cvillenews.com

We’re all guilty of taking ourselves a little too seriously around these parts; not just cvillenews.com, but in Charlottesville as a whole. To that end, man-about-town Matthew Farrell has penned a letter to both The Hook and C-Ville Weekly requesting that they provide him with a title. (”Man-about-town” was the best that I could come up with.) Matthew has proclaimed himself to be “Downtown Charlottesville’s Leading Public Intellectual,” and accepts all of the rights and responsibilities that accompany that. Read on to see his letter in whole, which I find really quite funny, and hope that others will enjoy equally.

From: Farrell, Matthew

Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002

To: ‘Hawes Spencer (The Hook)’; ‘Cathy Harding (The CVILLE)’

Subject: ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES: an timely arrogation.

Fine day to you all!

Apologies for the informal (’e’ always is) nature of this communication.

I suppose the realization had been gradually dawning on me for some time. While, though, yestreen flicking playing cards into a straw boater across the room in my penthouse-Altamont digs, feeling the gentle and substantial clarity and warm-wellness of a few carefully-chosen gin cocktails suffusing through my spirit, I was suddenly stirred by an insistent dimly audible voice from everywhere.

As you know it has been my calling these twelve years to serve downtown as its token dandy and rake, a boy-about-town placeholder in a public space requiring such a figure.

With broad national cultural changes ushered in by the new century, and certainly the local cultural narrowing brought on by extending the patronage of Downtown Charlottesville (masses oddly homogenizing not diversifying Downtown), I wonder if this role to which I gave myself with such abandon and earnest civic-mindedness might not be becoming a tad obsolete.

For the first part, nobody today knows anything of the tradition of the urban dandy, the necessity of him and the value to a community; to the rest, the sheer number of transients flowing through the Downtown life makes it difficult to ingrain in the public mind by a pattern of studied appearance and indolent appreciations what they en masse must see and observe, who have as a body so many distractions from civic concentration.

With these thoughts congealing, I had been casting about for something I could be or do to continue my pattern of selfless and committed service to this town and its people I love more than anyone or anything.

It was then this sweet yet low voice last night, speaking as if across all time and through all matter, finding me at-home in my tower above the Downtown, that made me to know the path.

I realized then at its urging that I must rise to fill an urgent void, that I must again estop the dike, that again I must needs for the good of this community stretch myself as a coat to cover the puddle, that Charlottesville might cross unsoiled.

The national magazine media, and of late its television and newsprint incarnations, are a-swell with the talk. They all cast about for a name, and choose largely in affirmation of some self-proclamation. For as with so many things of suspect probity, of plausible dubiety, who but one could proclaim to be one.

To wit: in the spirit of self-sacrifice, and in continuation of my substantial commitment to and practice of public service in Downtown Charlottesville, I proclaim myself to be, and would ask that in future editions you so refer to me, “Downtown Charlottesville’s Leading Public Intellectual”.

That said, I am certain you will see both the aptness of myself to fill this role, and the necessity of that someone fill this role. Who indeed else could? The University has them in dozens, who with the stroke of a pen or the drop of a phrase name and claim themselves Public Intellectuals. And the national media fatuously allows such self-creations (which soi-disant appellations endure a lifetime and write themselves in stone once death darkens). Think here a mile away of Mark Edmundson, Larry Sabato, John Casey. Who have we to stand beside them? Who would offer and who would dare, and who above all, would we support to do so? Who could be so serenely pompous, so perpetually accessible and present, so lazily comfortable in the public’s eye and esteem?

It should be abundantly obvious that politicians must be leading politicians, journalists must be leading journalists, and so on through the vocational ranks. It takes a chameleon, a person of infinite guile and mutility, a person of a flexibility and facility of mind and being, a person of infinite gall and infinite audacity, of limitless capacity for public self-texturing, posturing, a person without other overarching designation or role, to both proclaim to be and live the life of “Leading Public Intellectual”.

Brevo, I am now “Downtown Charlottesville’s Leading Public Intellectual”. I will make occasional vague cultural proclamations, occasionally challenge the proclamations of leading public intellectuals from elsewhere, occasionally meet with other leading public intellectuals from elsewhere, and otherwise uphold the distinction to the best of my abundant or adequate ability, with appropriate pomposity, loftiness of purpose, self-significance, and amorphous/ambiguous opining.

To the end of presenting a solid front, and providing Our Beloved Charlottesville with its very own, and now culturally necessary, “Leading Public Intellectual”, I would ask that the two of you recognize and support me in this effort. Please when it is necessary or condign to refer to me in your respective publications, append the titular “Charlottesville’s Leading Public Intellectual” to my name or any other reference to me.

I will be sending out informal notice to several leading public intellectuals in the University community, just to let them know that I will be acting as their opposite number downtown. When distinguished leading public intellectuals visit from other towns, cities, states, countries, I will endeavor to drop them each a card just to let them know that I am available here to greet and discuss heavy matters in light ways with them. I will dutifully accept the keys to the City, or other proferred honoraria as my well-wishers amass such offerings.

Know my dedication to and humility in serving Downtown, and to you each my gratitude and respect.

Matthew S. Farrell

Downtown Charlottesville’s Leading Public Intellectual

In response to Matthew Farrell’s recent letter declaring himself to be “Downtown Charlottesville’s Leading Public Intellectual,” cvillenews.com reader Valerie L’Herrou has provided an article on City Council’s controversial new plan to install stocks and pillories on the Downtown Mall in an effort to curb “Downtown Charlottesville’s Leading Public Nuisance.” (Remember, folks, Jefferson with a moustache means satire.)

City Council to place stocks and pillories on downtown mall

Denies “leading public nuisance” a factor in decision

In a surprise announcement which stunned much of the city today, Charlottesville Mayor Maurice Cox announced that a federal law-enforcement grant would be used to purchase stocks and pillories, to be placed on the downtown mall for the punishment and deterrence of “public nuisances.”

Cox denied that recent antics by self-proclaimed “leading public nuisance” Matthew Farrell had anything to do with the decision. “The city applied for this grant two years ago. We need to use the funds now or we will lose them. The decision had already been made.”

Others were not so sure. “I think the mayor is being disingenuous,” said one downtown coffee drinker, who asked not be identified. “The word on the street is that Farrell is the reason they’re getting those stocks. After all, look at what they’re defining as a nuisance–mannered behavior and over-dressing. And I, for one, will be among the first to throw a rotten tomato at that cream-colored suit.”

Charlottesville’s social-justice community was outraged by the decision. Demonstrators gathered on the corner of Main Street in front of the Federal building, carrying signs reading “Just Say No to Stocks (and bonds)” and “City Council: selling out lock, stock and barrel.” One demonstrator explained, “see, it’s like the stock market, their stocks aren’t worth anything on the world market, so they’re like, dumping them here in small-town America. It’s part of the evil spread of global capitalism.”

Informed of the criticism, City Councilors took it in stride. “It’s about time we had some sense of law and order in this city,” said Republican Councilor Rob Schilling. “Now maybe we’ll see less graffiti. And I’m glad that council was able to agree that linen suits and bowties are grounds for the pillory. Over the next year, the ordinance will be expanded to require anyone wearing Hawaiian shirts, designer clothes, or any item of clothing or hairstyle costing over $100 to be placed in the stocks.” Asked about length of hair, Schilling replied, “come on, I may be a Republican, but I’m not unreasonable. Naturally, any hairstyle popular after 1964 and before 1975 will be exempt from the ordinance.”

Downtown merchants and stylists expressed displeasure with the ordinance. “We don’t have a single item of clothing that costs less than $120,” complained one retailer. “This will really dampen the economy of the mall.”

“Matthew Farrell’s hairstyle was on the verge of becoming really popular,” complained a salon owner. “And it needs to be trimmed every few days to look right. Even women were coming in to ask for that cut. I predict several salons will close down.”

Professional commentators were quick to add their two cents. “Charlottesville likes to consider itself a progressive city,” pontificated perennial pundit Larry Sabato. “So naturally this seems shocking to many. However, we must remember that Charlottesville is a colonial-era city, and it retains its colonial character in many ways. The ubiquitous use of bricks for building material, for instance. And we can see in this decision some of the tension between the revolutionary colonists, who favored the ‘natural look’ in fashions, and the loyalists, who preferred the ‘dandy’ look of powdered wigs and lace cuffs.”

Others contended that the “Farrell nuisance” was likely to be a short-lived fad. “Hey, another summer like this one, and he’s going to trade those suits for shorts and flip-flops,” one flippant observer remarked. “That, or he’ll die of heat stroke. Either way, we’ll be rid of him — and there won’t be any need of the pillory.”