The Cecilnomicon: Commence the Commencement

This past weekend, I was pleased to be the honored commencement speaker at the first graduation ceremony of the Crowninshield College of Totally Legitimate Study. Here's a transcript of my speech. I think things went pretty well, even though I was called in at the last minute as Dr. Henry Kissinger still refuses to return my phone calls.

Welcome students! Welcome honored guests both present and etheric, actual and imagined, to the Commencement ceremony for the Crowninshield College of Totally Legitimate Study. It seems like just yesterday I called together you, my first class of graduates, to the dumpster behind Walgreens for courses such as Advanced Astral Projection and Basic Applied Orgoneering. How times have changed! For example, as you can see, the dumpster is blue now.

Before I hand out the hand-printed index cards that will serve as both your diplomas and final bills, I want to share with you a few thoughts about the future. Whose future? All of ours. My future, your future, the future of this school, the alternate future where the spiders win, and the horrible coming future where they lose.

The future is elusive. It is always coming, but never seems to get here - just like the opening of Amazing Pizza. All we can do about it is be ready, muscles tense and oiled, waiting hungrily for the moped carrying a hot pepperoni and a side of tomorrow to trundle down the driveways of our now. By completing your coursework at Crowninshield College, you have prepared yourself for what is coming - your mind is tensed, your chakra oiled, and you are ready to devour whatever is placed before you, stuffing your face full of hot pizza, tomato sauce dribbling down your chin as hot cheese burns the roof of your mouth. “More,” you moan, “More pizza! More future!” as you scrabble at a box full of crazy bread. You laugh madly. Each bite is sweeter, saltier than the last as you fill your maw with-

Sorry. I skipped lunch this morning. Margery, has the caterer arrived yet? No? Oh. Uh... Moving on. Where was I?

Oh, yes. The future. The future is coming and you should be terrified. Everything you know is already obsolete and what you don’t know is out to get you. Fear change that you have not caused yourself with pitchfork and burning torch. Keep your eyes open for the Signs the future is near by - future-scatt like flying cars, computers in your eyeglasses, or area codes.

And when the future comes? Fight it! We at Crowninshield have taught you all the tools you need. We have taught you how to clear chemtrails with a dixie cup of resin and some scraps of metal. We have opened your third eye to the waves of the Nightmare People and their horrible zydeco music. We have taught you the Stance of Elders, the Abjurations of Dormammu, and the Seven Sickly Songs of the Terrible Crow.

Be ready for your future with the lessons you have learned in the past. How to kill a wooly mammoth, how to turn blubber into precious, precious oil, how to set up a medieval agrarian society with nothing more than a shiny hat and a posse of armed thugs. If you did not take Professor Margery’s Time Travel course, you really missed out.

In the future, many will tell you that you can’t do something. Don’t back down. Stand up to them and the banal future they represent. When I started this school, Devon the Assistant Manager of this Walgreens told me I couldn’t stay back here. Did I fold? Did I give up my dream of being an educator? No! I handcuffed myself to this pipe and refused to budge. I’m still here! Do you see Devon? No! Because he was afeared of the future I brought him and also his shift ended. Force your will upon the future. If the future won’t listen to reason, try screaming - it works for most children and we all know that the children are the future so really, you’re fighting fire with fire at that point.

Of course, while you are keeping focused on the future, don’t let the past sneak up on you. Make sure you keep turning around quickly and at random intervals-

-LIKE THIS-

-just in case the past is right behind you. If it is, run like the wind. If you have eye-spots, flare them in order to look bigger, but otherwise run. The past doesn’t mess around. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger, devouring everything in its path like that documentary on the Langoliers we watched last week for finals exams. I hope you keep a bag of orgonite caltrops with you in order to slow the past down.

So with two eyes on the future and your third eye on the past, go forwards, graduates of Crowninshield College for Totally Legitimate Studies, go forth! Your education means that the rules that apply to everyone else do not apply to you! Up is down! Black is white! Cruel is kind! Fair is foul! Your futures are only limited by your dreams and the crushing demands of a fate already planned out for you by the cruel and uncaring stars.

Now if everybody will please rise and form a line, you may pick up your diplomas from Provost Z’rpblat over by that parking meter while Professor Margery sings the school fight song you voted on last year, “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5.

Thank you!

Cecil out!

(DROP MIC)

Dr. Sir Professor Cecil Crowninshield is the Founder and Acting President of Crowninshield College of Totally Legitimate Studies. He currently serves as the Chair of the Etheric Studies Department and has had many papers published in peer reviewed restrooms about Salem. If you are interested in enrolling at Crowninshield, you may contact Dr. Cecil at salemdefender(at)gmail(dot)com.