WWW RENAISSANCE MAN: LAKE NORMAN'S NEIGHBOR OF THE MONTH (from the Lake Norman Magazine)
Davidson professor mixes classic literature with technology
Dr. Elliot McGucken could easily be mistaken for one of the students he teaches as a physics professor at Davidson College. PHOTO/B.J. BUTLER
McGucken's literary side comes to life on his Internet site titled jollyroger. com. PHOTO/COURTESY ELLIOT MCGUCKEN
By B. J. Butler
Seeing him ride through campus on his bike, many might mistake him for a well-dressed student. Only the necktie gives him away, despite the buzz-cut hair, khakis, book bag and boyish face. Few would guess him to be a professor, much less a self-styled nineties Renaissance Man for Generation X, featured in articles in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, just to name a few.
He is one of Davidson's newest physics professors, Dr. Elliot McGucken. A Princeton University graduate, the 29-year-old also has Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Physics from UNC-Chapel Hill.
The physics professor has what at first glance seems to be an alter ego, as well. His career and education background both in science, McGucken is also a poet and lover of classical literature.
He carries that passion to the extreme, however, circulating it to the world in general via his successful Internet site titled jollyroger.com, which boasts 2 million page views per month to over 150,000 unique monthly visitors, says McGucken. The New York Times called it "simply unprecedented," and said it "teems with discussion, the kind that goes well beyond freshman lit 101."
AOL advertises McGucken's site as "smart-alecky, skillfully written and provocative." It further states, "Literary, generational and plain-old politics take it on the chin from (jollyroger.com)."
"They're both similar pursuits," says McGucken of his dichotomous interests - physics and literature. "Both try to describe something. It's how you think about things."
The prof says most of his physics students probably are unaware of his literary side.
"I pretty much only talk about physics in class, as there's so much to be learned. A couple of students saw me wearing a jollyroger.com t-shirt in the gym one day and said they'd heard about it before. One of them said that her high school English teacher had mentioned the site," says McGucken.
Site reflects aura of N.C. coast�
"Oak planks of reason, riveted with rhyme, designed to voyage across all time" greets the visitor to the jollyroger.com site.
"It's really a community site," says the Ohio native. "There are a lot of volunteers that keep it going - it's the world's classical portal. It's a labor of love more than anything."
The name of the site embodies the "aura and romance" inherent in the pirate history of North Carolina's Outer Banks area, he says, a favorite destination for the professor. Having vacationed there in summers during childhood with his parents, both college professors, he developed a deep appreciation for the area's rich legacy and timeless beauty.
"It was a lot more overhead (in time and effort) a few years ago. Now, it's more self-supporting," adds the site's creator. Ads sold to on-line vendors and an arrangement with Amazon.com. giving him a cut of book sales spurred by his sites, brings some financial compensation for the young professor. He even had an offer from a large company, which he refused, to purchase the site.
Jollyroger.com, which has grown into a series of literary sites and forums for discussions, was actually established by McGucken and friends during his graduate studies days at UNC-Chapel Hill to advertise their band in which he played guitar and sang back up. He and others wrote poetry and prose for the site, as well. Unfortunately the band didn't enjoy the success of McGucken's other pursuits.
"We read better than we sounded," he laughed. "I always loved the Great Books and reading the classics. The classics speak to all generations. It was the most ironic form of rebellion - that Generation X would promote the classics." Today's society can learn from Classic literature�
Obviously not your typical member of Generation X, McGucken, who has also written a yet-to-be-published book titled Jollyroger.com Unplugged, seems reluctant to embrace the moniker he admits includes him as a part of the 20-something age group.
"I understand a lot of the cynicism of my generation, but I feel I have a good handle on things," he admits. The tendency to find little meaning in words and reluctance to embrace any sort of commitment, traits often claimed to depict members of Generation X, do not describe this poet's nature, he says.
At home in Davidson, McGucken is enjoying living in the quaint college town and likes being near Lake Norman, where he wind surfs "when a storm is coming," he says. Since moving to North Carolina to attend UNC, he has spent summers windsurfing on the Outer Banks and it's a favorite hobby, along with playing tennis and camping and hiking in the mountains.
"The whole Lake Norman area is beautiful," McGucken says. "Living in North Carolina, you're so lucky to have so many prominent landmarks convenient and close by."
"The students here (at Davidson) are great. They keep you on your toes and that's inspiring," he adds. "I love teaching. My creative endeavors in both fields, and sharing them by teaching and using the web sites, that's my passion."
"The focus of jollyroger.com is to bring the spirit of poetry and the Classics to life," he said.
"The Great Books are fundamental teachers as well as entertaining," says the physics professor. "What's made the classics stand the test of time is that people enjoy telling their children about them. Our target audience (of the web site) is teenagers to boomers. I appreciate all the e-mails, especially the parents who say 'sign my kid up.' If you look at a lot of literature that gets published today, it's often just stream of consciousness with no plot or character."
"One common theme among the great books is that the character has some type of moral conscience. They answer the question 'What is good?' And that's a difficult question to answer. The classics give perspective - they're the pinnacles of human reflection of life's situations. And even the most noble characters still have difficulty reaching ideals."
McGucken's favorite American authors are Mark Twain, Herman Melville and F. Scott Fitzgerald. His favorite poet and playwright is Shakespeare, and Hamlet is his favorite play. His favorite reading is the philosophies of such great thinkers as Albert Einstein and Newton.
"They have lots of writings that many people don't even know about," he says.
"That's what I'm trying to bring to life for this generation. Jollyroger.com marries technology to the timeless. Jollyroger takes you beyond the whole post-modern fog," claims McGucken proudly.
Jolly Roger.Com Unplugged
Just the Words, Wind, and Waves of a WWW Renaissance
by Elliott McGucken
There are those dreams which we can never reach,
The journey becomes the destination,
And deeper truths teachers can never teach,
They must be learned by imagination.
Like the hurricane's eye we never see,
But by the wind and waves we come to know,
That somewhere out there the tempest must be,
Though the sight of its center passes show.
But if we always had to wait for touch,
For something tangible, before we tried,
True love would never amount to much,
For before we found it, we would have died.
So out here on the web, I'll take a chance,
Set sail for romance and classics of yore,
The context for tomorrow's renaissance,
I'll sail the Roger to that distant shore.
And should we find naught but watery graves,
It'd be enough - just the words, winds, and waves.
�1999 Classicals and jollyroger.com LLC
(Article reprinted with permission from the Lake Norman Magazine)
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