If Van Man be a villain then should we not cheer when he is beset by bears and wild dogs and scavenging bald eagles and vultures and ants and rapaciously consumed down to the marrow of his bones?
But we are nowadays told that Van Man is but a pernicious, exploitative urban legend-a tiresome rehash of stranger danger sometimes spiced with Satanic panic and often accented by a free floating contempt for working class people.
It now seems we are to have one more cherished lie stripped from us . . . and I can't help but wonder,
Will we soon have every last cheerful thing taken from us?
Even our contempt?
Our paranoia?
Our desire for Enemy no matter what?
Even Satan himself?
Will we be left with nothing but a mirror and the inevitable Mirror Match to climax the saga of our being?
-Excerpted from the Preface to Mysteries of the Van Men, a Shindig Institute Symposium curated by William D. Tucker.
