Ask an International Guy of Mystery

Dear International Guy of Mystery,

What can writers do to help fight terrorism? Besides write a great novel about the topic like John LeCarre, which seems way hard.

Lazy in Lorraine, Oregon

Dear Lazy in Lorraine,

What a coincidence: I’ve just been recruited by a London-based think tank for a top-secret communication mission that combats this very issue. It is highly confidential in nature. My task, ironically, is to try my best to write things to convince young people to join ISOL because, as they say, “It’s cool.” It was described to me as a form of reverse psychology. “You have your finger on the very pulse of banality,” I was told by their agent, whose name must remain anonymous. Chest swelling, I asked, “Niles, how can I help?”

Niles Crenshaw asked me to help him flood the Internet with cool-sounding posts, I guess as a way to entrap young people who might want to be a terrorist if they’re having trouble finding a job or different things to do. Here is a sample of a “rap” song I’ve begun for a music video:

 I’m walking across the desert in my blazer and fez,

My Donald Duck dispenser keeps feeding me Pez,

Yo, Yo, I think it’s real cool if you decide to join ISOL

But the camps are germy, Yo, so you better bring Lysol.

 I told Niles that I want images of Bedouins on camels, Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia somehow doing a kind of “break dance” on a flying carpet, Jafar yelling at Iago from the Disney movie Aladdin, and an army of Shriners in fezzes marching proudly across a football field at half-time. If that wouldn’t appeal to young people, I just don’t know.

Anyway, that is how I’m using the mighty pen to fight the sword of terror.

Proudly,

International Guy of Mystery