Science > Philosophy > NAVIGATING AN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE: MOVIES, BOOKS, & CULTURE: LET SHAKESPEARE, NASCAR & THE USMC LEAD
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Science > Philosophy |
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"Captain Ranger McCoy" |
| Date: |
02 Dec 2005 12:23:57 AM |
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NAVIGATING AN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE: MOVIES, BOOKS, & CULTURE: LET SHAKESPEARE, NASCAR & THE USMC LEAD |
NAVIGATING AN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE: MOVIES, BOOKS, & CULTURE: LET
SHAKESPEARE, THE USMC & NASCAR LEAD
http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com
post tenebras lux
He saw the townlands
And learned the minds of many distant men
And weathered many bitter nights and days
In his deep heart at sea, while he fought only
To save his life, to bring his shipmates home.
-Book I, The Odyssey
cover
Introduction
Ahoy there mates! Contained herein are the captain's logs of The
Jolly Roger, flagship of Classicals & jollyroger.com LLC. The words
were set down during a five year voyage of fantastic romance, peril,
and adventure, as the Good Ship sailed the WWW on towards an American
Renaissance. Beyond the fogs of cynicism we've navigated, and at the
breaking edge of postmodern liberalism, we've sighted the dawning of
a classical revival that shall be known by the rising generation, as
well as by all who count themselves members of the community of eternal
souls.
It's good to be back on shore for the moment, as we always shall be
whenever a fellow seafarer reads this introduction. Perhaps ye'll
meet us out tonight at The Jolly Roger Piano & Poetry Pub or our Great
Books Brewery, before we arise at the crack of dawn to ferry ye on out
towards the greatest treasure of this silicon revolution-the eternity
in a grain of sand. We have seen the future away out there, in yer
hearts and spirits, and it belongs to the honest, while the poetry
belongs to the profound.
In 1995 Jollyroger.com set sail from Hatteras as a labor of love, and
now, by the Grace of God and the loyalty of all our intrepid readers,
the Good Ship has evolved into a profitable venture that allows us to
do that which we were born to do-write. Unlike most dot-com startups
originating from MBA homework assignments, jollyroger.com was not
launched to line the pockets of venture capitalists, but rather she set
sail to serve the eternal popular culture with a renaissance-an
entity which the bankers could not afford to invest in, as enduring
literature must be funded by the courage of poetic passion. Very few
MBAs ever comprehend the business of eternity-the subtleties of how a
world may be born from a grain of sand-and thus it is left up to CEO
Statesmen and Poets to captain literary ships. Business ventures tend
to be considered in terms of monetary risks and rewards, whereas words
of eternity must be written, come hell or high water. It was not mere
information that the Good Ship sought to deliver over the internet, but
poetry, and so instead heading West to Silicon Valley and raising VC,
we raised The Jolly Roger to strike fear into the hearts of Truth's
opponents, and we sailed forth from Hatteras one pristine September
day, beneath a Carolina-blue sky. And we never looked back.
In an era where cool has been commodified and postmodernism has
triumphed in the literary, cultural, and financial arenas, where
inherent worth is oft dismissed and new-age hype rules the day,
jollyroger.com has stuck by the guns of fundamental principle. She has
sailed steadily along her foreordained course, signing aboard loyal
crew members one by one, firing broadsides from the Western Canon to
defend the embattled Great Books, and laying the foundations of the
world's classical portal with the most valuable kind of seed
capital-heartfelt poetry.
In the postmodern culture's pervasive gray, it's often difficult to
perceive the Permanent Things; and thus on the foggier nights over the
past five years, faith in the ancient's words came in handy upon this
deck. In the deepest darkness of the most ironic ironies, where the fog
itself is concealed, there yet exists an inner light in the form of a
classical yearning for Truths greater than ourselves-many know her as
Faith. And like the wind and waves of an approaching hurricane, the
Bible, Plato, Shakespeare, the Founding Fathers, and Melville reminded
us of her-the Words of the Greats let us know that something
all-powerful and great existed just beyond our mortal sight. And by
Faith's inner light and the steady winds of immortal words, we were
able to navigate beyond the postmodern fog, through the popular
culture's sound and fury, on towards the center of our souls-the
placid eye of existence's storm-on towards the eternal peace of
immutable words written and read in the solitude and splendor of
Truth's Freedom. Thus we know firsthand that the greatest literature
serves a higher purpose than the bottom line or the advancement of
political causes-words exist not only to entertain, advertise,
exhort, and explain, but also to light Faith's beacons and fill the
sails of God's Grace. From Words we have fashioned the Jolly
Roger's Oak planks of reason, riveted them with rhyme, and designed a
ship to voyage across all of time.
All generations are united by the classical elements, and the poets and
prophets of each age are those who perform the timeless truths in the
living language, adding to and enriching the context of the eternal
popular culture heralded by the Great Books. Joining in this venture
has always been a risky endeavor, and thus few prudent parents have
ever encouraged their children to become poets. But in this era
especially, ambitious proponents of the postmodern ideology actively
seek to scuttle the souls of young poets embarking on eternity's
favorite venture. The postmodern blockade serves to protect the
degraded trade of the liberal industrial cultural complex, while their
fog shrouds the beacons of timeless truth, thereby rendering the
context for contemporary classical literature all but impossible to
navigate, while endangering the very hulls of morality and Western
Civilization.
Postmodernism is the corruption of democracy, just as deconstruction is
the violence of the weak-both cultural movements owe their popularity
to their ability to empower anyone harboring intellectual or artistic
ambitions overshadowing their talents. Postmodern culture is like an
internet pyramid scheme, wherein cultural creations possessing no
inherent worth are given vast valuations by the insider critics and
cliques who subsist upon and profit from the ephemeral hype, which is
often tax, tuition, and smut subsidized. But eventually all true art,
like all true companies, must create real and lasting benefits for the
public, or fade away, like communism. "One cannot pray a lie," noted
Huckleberry Finn, but without faith in God's Invisible Hand,
postmodernists believe that it's possible, as long as the requisite
mob is assembled and promised a cut. And while the insiders benefit in
the short-term when worthless companies, fallacious systems of
government, and meaningless art are hyped and sold to a duped public,
the public is oft left holding the bag, with their investments
diminished, their classical religions tarnished, their armies
demoralized, the sacred institution of marriage defiled, and the
curriculums of their children's schools gutted.
When the higher ideals and fundamental precepts are forsaken, the
entire democratic ship of state may drift along happily through the
fog, navigating by polls reminiscent of the one given by Pontius
Pilate, not aware of the nature nor consequences of the errant
direction. And when a few in the rising generation begin to seek the
fixed stars above, which they've read about in antiquity's forsaken
myths and felt deep within their souls, they will be branded crazy. And
when the classical rebels see the stars through the breaking fog, and
seek to navigate a straighter course by the Permanent Things, they will
encounter violent opposition from the postmodern culture czars who
benefit from the lack of higher standards, who prefer their arbitrary
will to the rule of Law in cultural entities ranging from politics, to
architecture, to education, to poetry. The relativistic oligarchy shall
view the rising poets' loyalty to God as insolent rebellion, and the
postmodern media shall be commanded to destroy them. And on that day,
the postmodern critics' souls shall be tested, as they choose to be
loyal to tyrants or Truths greater than themselves, as they choose to
remain upon postmodern liberalism's sinking ship or sign aboard a
fighting frigate bound for eternity.
One could spend several volumes chronicling the nature of
postmodernism's adherents and their predilection for bureaucracy, and
the dark character of their political, cultural, and literary ponzi
schemes, but that is not jollyroger.com's destination. We all know
what the fog looks like-too many know nothing else-and the nobler
and more pertinent task becomes taking us beyond it. To criticize
nihilism is to exalt it to undeserved heights, and rather than studying
the ephemeral, poets would be wise to devoted themselves to penning the
eternal.
Whether it's inevitable as fate or it hinges upon perseverance and
free will, we do not know, but jollyroger.com must gain a popular
culture worthy of the Great Books' context. And the only way to do
that is to navigate by the same timeless beacon that yesterday's
poets navigated by-honesty's courage.
The contemporary poet's task is not only to pen the eternal verities
in the era's language, but it is also to resurrect the context in
which those timeless truths may freely navigate and gain the home ports
of the children's souls. And that is where the WWW has played an
invaluable role, for it has allowed us to establish a universe
perpendicular to the contemporary popular culture-a universe wherein
words mean things and the classical context thrives, but which also
intersects with the popular culture. For Great Books growing dusty upon
shelves are of little use, and the classical sentiments must be
continually performed in the living language. While the majority of
contemporary editors, agents, critics and literary officials yet remain
loyal to the degraded postmodern-MFA mentality and the fleeting
insta-classic literary fashions, the greater spirits of the rising
generation are classical in nature, as children's souls always are.
And by allowing The Jolly Roger to circumvent the literary
middleman's cynical vortex, the WWW has allowed a renaissance to set
sail.
Although all enduring truth must by definition be robust, history has
shown that its messengers have often been castigated and impugned. But
upon these American shores, it has ever been our right, as it has been
our duty, to continually foster and defend the classical context
wherein the foundational documents serve the people, come hell or high
water. The Greats have all agreed upon this-liberty demands eternal
vigilance. The pursuit of smaller government, less taxes, rhyming
poetry, and more freedom is as long and arduous a voyage as it is a
noble one.
As a beacon in history's darker contexts, America was founded as a
haven for truth's messengers, thereby becoming the world's
wellspring for science, religion, and freedom. The Declaration of
Independence and Constitution, which may be found at the end of this
book, were penned in tribute to higher principles superior to all
politics and time. Even though the Founding Fathers believed in the
existence of higher laws, they were humble about their ability to
discern them, and thus they presented us with a Constitution which
could be amended. They had as much faith in their children as they had
in the timeless truths, and thus they bestowed us with the tools to
pursue justice and happiness in a free marketplace of ideas, which they
perceived to be ultimately governed by Nature and Nature's God. The
eloquent words of America's founding documents provide for the civil
structure that protects and promotes the acknowledgement of higher
principles by which natural rights are defined, thereby preserving the
sacred freedom of all individuals who are humble before the higher
ideals. And thus upon these shores the honest have always been promised
the freedom to pursue the exalted American dream.
But when the language is degraded until the poetry no longer rhymes
except in vulgar rap, when sacred customs are honored more in the
breach than in the observance, when words and their meanings part on
their separate ways, when the bottom line is placed above the higher
ideals, when the base bass beats over the melody in the music we listen
to, in the clubs we frequent, and in our hearts and souls; when
innocence is lost before it is known, when cynicism is loaded upon hope
and hope is ballasted with irony, and we're exhorted by tax, tuition,
and smut-subsidized cultural officials to carry this pyramid's load
down the road to serfdom, shall we still be free to dream those greater
dreams? When under this burden America is then cut free from her
religious anchors in the name of secular economic freedom, and women
are sent off to raise the Dow Jones to pay taxes rather than raise
moral children, can America long survive and prosper as the flagship of
free republics, even if all the postmodern pyramid schemes never
collapse? Science and history have suggested otherwise-that where
God's morality is eroded, the eternal Bureaucracy marches forth to
become the stolid regulator of human interaction. When people cease to
govern themselves according to higher principles, they lose the ability
to be guarantors of their own wellness and happiness, and they soon
find themselves subject to a political order determined by other
mortals-the rule of Law gives way to the rule by men.
Where the Word-the sacred vessel of all poetry and politics-was
diminished or deconstructed, bullets and slogans oft became the new
brushes with which humanity painted upon history's canvas. And as the
past is prologue, any optimist of human affairs would be wise to aspire
to the wisdom of those who gave us not the gift of freedom, but the
documents which define and defend the freedom that they perceived as
being a gift from God.
In asking what is best for the future of a democratic republic, we are
really contemplating the best way in which to pass along freedom's
traditions. How might we rebuild the classical context wherein children
learn to love reading the Greats, and teachers are given the necessary
authority to teach them? How do we reinstall the killer-app open-source
software of the soul-the classics-which teach not by dictating how
to think, but by inspiring free thought in a rational context?
Today, too many of our peers reside in a superficial context of image
and sound, wherein the popular art, movies, music, and literature make
circular references to the same superficial brands in a self-contained
cultural whirlpool in history's greater context, where ephemeral
lusts, common degradation, and wayward feelings overrule rational
thought and the higher ideals. So how shall we introduce our friends to
a far more profound culture in the context of the Great Books? How
shall we revive the center and circumference of civilization, the crux
of conscience, the jury of justice, the romance of marriage, the honor
of honor, and the device by which we mark the pinnacles of our
aspirations-the written Word? We're not sure of the exact mechanism
nor means to accomplish this, but the crew here believes the answer
lies more in art than in scholarship, more in poetry than in politics.
For intellectuals study yesterday's renaissances far more often than
they inspire today's, and politicians follow the popular culture far
more often than they lead it.
At the dawn of the internet in 1995, the three sonneteers set out upon
a fleet frigate, seeking to pirate the profound and establish a brave
new website where the eternal optimism of the literary classics would
prevail-where the news of the day would always be that the world's
grown honest and Hamlet's gone mad. We saw the chance to marry the
greatest that has ever been written and spoken to the greatest
publishing medium ever known to the individual, and to create a
classical context wherein the glory of words would resound. We saw the
opportunity to circumnavigate the postmodern nonbelievers and cynics,
to appeal to the nobler aspects of humanity's conscience, and prove
that the world yet loves common sense embroidered in eloquence. We saw
the opportunity for a renaissance wherein dignity and honor would be
restored to public office, and the poetry would rhyme once again.
And with a little bit of that Midwest humor which walks hand-in-hand
with Midwest honor, we decided we'd have fun following the dream that
Providence had enabled. We would salute the passing postmodern era from
the decks of a pirate ship, acknowledging postmodernism's vast
success in pervading all aspects of contemporary culture; and with
broadsides of truth fired from the Western Canon, we'd let them know
we considered it good sport to play along with their irony-the irony
that a lover of the Great Books could be considered a barbarous
buccaneer upon Princeton's ivied campus. We were ruthless rebels
because we sought Truth's Traditions.
Postmodern liberalism had won the day, but as a fundamentally
secular-materialist philosophy, that was all that it had ever sought,
and tomorrow shall belong to the classics. For however fun the
postmodern era was, I don't think we'll be making a tradition out
of it. Political rhetoric is soon forgotten, while poetry is that which
endures.
We figured the best way to communicate our exalted vision would be to
combine the cutting-edge technology with the exact same literary
devices used by the sages of all ages. We'd use the common language
and the colloquial to sign sailors aboard, and we'd endow the poetry
at jollyroger.com with rhyme and meter. Whispering reason is far louder
than pompous pedantry, just as poetry is far more adept at winning a
girl's heart than polemics. The greatest writers had adorned their
works not with thesauruses, but with wit. If a preacher knows something
of poetry, then we'll listen, for they must know that deeper meaning
behind the sacred scripture-that law and order exist to protect
beauty's fundamental freedom.
A contemporary literary renaissance presents itself as a formidable
task-one cannot do it alone. For the fashionable relativists are
right in that truth and custom must have an appropriate societal
context within which to exist. And the concurrent relativistic societal
context, fortified with the entrenched prejudices of a maturing,
tenured generation that ushered in a Dionysian revolution via the
pre-internet electronic media, along with a plethora of ideological
"isms" to replace God's simple grace, coupled with a fading popular
culture centered about the printed word and an enforced cynicism
amongst a generation who for the most part only know of the Greats in
their deconstructed, corrupted form, makes the Apollonian renaissance
that jollyroger.com's sailing towards seem all but unreachable.
But then again, as the ancients noted, "post tenebras lux." After
darkness light. Just as God and the Greats originally sprang forth in
tradition's void, so it is that they might be born again in the midst
of a deconstructed culture. For poetry, religion, and romance are
sought by the immortal parts of all souls, and they never have greater
cause to be than when they are not. In the long run, without Truth men
cannot have those possessions most coveted by all deeper
souls-meaning and freedom. With this bold vision and humble hope,
jollyroger.com has set out to resurrect a classical context.
Though jollyroger.com's destination is pristine, the voyage has not
always been and will not always be so. It is a wonderful time to be
alive for the author and entrepreneur, with abundant wealth and
opportunity being fostered by the internet revolution, but even so, it
is a sobering mission to be called upon to serve poetry. For there are
those powerful elite today, and their ambitious disciples, who so
vehemently oppose the first Two Amendments of the United States
Constitution, who have it as their mission to prevent the honest from
lifting those pens which are mightier than the sword.
Neither Wall Street nor the postmodern academy nor publishing
industry-the iron triangle-will invest time nor money nor faith in
a renaissance, but that is OK, as a renaissance has little use for
money, and eternity's time will do just fine. Wall Street prudently
considers the poetry of a cultural renaissance a financial risk in
today's cultural conditions, while the academic MFA postmodernists
consider it a dire threat, and the corporate conglomerates of the
publishing industry have one foot in either camp. But we foresee the
dawn of a new era, wherein those who join in serving and enlightening
the public with the classical sentiments will profit immensely, both
spiritually and monetarily. It is time for a sea change, matey, and
time for the poetry to rhyme once again.
There have been and there are yet to be cruel nights out there in the
postmodern fog, where the Good Ship will seem all but lost, and where
the winds of elite and popular opinion will rage and blow in
opposition, while the critic's cannons blaze away with all the fury
of an MFA scorned. But such is the rugged nature of all greater
adventures, and as of late the seaward signs suggest that the wind is
shifting towards a more favorable direction.
Where men are yet free, they must have poetry equal to that freedom,
and where men yet have poetry, they must be free. Thus exalted poetry
is worth fighting for, and too, these are the reasons why those who
serve the darker powers shall always oppose pristine poetry. The
relativist's favorite tactic in cultural warfare is to redefine
sacred institutions as degraded, corrupted, political entities, from
poetry to the Presidency, until it appears that there is nothing to
defend, until only the dishonorable seem fit to slouch towards office.
Thus they win the war by convincing the common man that there is no war
to be fought, by deconstructing honor and chivalry, by proclaiming
poetry to be no more than politics, by teaching that Presidents were
always corrupt and will always be corrupt, and then enforcing their
dismal science throughout the culture. They deconstruct God and appoint
their friends to all the newly-minted bureaucracies which seek to
overrule His Decree, and which exacerbate the problems they seek to
solve, thereby providing coveted opportunities for more taxation, more
government programs, and more bureaucracy. With a snide smile they call
it irony and cynicism as they benefit in the shadows of the postmodern
fog, but we see it as something much darker than that, as their methods
rebel against God's Will.
Jefferson once stated that from time to time freedom's fields must be
fertilized with the blood of Tyrants and Patriots, and thus in order to
defend the profound prose of this renaissance, treacherous battles
shall be waged against the ferocious prejudices of pedants and
postmodernists for the right to write, publish, and disseminate poetry
written with words that rhyme and mean things. Postmodernists consider
the rhyming truth's shining light a violent assault upon their fogged
territory, and they will fight back viciously according to their
fundamental rules, which state that there are none but for what they
feel. A tyranny of liberal thought exists in the contemporary
publishing and academic industries, which is equal parts ignorance and
resentment, and which may best be defeated by light and truth rendered
with poetry and humor. God's Patriots must learn these gentle ways of
war.
Though these words will not be directly censored, pristine poetry may
be effectively banned by the erosion of the context which supports
it-when pornography is published, the sacred is censored. The Great
Books have been banned far more often by ignorance than by law. Many in
my generation shall never hear this melody as it's drowned out in the
base pounding bass of this week's corporate rock'n'roll, but it
shall be their loss, and not the words'. While we feel sympathy for
the cultural conformists lost in the apathy and cynicism of the
swirling fog, we nevertheless believe that as individuals it is
ultimately their choice, and may God help them find the Better Way. To
those who have, more shall be given, and to those who have not, even
that shall be taken away. May God inspire their moral imaginations to
dream beyond the gray on gray that has come to define their indifferent
universe, wherein spurious definitions of irony have become their
bigoted religion.
Postmodernists know that in order to defend their arbitrary power
structure, where exalted critics wield influence by hyping the value of
degraded literary works, they must defend to the death their
deconstructed context. They have learned that as long as the common
water source is poisoned with their politics, nothing will be allowed
to grow upon the private property of our souls but for barren cynicism.
They know that were the fog to break, the ideals of fidelity, honor,
and lasting romance would begin to blossom in the rising generation's
spirits. As the powerful architects of contemporary corruption, they
must disparage and destroy all who do not ultimately agree that black
is white and white is black, and thus noble romance and honest
innocence are their dire enemies.
The greatest postmodernists have never been the most beautiful nor
talented nor honest-they have ever been those with the least to lose
in the absence of beauty's truth and truth's beauty. Having little
in the way of the fundamental decencies and Natural private property,
as relativist critics they seek to gain by deconstructing others'
private property. And eventually there comes a time when there is
nothing left to deconstruct, but for the true living poets, who shall
be invincibly wicked in seeking vengeance for the razing of their
spiritual heritage and the cold-blooded murders of their cultural
fathers. So it is that the entire postmodern army of deans, agents,
editors, critics, and publishers today fear a lone poet by the name of
Drake Raft. For last night I saw his ghost in midtown Manhattan,
crossing Madison Avenue in cowboy boots, with his hat's brim hiding
his eyes.
Convoluted ironies and swirling vortexes will be encountered on the
high seas of postmodern culture, wherein it will yet once more be
observed that institutions which purport to cherish and transmit the
truth can easily be turned right around in the fog and become those
entities which most oppose it. As it must take an honest stand before
reality, some of the poetry and prose contained herein details the more
macabre customs particular to this generation, raised in the jaded wake
of free love, a declining reverence for the eternal soul, the
crassification of the popular cultural and political arena, and the
spiritual casualties of abortion.
At times aboard the decks of jollyroger.com, we peered a bit too deeply
into the fog's void, and as it looked back into us, we learned
firsthand how postmodern cynicism may breed the most powerful
enemy-one's very own conscience. For even when a man has slain all
the external demons, often the battle is only beginning, and never has
the enemy within known a better ally than postmodern relativism. We
kind of know where a lot of the postmodern priests are coming from. We
were in a grunge band and all that-we saw what the theories sung from
the secular pulpits on high could do to the souls of one's friends,
and we lost more than a few friends at the edge-to the classic
clich=E9s of drinking and drugs, to the all-out pursuit of the material
high, to a few too many girls, and to the
Freudian-Darwinian-Nietzschean cynicism that God is no more than a
myth, and that we're no more than random chemical reactions, sans
intrinsic nor extrinsic meaning. Alas, without faith they joined the
living dead. Raised in the gray void sans tradition nor religion, they
never could discern the very grayness of the void, and so certain of
postmodern indifference, they were convinced that the eternal soul did
not exist, and they sold out for nothing at all. Such is the arrogance
of the small mind which never knows a context greater than itself, and
though conscious, never apprehends conscience.
We'd tasted that pseudo-scientific-secular atheism as physics majors
at Princeton, and we'll tell you that it was a natural faith in
something greater that saved us-wherefrom we also learned that virtue
is not to be found within revenge, but rather it is to be gained by
forgiving one's enemies. Never shall one prevail against the darkness
by answering with darkness, but only by lighting a light. We bear the
postmodern oligarchy and army-the deans, editors, professors,
lifetime politicians, cultural czars, MFA officials, professional
administrators, and all their eager students of decline-no malice,
but we only wish to inspire a literary movement that will grant the
children something greater than was given our generation.
This renaissance is by no means a generational war, but rather it's a
generational peace, as classics are written for all generations. It is
a recent marketing myth which ordains that every fifteen minutes the
new generation must be different (consume different things) from the
preceding one, for there is no difference in the continuum of eternal
souls. Justice is justice is justice, as it has always been, and as it
shall always be. By no means are the boomers in general to be held
responsible for postmodernism's obligatory cynicism, for I sense that
most of them are on our side, such as my mother and father, and the
high school teachers back in Ohio, who were humble before Shakespeare
and taught him by setting his words free within our souls.
And never forget-no matter what postmodernism's fading oligarchy
ordains, they cannot keep young poets from enjoying aesthetic freedom.
They can degrade the romantic to no end, assaulting the ideals of
pristine femininity and noble masculinity in the greater culture, but
young lovers' hearts belong to God alone, and the poetry of this
renaissance shall blossom in their souls. For I saw it in her deep
brown eyes just last night, walking the streets of Davidson, North
Carolina. If ye manage to keep objectivity's even keel-as our
conscientious teachers and parents did-knowing that the Greats are
yer crew members and God is the captain, then the eternal treasures at
jollyroger.com shall be yers for the keeping.
Poets are the fundamental leaders of all cultural transitions, and all
noble leaders must begin by voyaging beyond the contemporary in their
dreams, on towards the higher ideals; and from these spiritual
pinnacles they can hope to appeal to the better angels of human nature.
Fortune and chance play a decisive role in setting the stage, but once
set, all those who follow the call to set the truth down in words
proceed by creative endeavor and luck, on towards the same immutable,
classical elements that all poets and prophets have ever sought. Though
ye might sometimes feel yer walking the straight and narrow alone, know
ye that this voyage is eternity's most popular journey amongst the
Greats, and thus yer always in good company.
We were fortunate in that we began harboring dreams of a literary
renaissance at the dawn of the internet revolution, and too, we were
fortunate to be living in beautiful North Carolina, where we could meld
the natural romance emanating from places like Kill Devil Hill and
Chapel Hill and Boone, and the majestic lighthouses and mountains-all
reaching for the Carolina blue skies-into the jollyroger.com aura.
And the power and fury of September's hurricanes always served to
remind us of beauty's fundamental fragility.
Back in 1994, rejection slips were piling up for our more traditional
and refined literature, when suddenly a channel out towards a popular
renaissance opened upon the internet. We took advantage of the Linux
knowledge which becomes second nature to all physicists, and we set
about creating a classical context in the popular culture. And out upon
the web, we found that greatest treasure of all-a live global
audience to serve. Upon the open seas, all yer appreciative emails
combined to form the favorable winds that filled jollyroger.com's
sails in its formative years. And never for a moment do we
forget-were it not for all of ye out there, we might've made it out
beyond the postmodern fog, but we would've never made it back to
shore. For writing is the voyage out, and being read is the voyage back
on home.
While the revolutions in online commerce have been trumpeted far and
wide, and while jollyroger.com has certainly benefited from them, we
see a spiritual revolution in the culture as a nobler opportunity. As
the ecommerce infrastructure solidifies, with the thousands of
high-tech pyramid schemes collapsing, and the useful websites achieving
global dominance, the renaissance beyond the postmodern fog shall take
a bit longer to realize, as it is easier to change how people shop for
books rather than change the books they shop for, and the context they
read books in. It is perhaps impossible to change an aging
generations' heart, and thus the culture must wait for the rising
generation to resurrect those permanent beacons which endow life with
its richer meanings. Have faith we will, mate, for God springs eternal.
Before the internet, it was difficult to imagine a locale upon this
globe where people from all walks of life could gather to discuss the
Great Books, but now such a timeless, ubiquitous entity exists, an
equidistant one-click away from everywhere in the world. And though the
conversations range in quality and tenor, the Great Books don't seem
to mind, as they have changed not one word, nor their unyielding,
eternal context of Freedom's Truths. And now and then we receive the
email that makes it all worthwhile: "Thanks for inspiring me to read
Moby *****. . ."
Some critics contend that literature serves no moral purpose and that
words should be read for mere enjoyment, and we hope that they enjoy
these words. And too, we hope jollyroger.com serves as a map that helps
the reader find a safe passage out towards their dreams. Always
remember this-even though our greater dreams are sometimes
unobtainable, there is yet vast beauty left in the wake of their
pursuit. For although Einstein, Socrates, and Captain Ahab never
apprehended the white whales they originally set sail seeking, they yet
left behind immortal art and science within the records of their
pursuit of the Truth.
It hasn't always been smooth sailing away out here, but it would have
been far more perilous had we not had the vast inheritance of the
priceless maps created by all the poets and philosophers who have
sailed before us. If ye haven't read the Greats, let jollyroger.com
be the portal out to great adventures, and if ye have read them, may
these words accompany ye on yer next voyage; for the Great Books are
the ones worth returning to time and again. From Hamlet, to the
Declaration of Independence, to the Bible-those were the charts by
which we navigated the Good Ship, and ye'll find many of the same
prominent markers throughout the words which follow.
Contained herein are essays, articles, and poetry written during the
five years we've spent before the mast of jollyroger.com-many of
the passages and poems were composed close to land's end, in places
like Ocracoke, Kill Devil Hills, Hatteras, and Nantucket, and perhaps
the words would best be read in close proximity to the wind and waves.
The final chapter was written as our band was being evacuated from the
Outer Banks during Hurricane Floyd-the last major hurricane of the
millennium-and though there's no need to duplicate those extreme
conditions while perusing this prose, there's certainly a
poetry-enhancing magic to be found a stone's-throw from the ocean.
The vastness of eternity becalms the spirit, and the ocean's expanse
reflects the eternal dimensions of our souls, reminding us that our
spirits are far greater than the daily trifles and worries which so
often obscure life's grander picture.
Some of the passages are a bit more angst-ridden or satirical than we
would write now, but at the same time, many of the youthful sentiments
we could never quite express again, so we have left them mostly intact.
For that which seems trite or na=EFve to the more experienced conscience
is often beautiful to those just setting sail-and after all, what is
angst but vital hope that yet perseveres in the midst of overarching
irony and corruption? At any rate, passion did most of the work for us,
and thus we should be grateful to her and not overstep our bounds in
editing someone else's work. We have faith that with the great
diversity of readers out there, of all ages and from all continents,
the words which follow shall find appropriate minds and spirits to
reside within.
Although jollyroger.com is a profitable business, the words which
follow constitute the most valuable treasures ever transported within
the Good Ship's holds. They are the intangible, eternal, ungraspable
part-we set out not to make money, but to publish these verities
which we felt would be of use to others also harboring dreams of a
cultural resurgence. Each chapter views an aspect of contemporary
society from the deeper context of the classics; and as relationships,
art, the environment, poetry, ghost stories, business, music,
philosophy, science, the classics, publishing, politics, breweries,
piano pubs, and God are all inextricably woven into the quilt of
existence, the chapters share many common elements.
The chief aim of science and literature are to unify and explain the
mysterious without denying it-to make everything as simple as
possible, but not more so. And in its simplest form this renaissance
must be a collection of renaissances-literary, political,
technological, architectural, and spiritual-within the poet and the
reader alike. For we only know the definition of a word within the
context of others. Hence our new domain: renaissances.com.
Once upon a time, when we would have sent this manuscript out to agents
and publishers, our journey on out towards yer deeper souls would have
ended at the blockade of their reluctance to believe in the prospects
or possibility of this renaissance. But today the revolutions in
electronic publishing are rendering the postmodern literary bureaucrats
insignificant. Neither Plato nor Shakespeare nor Thoreau nor Jefferson
nor Melville ever had to work through MFA agents and editors who must
relentlessly publish and hype temporal books so as to earn their keep.
The contemporary abundance of literary middlemen and general literary
decline is in part a symptom of the plethora of creative writing
workshops, which mass produce marketers and critics who are sympathetic
to the postmodern cause. Sensing the threat to their elite culture
clubs and lumbering bureaucracies, which are as close to eternity as
they'll ever come, the literary elite must try to convince themselves
that these words shall be unable to find a market within the hearts and
souls of the public-that is their job. By devaluing Truth and the
Word, they were able to temporarily enhance the relative worth of their
liberal politics. As uncreative administrators and redistributors of
literary wealth, they are of course sympathetic to relativistic and
communistic causes, as these are the ideologies by which the untalented
ambitious can band together and share the spoils of others' labor and
craftsmanship, or spoil others' labor and craftsmanship, and hype
vulgar nihilism. The postmodern era has been the golden era of
middlemen critics and politicians, but it is foolish for them to
believe that it can last forever, especially when they failed in their
central task of deconstructing the Permanent Things, which are now
again beginning to blossom.
The internet, by providing a clear passage out towards a classical
renaissance, has exposed their arrogant uselessness in eternal matters
better than any words ever could have. They had ample chance to sign
aboard, or even set up renaissance sites of their own, and they'll
always be welcome aboard as deckhands, but for now jollyroger.com sails
on towards eternity without them. All artists must make choices, to
serve the fleeting fashions or the thundering eternities felt deep
within their souls, and it are those rarer spirits, who have the
courage and strength to follow eternity's calling rather than the
critic's ephemeral editorials and the banker's temporal lusts, who
end up penning the poetry for eternity's popular culture. It's
nothing more than fate, matey, and it would be hubris to fight it.
We've hung out in New York enough to know how the future is presented
in the slackademic MFA/MBA marketing departments' PowerPoint
presentations, but from high atop the crow's nest, we've glimpsed
the dawn beyond the breaking fog. Literature in its most sublime form
has never been about following markets, but it has ever been about
creating them. The hundreds of thousands of visitors to jollyroger.com
may receive these words immediately with a simple click, and these
words of optimism may be forwarded and downloaded endlessly about the
watery globe, spreading like wildfire throughout the contemporary
conscience. So it is that in the internet age we no longer approach
publishers so much as to ask to have a book published, but instead we
invite them to join us aboard an entire context-for this ship has
left port.
We know it's just a small ship, and its contribution towards any
renaissance will be far smaller than the daily contributions of all the
hard-working, innovative people who make this country work. Machiavelli
once stated that a man's intelligence can be assessed by the quality
of men he surrounds himself with, and in that regard, the three
sonneteers have been very fortunate. And if we can be of any assistance
in helping parents inspire their children to read, or entertaining and
exalting a cynical college student with a few words of contemporary
wisdom from their peers, then all the better. If jollyroger.com serves
to introduce a couple of people to the beauty of the classics, then
I'll know the Good Ship is headed in the right direction. If the
rising generations seek to engage in the Apollonian arts and once again
return to rhyming, metered verse; and narratives with plots, and heroes
with moral dreams and flawed natures rather than anti-heroes with
perfect cynicism; and if a new scholarship arises, wherein words once
again mean things, promises are made to be kept, and professors
illuminate the greater moral truths in the Great Books; and if politics
follows the poetry's lead, and just beauty is again found in
eternity's higher order, and tomorrow's statesmen are again
schooled amongst the Greats, then jollyroger.com shall be well on her
way. And we think she is.
There's a poem which scrolls across the bottom of the jollyroger.com
pages, which has scrolled hundreds of thousands of times over the past
five years. Now a lot of sailors have expressed admiration for it, and
many have requested printouts, so we would like to conclude this
introduction with the poem, which also opens our first volume of
collected jollyroger.com poetry entitled Eternity in a Grain of Sand:
The Most Perfect Silence of Jollyroger.com Poetry. Neither this
manuscript nor the volume of poetry were ever even sent off to the
traditional publishers for consideration, but instead they were both
sent directly to you, via a myriad of new technologies ranging from
HTML to XML to PDF to print-on-demand. The lumbering conglomerate
fleet, anchored by postmodern prejudices and loaded with thousands of
faceless middlemen hypesters, has proven too dilatory and demented to
navigate a renaissance upon the high seas of the WWW. They had their
chance to get in on the ground floor, but now it's going to cost them
millions, and even then, maybe something that you just can't buy.
Again, poetry's profound peril and glory, and literature's wondrous
risks and rewards, are left to the rugged individual-the rugged
individual who one day awakens to realize that they have no choice but
to follow God's Will.
Not only were we the first to pen these sentiments, but we were also
the first to publish them, which of course will be viewed as a
liability by our critics. But we contend that if yer man enough to
write a book yerself, ye might as well be man enough to publish it
yerself.
In lecturing about the purpose and beauty of poetry, in defending the
rational foundations of noble civility and exalted existence, we pledge
to never forget the most perfect silence which resides at the center
and circumference of jollyroger.com's reason to be-eternal poetry
for all the stalwart sailors. In war, one must never forget the peace
one is fighting for. Welcome aboard an American Renaissance, mate.
-At yer service, Captain Becket Knottingham
Standing on Hatteras, North Carolina
The Most Perfect Silence
I know where the most perfect silence is,
Seen it in the wild blue off Hatteras,
A mile out, rainbowed sails in silent bliss,
Looked like they'd collide, but they safely passed.
I know when the most perfect silence is,
Down a dusty Ohio road, high noon,
No shirt on, being burned by the sun's kiss,
Sixteen, takin' my time-it was still June.
I know what the most perfect silence is,
It's what we say when falling out of love,
It roars and thunders right through the kiss,
Says all that no words can ever speak of.
I know why the most perfect silence is,
It is there for the whisper to be born,
The whisper in her ear became the kiss,
Just a dream in DC early one morn.
I know who the perfect silence is for,
It is for the ones whom we love the best,
It is there to protect them from our core,
By the silent trust we all seek to rest.
And I know how rare that silence can be,
With everyone talkin', it's hard to hear,
But I know I felt it, on the streets of DC,
The sound in her eyes-it was crystal clear.
And it brought back to mind the rainbowed sails,
And the way it looked like they would collide,
Like two souls set upon fate's iron rails,
But the most perfect silence never died.
http://jollyrogerwest.com
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