by Dave Eggers
CHOMSKY: They are former slaves. The comparison is apt.
ZINN: They’re good at doing things with their hands. This is something Tolkien is very adamant about. They’re useful, but they’re not very educated. Ah, and this is also where we first see Gollum. I stick to my view of Gollum as a rebel who transgresses boundaries. In many ways he is the heroic, empathetic conscience of this story. He’s the only one who cares about bridging the gaps between these many cultures.
CHOMSKY: You could be right. I think there’s possibly something very wise about Gollum. Obviously he’s well-traveled; he’s a hermit.
ZINN: I think his sexuality is questionable, and that’s why he’s viewed as this hateful, awful thing. Everyone always talks about killing him.
CHOMSKY: Gandalf of course likes to have as many ghosts around him as possible. He slyly encourages Frodo in this belief that Gollum is some kind of horrible, corrupt thing. He neglects to say, “You know, I tortured him just a couple of weeks ago.”
ZINN: Exactly.
CHOMSKY: Notice that Gandalf doesn’t give anybody else the supposed Dwarf book to read. Gandalf could be passing it off as Balin’s last words. We don’t know what is actually recorded in it, though. Very cunning. It could be an agreement drawn up between the Orcs and the Dwarves. It could quite easily be that.
ZINN: It would explain why he kept it out of Gimli’s hands.
CHOMSKY: Sure. “No, don’t worry. I’ll read it. Let me read this to you guys.”
ZINN: This is much more of a Gandalfian, flowery language. It’s hard to imagine the Dwarves writing that way.
CHOMSKY: And now the terrible Orcs invade Balin’s tomb. Let’s be clear about a few things here. The Orcs are fighting a war of self-defense against the invading Fellowship. They basically busted in on the Orcs’ place here. It’s fairly clear that the Orcs are hiding there because if they go outside they have every reason to believe that they will be massacred by Gandalf.
ZINN: The Orcs certainly don’t seem to be very good fighters, do they? If they’re such a terrible, evil, warlike culture—
CHOMSKY: They can’t kill even one of these little Hobbits who just received their swords only a few days ago. One would think that if the Orcs were as bad as the corrupt Man-Elf coalition says, they would be a lot better at fighting. It lends credence to the farming hypothesis—that they were trying to scrabble out a meager existence in the land in Mordor.
ZINN: Here, very significantly, we have the Bridge of Khazad-Dûm. You will notice that what is destroyed is a bridge—another potential connector.
CHOMSKY: On a symbolic level, that is a very good point.
ZINN: All the borders in this film are constantly being destroyed, or overrun, or eliminated, or sealed. It’s all about fear—fearing the other. Notice, too, that the Elf Legolas jumps across the ruined bridge first.
CHOMSKY: They’ll cross this bridge and the bridge will collapse, and they’ll never be able to communicate with the Balrog again, or with the Orcs inside. In fact, they’re sealing off the Orcs from ever escaping. They’re leaving the Orcs in the cave with this big Balrog. Now, again, surely, among these Moria Orcs were some Orc radicals—aggressive, angry, militant radicals. We shouldn’t understate that.
ZINN: Well, look how the Orcs grow up. What do you expect?
CHOMSKY: I mean, what other options have they?
ZINN: I dare say that, were I an Orc, I might possibly be one of those terrorist Orcs, shooting arrows at the Fellowship myself.
CHOMSKY: Here comes the Balrog. Notice Gandalf’s unilateral action. “Quick, get away, I have to fight this thing alone!”
ZINN: Once again you see a creature that’s on fire being demonized in this movie: the flaming eye, the flaming Balrog. As though being on fire is this terrible affliction to have.
CHOMSKY: As though they can help it if they’re on fire.
ZINN: After Gandalf falls, you get another view of the so-called terrorist Orcs. You know, the regrettable side of the Orcs does occasionally come out. The violence. It doesn’t help their cause when these distinct, individual Orcs take it upon themselves to lash out at the inequality of the system. But notice that even these violent Orcs don’t seem happy. They’re not pleased with themselves. It’s a violence born of necessity.
CHOMSKY: Sure. They’re trapped in a cycle of violence.
ZINN: And now we come to Galadriel’s wood, Lothlorien. Look at how the Elves greet people—with arrows. Is that so different from the Orcs?
CHOMSKY: Right. And they’re supposed to be nature-worshipers. It’s sort of sickening and very bourgeois. Have you taken proper note of Galadriel’s farewell gesture, when the Fellowship sets its boats down the Silverlode? It is some sort of “sieg heil” gesture.
ZINN: It is vaguely reminiscent of the biomechanics of National Socialism. You’ll notice, too, how clearly the Man-Elf coalition controls all the modes of transportation in Middle Earth. We always see the Orcs running. But Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn—I mean, sometimes they are riding horses. The Orcs have nothing like any of this. The Orcs certainly don’t canoe.
CHOMSKY: Well, they don’t have these wide, beautiful rivers to canoe on. That’s part of the deprivation of their natural resources. And just as you say, here the Orcs are, running. A bunch of farmers, holding their clumsy weapons.
ZINN: Good lord, these giant statues on the Anduin River. The Sentinels of Númenor. These huge, monolithic statues that have their hands thrust forever up. I think I can intuit what these sentinels are saying: “Stay away, Orcs.”
CHOMSKY: “Keep out of our land.”
ZINN: I have to ask, what does this story do for the powerful? For one, it makes them feel very good about the kind of things they’ve done to less powerful societies. The way they exploit them and the way they invent these phony pretexts to wage wars of aggression against less powerful people. The powerful need to tell themselves these stories.
CHOMSKY: And yet, as in all stories of this type, hidden within the story are the keys to unlocking the hidden modes of power.
ZINN: The thing is, though, that even when the dominant culture tells itself the story, the story cannot help but include those telltale signifiers of power that surrender the true nature of the story.
CHOMSKY: It is embedded, I would say, in the language of the story itself. No matter how often the storytellers try to obscure the truth, the truth will out. The truth will be betrayed through the way the story gets told.
ZINN: Thankfully, the literature of oppression can never last because the oppression is always so obvious. It’s always about the people who are suppressed, who keep getting more and more aware of how they’re suppressed. And once they’re aware of how suppressed they are, they can—
CHOMSKY: Right, they’re able to—
ZINN: We’ve got to get our conspiracy straight.
CHOMSKY: Not necessarily. Think of Lee Harvey Oswald.
ZINN: A patsy. A CIA agent.
CHOMSKY: A cold-blooded, ruthless killer.
ZINN: Right.
CHOMSKY: He was a good shot. He was a bad shot.
ZINN: Right. Exactly.
CHOMSKY: But then, I don’t really believe in conspiracy theories about JFK.
ZINN: Neither do I.
CHOMSKY: So.
ZINN: Isn’t that funny?
CANCELED REGIONAL MORNING TV SHOWS
John Moe
Hot Coffee Thrown in Houston’s Face
The Fort Wayne Morning Shed
Shame on You, Denver!
Tulsa Kills Itself
Why Won’t You Love Me, Cincinnati?
A.M. Terrified Grin Detroit
The Ghost of Anwar Sadat Inexplicably Haunts Tacoma
Wake the Hell Up, Knoxville
Please, Phoenix, Let’s Never Speak of This Again
Uncomfortable Portland Morning with the Sweaty Guy
I’m Sick of You, Wichita. I’m Sick of You and I’m Sick of Your Shit.
Billings Might A
s Well Be Dead
Boston Morning with Stabby and Shouty
Orlando Angst
I Said Wake the Hell Up, Knoxville! Jesus!
Percodan-Free Pittsburgh
Get Off Me, Atlanta!
Crispin Glover’s Biloxi Morning Zoo
Wake Up, Mommy! Mommy? Baltimore
Johnny Cocktail’s Salt Lake City Morning Lounge
What’s the Point, Duluth?
God Hates Anchorage. He Told Me.
Bryant Gumbel Is Pissed Off Again, New York
Knoxville, I’m Gonna Whup Your Ass If You Don’t Wake Up!
Good Morning, Indiancrapolis
A LETTER FROM EZRA POUND TO BILLY WILDER, 1963
Greg Purcell
DEAR ANIMAL,
Your sect’y makes some faint excuse for your continued incivility and your putrid meanness in not returning my original mss.; i.e., of the screen adaptation I have made of The Aeneid, to be played, as per my suggestion, by Charlton Heston. As everything concerning this project has, in my mind, completely fallen apart, I can ask for nothing but that the screenplay be returned to me post haste, and in its original form.
I suppose it is possible that, in the depth of your alcoholic stupidity, you may have glossed over or, worse, forgotten the reservations I am having about this project. I elaborate them here again, as I am always doing for the benefit of children such as yourself. They are as follows:
To begin with, your hold on Latin is deplorable. I suppose you’ve found it necessary to peddle this film to an American audience, and to therefore impurify it by rendering it into English. But to have translated it yourself! Wilder, the refrain goes “mirabile dictu!,” not “miserabile dictu!”
Though, in your hands, I’m beginning to suspect that Virgil’s tale will indeed be more wretched than wonderful to tell. You have also mangled the first line, obviously confusing virumque with virorum. The poet is clearly not singing “about the men’s arms.” You are an idiot.
Secondly, I have suggested CHARLTON HESTON for this role, not Jack Lemmon, as you have suggested. To cast Jack Lemmon in the role is patently absurd. Perhaps he may find a place in the screen adaptation of Juvenal’s Satires I am currently rendering for John Ford (who, I might add, is a superior director to you). Now, you see, the Satires—that’s comedy. There is a bit of broad slapstick in the work, at the like of which this Lemmon character seems reductively adept, as when Juvenal is walking down the paved streets of Nero’s Rome and finds nothing there but litter and human excrement piled up in the alleyways. That, as you might say, is “blue-chip stuff,” or whatever it is that you people call it when you’re jabbering away about nothing at all. Really, you are like a monkey or an ape to me. Monkeys and apes should not be allowed access to works as great as The Aeneid.
Thirdly, I will not, I repeat, WILL NOT introduce the movie dressed in a tweed suit coat, sitting in an oak-lined drawing room, with an impossibly large book in my lap. I also dislike the introduction of the “helmeted skeleton army” on page 53.
Elia Kazan says you are supposed to be ill. I hope you are. And what is more I hope you die of it. In the meantime return my mss., crawl out of the thief category, and make peace with whatever diseased deity is provided for such bacilli as yourself.
Damn you again, and may three new lice hatch eggs on your already infected scalp. May you also vomit on cave-treacle.
Yrs candidly,
EZRA
JOURNAL OF A NEW COBRA RECRUIT
Keith Pille
May 1, 1986
Man. I’m so excited to graduate this month. It’s been a fun few weeks, signing yearbooks and going to beer parties and such, but at the same time I keep feeling worried about what I’m going to do afterwards. I don’t have the grades for college. Heck, when I talked to the Army recruiter about becoming a G.I., he said I don’t even have the grades to serve my country. I sure don’t want to work at the gas station like my brother.
May 2, 1986
Today this guy in a blue uniform came up and gave me a pamphlet. Said he was a recruiter for COBRA, an outfit a lot like the Army but without all those government regulations to slow down the fun. We talked a little and he said he liked the cut of my jib, thought I’d be great COBRA material.
May 15, 1986
Signed up with COBRA today. I got real excited when they said I earned a signing bonus ... figured it would be a couple hundred bucks that I could put toward a new bumper for my truck. Nope. Just a T-shirt with a funny-looking snake on the front. And I’m not supposed to wear it in public. Pretty weird stuff, but they seem like nice guys. I report to COBRA boot camp out in Utah in the middle of June. The recruiter guy said that everyone around there thinks it’s where some crazy old Mormon lives with all his wives. I’m not supposed to say anything about it to anyone. I’m supposed to tell Mom and Dad that I’m going off to work for the phone company.
June 16, 1986
First day of boot camp was a bear. All of the other boots seem like nice guys. Don’t know what any of them look like because the first thing they did when we got here was give us blue helmets with black hankies to cover up our faces. I’m getting pretty good at recognizing people’s eyebrows though.
Figured we’d do a lot of exercise today, but we didn’t do as much as I thought. Mostly just running out of a door and yelling “COBRA!” at the top of our lungs. I got pretty good at it. Now I can sound awful scary when I yell “COBRA!” You wouldn’t think it would wear you down, but boy, am I pooped.
June 18, 1986
Boot camp’s still a lot of fun. And I’m learning a lot. Today we did more mental learning stuff than exercise. We received a lecture about our main enemy, the G.I. Joe team. Seems that Uncle Sam is so nervous about COBRA that he set up an elite team of soldiers just to try to fight us. I couldn’t be more proud. I had no idea I was signing on with a bunch that was this important. I guess the Joes have stopped us at pretty much everything we’ve ever tried to do. But believe me, is that going to change now that Steve Loring is a member of COBRA!
Sarge said all kinds of funny things about how dumb the G.I. Joe team is. Like, they just have one person who’s good at each thing they do. So they just have one guy who can fly a plane, and one guy who knows how to drive a tank, one guy who can fly a helicopter, one guy who can fight in the desert, and so on. They even have a whole aircraft carrier (for their one plane and one helicopter) with just a captain and one sailor to run it! Sarge was like, “What the heck kind of outfit is that?” and we were all just in stitches. Then this one recruit (I think it was Renfro, but I didn’t get a good look at his eyebrows) says, “But if they’re so dumb, how come they always beat us?”
Sarge made Renfro go out and run around the track and yell “COBRA!” for an hour.
June 20, 1986
Real boring day. I was all ready for some more physical training, but instead Sarge led us into a room full of phones and made us cold-call people and ask them if they wanted to switch their long distance to COBRA. During the break, Renfro asked Sarge when we became a long-distance provider. Sarge explained that we had to do something to make money if we were going to afford a private army with hundreds of tanks and planes and a Terrordome, not to mention all the expenses from the Serpentor genetic engineering project. Working the phones was demoralizing, and people were usually pretty mad when we called them, but it felt good to be doing my duty for COBRA. In between calls, I amused myself by thinking of cool one-liners I could say if I ever got the drop on one of those G.I. Joe bums.
June 21, 1986
Awful exciting day today. First we got to do our airborne training. They loaded us up into a plane, and we flew up and then jumped out. Our chutes had the big, scary COBRA symbol on them. It was awesome. But it was hard, because we were supposed to keep yelling “COBRA!” all the way down. It was tough to get enough breath to yell right at first. Sarge says it just takes practice.
After that we finally got to do weapons training. About time! They gave me
a rifle and pointed at the target. I held the rifle up to my cheek and sighted down the barrel, just like I did when I went deer hunting with Grampa. Boy, did Sarge go apeshit over that! Got in my face and started yelling at me, asking how I expected to scare someone if I just stood there all quiet-like and shot so carefully.
Sarge is a great teacher because he doesn’t just criticize. He showed the right way to shoot. What you do is you start shooting your gun wildly and run toward the target as fast as you can and, in your scariest voice, you yell “COBRA!” We worked on that all afternoon, and just before we broke for dinner, I actually hit the target! Sarge and everyone else were so happy for me that they were about to cry. Told me I’d just set the record for marksmanship in COBRA boot camp. I wanted to call Mom and tell her the good news, but she thinks I work for the phone company.
June 22, 1986
First payday. No check, just a couple more of those T-shirts. Doughty and me planned to drive into town and sell the shirts for spending money, but Sarge caught wind of our plan, reminding us that we weren’t supposed to let anyone see the T-shirts because then they’d know we were in COBRA.
June 25, 1986
Tank training today! Wow, it was great! They didn’t let us drive the HISS tanks ourselves, but we got to practice riding in the back turret and working the guns. By now we all knew what we were supposed to do without being told, and Sarge said he was so proud at the way we all just yelled “COBRA!” and shot wildly before he even showed us how.
Renfro tried to ruin the day with a whole bunch of his questions. First he asked Sarge why our combat fatigues were sky blue, saying we’re visible from a mile away at least. Then, when we were practicing with the HISS tanks, Renfro started in on why the HISS driver wasn’t protected by anything more than a piece of glass. And for that matter, he continued, why do we run the guns from an open turret with no protection at all? Sarge just about blew up. I think Renfro’s going to be running around the track and yelling “COBRA!” for a long, long time tonight.