ABSTRACT SATIRE, THE MOST EARNEST MODE by Alex Friedman Satire, the Most Earnest Mode collects a multi-genre review of my work in satirical and subversive fiction composed during my time at Miami University. It includes examples of short story form, oral storytelling forms, and political blogging. There’s a flamingo from space, there’s anti-dinosaur fear rhetoric… lots of stuff. It’s really kind of difficult to summarize in 200 words. Like, how would you summarize 40 Stories by Barthelme? This isn’t as good as that book, but just as comparison. Wow, this is going to be embarrassing when my delay of publication runs out… SATIRE, THE MOST EARNEST MODE A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of English by Alex Friedman Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2014 Advisor______________________ Margaret Luongo Reader_______________________ Joseph Bates Reader_______________________ Stefanie Dunning TABLE OF CONTENTS Meditations on Car Insurance 1 Dinosaurs! WTF? 7 In the Valley of Terror (and other stories) 8 Spoken Fables 98 ii “All you do is talk shit.” Mike Anthony, to the author in 7 th grade iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to Margaret Luongo, Jodi Bates, and Stefanie Dunning. I really appreciate the support through this process. Thanks to Emi Slade, from whom I commissioned the cover for In the Valley of Terror . Thanks to Rachel, Mom, Dad, Joseph, Michael, Gretchen, Will, and Taylor. iv Meditations on Car Insurance 1 A Meditation (On Car Insurance) Everywhere around me, messages float through the air. They want to get inside my brain. They float on electromagnetic waves, through the concrete of my bedroom, through the frames of my glasses, trying to find purchase, trying to find an inlet, something to reverberate against. They are full of voices and images, urges and will. They’re trying to sell me car insurance. They feed on my desire to see or hear or feel anything else, they appear there, they try to sell me car insurance. The waves feed into this machine, floating on my apartment air from a wire that they traveled through from somewhere far away, they sing to me about car insurance. Whenever I open the channels, wherever I look, they send lizards to sing to me about car insurance. They need me to buy car insurance. Dick Michael is the man who sells me car insurance. He is not very good at it. I have told him as much. He talks to my mother on the phone sometimes, and tells her how demographically irresponsible I am. How foolish it would be to be seen with me on the same bill for car insurance. I buy car insurance from Dick Michael because Dick Michael is the man from whom I buy car insurance. Dick Michael sends me stickers that have my address from two years ago on them, next to a picture of car insurance. Sometimes on a sunny day, when I look up at the sky, there is a googly eyed blimp that wants to sell me car insurance. Sometimes when we gather together and say a prayer for the victims of a tragedy, it is followed by the lizard of car insurance. Sometimes when I ask to see a film about the problems with capitalism, I am shown a short message from car insurance. 2 I will play it safe. I will pick up the phone. Like a good neighbor, I will be there. I will be the hot jogger that distracts me as I plow into a telephone pole. I will place myself in good hands. It’s so easy a caveman could do it. When I close my eyes I see a lizard. There is a glint in its eye. Like it wants to talk to me about 3 A Meditation (II) And lo, Dick Michael’s mailer that he sends me every six months said, Be not afraid, for I go before you always. Though the road may seek to rend you bodily in the day and fitfully awaken you at night with half remembered terrors: be not afraid. For you rest in my arms, as the child at its mother's breast. That will be $77.50. I'm telling you the truth! Though you find yourself battered by blinding rains on the freeway, boxed in by semis, carrying three of your most beloved passengers, you must trust me as they trust in you. So confident in your driving that they lounge and sleep about your car, unconcerned. Though you fear for your very life, you steel yourself. Have you no faith? Hasn’t thou survived thus far? It is because I protect you always. That will be $77.50. Though you drive through the forests of the valley of death, it is I who carry you, O!, like the good shepherd carries the lamb, I sit in my office enjoying Hulu Plus because I can afford it and you steer and twist and turn through the shadowed wilder. And lo, though the forest beasts lay siege to you like the heathen in kamikaze flight, and are happy to exchange their lives to barrage thine windshield, it is I who safeguard that windshield (after a $500 deductible). That will be $77.50. And should your car be struck in the street while you are sleeping, fear not. For I will assess the damage and bestow upon thee the means to repair it (after a $500 deductible). Unless the damage is significant, lo, then surrender it unto me as I will dissemble thine vehicle at no charge, so that I might sell the parts and bestow upon thee its former value (minus a $500 4 deductible). And though you may ask where one finds a reliable car for two thousand dollars it- was-a-fucking-Camry-goddammit-worth-at-least-7-grand, fear not, for I have protected you, no one was injured, deal with it. That will be $77.50. Amen. 5 A Meditation (III, wherein the artist co-opts the corporate profile of his insurance agent) We focus on relocations A ‘why won’t you go away’ focus We focus on you should go home Please focus on the lack of welcome mat Regional Vice President's Club (State Vice Presidents are not allowed) Michigan Tech University, BS-Metallurgical Engineering Silver Scroll Qualifier Bronze Tablet Qualifier Life Quality Qualifier You must qualify as possessing the quality of being alive You must be a metallurgist to qualify bronze tablets. To qualify my silver scrolls To validate my parking Our mission is to help people manage the risks of everyday life, recover from the unexpected and realize their dreams. Our mission is to advertise a product that does not exist. Our mission is to realize their dreams. 6 Dinosaurs! WTF? This satirical blog is an attempt to use my embarrassingly deep font of dinosaur knowledge to satirize conservatism, survivalism, and whatever flavor of the week ridiculousness pops up in the news. I’ve tried to pare down the blog’s content to a “greatest hits” length. What is the Conservative Dinosaur Readiness Movement? Colorado: Forward Base of the Dinosaur Menace Red Rock Dawn I Friggin' Told You So Legitimate Interview with Peter Larson The 5 Spikiest Dinosaurs Dinosaurs that Prove Millennials are Unemployable Losers Terrifying Raptors that Disprove Creationism 7 In the Valley of Terror (and other stories) a chapbook collection of weird tales 8 9 The Silver Eye I found him at the bar. He thumbed at the silver device, its eye whirring. He drank. “Imagine then, as this is a limitless universe.” The absinthe, emerald in his glass, roiled in his eyes. “Any microwave you might name, radiating on artificial frequencies, emanating from a planet where electromagnetism should be absorbed, a beacon from a planet inherently hospitable to life and bleeding from dozens of energy sources,” he rambled, shivering. I stood from the table but he pulled at my arm, his nails tearing open the cuff of my shirt. “A beacon in a universe of devouration! There is no place where energy and liquid water meet that life cannot arise to seek further! This world is a glowing, swirling mass of cosmic mana, suspended for any entity that might reach out, to ravage it.” He loosened his grip, weeping now, his sweaty graying mane wanton and torn; and the patrons of the lounge now stared. He looked up at the voyeurs and back to me and threw the silver thing back onto the table. “It is not a question of if we are sought by those... cosmic others,” he murmured, “But of how quickly they may seek!” 10 Every Preceding Thursday I first noticed that Thursdays no longer counted for me during the end of the Fall semester. I suppose I could have been louder about the situation, but no one seemed interested. I didn't see any reason to let it dominate my peers' perceptions of me. I decided I would start wearing nicer shoes, to offset the damage to my professional reputation. It worked quite well. I was studying biophysics at the time and teaching a class which met on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I first noticed the Thursday problem because of a perplexing conundrum that arose in a Tuesday class. None of my students remembered class on the preceding Thursday. I became slightly irate. "Does anyone have the answer to number three? We covered this in class on Thursday," I said to thirty blank stares. Silence. "Anyone." Silence. Nervous glances. "Hoodie kid in the back?" I pointed.