How my name ended up in the title The Tragedy of Drakeraft.com, and how my semblance ended up as a character in the book is a good story in itself. During the heights of the fleeting grunge era, our obligatory Chapel Hill band was called Drake's Raft. Around that time, Elliot wrote a story about the Great-Books secret society that we three Midwesterners from fly-over country had founded at Princeton, and he kind of infused the narrative with some cool events from a summer's East-coast tour which landed us back on the Princeton campus, where we played our final gig in McCarter Theater. During the tour I started writing sonnets--I could get a lot more down in fourteen lines of iambic pentameter than I could in a typical grunge ballad, and I found the sonnet to offer a far more profound vessel for a poet's thoughts--it made people think, whereas our songs had only ever made them feel or something. And there's no quicker way to a girl's heart than through her mind.

One night in Vermont, Elliot came across the notebook with the sonnets that I had been keeping to myself, all four hundred of which are published here. At first glance he had thought they were song lyrics. Then, while reading them, he got this idea for a plot centered about a Princeton student who is called upon to avenge the Greats. The story was called The Drake Raft Field Trip, and it eventually evolved into an epic based on Hamlet, wherein the Great Books had been murdered and villainous kings in the form of fringe feminists and duplicitous postmodernists had come to inhabit Princeton's cultural thrones. And it was I, Drake Raft, who had been called upon to avenge the brutal murder of the Greats. Elliot had probably chosen me because I'd been lead singer in Drake's Raft.

As a cultural flagship of the greater society, and with a rich scholarly heritage and great gothic architecture haunted by reputable ghosts including those of Fitzgerald, Einstein, Feynman, Joseph Henry, "T.S. Eliot", "Salinger," and Madison, Princeton provided an ideal setting for such a novel. A major battle in the revolutionary war had been fought just down the road from the main campus, and an American canon ball is lodged in the stone walls of Nassau Hall--it was fired by the rebel troops when the Redcoats had temporarily occupied the building during the battle of Princeton, just like the postmodernists are now temporarily occupying it. Couple the rich heritage with the pristine campus and all the majestic spires and sinister gargoyles, and Princeton becomes the ideal stage for a contemporary tragedy, as tragedy must always have a most noble backdrop.

To personify the murder of the Great Books, the character of Uncle Walt was brought in. Uncle Walt is based upon a distinguished, traditional scholar who was ousted while we were at Princeton--he was more of a soldier than a philosopher, and Princeton's postmodernists defeated him and his noble vision via their typical underhanded demagoguery, aided by their anonymous accomplices in the postmodern press. In the novel, the Nobel-prize winning, villainous Elizabeth Sycorax has murdered Uncle Walt and replaced him at the helm of Princeton's English department, which she has transformed into the Cultural Studies and Creative Writing department. My character, Drake Raft, is a senior at Princeton, and he is called upon by Uncle Walt's ghost to avenge his murder. Knowing that the Princeton establishment would be watching my every move, I feigned suicide and set up a website, drakeraft.com, while contemplating the method and motivation of my vengeance. This is the simple premise that lights the blazing glory of the book, and Elliot's tome proceeds to encompass the center and circumference of the eternal verities in the language of our generation-- a generation which the boomer marketing elite have branded generation-x and generation-y or whatever, but which I prefer to call the renaissance generation.

It would be difficult to compose a classic within the ever-shifting context offered by the popular culture which is relentlessly dumbed-down, idolaterized, and commodified by the dominant postmodern media and academic institutions. All the fleeting brands trumpeted by the "savvy" postmodern lawyers, accountants, vulture capitalists, and marketing executives would already be long gone by the time the book was published--at least ten blockbuster movies would have been raved about and forgotten by the time it made it into print. Thus Elliot took care to root The Tragedy of Drakeraft.com in the eternal context that we are today building at jollyroger.com. This deeper context, defined by the likes of Shakespeare, Jefferson, Moses, Salinger, and Twain, shall always form the popular culture of the community of eternal souls, and those who wish to join it must begin by honoring it. As a dead poet myself, I have overheard a few truths spoken in this heretofore undiscovered country--those poets who honor the Greats shall in turn be honored by them, and those who forget the Greats shall be forgotten.

As jollyroger.com's noble context naturally alienated the aging literary elite who momentarily benefited in the wake of the Great's desecration and deconstruction, we are fortunate to have the internet. For without the WWW, it would have taken a much longer time to circumnavigate the postmodern literati's waterlogged fleet so as to sign aboard a vast, global audience. Even now, the elites' postmodern disciples of opinionated mediocrity, who received their basic training in the debilitating creative writing workshops, are blindly rushing forth to become the officers aboard the sinking publishing houses and within the government ministries of literature. And they would rather continue sinking into the void of their vapid popular-porn-culture while publishing their own profitless, meaningless, esoteric literature than honestly profit by publishing and promoting our exalting words--for the postmodernist truly believes that God is dead, and that there are no higher laws, and that all is politics, and thus that their nihilism can be equal to classical literature, just as long as they party with the appropriate critics. But as Huckleberry Finn once said, you can't pray a lie.

Because they saw no beauty in Shakespeare, because they were blind to God's greater glory, it was easy for them to adopt their pseudo- scientific view that literature is a political and economic entity rather than an aesthetic one. In their debased, vitiated arena, where they prophesized that all is politics and that words could hold no intrinsic meaning, it became true for their own literature. And thus there is no reason for us, nor for our children, to read their fading fads. Instead, from this day forth, we shall take care to point the kids towards Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn.

As an artistic rendering of contemporary truths, The Tragedy of Drakeraft.com pays full homage to the wild romance of lighting a fire in postmodernism's infinite night. It's been an awesome rush launching jollyroger.com and building the Classicals Cafes, while Windy and her friends in architecture school up at MIT decorate them with all the cool nautical stuff--personally I'm more into literature than furniture. But just when it's getting dark out in the mountains on these late November evenings, and I'm left alone with some old copies of Shakespeare and Aristotle and Plato and some makeshift tables and second-hand lamps in this run-down mountain mill, all of a sudden all the old, mismatched furniture and rusty anchors and frayed ropes transform themselves into classical antiques, and I find myself within a castle. We just got our first shipment of coffee, and the aroma has enhanced the late-night, lonely mystique, which haunts these words as I set them down on my laptop, my fingers numb from the lack of heat. As the shop is yet to open, she now exists in the perfect silent splendor of a dream. This is the quiet before the show, and I almost fear to touch it, but touch it we must. For we fall into love--we never rise into it. If ye would like to run a Classicals Café of yer own, drop me a line at drake@jollyroger.com! We have been called upon to avenge the deaths of our proverbial fathers embodied by the Great Books, and our most wicked vengeance shall be a renaissance.

But as is often the case, for a fire to be lit, the match itself must be spent. History hath shown that a cultural renaissance is never born without revolutionary thinkers, and revolutionaries run great risks as they go up against the aging power structure which cares nothing for right nor wrong, but only for power itself. And thus there's the darker side to all our lofty pursuits, but the most sublime romance hath always been tinged with inherent danger. And that's why I, Drake Raft, must meet my death within The Tragedy of Drakeraft.com. For I had set out following those ultimate truths which lie somewhere beyond the entrepreneur's commerce and the soldier's duty. I had set out for the White Whale.

I've always thought that perhaps the word tragedy in the title of Elliot's novel refers to a generation being denied its classical heritage and a literature of its own--a heritage and literature censored not by physical force, but by subtle postmodern subterfuge and desecration. Censorship may be accomplished by refraining from publishing a work, and too, it may be accomplished by desecrating the context that would surround the work, by which the work would take root in and grow, and too, as the postmodern elite have shown, both methods might be employed. For they removed the classics from the elementary schools and high schools while appointing their nihilistic officers at the cultural helms, and in the glare of PowerPoint presentations on the merits of raising the bottom line by lowering the higher ideals, a most effective censorship followed, wherein many of the children who have become this generation don't even notice that the deeper, classical context is missing. And the infrastructure that would have once published and promoted meaningful literature, like the New Yorker and the publishing houses, hath been demolished and replaced with feminized magazines and content websites that exist primarily follow TV's superficial lead, and make some bankers wealthy during an ponzi-IPO.

So many have grown accustomed to defining rebellion as agreeing with aging marketing executives. We're all familiar with abortions, and cynicism, and divorce, and the duplicitous artistic lies that the secular boomers excuse as mere irony--what yesterday would have been a moral atrocity is today commonly accepted when it is not honored and revered. The leaders of Silicon Valley are blind to vast wealth to be made by passing eternity's judgement, and thus the wealth shall belong to those on Poetry Mountain. The postmodernists often sanctify decline by allowing and encouraging women to participate in it--pure politics and base profiteering at the expense of ideals is fine as long as it can be demonstrated that a woman benefits monetarily. They make a show about skirts in the courtroom, and then idiots are allowed to believe themselves to be refined and enlightened by embracing the trite plot--pretending to hold it in higher regard than the crucial sex, and should ye criticize the general vapidness, it is because you're intimidated by intelligent women. Children are denied their innocence, and having lost their soul, adults are allowed to stay adolescents forever. Postmodernists have a way of reducing everything to sex and politics, and then when you criticize their methods and means, they accuse you of only talking about sex and politics. As Hamlet said, "They make their ignorance their wantonness." And the only way to defeat them is not to argue with them, but to defund them while exalting in the Greatest that has ever been thought and written. Let them come for me, Drake Raft, as I am already dead--I shall teach them things about their place in eternity that they should fear to know.

Without the Greats' context within the institutions that were built for the sole purpose of transferring the Greats' context from one generation to the next, so many of my peers pass through both the church and the university without even knowing that there is a nobler way. So it is that in a Godless context, a generation may be denied its literature in the name of free speech as the First Amendment might be used to defend pornography, Southpark might be considered "savvy" and "intelligent," and Good Will Hunting might become the peak of intellectual achievement, just short of Dogma. Those who grow up never knowing what the true source of light is shall forever believe the shadows to be the reality. And as shadows are layered upon shadows and the fog rolls in, it becomes dark--so dark that the blind don't even know they're blind, and forgive them we must, for the blind know not what they do. They'll pass through this world without ever having seen God's greater light--they'll live without ever having lived at all. It would be prudent to fear a generation with no sense of the eternal Word, and even more prudent to take every opportunity to introduce them to it. For I, Drake Raft, am dead, and too many in this generation don't even know it. But they shall soon find out, within the pages of The Tragedy of Drakeraft.com.

Basic research in physics had lead to quantum mechanics, which when applied to the silicon lattice lead to the engineering of the fundamental component of the modern economy--the transistor. The organization of transistors lead to the integrated circuit, the grouping of integrated circuits led to computers, and the need to govern computer operations ushered in the development of software. As local computers were networked together via standardized hardware and software, the internet was born. Then came the whole development of content and commerce sites, including internet portals and shopping destinations, and behold, jollyroger.com entered its own unique time and place in the entrepreneurial progression of technology, as the flagship of the WWW Renaissance^TM. And now the center of innovation has progressed beyond the software and to the soul, and the latest innovation is a classical oasis wherein the timeless aesthetic truths are buoyed by science and technology. The internet is the ocean, our serve is our hull, we stand at the helm with our programming abilities, but that higher purpose is governed by our vision, and we fly the flag of classical poetry. Innovation hath moved from Sand Hill Road in San Franscisco to Boone, North Carolina--from the medium to the message, from Silicon Valley to Poetry Mountain.

From physics, which has its roots in philosophy and religion, to quantum mechanics, to the transistor, to the integrated circuit, to hardware, to software, to the internet, to culture, to poetry. And all of a sudden, the "New New" thing, the latest innovation in technology, is the world's classical portal. For the first time in all of history, there exists a corner upon this watery globe, accessible from all latitudes, devoted to the higher ideals and eternal truths that keep us free. The eternal is forever new, and thus while so often forgotten or obscured in humanity's daily pursuits, the eternal marks both the beginning and end of all innovations. Religion, science, then technology, and on the web poetry's been set free.

And what better time than this for technology to allow traditional poets to triumph in the literary arena? The infrastructure to support contemporary classical literature had been eroded by the postmodern ideology and its diverse manifestations throughout the greater culture. Science and technology, which enabled the mass media based on sound and video, amplified the more superficial, Dionysian, idolatrous aspects of mankind, and when coupled with the postmodern theories which were fostered by the misapplication of science to the soul, the written Word was assaulted on all fronts. People read less in the popular culture, and reading meant less within the academy. And yet, they still had this marvelous potential and will to know their eternal soul. Hence the cynicism and irony and apathy which afflicts this generation, which shall never be satiated by the fleeting Dionysian alone--we long for the eternal, and eternity is only known by thoughts, and thoughts are only known by words. The deconstruction and desecration hath cleared the field of our imaginations for a renaissance.

At first glance, it may seem ironic that as creative writing workshops proliferated, the quality and profundity of the literature declined, but upon closer scrutiny, this makes sense. To begin with, creative writing cannot be taught, and thus the classes were most often lead by dishonest hucksters and politicians. And the students who majored in it, who were by definition blind to the irony, went on to become the postmodern agents, editors, and literary government officials so as to subsidize their ambitions. For it was generally the narrow-minded and dull-witted who actually believed that creative writing was to be learned from a fringe feminist rather than divinely inspired upon the open ocean of human endeavor, and thus the postmodern conformers flattered the feminist politician-poets, and they received the key recommendations which landed them jobs in the presently sinking literary industry.

While modern marketing gurus are promoting the fragmentation of literary demographics and publishing and promoting more superficial, celebrity-oriented work, we have shoved off in the opposite direction with the vision of serving everyone with the timeless truths. Our goal has never been to be all things to all people--but it has been to be the best to everyone.

Throughout jollyroger.com's formative years, we gave agents and editors ample opportunities to join us in venturing forth aboard the flagship of the WWW Renaissance, and while some stated that they were delighted in what we were doing, and while we signed with a couple prominent agencies, we could find no editors at prominent houses who had the courage, nor foresight, to sign their souls aboard. Many of them are just now learning how to check their email. Because of indifference, ignorance, and arrogance, they simply refused to believe that the good people were ready for a renaissance, and as technophobe humanists, they failed to see the vast potential of the internet to deliver this cultural commodity. Because they sought to serve their egos rather than the people, they foresook both their duty and their profitability. And they left the WWW Renaissance for the physicists and poets.

It is no secret that a rather large contingent had boarded postmodernism's sinking literary ships believing that God was dead, and it has always been the tyrannical tendency of the postmodernist to project their prejudices upon all things. Fresh out of creative writing class, with their ambitions overshadowing their talents, many had gone into the literary business for the sole purpose of negation--to tear down that which was greater than themselves, for that was the trade that they had been taught in postmodern academia. They were interested in neither art nor commerce, but only in power, nihilism, and empty prestige. And while the latter traits may work fine on a college campus, where nobody takes anything too seriously except for their own opinions, but out here, where eternity's wind blows, opinions do not matter. Only the Truth can survive. Petty politics is no match for honesty married to technology, and for "Oak planks of reason, riveted with rhyme, designed to voyage across all of time."

There is a just symmetry underlying all existence, and the result of the postmodern establishment's prejudices and apprehensions has been that they have missed the boat--the WWW Renaissance^TM has been ours to define and defend, to build and promote upon this wondrous new medium. As is so often the case, the postmodernists' prejudices became their prison. Only in their degraded, deconstructed context could they pretend to be poets, but a poet is only as good as the higher Truths that they pen. Neither wit, wisdom, nor poetry can be bought by politics, nor pedantry, nor money.

In a free country, freedom belongs to the open minds and the free spirits. The nihilism and pedantical politics, which is substituted for the rhyming truth in the modern academy, cannot survive in the free market. Only words which serve the noble heart and soul--the sublime sentiments of the good, honest people of the world--ever survive in the form of classics.

Reflecting upon the nature of our classical portal, it is easy to see what the internet has done. It has removed the middlemen from standing in-between the Greats and the people. And by middlemen I mean the postmodern agents, editors, professors, reviewers, critics, and MBA's who are taught to focus on the bottom line while ignoring the higher ideals. As Chuck D. of Public Enemy said,

The majors are going to have to share the marketplace with the public and with the artist. The Internet won't wipe them out, but no longer will the majors make a 300 percent profit on CDs; no longer will middlemen determine what the price of a CD will be or how the public will view an artist. Because of the Internet, artists will bypass retail, marketing, and promotional outlets and go directly to the public. The middlemen and retail outfits will have to adjust.

There are few greater sins than standing between children and their potential, and that is what the aging postmodernists are best at. For only in a darkened context can they reign supreme, and thus they delight in popularizing a thousand, thousand temptations while deconstructing the context within which we are even able to define temptation so as to defend the better angels of our nature. But now, with the internet and the new millennium, their stonewalling, and tenure, and petty power pyramids are fading fast in the cultural context. In the deconstructed cultural context they attempted to foist upon us, some might have lost the ability to judge their degraded culture as offensive, but there is no denying that it is boring. And I say that this rising generation refuses to be bored.

The Tragedy of Drakeraft.com can be read on its own, in the contemporary pop- culture context, but unlike Dawson's Creek, it shall offer the reader far greater enjoyment and profundity if it is read within a classical context. We hope that the book becomes a portal out to greater things. I would advise ye to read Hamlet, then read The Catcher in The Rye, and then read Hamlet again. Read Moby Dick, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the Gospels, and Revelations. Read the Founding Father's letters and their noble documents of State, and then come back and read these words again. For the literature of the WWW Renaissance must be read in the greater context of the Great Books. And I promise ye this--within that noble context, life's greater, eternal riches do reside, which neither time may tarnish nor moth corrupt. Aye, aye then, me merry maties: as the postmodern fog clears, we'll be navigating by God's greater beacons as we sail this renaissance on home.

Drake Raft, The End of The Millenium, 1999

Just another poet back from the dead for a renaissance.

From: Alicia Triche
To: drake@jollyroger.com
Subject: QUALITY: The Drake Raft Field Trip

Hi-

Okay, I don't know who you guys are, I've only breezed through most of the pages in this web site in, like, the past five minutes (so, did that letter to Rolling Stone actually get published?) but I just have to tell you something!!

I just read the first bit of the excerpt you have from the Drake Raft Field trip thing, and it's actually really good!! Let me explain how exciting this is to me--I NEVER think anything is good that was written after, say, 1950 or so. I am sick and I mean SICK of gratuitous, insincere, disgusting references to whatever bodily fluids will get people published. Like, the swishy butt in "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," and basically every story Walter Kirn ever wrote, and for God's sake, I just read something by modern "acclaimed" author Jessica Treadway that talks about breast milk! NONE of this was actually an integral part of any, like, PLOT, either.

But this story you guys have posted, it's pretty sincere, and you've got the language of our generation down pretty accurately, and it was a lovely experience for me, to read it. I've always had this fantasy that there would be modern books that match the quality of all the classics I love to read--is that what you guys are about?

I just wanted to say, good job, and I really mean that, And I haven't seen anything quite so brilliant in anything I've read that was written so recently. Sincerely,

Alicia

From: butlerh@wkac.ac.uk
To: mcgucken@augustus0.physics.unc.edu
Subject: Drake Raft

Hello there Elliot.. You may be wondering who the hell i am.. well i met you two summers ago in Linda's bar on Franklin St. I was the English nanny, friends with the spanish girl Pillar. Well anyway i read your book that you sold me..The Drake Raft Field Trip (The Tragedy of Drake Raft). I was really engrossed by it when i took it babysitting with me and their dogs decided they wanted it for lunch.. So now i am left at the part where they were gonna have a concert?? What the hell happened at the end.. please tell me.. I hope that you are still using this Email. from Hazel Butler.

From: ugmtjh6961@-------
To: drake@jollyroger.com
Subject: I know your pen

Captain, or maybe I should say Elliot, Ahoy how ye be good matie? I tried to send this mail once, but apparently I have screwed up and will have to send it again. I have just finished reading your news letter for this month. It says you're a ghost. Well I will tell you Captain or maybe I should say Elliot, I know your pen, and the true answer to the mystery of the Jolly Roger. I haven't spoken until now out of love for your work. The fact still stands that by any name you hold a pretty pen. I have read The Drake Raft Field trip and loved it. I tip my hat to ye, to speak the truth can be a hard thing to do. At the same time running a ship can be a hard thing to do as well. I dabble both in html and in writing poetry, and I lend my fingers or my pen to your service. I currently am going to order my own copy of the D.R.F.T. and your sonnets, I would like to support the good ship as much a possible. If there was a time when I wanted to send the good ship a picture, a little art work, how would I go about it? Take care of yourself Elliot, may the Lord protect you and keep you. At the Good Ship's service, John Harrell

From: Debbie Burton
To: drake@jollyroger.com
Subject: The Drake Raft Field Trip

Loved reading the excerpt from "The Drake Raft Field Trip." Meant a lot to me. Thanks for letting me read it.

Debbie

From: WRalph@----
To: drake@jollyroger.com
Subject: the drake raft field trip

elliot-

i am loving your book. every un-PC joke my brother and i ever made is in there - the far side lab guy, lesbegay magazine and feminist literature (clittorally speaking is perfect) and the chinese assistant who speaks no english etc etc. i love the kids' reactions to everything, like response of pretending to be homeless to increase sensitivity. i guess they're what older people call refreshing but it's just that they are what we all think and no one says. there is some author, and of course i can't remember who it is right now, whom i love just because he/she always knows exactly what is going on in people's heads. em forster maybe. i'll remember later. all the college stuff is totally true to life - the secret societies, the social life, the theater people, and i love the fact that drake got kicked out of class b/c his poems rhymed. every little nuance actually exists. the people are reminding me of friends of mine. it's great. i hope this jolly roger mission of yours succeeds. if i weren't here, i'd help. write back. weatherly

From: "C. Lyle"
To: drake@jollyroger.com
Subject: The Word
I can't believe that I sat here and read this whole thing. It's almost 3:00 am and I don't usually read this much this late. I would normally copy it and read it later, but I just couldn't stop reading. I know I will be thinking about this for days to come. The story comes at you from all angles, and has an incredible mixture of ideas. I love where you seem to be going with this. I can't wait to read the rest of the story.

and it had that fresh smell to it-- you know, that one fresh springy smell that doesn't really smell like anything except for itself. You know the kind I mean, and if you don't, you're missing out , so first chance you have, go out sometime right after an afternoon June thunderstorm, and breathe deeply, and then you'll know what I mean.

Yes, I know what you mean. It revives your soul and makes you want to live forever.

Crissala

P.S. The Drake Raft Field Trip seems to be another excellent look at the "quiet desperation" motif from an awakening standpoint. Extremely cool book.

From: JC
To:
Subject: The Drake Raft Field Trip

Ahoy!

Just as I am on the verge of finishing my first rigorous year at the Naval Academy, I am on the verge of finishing your great achievement, The Drake Raft Field Trip. It has rocked like few books I have read, and when I say rocked I mean it in the truest sense of the word. I'm a lover of rock n' roll, but only the kind that rocks the soul and your work here is more counterculture than one hundred million Woodstocks and gave me a better high than the biggest, shiniest heroin needle ever could.

When your book spoke with characters who are replicas of the hearts and souls of our peers, I didn't understand it. But the scene after Uncle Walt's piano lesson, that is a work of Shake-a-spear's caliber. From then on I understand your book. It's a satire of Swift's caliber, and I can see the characters in the people who surround me. All I can say to that is Hallelujah and Amen! The truth is being spoken in a mighty way and rocks the soul! We are on the verge of a great rennaissance here, it's happening even as we speak.

My heartfelt gratitude for writing that book. God bless yer merry soul!

Keep rockin', JC

From: jill
To: mcgucken@physics.unc.edu
Subject: Hello

i own an unbound original galley proof of "the drake raft field trip". i love it. it can be a little self indulgent at times but its real ludicrousness and pace keep it cool. your video sounds like a real undertaking. good luck, let me know how you're doing with it. jill jls0667@email.unc.edu

From: "Joshua P. Hochschild"
To: mcgucken@physics.unc.edu
Subject: Ahoy!
To the Captain of the Jolly Roger:
I have read with interest the first two chapters of The Drake Raft Field Trip and it has kindled my curiosity. I would like to request information on purchasing a manuscript of the book, if you have not yet found a pub lisher. I can't promise to pay any price, as I am a philosophy grad-student, and we don't get as much funding as you. We don't make the bombs of defense. Joshua P. Hochschild
Department of Philosophy
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556

From: Samuel Anderson To: mcgucken@physics.unc.edu
Subject: Your work- I want it

Elliot and the crew: Where can I get your literature in full? I love REAL writing, and I really enjoyed chapter one of The Drake Raft Field Trip--- now I need the rest. I'm not joking, so don't laugh at me (because you like to laugh at people) and just tell me how I can get the remainder of your literature. Soon!

Samuel Anderson

From: kmahon@mailhost.intac.com
To: mcgucken@physics.unc.edu
Subject: Very interesting....

I've just caught up to The Jolly Roger a few days ago after seeing a reference in alt.politics. I'm afraid it's going to take some time before I understand enough to come aboard. However, being a 44-year old boomer, let me suggest that just as Gen-X'ers are not all of one type, neither are boomers. (Although I must admit that my generation's propensity for self-righteousness makes us hard to love as a group. This is the generation that is nostalgic about its rebellious drug abuse as young adults, but thinks it can stop 14-year olds from smoking cigarettes.)

I've just now finished reading Chapter 32 of The Drake Raft Field Trip. Coincidentally, just before that, I read an editorial in REASON magazine that made reference to a 1959 essay written by British novelist and physicist C.P. Snow, who 'posited that the humanities and sciences were moving away from each other and that humanists would soon be utterly ignorant of the science that shapes our world'. It appears from Chapter 32 that certain humanists have already decided that scientists incapable of grasping the humanities. The opinions of your "bald man with glasses" are dismissed because he is a 'scientist' - as if a gap exists that cannot be bridged. Part of what we may perceive as 'problems' with so much of our media and government these days stems from the fact that so many editorialists and elected representatives have not paid the price in learning from the classical writings of the past. It is a shame that most of us can get through 16 years or more of college/university education and still be ignorant of the writings of the great classical authors. In the meantime, I'll continue to follow your voyage.

From: chad7@______.ASU.EDU
To: Red Avenger Subject: THE DRAKE RAFT FIELD TRIP

Captain,

I think I have unraveled the mystery of the jollyroger. There are two Drake Rafts. One is the real person named Drake Raft and the other is the character in the Drake Raft Field Trip. The character in the D.R.F.T. is representative of Johnny Ranger McCoy and his struggle against the postmodern Princeton establishment. Cliff is the real Drake Raft and Timber is Becket Knottingham. I hope I have figured it out.

I have just finished reading the Drake Raft Field Trip and I thought it was excellent. I was very interested in Sycorax's speech to the Princetonians After Dark and the jollyrogers near the end of the book. I just finished writing a paper for a class called the Human Event here for the Arizona State University Honors College. The class is centered around trying to find the truth in the works of the Western Canon. But anyway, the paper I wrote was on the topic of whether or not I thought Plato's society in The Republic was just or unjust. I never thought of his society being similar to that of the liberal agenda as Elliot had it in Sycorax's speech. I was very impressed.

Fighting the battle against the postmodernists here on the western front, Chad D.