To the Good Queen’s Kingdom of Creative Studies:

Us groundlings have been waiting. We go to class in good faith; we sit on the lawn and watch the trees grow – in good faith. We sit on the OLT benches, burning cigarettes, compose. We wield plastic hammers at the gods of poetry – in good faith. We’re waiting for the CCS trees to scrape the sky, but in the meantime, we’ve learned to read–and we’ve cultivated intellectual fleas that quiz us incessantly as we bathe in the dust. We’ve watched our rags unravel in the scorched late afternoon sun – until now, this moment, when the prayers we never knew we had were answered. All this time we’ve had our ears pressed to the ground, and finally, we heard the news:

THERE IS A VACANCY IN THE CCS FACULTY

Us groundlings have a proposition.

In the name of Love–for knowledge, literature, and the dear and wonderful college as a whole–we express our joy and gratitude to Rob Wallace–a bright new liberating philosophical king of the classroom–and nominate him to fill the void.

Rob is a rare and noble spirit. He is so intent, so solid, so dedicated to the protection and integrity of the mind–as well as that which lies beyond. To Us groundlings, it seems as if many scholars these days have disembodied heads–their love for knowledge is for knowledge alone and serves little purpose in the world. They’re archaeologists so obsessed with cobwebs that they’ve forgotten about the spider which hangs above them.

Rob, on the other hand, is a living musician, and he loves spiders. He strums on cobwebs as ancient as any lyre, and has the ability to bring facts and history back to life. With Wallace, the classroom is not just a classroom—it’s a divine theatre that contains the whole world–past, present, and future. The classroom is an image of eternity where Rob can play Orpheus and we his inspired Cerebus!

Rob Wallace is a priceless treasure. Rob Wallace is an IED, an improvised explosive device, except instead of exploding soldiers and curious children – he implodes our minds with the secrets of the cosmos. Rob Wallace isn’t a spark, he’s the Big Bang. When Rob dies, valkyrie will fight over his corpse. Three days later when Rob brings himself back to life; we will tremble in fear and awe.

And honestly, Rob Wallace, our valiant Dao troubadour, forges struggling artists into struggling heroes. His criticism unites two areas of inquiry that traditionally necessitate each other, that of scholastic euphoria and artistic novelty. With Rob, Art and Academia finally consummate their awkward sexual tension and engage in some serious improvised baby-making.

Nor does Rob consider the production of art to be limited to mercantilism –he treats artistic creativity, awareness, engagement, and transformation as a lifestyle. Rob Wallace utilizes CCS as a platform from which Us Groundlings develop the ability to creatively engage with the world–to think for ourselves, to question what is taken for granted and blindly accepted by many, to wonder what we might do with our lives instead of what we should, to live more fully. In this way, Rob would be MANificent as a CCS professor. From putting on class performances to after-hours film screenings to independent studies courses to his own concerts at the Biko House in IV and Muddy Waters in Santa Barbara – he’s the most dynamic and yet complete creative writing guru we know.

But we are just simple groundlings. All we can do is say that we love Rob and that he would be a wonderful addition and asset to CCS. Please consider!