An Intimate Academic Evening with Malcolm McCreedy 1/5

==The following is a transcription of the screen feed from an interview with eminent thinker and Nobel-Custis Prize-winning physicist Malcolm McCreedy. This uncensored account was compiled by Plectoro Ira from New Media's original media backups, prior to the famously censored public broadcast. ==

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(APPLAUSE. ZOOM PAN IN ON A STAGE IN FRONT OF A LARGE AUDIENCE. PROFESSOR FINSRAW AND DR. MCCREEDY SIT ON A RAISED DAIS.)

Announcer: We return now to the second half of tonight's presentation of &quot;An Intimate Academic Evening&quot;. Brought to you by a partnership between our friends at New Media and ThinkCore Edutainment.

Prof. Finsraw: And we're back. Malcolm, many of our student wonder..

(MCCREEDY SHAKES HIS GLASS WITH A FAINT TINKLING NOISE)

McCreedy: I'm empty. Would you mind?

Prof. Finsraw: Ahh, certainly. Yes. Could someone…?

(FINSRAW GESTURES OFF-STAGE, THEN NODS. HE SHUFFLES PAPERS A STACK OF PAPERS IN HIS LAP.)

Finsraw: Now, many of our students wonder about how…

McCreedy: Mmmm, let's wait for that drink.

Finsraw: Yes. Of course. Certainly.

(SILENCE. SCATTERED COUGHS FROM THE AUDIENCE. FINSRAW SHUFFLES PAPERS AGAIN. AFTER A LONG PERIOD, A YOUNG WOMAN HURRIES ON-STAGE WITH A FULL GLASS AND COCKTAIL NAPKIN.)

McCreedy: Lovely. You were saying?

Finsraw: Many of our students wonder about how you came up with the idea for the Limnal drive. Was it a bolt out of the blue? Was it the result of other failed experiments? How did you come upon such a breakthrough?

McCreedy: That's what many of your students wonder about?

Finsraw: Yes.

McCreedy: How I came up with it.

Finsraw: Very curious about that, yes.

McCreedy: Not the staggering implications of the technology.

Finsraw: Well…

McCreedy: Not whether the existence of this technology represents a fundamental shift in our understanding of the natural order of things? Whether its use represents an ethical hazard—or an ethical imperative —for our current civilization? Weather or not all those drive signatures now cluttering our ionosphere could weaken the very fabric of our reality?

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: Well, yes, I'm sure those are also of great importance to our student body.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Right then. How I came up with it. So there I was, sitting on the toilet, about to take what I assure you was a simply monstrous bowel movement.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: Ahh.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Monstrous. Truly.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: Y-yes.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Have you noticed how little the common toilet has changed over the past several hundred years?

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: I had not.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Initially we're crapping in the woods, like savages. Burying it in dirt and desperately hoping that the nearby leaves aren't poisonous.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: Ah. Hah ha. Yes, certainly.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Then within the space a several hundred years, a burst of innovation! We learn to crap in buckets and to keep it away from the food. General sanitation improves, we stop getting feces all over ourselves, and so on and so forth.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: Yes, of course. Buckets.

(MCCREEDY TAKES A LONG SIP. SILENCE, PUNCTUATED BY SCATTERED COUGHS.)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: So when you first discovered the Limnal…

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: …Then we invent indoor plumbing: the concept of locking the feces under a layer of water, vastly improving sanitation. And toilet paper! So much better than leaves.

(MCCREEDY REACHES OVER AND CLAPS FINSRAW SEVERAL TIMES ON THE KNEE WITH GREAT ENTHUSIASM)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Then we invent water recycling, electronic toilets, the three seashells, bidets. I mean come on… bidets! That's technology! Am i right?

(MCCREEDY EXTENDS HIS ARMS TO THE AUDIENCE. HIS DRINK SPILLS SLIGHTLY. HESITANT, SCATTERED APPLAUSE FROM THE AUDIENCE. FINSRAW LEANS FORWARD INTENTLY, SHUFFLING HIS PAPERS AGAIN)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Do you know what happened after that? We go from crapping in the woods, to having our asses bathed in electronic water jets in, what, a few hundred years? But since then? What wondrous advances have we made in the fecal arena since then?

(MCCREEDY PAUSES. AFTER SEVERAL SECONDS OF SILENCE, HE LOOKS AT FINSRAW EXPECTANTLY AND GESTURES WITH HIS GLASS.)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Professor? Can you tell us?

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: …No advances?

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: No advances! Not a single one. I crap the way my father crapped the way his father crapped the way his father crapped and so on and so forth. We simply found a method of keeping the feces mostly off of our clothes, said &quot;good enough!&quot;, and sat down to watch some screen for six hundred years.

(LONG PAUSE. FINSRAW SITS IN MID-SHUFFLE, WAITING FOR MCCREEDY TO CONTINUE. MCCREEDY STARES BACK AT HIM)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: So…your inspiration came as a result of—ah—defecation?

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: What? No. It was the result of several years of study into post-string theory applied physics, then several months of practical trial-and-error tests done using borrowed time at various facilities: a few universities, the LUURP supercollider labs, and the Cookery.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: Oh…oh! Excellent! What fascinating insight! Our producer is motioning…yes, we'll take a short break now and then delve into this, the very genesis of your genius!

(MCCREEDY FROWNS AT FINSRAW, THEN POINTEDLY SHAKES THE NOW-EMPTY DRINK IN HIS HAND. HE GLANCES OFFSTAGE.)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Where did that drink girl…?

(APPLAUSE. ZOOM PAN OUT AS LIGHTS DIM ON THE CENTRAL DAIS.)

Announcer: We'll be back with more of tonight's presentation; &quot;An Intimate Academic Evening&quot; with eminent thinker and Nobel-Custis Prize winning physicist Malcolm McCreedy in just a few minutes. Please stay tuned for a word from our sponsors.