The View From Kalamazoo

This has made national news, so I’m sure you’ve all run into it from one media source or another. Much to my everlasting delight, Kalamazoo Channel 3 has contacted me requesting an on-camera interview to dispel the Paganism claims/connection. Oh. Good. Lord. I’ve done an on-camera spot before (Grand Rapids channel 8, a more conservative point of the ‘Dutch Triangle’ than Kalamazoo, even!)…probably close to 9 years ago now.. I look freaking huge, and the editing was a tad bizarre..I worry that however clear and reasoned I am during the interview it can be edited to have me reciting passages from Lovecraft. And the camera adds weight – even give my much cuter haircut now I’ll likely still look like Mama Cass.

Vanity aside, I applaud the reporter’s interest in dispelling the notion rather than just repeating the Paganism thing over and over when as they cover different parts of the trial, and certainly, of many of the locals I know (who I certainly wouldn’t want representing me, god love ’em there are WooWoo fluffies as well as people whose relationship with the spiritual is chemically based) who might be willing to do it should I say no, finally, have a good chance of doing more harm than good, if they haven’t thought-out their response and have no experience with media soundbites/brief quotes (I do). And c’mon – a matronly looking mother commenting on the victimization of children carries a little more weight than the intellectual commentary of an 18-year-old who bought a book a year ago and is as about as far removed from the situation, experientially, as you can get.

On the other hand, in the vein of bad publicity is still publicity, will a spot airs, a face on camera, and a whole lot of time invested in this, the point aside, just add fuel to the ultra-conservative-side-of-the-state-thinks-we’re-all-satanists-anyway fire? Crap. Crap. Crap. She’ll call back next week, she asked me to think about it…there’s some court function or another scheduled then, and they’ll likely run a spot at that time. Uuggh. The all-about-me question is: do I want my face all over West Michigan in connection to this sort of thing?

(And then there’s the Medieval Institute, WMU employee thing… Like we need more people thinking medievalists are nutbags.)

Bri says if I don’t do it he’ll call me a “LAME-O!” for the rest of my life.