It is surprisingly well-known for a secret society – that clandestine colloquium called, ironically, The School of Night; the irony being, of course, that they prefer to meet in the morning and, rather than pontificate upon prescient issues over brandy and cigars, proudly profess their ignorance between cups of coffee and countless cigarettes.
This School has always comprised the artistic and intellectual elite of each and every British (and Irish) generation since it was founded, some not insignificant time ago, by Sir Walter Raleigh, and attended by the ill-fated Christopher Marlowe (Sir Walter himself being equally ill-fated, in his own way). It counts amongst its illustrious alumni such notable names in the fields of science and art as, for example, Charles Babbage, Thomas Chatterton, and Oscar Wilde. More recent graduates include the likes of Brendan Behan, Dylan Thomas, Alan Turing, and Amy Winehouse.
The faculty, as it currently stands, contemporaneous with this brief gazetting, consists of a totemic Englishman, a titanic Irishman, and a Teutonic Scotsman who, consciously mindful and respectfully wary of their positions in this esteemed order, talk only in intentional tautologies and redundant repetitions, and take great pains to delay their ignominious and inevitable infamy by attempting to remain anonymous, either by never beginning a project, never ending a project, or dallying so long in the middle of a project that they settle down for an afternoon snooze and forget entirely what the project was supposed to be about. That was, of course, until the fateful day when the Irishman, neglecting common sense and any form of nicotine other than a piece of remarkably tasteless pharmaceutical chewing gum, put a splash of brandy into his large coffee (or, more likely, a splash of coffee into his large brandy), picked up his pen, and hypothesized that after Adorno, no opinion about anything whatsoever could be expressed without first apologizing to history.
It was at this juncture that the Star Court (supposedly abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641 due to its excessive power, arbitrary methods, and oppressive practices) became involved and, summarily, the Irishman was never seen nor heard from again.
It is with this brief, but well-documented contextual history in mind, that the present author was rather bemused to encounter the following advertisement in the wanted section of his morning paper:
Secret society seeks silent partner for profound deliberations upon sweet fuck all. Preference will be given to those candidates who can neither read nor write, have little to no interest in painting or politics, and are deaf, dumb and blind to the world around them. Musicians considered, but lyricists need not apply.
Needless to say, the present author is rather disinclined to submit his CV.
Andrew Joshua Kerr is a Belfast-born, Irish writer currently living in Vietnam.
The Cabinet of Heed 