Elegy (I) (2008)

Charlie Rose: Charlie Rose

Quotes 

• David Kepesh : [interview on the Charlie Rose show]  We're not all descended from the Puritans.

  Charlie Rose : No?

  David Kepesh : There was another colony 30 miles from Plymouth, it's not on the maps today. Marymount it was called.

  Charlie Rose : Yeah, alright, you mention in your book...

  David Kepesh : The colony where anything goes, went.

  Charlie Rose : There was booze...

  David Kepesh : here was booze. There was fornication. There was music. There was... they even ah, ah, ah, you name it, you name it. They even danced around the maypole once a month, wearing masks, worshiping god knows what, Whites and Indians together, all going for broke...

  Charlie Rose : Who was responsible for all of this?

  David Kepesh : A character by the name of Thomas Morton.

  Charlie Rose : Aah, the "Hugh Hefner" of the Puritans.

  David Kepesh : You could say that. I'm going to read you a quote of what the Puritans thought of Morton's followers: 'Debauched bacchanalians and atheists, falling into great licentiousness, and leading degenerate lives'. When I heard that, I packed my bags, I left Oxford, and I came straight to America, America the licentious.

  Charlie Rose : So what happened to all of those people?

  David Kepesh : Well, the Puritans shot them down. They sent in Miles Standish leading the militia. He chopped down the maypole, cut down those colored ribbons, banners, everything; party was over

  Charlie Rose : And we became a nation of straight-laced Puritans.

  David Kepesh : Well...

  Charlie Rose : Isn't that your point though? The Puritans won, they stamped out all things sexual... how would you say it?

  David Kepesh : Sexual happiness.

  Charlie Rose : Exactly. Until the 1960s.

  David Kepesh : Until the 1960s when it all exploded again all over the place.

  Charlie Rose : Right, everyone was dancing around the maypole, then, make love not war.

  David Kepesh : If you remember, only a decade earlier, if you wanted to have sex, if you wanted to make love in the 1950s, you had to beg for it, you had to cop a feel.

  Charlie Rose : Or... get married.

  David Kepesh : As I did in the 1960s.

  Charlie Rose : Any regrets?

  David Kepesh : Plenty. Um, but that's our secret. Don't tell anybody.

  [laughter] 

  David Kepesh : That's just between you and me.