Editor's note: For those who the following a bit confusing or obtuse or whatever, this is a vital bit of reporting. You will remember that last year NO Pulitzer Prize was awarded for fiction. Read the NYT if you don't believe us. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/books/booksellers-hope-a-pulitzer-prize-for-fiction-is-awarded.html?hp&_r=0
So, this year, we skipped the Pulitzer and sent our man straight to the Man Book Mutha Fuckery. Same problem. Only this one strikes a little close to home for our local author Fishbim Crawbokov. There has been an active effort to suppress his works and Harfan, whose brilliant reports on the impact of terrorist attacks on Israeli gardens brought him face-to-face with Mosad. Also, Harfan's work on the impact of golf course sprinkler systems on the climate of Arizona received Tiny Town's own "Ecce Homo, Ecco Mono Award, Award." More on that in good time.
Harfan, our most brilliant correspondent from Arizona, reports on things literary:
I had to step out for a breath of air. 11 hours we’d been deliberating in the stifling Man Booker cafeteria and still no decision.
Junot Junot Junot! someone had shouted, as though alerting us to a naval assault.
Meanwhile, McCrakin had been strenuously routing for The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
“That’s not even a fucking novel!”, Garcia opined.
“It’s a novel if we SAY it is!” (McCrakin, again)
“Medgar Eggers—C’mon. How you gonna beat that? Here—let me read you: "
The big blue bird jumped to its feet and said Hello everyone! Hello!
“Gimme that fucking thing!”
“Hey—Leggo my Eggers!”
And so on. That’s pretty much how it went, with no consensus from the learned community.
Suddenly, an imposing figure rose from the shadows, the fluorescent track light filtering through her platinum mane, creating an intricate Moiré pattern on the wall behind her.
“Moiré pattern. Shit. Quit trying to impress the reader,” she bellowed.
The Reader. That’s what we all called her. A nod from her and the Booker was yours. None of us had the balls to stand up to her, that’s for sure.
“While you lexical incompetents were playing with each other, a serious crap storm has been brewing, ok?”
We were down to the last 8 finalists. What could possibly go wrong?
The Reader brought us up to speed:
“Crawbokov! The name ring a bell?”
The furtive Ithacan and his brain-bleaching masterwork were the dirty little secret our society was determined to suppress at all cost. We’d only seen snatches of it—vagrant passages circulated in Samizdat form but it was enough to know that it would render the totality of our literary universe null and void.
“Not a problem, chief. We gathered up all extant copies and incinerated them.”
“All except ONE, you mean!”
Harris, about to plop some mashed potatoes on my plate, froze in mid gesture as the cafeteria fell silent.
The Reader picked up the thread:
“We’ve received word it’s on a chiclet.”
Huh? Chick Lit? Wha?
“Not chick lit—CHICLET, you moths! Some grad student in the antiquities department at Duke converted Crawbokov’s text to Linear B then had some guy over in materials science laser etch the fucking thing onto a tungsten Chiclet. Could fit in a shirt pocket. AND WE DON’T KNOW WHERE IT IS!”
Becker tried to calm everyone’s nerves. “Hey, it’s not like your average reader has an atomic force microscope just laying around the den or family room. How are they supposed to read it?”
“Becker Becker Becker” the Reader sputtered in obvious disgust. “Were you born in a goddamn MUD PUDDLE? Any decent lab can replicate the text. We’ve already run simulations.”
A screen descended from the ceiling, a world map filling our field of view. Sure enough, from a pinpoint in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Craw-text spread like ink, blackening Kentucky, then the Mid Atlantic states, Europe, Asia…
Now what?, our pitiful expressions seemed to ask.
“Find It. DESTROY IT” the Reader said before stalking out of the room.
(end part 1)
– Harfan, the very best we have for this kind of work
