX: I'd just like to say that self-consciousness and irony seem like
>fun at first, but they can destroy your life. I know.  You gotta be
>earnest, be real. Real feelings are important.  Objective reality does
>exist. AUDIENCE members whoop, stomp and pump fists in the air. 
>   JENNY JONES: I'd like to thank Alex for having the courage to come on
>today and share his experience with us. 
>   Join us for tomorrow's show, "The End of Manichean, Bipolar Geopolitics
>Turned My Boyfriend Into an Insatiable Sex Freak (and I Love It!)." 
>
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