What Happened to Pirates

My friend Michael, who is one of the editors of Kitty Snacks, has put up an eloquent memory of Barry. It is grouped with some others. Michael quotes from Barry's syllabus, of which here is a part: "Why does lack of action, red-blooded emotion, plague graduate school fiction? This old flag has waved too long. What happened to pirates, storms, fiends, horror, temptresses with cleavage, lies, theft, greed, lust, random acts of meaningless (or meaningFUL) violence?"