>-->Unknown, Mark Amerika PANNED by Encyclopedia Britannica

>>-->riPOSTe: a group response from the Unknown, fashioned by Scott Rettberg




"An utter travesty," proclaimed Marla Karenina, publicist of the Unknown, "this Encyclopedia Britannica writer surely has Diderot rolling over in his grave."

Dirk Stratton, co-author of the Unknown, was misquoted as saying, "What will this do to my students?" as he clutched his head, as in the midst of a migraine, "Millions of grammar and high-school students rely on the authority of an institution like Encyclopedia Britannica when writing their research papers. What will they think of me now?"

Scott Rettberg, co-author of the Unknown, was nonplussed, "Look, sure this is another example of bad journalism - for instance this guy said that we're all from Chicago - which we're not - don't forget Frank Marquardt in San Francisco, or William Gillespie in Champaign, or Dirk Stratton in Cincinnati, or Katie Gilligan in Korea. This guy Neal clearly didn't read very deeply, and thus came to the conclusion that the only people who would want to read the Unknown are us, our friends, family, and other hypertext authors. But this guy Neal still clearly has his training wheels on, you can't hold that against a writer, and when we began the Unknown, we would have never thought that we'd even have a chance of getting listed somewhere like britannica.com, which is an authority on 8th-grade-level understandings of things."

William Gillespie, co-author of the Unknown, was misquoted as saying, "Look we don't hold a grudge against reviewers. We treasure the poor journalism of the Unknown, like the Coe College article, or this ill-composed piece, as much as we do the high-quality work written by serious journalists like Julia Keller or Brad Quinn. We would advise all our fans not to take it out personally on this guy Neal Pollack, who lives at 5851 N Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, IL 60660-3722. That would just be childish."

Marla Karenina says that the Unknown are entering into talks with Encarta and Compton's, and are negotiating a new subheading for "unknown" with the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary. "The boys just want to be sure that the kids get a fair picture of what the Unknown's really all about, which is the past and future of American Literature."

(Find out what Stratton and Gillespie really said.)