(TV) Re: Verlaine Studies / Alien Rapture

["Casey, Leo J" <CaseyL@VOLPE.DOT.GOV>]

Re: your previous e-mail: Subject: RE: (TV) Verlaine Studies

> We josh about it now, but keep in mind...

> People in the Elizabethan era probably never
>  imagined that, >  400 years later, entire 
> courses of study would be dedicated
>  to Shakespeare (not to mention all the other
> stuff dedicated to Willy).

> Of course, Shakespeare was a lot more
>  popular among the people then, than
> Verlaine is now among the kids of today.

Cameron,

You're a very sweet person; don't ever lose that quality
because it's quite rare (and please don't take that as an insult).

> Who know, though?

> We may all have professorial jobs coming our way,
> in the distant future..."

Don't hold your breath, Cameron------my previous e-mail
musings were supposed to be more along the lines of a 
*FAR* distant future. (What follows is a treatment or 
skeleton of a screenplay on which I am presently working).

1,500 years have passed------the Earth's polar caps have
long since melted, and all living things on Earth have
perished.  Aliens from planets many light years away had
previously detected electronic waves broadcasted from Earth
----waves on which were carried the wonderful, extraordinary,
(and unearthly?) music of Television/Verlaine.  This music
had once emanated from the now deathly quiet Earth (like
in the movie "BLANK.")

These trillions and trillions of aliens love Tom's music, and
finally succeed in their passionate search for the original
source of (and any information about) this music when they
arrive on Earth.  The aliens with their advanced technology
have been able to miraculously filter-out from all previous
1,590 years' of Earth's air-wave signals, which included--but
was not limited to--episodes of "I Love Lucy", "The 
McLaughlin Report", and the sonic dreck that had been
spewn out by FM radio stations worldwide, e.g., Squeeze,
N' Sync, etc.)  The aliens also find a treasure trove of 
information when they are finally able to decipher a still
intact copy of the Marquee Moon Archives and something
they excitedly refer to as the "Keith Man" site complete
with icons, sacred lyrics, and holograms of musicians.  
   
Although the aliens have arrived too late to meet the 
creators of this heavenly music (or any of the music's
precious and tiny coterie of devoted listeners), they decide
to pay homage to it by making a kind of restitution for the
Earthlings' millennium-long poor musical taste that knew
no bounds. They establish and leave behind colonies on
Earth, which specialize in producing scholars in '"Verlaine
Studies". The aliens also use their considerable powers
and almost infinite resources to spread and disseminate
the officially recorded and live oeuvre of Television/Verlaine
music (whose signals had been captured and preserved 
by the wise aliens---with the sole exception of the
Television/Verlaine song,  "_______  ______" ) to even the
outermost recesses of the universe.  

Using the scholarship mined and published from their colonies
on Earth, together with propaganda and sometimes draconian
methods (learned from ancient North Korean texts), the aliens
of impeccable taste are able to make the music and names
of Television and Verlaine more ubiquitous, more pervasive, 
more widely known, and more popular than even Alexander
The Great, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, or Indian pale ale.
In the Milky Way alone, sales of the music top 49.7 quintillion
units.  

But after 900 years the zeitgeist shifts.  The hegemony of
Television/Verlaine abruptly loses its grip; the populace
of the myriad galaxies are first surly, then desperate enough
to finally rebel against the beauty and electric crunch of 
Television/Verlaine's music.  They desire something different,
something fresh, something new-----even a Mariah Carey
knock-off will do.  Such is the force of the long pent-up anger 
and bitterness of the creatures of the universe that they destroy
and stamp-out every note of Television's/Verlaine's music 
(as well as all its scholarly research and the academic
programs devoted to it).  

Eventually, the universe is once again a colder place in which
to live as there is not a single remnant of this music 
(albeit hated) anywhere----save for a new universal obscenity, 
"verlainecd you!"

 	Leo
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