A short excerpt from “The Book,” the connection to our cool kid talk about Next Generation comes at the end. It's not totally explicit, but did you ever see the episode that tells the story of the first human to discover speed of light traveling? That's the ideological inspiration. Hope it's as fun to read as it was to write.
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Here is this book. An agent has the right to not represent me, a publisher has the right to never publish it, you have the right to never read it. You have the right to read it and hate it. You have the right to start it and never finish it. And yes, I’d like to pretend that when I write I don’t think about these things, but I do. When I run my lap around the park, I answer imaginary questions from Leonard Lopate and I am hilarious. I want to be famous. I want to be the best. I am about to be 31, but I want to be published by the time I’m thirty. I want to win a Booker prize even though I’m not British. I want to win the Nobel prize for literature. I already know generally what I’ll wear. Something black, because I sweat when I’m nervous, but silky and with a daring cut. Perhaps a low back to show off some tattoo. I think my hair will be long again and I’ll wear it in a tight braid, or perhaps loose, and I think red lipstick. I want to write a screenplay of this book and I want Jonathan Demme to love it and make the movie and I want to go to Sundance and Cannes and be the talk of the festival. I want to be the non-celebrity who’s so gorgeous and dresses so well they still put pictures of me in US Weekly, and the fashion blogs put up photos of me, saying “Writer surprises with edgy glamour.” I want to win an Oscar and I want to wear either vintage Chanel or Valentino couture; perhaps something new by Lanvin or the house of Alexander McQueen. And during my acceptance speech I want to make a radical political statement that brings people’s attention to our destructive lives of consumption and waste and I want that one to two minute statement to be the catalyst that starts a chain reaction that makes everything better.
It happens like this. First the twitter feed becomes a frenzy and then it spreads to Facebook and all the other social media I’m not fluent in. Then Diane Sawyer and The View mention my comments, then Kurt Anderson and CNN, NPR picks up on it, and Democracy Now reports that my short speech has people somehow paying attention to what they’ve been explaining all along. Fox news reports alarming trends. Corporations report rapidly declining sales. The banks are concerned and even the army generals worry. Americans are talking of peace, and sustainable energy, and suddenly it’s not just a few, but all of them.
Everyone, it seems, starts composting. People say that all thoughts of racism and homophobia, thoughts they didn’t even realize were racist and homophobic, are now leaving them. Teachers are hailed as the most valued members of our society, and given substantial raises.
“Tom Robbins called it the Reptilian Age, and Hunter S. Thompson depicted it in his work, and it seems that we are coming to its end. Americans are calling for a change, and some are dubbing it the start of a Floral Consciousness, and it all seems to have begun with the comments made by the writer, Jade Sanchez-Ventura, at the Academy Awards last year…” Cue photo montage.
As the change spreads to other countries; as we enter a new partnership with Mexico, and Israel tears down the wall; as oil, mineral, and diamond companies start paying vast reparations to African countries; as nuclear power plants power down; as the production of plastic is halted, and fisheries across the globe strategize the stewardship of the oceans; as coal mining stops, and miners given top-of-the-line care; as unoccupied mansions and apartments are given to homeless vets, and cops re-designated community peacekeepers; as we begin to harvest our rain water; as the work day is shortened; as neighbors make sure to say hi to each other and as we stop eating lunch while walking, as the change truly takes hold, we come to the attention of a vast universe of species that, it turns out, has been ignoring us this whole time. Finally this vast alliance make its presence known, congratulating us on taking our first steps beyond our unenlightened ways. They welcome us as the newest member of an interstellar community that has been evolving for millennia. Just as an addict deep in their addiction cannot hear the message of a meeting, so were we. We had not been ready to change. We had not thought we needed to. We see that we still have a long way to go but are told that all we have to do to earn membership to this enlightened community is try. We discover hope, and in so doing we begin a new and magnificent dawn of man. And all because I write this chapter well.
