Well, not really.
But kind of.
John Leonetti, having grown up in Seattle, makes the sojourn back once in a while, and has struck up a friendship with legendary whip maker David Morgan. Mr. Morgan made the whips for the first three Indiana Jones films.
On his last trip to see Mr. Morgan, John (an advanced student of Anthony De Longis, who trained Harrison Ford for Indy4) wound up hosting an organic whip cracking seminar with an eccentric group of martial artists.
The “hatred” mentioned above comes from the fact that the co-founder of the martial arts group was none other than my favorite author Neal Stephenson.
Now lemme tell you a little bit about Neal Stephenson. He’s what would happen if Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Thomas Pynchon, and Tom Stoppard had four-way gay sex, and one of them had a womb. That’s an oversimplification, but to put it bluntly, I believe that Stephenson is the most intelligent, witty author of our day, a guy who legitimately transcends genre. He writes science fiction so interesting to read, for instance, that even my wife loves it. And she don’t read no steenking sci/fi, mane!
The kicker of this whole story is that John had never even heard of Neal Stephenson before meeting him and the group, and teaching them how to crack a whip. Then he just mentioned it casually on the phone to me the other day. “Yeah, I was up in Seattle cracking whips with a bunch of guys. One of ‘em was an author.”
“Oh yeah? Do you remember his name?” I read a lot.
“Neal something.” Which triggers in my brain the only Neal author I know that lives in the Northwest.
“Was it Neal Stephenson?”
“Oh yeah, that was it.”
“Asshole.”
“What?”
That’s pretty much how the conversation went.
And here’s your homework lesson. There are three parts:
1. Order a whip from David Morgan.
2. Then go to your local book store, buy a copy of Snow Crash (Stephenson’s first book; as good a place as any to start), and read it while you wait for your whip to arrive.
3. Take pics of you holding your David Morgan whip and any Neal Stephenson novel, and send those pics to me.
Finally, here’s the email that John Leonetti sent out about his experiences with Neal and the Gang. Included is a link to his photo gallery (John is a gifted photographer) and I strongly urge you to check it out.
Hello friends and whip crackers,
I’ve updated my photo galleries with some material I shot at David Morgan’s shop on December 27th. He was very generous with his time, and allowed me to photograph more whips from his private collection.
The following day Will Morgan, magician/whipmaker Louie Foxx and I gave a whip demonstration to members of The Barton-Wright Applied Hopology and Historical Antagonistics League (BWAHAHA). Co-founded by writer Neal Stephenson, BWAHAHA is a Seattle and San Francisco-based group dedicated to the practice of Bartitsu, a martial art created by Englishman Edward William Barton-Wright in 1898. Will, Louie and I shared our insights on basic whipcracking, and everyone had a great time trying out a variety of whip styles and lengths.
You can check out photos from both days here:
http://web.me.com/johnleonetti/cracktice/home.html
Best,
John Leonetti
www.johnleonetti.com
