Author’s Note: Around 90% of the text of this story is taken verbatim from Wikipedia articles on various famous Princeton alumni, after Kenneth Goldsmith’s lecture and seminar “Uncreative Writing.” If you are curious to know from which alumnus certain details might originate, simply search the text in quotes with the search terms Wikipedia and/or Princeton added.

He is affectionately known as Suk-ho Peel, a direct descendant of Pocahontas and the 20th human to fly in space.

Adlai Peel, his father, was a Jewish cantor, who refused to sing the grammatically incorrect line. He was the second son of Bulgarian monarchs, a very good sailor, and a keen surfer. After questions were raised about child pornography, Suk-ho Peel was a devoted protector of his father’s privacy. Adlai died of suction-pump entrapment in an in-ground spa and Suk-ho Peel defended his actions after the autopsy. He was devastated by the accident and rarely referred to it as an adult.

Brooke, Peel’s mother, was possibly a hypochondriac. She had worked up her understanding of capitalist society and her company grew significantly when avian flu became a subject of popular anxiety. She had links to Italian nobility, but was not a princess in her own right. She had worked as an intern for Nina Totenberg, and was a spokeswoman for Tupperware, becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the world. After Adlai’s death, Brooke lived in a white RV covered with signatures, becoming more accepted as a role model by performing strip searches on troubled adolescent girls. She was arrested in a Santa Monica restroom for possession of nunchanku and died in a helicopter crash the same year.

Their relationship started with a business lunch in a restaurant where the chef engaged customers in political discourse. He had begun wearing a hairpiece, yet his eloquent oratory and thoughtful, stylish demeanor impressed her. That same night, stopping overnight at an inn, they had a liaison with a nurse they met at a Boston emergency hospital and married. The young couple soon became popular and familiar figures on the Chicago social scene, mingling with everyone from socialites to the average person. However, a reputation for being somewhat aloof began to curtail the influence of social elites. Adlai was legendary for his lavish lifestyle as well as his opulent birthday parties, and the Peels were constantly in financial trouble. Under prodding from his father, Adlai decided to finish his law degree. As a lawyer, his job was to assess beach and ocean conditions and to promote greater safety in pools and spas. It was in this latter duty that he met his eventual demise.

Suk-ho Peel considered his father to be the biggest influence on his life. He was a flamboyant and sensitive child, who, at the age of 8, was injured in a classroom chemical accident. Often wearing a tie reading “Capitalist Tool,” he was criticized as a rich brat and for his indecisive, aristocratic air. As the eldest scion, he showed a passion for bringing law and order to the streets, riding his Harley-Davidson Fatboy. He left a sign of his lofty aspirations in his yearbook, which said that he hoped to take part in a joint venture with swimmer Ian Thorpe aiding the HIV epidemic in Papua New Guinea, where the virus could be transmitted through tears or sweat. Eventually employed in a textile mill, he was allowed to take 3 months off each year to write. He published a heart-breaking account of the explosion outside of a Manchester cinema and how he went out to the parking lot to assist with rescue efforts. It quickly became a cult hit in Pakistan and India. Speaking there occasionally and visiting cousins, it is widely believed that he refused to shake the hand of Ruth Merwin, the youngest guest ever to appear on The Muppet Show. Later, while demonstrating drill techniques with a rifle, he accidentally killed her and spent two nights in jail. He kept it a secret from his doting parents, and in relating the incident, always quoted a story told by Abraham Lincoln to describe how he felt.

He moved to Cairo in the decade before his parents’ deaths and reportedly smuggled the remains of a supposed yeti. When he was assaulted by an anti-United Nations protester and a man spat on him, he filed a formal complaint against the established first western propaganda office, but sources denied that any breach in etiquette had occurred. Quite simply, he was a man struggling with his heritage, trying to protect the image of heroic masculinity he had cultivated. After his parents died, while he suffered heart problems, the economy enjoyed robust health. One day, sitting on an armchair with his feet propped on his briefcase and his head in one hand, he ate a chocolate bar and made notes in his newly arrived Princeton Alumni Weekly. His maid saw him jump from the armchair, grab the mantelpiece, gasp, and fall to the floor. As an apple lay half-eaten beside his bed, many thought he was re-enacting a scene from Snow White. His corpse was sent to space, and after stepping onto the lunar surface, he magically retorted, “I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over,” perhaps to prove that NASA did not script astronaut comments. In the end, he was a symbol of childhood and the loss of innocence, whose ability was enhanced by his unusually wide pe- ripheral vision.

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