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Busted!

It didn’t take long for hyper-alert postmodern blogger/reader Tristero to discern that my previous post on David Gelernter was in fact a hoax.  Damn Tristero and his whole shadowy underground society!

Here,

(he writes)

in cyber-homage to the great modern masters Jorge Luis Borges and Vladimir Nabokov, Bérubé goes to the enormous trouble of faking a right wing screed and then commenting upon it.

In his post, Bérubé discusses an op-ed improbably entitled “Bush’s Greatness,” composed, Michael tells us, by Yale Professor David Gelernter, a real person known for his unusual opinions.  To provide an extra frisson of verisimilitude, Michael even hacked up a very convincing simulation of the Weekly Standard website upon which Bérubé has embedded the complete text of “Bush’s Greatness.” Ars longa, vita brevis, you betcha!

How did Tristero pierce the veil, you ask?  Well, it appears that at a crucial point in the simulation, my parody of right-wing nuttiness simply jumped the shark:

But then, alas . . .

The article becomes too clever by half. “Professor Gelernter” slips into a rant, devoting paragraph after mind-boggling paragraph to an elaborate comparison of the country of Iraq to . . . Kitty Genovese.

The senses reel at the weird, unexpected juxtaposition of images. A woman bleeding to death and screaming, her only witness the immaculate lawns of Forest Hills. Superimposed over her horror-struck features we perceive an hallucination of Islamists, of fascists, of mercenaries, of American neocons, of God knows what else, all of them clamoring for power, all of them crawling on their bellies in an oil rich Hobbesian landscape.

And thus slips Our Satirist’s mask.

For ‘tis a fact: No rightwing nut, no matter how deranged, no matter how clever, would ever come up with such a completely original (albeit idiotic) comparison.

OK, so Tristero nailed me.  No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow, who’s once been set his tryst with Tristero!  But, dear readers, even though I know some of you are tired of finding layer after layer of annoying postmodern irony on this humble blog, I confess that I really thought I could pull this one off with impunity.  Honestly, after my post-convention discovery of Roger Simon’s convention coverage, in which I learned that my parodies of Koch-kissin’, Zell-lovin’ bloggers were but pale shadows of the self-parodies of Koch-kissin’, Zell-lovin’ bloggers themselves, I figured I could attribute any number of bizarro-world lunatic ravings to the wingnuts (even a comparison of Iraq to Kitty Genovese!) and nobody would be the wiser.  So with a little help from my English Department colleague Charles Kinbote, I downloaded the Eystein Reality Generator, an open-source device that tinges any website simulacrum with an eerie pale fire, and put together my elaborate Weekly Standard parody in the course of an afternoon.

And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids and your weird “Don’t Ever Antagonize The Horn” cult!!!

Instead, Tristero has gone ahead and ripped off the mask.  And so today I find in my emailbox a “cease and desist” letter from the legal firm of Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus, signed by somebody named Metzger.  It reads, in part:

Dear Michael Bérubé:

We have been informed by our client that your weblog has provided a misleading and possibly fraudulent hyperlink to what purports to be the Weekly Standard website, and that you have made available, by means of this hyperlink, an essay which purports to be an article by Yale computer science professor David Gelernter.

Intellectual property law with regard to Internet websites is admittedly unsettled on matters such as this, but it is our opinion that this hyperlink constitutes actionable copyright infringement as well as material misrepresentation amounting to fraud.  By suggesting that the Weekly Standard would publish an essay so deranged as to compare Iraq to Kitty Genovese, you have done material harm to the Weekly Standard and its reputation as a legitimate journal of conservative opinion and political analysis.

We will shortly be in touch with your attorneys regarding this matter.  In the meantime, our client requests also that we advise you to stop doing your William Kristol impersonation at dinner parties.  Mr. Kristol’s smug, supercilious demeanor is an integral part of his distinctive ‘branding’ as a media personality, and may not be imitated, adopted, or parodied without the express written consent of the Weekly Standard.

So thanks a lot, Mr. Tristero sir.  I hope you’re happy now.

Posted by on 09/08 at 10:30 AM

  1. You are having more fun at wing-nut expense than any decent self-respecting liberal has any right to. For shame! Clearly you are the force behind President Bush’s recent speechafying. We know that was you behind the rubber mask talking about OBGYNs and love. 

    Posted by Kathryn Cramer  on  09/08  at  12:02 PM

  2. Damn Michael, I read your blog as an escape from mystifying esoteric texts and here you go giving me a headache. So you went and created an evil twin blog called Tristero who accused you of making David Gelernter look like a raving right-wing ideologue.  When do you rip the rubber mask off Tristero and expose yourself?

    Posted by  on  09/08  at  01:01 PM

  3. No, now that the Weekly Standard’s law firm is watching him, he’s going to need to hide behind his alter ego of tristero so they don’t get him, clearly.

    Poor guy.  It’s sad the lengths you have to go to these days in order to do a William Kristol impression in peace.

    Posted by EC  on  09/08  at  01:43 PM

  4. Congratulations, Mr. Gelernter!

    Ever since your people hacked Mssr. BÈrubÈ’s site, your parody, faux-BÈrubÈ posts have nailed his style. I wonder how many of his readers have been fooled.

    The past week’s posts are like a set of Phildickian mirrored nesting matryoshka dolls, each opening to display a new reality turned inside-out.

    And your Gelernter post was even Gelernterer than your own writing. In fact I think it was the Gelernterest thing I have ever read.

    You should next do a Ballard/Jarry bit where BÈrubÈ writes on The 2004 Presidential Race Considered as a Hockey Game.

    Thanks again!

    P.S. How will we know when BÈrubÈ’s people retake control of this blog? Maybe you can give us some sort of sign. 

    Posted by wtfwjd?  on  09/08  at  01:47 PM

  5. Hats off to you Michael.  I’ve been reading your site since last week and saw the satire at that time.

    This one actually made me look for the punchline!  Hard.  Good job.

    Posted by tanstaafl  on  09/08  at  02:23 PM

  6. I laughed. I cried. I needed a good laughed-until-I-cried.

    It’s fun to watch the National Review and the Weekly Standard fight over the mantle of Least Intellectual/Intelligible Mouthpiece for the Bush Administration.

    However, until the Weekly Standard incorporates a mind-numbingly banal, politics-lite “blog” like The Corner, the NRO’s got ‘em beat. 

    William F. Buckly must, be rolling over in his ... oh, yeah. He must be disappointed with his legacy.

    Posted by Robert S.  on  09/08  at  03:18 PM

  7. Man, I just don’t know what to say to readers like wtfwjd? and EC and Chris Robinson.  If you folks don’t see by now that this Tristero character is David Gelernter, I can’t imagine what it will take to convince you.  Damn all these android blogs anyway-- with every upgrade they get harder and harder to distinguish from the real thing.

    Posted by  on  09/08  at  04:03 PM

  8. The suburbs of San Narcisco are filled with doubt tonight.

    Posted by  on  09/08  at  05:31 PM

  9. Strip Botticelli, anyone?

    Posted by wtfwjd?  on  09/08  at  06:06 PM

  10. So, when do we hear from Pierce Inverarity (or perhaps we already have??)

    Posted by Marianne  on  09/08  at  07:24 PM

  11. Michael BÈrubÈ is going to make the Baby Jesus cry.  This is too much.

    Posted by daniel  on  09/09  at  12:46 AM

  12. Well, you’re making quite a name for yourself, aren’t you, Mr. Smarty-Pants Communist?  Just keep it up.

    No, really---keep it up.  This is too much fun.

    Posted by  on  09/09  at  12:47 AM

  13. By the way, EC: your comment on the other thread about computer science majors was quite rude.  We’re not all right-wing code drones working for Diebold.

    Not that there isn’t a lot of bs in the field, but that’s true everywhere.

    Posted by daniel  on  09/09  at  12:58 AM

  14. This is better than “The Crying Game.” Camera pans downward to reveal Tristero is Michael Berube who is really David Gelernter who is, of course (and we discerning readers should have seen it all along) Karl Rove. Hopefully the real Berube, duct taped to a radiator in a dark clost, will escape in time to save us all from this right wing, android-driven, conspiracy. Let us pray.

    Posted by  on  09/09  at  03:10 AM

  15. Ohmigawd, the metahornswogglery is reaching orbiting heights! C’mon, do your impersonation of a Slavic second secretary at the Transylvania Consulate looking for your escaped bat!

    Posted by sian  on  09/09  at  03:42 AM

  16. I believed your original post.  When Tristero (whose blog is daily fare at Chez LowLife) revealed the fake I believed his post.  Now, with this post, I am convinced that Tristero was wrong and the original was right and true.  I’ll never trust you again.  I will, however, continue to read you everyday.

    Posted by  on  09/09  at  04:15 AM

  17. Stop it!  You’re freakin’ me out!

    Posted by  on  09/09  at  04:42 AM

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