We saw pre-business freshman Russ Cook in front of the Family and Consumer Sciences building.
Wildcat: I printed out some excerpts that I thought were interesting, and I wanted to get your comments on. The first one: “”All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.””
Cook: I guess it’s kind of a statement that you hear over and over again, but I feel it generally doesn’t happen because although we are trying to address issues of race and class when it comes to monetary values, it’s still a huge discrepancy in terms of where people stand on the social strata, based on an issue that shouldn’t really be a factor.
W: Yeah, you are so right. OK, this is from an essay by Leslie Fiedler, called “”Come Back to the Raft Ag’in, Huck Honey!”” “”The rude pederasty of the forecastle and the captain’s cabin, celebrated in a thousand jokes, is the profanation of a dream; yet Melville refers to them only once and indirectly, for it was his dream they threatened. And still the dream survives; in a recent book by Gore Vidal, an incipient homosexual, not yet aware of the implications of his feelings, indulges in the reverie of running off to sea with his dearest friend.””
C: I’m not really sure what to think about that one. I’ve never really thought of that before.
W: It’s really interesting though.
C: Yeah.
W: This one is from an article I found in The Guardian on Monday on Europe’s top 10 motorbiking roads. “”Number three. The Transfagarasan Highway – Sibiu to Curtea de Arges, Transylvania, Romania: Constructed at Nicolae Ceaucescu’s behest in the 1970s as part of his megalomanic zeal to conquer nature, the Transfagarasan runs across the highest mountains in Romania for 35 kms.””
C: I’m still kind of confused. Are you just reading the excerpts and I kind of…
W: Yeah, it’s just an interesting thing about the highway.
C: Actually, it has meaning for me because I love basically anything with a motor. When I hear something like that, I can just picture someone driving along the road, enjoying the English countryside, putting all cares behind them.
W: “”Do not ask which creature screams in the night. Do not question who waits for you in the shadow. It is my cry that wakes you in the night, And my body that crouches in the shadow. I am Tzeench and you are the puppet that dances to my tune.”” By Karanzantor the Vile, The Traitor of Xian.
C: That shows how fear can rule a person. That last line, about the person being a puppet, it shows how, “”Oh, I’m trying to guard myself for me before I know what you are. I don’t know how to approach you. I’m just assuming that it’s something bad, and I’m assuming that I have to be afraid of you, so already you have a disadvantage.””
W: This is from a song called “”Pretender to the Throne.”” “”I rode to her on griffon’s wings/ Piercing the darkness of her dreams’ She begged the dark to be my bride/ To bear my son, the demigod/ So I gave her the joys of hell/ A night of dark and bleeding lust/ My heathen sperm, my burning seed/ To raise the mortals’ demon-king.””
C: Wow. I really don’t know how to respond to something like that. People listen to songs every day and don’t listen to the lyrics. I guess it made me think, people used to think of music as a medium of putting out information, but now it’s just become about the notes itself, and somewhere along the way, the true meaning of music was lost.
– interview by Andi Berlin
