The International Linguistic Center, located in Southwest Dallas, has reportedly been attacked by a group of musicians and dramatists, wielding kundus, koras, lyres (and liars), dulcimers, peacocks, harp lutes, arched harps, old violins, bass drums and fifes. Dressed like pirates and with hoods like the KKK, they apparently were able to frighten a large number of Wycliffe organizational members from a building long used by them.

Although the group has no known affiliations with Motorcycle Clubs or Wall Street, some observers liken their attack to overseas hackers, despite it having been, apparently, a local and friendly takeover. For some time there have been indications that an outbreak was imminent, although it did, seemingly, take many long time residents by surprise.

There are various accounts of what happened, but, to some extent, we have pieced together the following account: The leader of the cluster, a man know only by the pseudonym of “B-ron”, clothed in a shining white garment and wearing a red feather parrot headdress, began removing items from the site of the takeover, reportedly in the dead of the night, accompanied by several lesser hooded coconspirators, one of whom was a woman called “Ro-bin” (which can be translated as “the son of Ro”, even though she is a daughter).

Unbeknownst to the keepers of the Key, the cadre of musical dramatists were also transporting their additional accumulation of Mac computers, files, monitors, laptops, curios and musical instruments of torture to the new location.

By the time the proper code was typed in for the alarm to be sounded, it was indeed too late—the artistic fanatics had completely denuded their former office and had set up headquarters in the new location, now fortified with bows, arrows and the occasional submachine gun. There is, of course, no stopping them now and other nearby occupants can only wait and pray that the group will show some mercy, perhaps handing out earplugs with their propagandistic musical scores.

Like many cult leaders B-ron and Ro-bin claim that they are only there at the “wish of the population” and that their only desire is “to help the tuneless troublemakers” who are in abundance at ILC. On this matter, we must wait and see. In the meantime, try to avoid that section of the campus.

Willie Whitegate

Correspondent, The ILC Flagship

June, 2015

CEWA colleagues –

With a heart groaning as a mother birthing the New Heaven and New Earth, I need to let you know that there are rumors about CEWA spread by one of the people we have heard say, “Lord, Lord” – Karl Franklin. Karl recently forwarded a piece of yellow – nay, chartreuse – journalism to me. Attached. Please read this, then the email exchange that followed, prompted to pray and fast for the lost in our midst.

Selflessly dedicated to fasting until our mid-morning break,

Brian

Karl – I don’t know who this Willie Whitegate is, but “he” is guilty of yellow journalism at its worst. And I’m more than a little disappointed that you would give it the time of day. I’ll assume good will on your part, attributing your failure to notice the flagrant failings, misinterpretations, baseless innuendos, and disregard for facts to—perhaps—a slight gentling of your famed cerebral machismo (cerechismo to most Franklin scholars).

A few of the most egregious errors:

pirates with hoods like the KKK. Anyone familiar with the tightly knit cabals who carry out friendly takeovers would know that explicitly mixing personas is anathema. Pirates and KKK together? That could get you killed.

dead of night. I hope this was a typo. “Deed of knight” corresponds more to reality.

pseudonyms and poeticized translations. Whitegate clearly neglected to perform the most basic ethnographic verification. Correctly rendered, B-ron means “sunny mastodon” and Ro-bin, “landing gear.” Duh!

NSA. Not mentioned once!

Please, Karl. As a brother…nay, an exposed son…I beg you to nip this in the bud, squeeze this in the neck, burn it in the can.

 

With dwindling, faintly hopeful respect,

 

Brian

 

 

Dear Bo (my abbreviation),

 

I am sorry to report that I have dealt with such arguments before and it has not been pleasant. In fact, as the French might say, your reply has been simply par dépit or, as we would say in Tok Pisin, mauswara.

 

Par accés I have tried to imagine good will on your part, despite the nefarious activities your clan has been involved in. I have tried to understand, for example, why musicians, technicians and actors would try to gain access to a quarter of the ILC. I have come to believe, hesitantly, for I desire almost nothing more than your good will, that yours is but the first stage of a concerted effort that will lead to the annexation of the whole campus.

 

You can of course deny this, but why else would your cabal refer to your rank as the “World Arts Center”, if you did not have a larger invasion in mind?

 

As a favorite author of mine once said, “Such scholastic, inelastic abstract yardsticks we deny”. It was in one of his poems on “evolution”, some of which I now paraphrase as quite apt to your firm’s status quo.

 

“Lead us world arts, lead us

Up the futures endless stairs.

Chop us, change us, prod us, feed us,

For stagnation is despair

Gasping, singing, eardrums ringing,

Lead us, nobody knows where.

 

Wrong or justice, in the present,

Joy or sorrow, what are they?

While there’s always songs tomorrow,

While you tread the onward way.

Never knowing where you’re going

You can never go astray.

 

To whatever deviation

Your posterity may dance,

Funk, soul, or hip-hop,

Jazz, blues or in a trance.

Strings or drums, leaders or bums,

Towards that unknown god you rock.

 

On then, folk arts means survival,

Survival. If your progeny

Shocks and strings and drums each rival

That will prove its deity.