← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · neoclassical
Thread ID: 17646 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2005-04-05
2005-04-05 01:16 | User Profile
Boyd Rice at MIT by Mike Z.
A few listservs had mentioned Boyd Rice would be participating in a conference called "Regarding Evil" at MIT. This sounded highly suspicious to me, more like a prank the former COS spokesperson would pull than a decision that an MIT program manager would make. However, it was on their website ([url]http://mit.edu/evil[/url]) so who am I to question something posted on the internet?
I live not far from Cambridge so I showed up with my friend UK Dan, who was thankfully not the only shaved head in the crowd with a totenkopf T- shirt. The symposium began with some rather extravagant melodrama: full-dressed Scottsmen playing taps, lighting effects, and our moderator addressing us in overly florrid, dogmatic language ("We are gathered here to question the darkest recesses of the human id, to interrogate the deepest secrets of the human soul, blah blah blah wank wank")
So the first presenter is Julian LaVerdiere, a scultor/artist who designed the WTC memorial, the Towers of Light. He gave a lucid, fascinating talk about the memorial and his other work which I greatly enjoyed. However, it did have nothing to do with the theme of the conference.
At this point, I noticed Boyd Rice in the front row wearing all black, a cargo shirt, leather visor cap, and dark aviators which he did not remove for the entire day. He also never bumped into things or fell down, so he is apparently quite accustomed to wearing sunglasses indoors. Boyd was summoned to provide a "musical interlude" at this point, which consisted of him reciting Crowley's "Hymn to Pan" into a reverb box. The line "I rape, I rip, I rend, and I rave" was of course repeated at maximum volume many times as the first ripples of consternation percolated through the crowd.
Did I mention the crowd? About 8 people looked like they were there to see Boyd (mohawks, iron crosses, leather jackets) and the rest (about 75) were your typical bright-eyed college dopes and sallow-faced academics. Also bear in mind that Cambridge is the home and ur-source of the world's most over-privileged, effete, and snobbish limousine liberals.
Boyd was seated next to a woman who looked about forty but was dressed like a teenager on her way to a nightclub. I figured this was Boyd's consort, so I was quite amazed to hear her introduced as not only our next speaker, but the chair of some no-name college's Political Science department. She revealed that she not only dresses like a bimbo, but pontificates like one as well, giving us a rambling hour-long lecture on how brainless and provincial G.W. Bush is. I love 21st century scholasticism. This was now phase three of the conference and still nobody had touched on the day's topic.
My friend UK Dan woke me briefly during this woman's sermon to tell me he just witnessed Boyd Rice tap some substance onto his forearm and snort it up his nose. Come on, I told him, you've gotta be mistaken. Nonetheless, I kept an eye on Boyd for a while and sure enough I witness him taking out some ampule, tapping a powder onto his forearm and unmistakingly snorting it in the MIT ampitheater!
When Buffy the Bush Slayer finally wrapped up her litany of liberal drollery, UK Dan and I cavorted up to Boyd Rice, shared some small talk, and casually asked what he had been inhaling. He claims it was snuff tobacco and "gives you one hell of a rush." Take that any way you want. We comiserated over the vapidity of the last speaker and Boyd made my day by admitting he's never voted in his life but registered in '04 just to put in a ballot for W.
We went out for lunch and missed the third speaker who was some Swedish Art Professor. We re-entered just in time for Boyd's session. The NON rune with the Orobouros was projected magnificently over the lecture hall (see photos), the lights dimmed and he started off with "Do you want TOTAL WAR? Yes, you want TOTAL WAR..." After a long, awkward silence, our mediator begins a Q&A session with Boyd, who answers flippantly, swears, and brags about stealing supplies from CA warehouses with Mark Pauline. Just as the mediator is starting to realize the awful mistake he made in inviting Boyd Rice to participate in an academic conference, Boyd brings his little box back out, taps out some powder, and snorts a line IN FRONT OF A LIVE COLLEGE AUDIENCE.
Everyone is too shocked to react, but the SECOND TIME he does it, the mediator stops mid-sentence and nervous murmors permeate the crowd. "It's snuff!" Boyd yells. Maybe he thought university speakers casually use tobacco products mid-lecture. Note my photographs of Boyd Rice snorting a substance in front of a crowded lecture hall.
The best line of this portion was "I felt drawn to LaVey and the Process Church in the early 70s since everyone else was preaching love of neighbor ... nobody else was saying you should HATE PEOPLE." I tell you, liberal college tools love hearing lines like that. The mediator brought out the other three speakers for a roundtable discussion. Nobody had any questions for any presenter, so the five began useless bickering over the social purpose of art. Boyd continued to charm the crowd by querying whether Barbie Dolls inserted rectally constitute art or not. He plays with his plastic water cup, spins pens in circles, and never removes the aviators.
After the group Q&A, we were privileged to witness the yet-unreleased film from Cremaster Cycle-producer Matthew Barney. This film, "De Lama Lamina" was 50 minutes of latin beats, Brazilian dance, and a nude black man suspended underneath a large truck rubbing his genitals against the rotating driveshaft. The theater was empty when it completed; not only the audience but all of the previous presenters walking out. Even Boyd sauntered away after snorting about five more lines and draining a hip flask.
The proposed topic of the symposium, the phenomenology of Evil, had not been brought up.
Photos: [url]http://www.trenchcoatjedi.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album31[/url]
Mike Z. livyatan at hotmail dot com