Date: Mon, 29 Dec, 2003
From: Sandi Kuhl
Subject: They don’t re-enact in Colonial Williamsburg
My Dear McSweeney’s:
I don’t enjoy finding fault but we ought to be precise with our choice of words, no? If Chris Guthrie really does work at a bar that is in a tavern in CW then I believe he would be the first to know that those dressed in period garments are not “re-enactors” but “interpreters”.
Cheerios,
Sandi Kuhl
Date: Sat, 27 Dec, 2003
From: Don Rigley
Subject: Automotive Tip
Dear McSweeneys,
If the interior of your car smells bad, you can air it out quickly and efficiently by driving backwards at a high speed with the doors opened. When you think you are finished, simply slam on the brakes and the doors will close by themselves.
Sincerely truly,
Don Rigley
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003
From: Joy Katz
Subject: Dear McSweeney’s
Dear McSweeney’s:
The Container Store, on Sixth Avenue, sells nothing. Wire baskets full of nothing. Blank shadow boxes, apothecary jars of air, toothbrush caddies the color of vapor. Tubs of clean naught. Tiny leakproof frontiers. Vacant valet organizers, underbed drawers dreamless as cryogenic sleep. Emptiness! Bins and bins of it. And giant empty carts to wheel it all around.
Forget even the pleasure of uncapping your lilac shampoo in a cold shower in Bangladesh. You could carry spinal fluid in their minutest jar, its plastic so awfully clear, its lid so tight and white and finely grooved! But never mind.
So far I have bought empty space surrounded by woven pampas grass, wax-coated leopard-print cardboard, tinted acrylic, a violent-looking green mesh, corrugated plastic, galvanized aluminum, recycled fiberboard, and the thickest and most delicate glass. One slip of wilderness is carefully protected by a zippered case of aqua vinyl.
I calculate that, so far, I have increased the cubic inchage of my apartment by eleven thousand three hundred.
Joy Katz
Brooklyn, New York
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003
From: Chris Guthrie
Subject: A Short Anecdote About Patrick Henry
Dear McSweeney’s,
I work at a bar in Colonial Williamsburg. That’s right, that vestigial American capitol has a bar. Actually, it has several bars, but they’re called taverns and they serve ale in pewter steins and have gas lanterns and men singing traditional odes to the commonwealth and women churning butter out front and that sort of thing. I work at a bar on the edge of the colonial district next to all the shops that sell crappy historical trinkets to tourists. It’s the place to go for people who realize that America two hundred years ago wasn’t such great shakes after all and would prefer to cut their losses and start drinking. It’s also the place where many Colonial Williamsburg employees go for a reality pit stop while on break or after work.
It’s not uncommon to see historical re-enactors dressed in traditional colonial garb belly up to the bar and it’s further not uncommon to see the re-enactors who portray real life historical figures. In fact, three of the regulars are the men who portray Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. They come in frequently enough to have regular seats at the end of the bar, although Franklin is often out of town on some kind of business. There, they sit wearing the full ensemble—woolen ascots and calf-length knickers and amber colored wigs flattened from the wearing of tri-cornered hats—while smoking menthols and drinking Happy Hour domestic beer. They’re generally good for business. Tourists enjoy asking questions about the Continental Congress and the War for Independence and where to buy tickets for the ghost tours and they come off as very approachable, as far as historical figures go. Occasionally, Hancock and Adams come in but it’s usually just the three of them.
I’ve gotten to know them pretty well in the past year. Jefferson had my fiance and me over for dinner last month. Together we joined a fantasy football league run by some co-workers of mine. Franklin is the most agreeable of the three. Really, he’s a great guy. He’s a terrific raconteur and seems happiest when talking to large groups. He makes you sort of see how the strength of the union was in the greatness of its men, how such a concept could exist. The bar guests are naturally attracted to him. Jefferson is a little more low-key, but is still a good guy. He’s a proud man and usually sits between Henry and Franklin, reading law books and sitting erectly and nursing his draft. He’s also the best tipper.
I’m growing concerned about Henry. He’s the most spirited re-enactor of the three and rarely does he leave character, usually just under his breath to Jefferson when the tourists are out of sight. However, lately he seems equally determined to bring liberty to the colonies as he is fifty-cent drafts to his mouth. He’s grown impetuous and easily agitated and by now would surely have approached recklessness were it not for Franklin, that great mediator and envoy of peace. Jefferson seems to think his common sense has been abraded by the arduous fight against British tyranny, and the long hours. Franklin just squints through his bifocals and flashes that ruddy-cheeked smile of his, as though it’s all going to be okay.
I’m the only person who thinks his losing fantasy football team is the cause of his stress. Franklin and Jefferson say the claim is nonsense. But he’s struggled since getting off to a 4-0 start and now is in danger of missing the playoffs. Worse yet, he’s behind on his weekly dues and the league commissioner has received complaints from other owners regarding his outstanding debt. Henry is a notoriously sore loser. He was bitter following the Stamp Act of ‘65 and a noted provocateur of the call to arms in ’76. I almost felt badly for him when my team beat his in Week 7. He looks up to Franklin and he beat Jefferson in Week 3, so those guys don’t notice. Only I heard him at the end of Happy Hour last week before the Monday night game when he stared into the mahogany finish of the bar top and said, ‘I know not the course others may take; but as for me, give me two touchdowns from Brett Favre, or give me death.’ That fantasy football is a bitch.
Chris Guthrie
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003
From: Matthew Blakstad
Subject: Better things to do in the shower
Dear McSweeney’s,
I have to intervene.
Recent claims regarding time-saving multitasking opportunities while showering seems to me to have missed the point big time. In haggling over the merits or not of brushing, and I now note even flossing, in the cubicle, your correspondents are falling into a quite natural, but limiting, ontological trap. They assume that efficiency is only to be gained if, while standing beneath an immersive torrent of scalding H-two-O, they simultaneously carry out a second cleaning task.
This is not so. Studies conducted in my bathroom have shown that these operations require concentrated hand activity and will, by necessity, confuse the body and spirit if combined with a simple, cleansing shower.
So why limit ourselves to washing activities, just because this is a shower? Have we no other priorities in the morning? What about the dramatic last three pages of chapter 8 of that battered copy of “Girl in Landscape” you’ve been lugging about with you for days? Don’t you want to finish it before you get to this office this morning?
Yes, that’s right. I’m talking about READING in the shower. I tell you, this is not just the future, but also the present, and a not inconsiderable portion of the past, as well. Are we followers of McSweeney’s not by definition avid readers?
If done properly, reading in the shower can be simple, pleasurable, and will cause no unnecessary page-wrinkling or spine-creasing to any but the most poorly-bound of volumes, the most porous of papers. With the book held firmly in the left hand, above the water jet, the right is free to explore soapily all the necessary areas, and believe me, one soon learns the knack of squeezing shampoo into the palm one-handed. You will, of course, require a conveniently-placed sponge or cloth to dry your wet right hand before shifting the book to it, and finishing any parts that cannot adequately be reached without using the left. But that is the only kink in an otherwise gentle and calming sequence of movements.
By extending this technique, the book can remain in your hand throughout your morning ablutions, and you will find you can achieve an extra 30 or 40 pages during the course of the working week: a valuable gain in efficiency that all right-minded readers will learn to treasure.
So let’s leave off with the flossing, shall we?
Yours ever,
Matthew Blakstad
PS Other activities that can be combined with reading include:
. Bathing
. Applying deodorant
. Brushing teeth (you see???)
. Flossing (ditto)
. Cutting toenails
. Shaving (honestly, you can do it by feel—blind people do, don’t they?)
. Washing dishes
. Ironing (t-shirts and jeans only: we can accept no responsibility for, etc, etc)
. Probably best to leave off when driving
Date: 11 December 2003
From: Benjamin Morris
Subject: The Second War of Northern Aggression
Dear McSweeney’s,
In regards to C.J. Feehan’s report on Dunkin’ Donuts new Apple Cider Donut:
I regret to inform you, Mr Feehan, but the baked-goods war is far more extensive than you think. In my hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, our very first Krispy Kreme Doughnuts shop has just gone up right in front of the largest Baptist church in the city. If Krispy Kreme Doughnuts has the audacity to challenge the Lord God Almighty, and win, then I wager your description of Dunkin’ Donuts’ new donut as “unstoppable” merits some reconsideration. May I offer “trifling” in its stead.
Your most humble and obed’t servant,
Benjamin Morris
PS. A comrade of mine, Adam Bloomfield, is a native of Winston-Salem and has flown on the Krispy Kreme Jet. Yes, the Krispy Kreme Jet. We have taken to the skies, Mr Feehan. Consider this your only warning.
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003
From: Scott Larson
Subject: Stop signs
Dear McSweeney’s and readers,
I was pulling into the parking lot of a gas station/Mcdonald’s yesterday and was almost killed. Another car was pulling out at the same time and the driver neglected to stop at the very obvious stop sign. I slammed on my breaks and laid on my horn, as is the custom, but was then shocked to find the other driver giving ME the finger!
That was clearly my finger to give—not the other way around. If you are a bad driver, if you almost kill someone else, you are not allowed to flip off the victim simply because they honk at you. For the love of god, will everyone please slow the hell down and watch where you’re going? Stop at the damn stop signs, and if you don’t—keep your fingers to yourselves. Idiots.
Yours Truly,
S. Larson
in St. Charles, MO
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003
From: Bryce Chackerian
Subject: Bone-crunching kittens
Dear McSweeney’s,
In regards to Brian Minter’s correspondence from a questionable medicinal supplier and its puzzling addendum, I would like to inform your readers that Mr. Minter’s confusion about the quote appended to said email is entirely justified. The quote is an amalgam of passages from two books by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz and The Master Key. And, Mr. Minter, the gratitude expressed in the final sentence is not uttered by either Dorothy or the kitten, but is, in fact, spoken by the President of France to a clever little boy named Rob.
Unfortunately, I am not able to shed any light on why this message appears, as I am as stumped as Mr. Minter in making a connection between manhood-enhancement and Dorothy, hungry kittens, or the French President (although the extent of my knowledge regarding the latter is clearly incomplete).
Best wishes,
Bryce Chackerian
Date: Wed, 19 Nov. 2003
From: Stephanie Drury
Subject: false positive?
Dear McSweeney’s,
I went to a lecture today about drug testing. One of the reps from the lab bragged that they have never had a false positive ever. My question is: how do they know that?
One of your fans,
Stephanie Drury
Date: Tues, 18 Nov. 2003
From: Brian Minter
Subject: this spam is weird
Dear Editor,
A spam email arrived tonight at the office where I work in Washington, DC. Knowing the fondness of your journal for the out-of-the-ordinary, I thought you should be made aware of it.
The top portion of the email was an advertisement for a “penis enlargement” medication, accompanied by the usual slogans. In the event that you are unfamiliar with this sort of thing, I will say only that they comprise of a mixture of the bawdy and the faux-clinical, and do not merit further elaboration.
But the lower portion of the email contained, with no explanation whatsoever, the following statements:
Oh, Eureka! cried Dorothy, did you eat the bones? If it had any bones, I ate them, replied the kitten, composedly, as it washed its face after the meal. I regret my inability to reward you properly for the great service you have rendered my country; but you have my sincerest gratitude, and may command me in any way.
Unfortunately, our system deletes these sorts of junk mail messages, so I am unable to send you the original.
Like I said, the email gave no explanation at all for this, and no indication that it was anything unusual, which, if you are at all familiar with the sort of message I am referring to, you know is not so.
Also, since there were no line breaks in that portion of the message, it is unclear, from a narrative point of view, whether the final sentence represents the kitten addressing Dorothy, or an anonymous omniscient narrator addressing the reader.
If you can shed any light on this, I would appreciate it.
Sincerely,
Brian Minter
Date: Thu, 13 Nov. 2003
From: Shane Sinnott
Subject: Snow
McSweeney’s,
It’s snowing in Toronto today, and it sure does suck. I just wanted to be first on the bitching-about-the-snow bandwagon.
Thanks,
Shane Sinnott
Date: Wed. 22, Oct. 2003
From: Jason Lee Erickson
Subject: The Game of the Name and the Grain of My Brain
Dear McSweeney’s,
This week’s brainbuster asks me to fill in names so that last names are first names and first names are also first names. The example, “Jessye ________ ________ Hawkins,” is solved thusly: Jessye Norman Coleman Hawkins, which uses the names of the opera singer Jessye Norman, the Senator Norman Coleman, and the famed tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.
I should start by saying that I don’t love this example because there aren’t very many people named Jessye. In fact, there might only be one, and because of that, this particular puzzle half-solves itself, which isn’t the point, now, is it?
Because of that, I am mentally changing “Jessye” to “Jesse.” Jesse Mallin, Jesse Owens, Jesse Colin Young. Much, much better.
But I have saved the coup de nom for last. Here is my solution: Jesse Jamesetta Hawkins, which uses the names of Jesse James, the famous outlaw, and that of Jamesetta Hawkins, which is the real name of the singer Etta James. The middle section, which in your example is two words, is here only one word, but one perfect word: Jamesetta. Consider it an atom: split it at your own risk.
Yours,
Jesse Jason Lee Erickson
Toronto, Ontario
Date: Wed. 22, Oct. 2003
From: Anne Dunn
Subject: Shower Activities
Dear McSweeney’s,
I can’t hold back any longer. Not only do I agree that brushing one’s teeth in the shower has many benefits, but I would like to recommend flossing in the shower. Think of all the reasons why you don’t floss at the sink—mouth stuff splatters on the mirror, you don’t like looking at your mouth that way, your fingers get all gooey… In the shower, those reasons disappear! Plus, for the conservationists out there, reusing floss in the shower is always a possibility. Just drape it over the showerhead and it’s good to go for the next time. Your gums will thank you.
Smilingly,
Anne Dunn
Washington, DC
Date: Tue. 21, Oct. 2003
From: Robert Ellis
Subject: Grout
McSweeney’s,
It was with great delight that I recently found the list of “Grout-Related Phrases Written on the Grout in a Bathroom Stall (Most Likely Written while Sitting on the Toilet)” and I thought I might share my experiences with Grout-Related Phrases. On the second-floor men’s bathroom in my former university’s library (stall farthest from the door) a similar collection of Grout-Related Phrases can (I hope) still be found. Whenever the need arose to visit a bathroom while in the library, I would sprint up to the second floor and try my best to add to the grout collection (personal favorites include: “Grout balls of fire” and “Three strikes and you’re grout”). When I transferred universities, my commitment to bathroom humor was temporarily forgotten in the chaos that life can sometimes resemble. But imagine my excitement when I discovered (this time in the basement bathroom, farthest stall from the door) a blank slate, clean grout for miles. However, few words can describe the ecstatic frame of mind I was plunged into weeks later, upon my return to the basement bathroom, farthest stall from the door, and found the grout not empty, nay, but covered in glorious grout jokes (“Don’t grout about it”). It is the small things, friends.
Groutfully,
Bob Ellis
Date: Sun. 19, Oct. 2003
From: Murphy, Megan
Subject: Brushing your teeth in the shower
Dear McSweeney’s,
Brushing your teeth in the shower is disgusting. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!
Sincerely,
Megan
Date: Sun. 19, Oct. 2003
From: Gregory J. Chapman
Subject: At least one other person must find this interesting…
Hello, McSweeney’s!
At the University of Chicago Press website, I found a list of poems from an anthology titled Surrealist Love Poems. At first, I thought I was reading short poems. Then I realized I was reading a list of poem titles. Found poetry, no?
Andre Breton
Free union
I dream I see your image
Always for the first time
They tell me that over there
As they move
In the lovely twilight
On the road to San Romano
Robert Desnos
I have so often dreamed of you
No, love is not dead
If you knew
Sleep spaces
Oh pangs of love!
Never anyone but you
The voice of Robert Desnos
Obsession
Paul Eluard
Your mouth with golden lips
The shape of your eyes
I love you
The earth is blue like an orange
I’ve told you
As you rise
The lover
About one, two, everyone
Since it must be
Our life
Joyce Mansour
Your breath in my mouth
You love to lie in our unmade bed
I want to show myself naked
Remember
The storm sketches a silver margin
I want to sleep with you
Benjamin Péret
Wink
Hello
Do you know
Fountain
Thanks to all at McSweeney’s for the work you do.
Greg Chapman
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003
From: Robert S. Getzschman
Subject: In regards to letters taking umbrage against the recommending of brushing of teeth in the shower
Dear McSweeney’s,
You seem to have created quite a stir amongst your readers by stating that Brushing Your Teeth in the Shower saves time and water if you do it right. Or at least you’ve created a stir with the two who wrote contentious letters. It is important to stress the qualifier in your recommendation, “if you do it right.” Doing it right involves recognizing that many minutes in the shower are spent doing nothing more than letting the warm spray of showertime engulf us. These precious moments are not diminished by the simultaneous brushing of teeth, as the welcome downpour continues unabated, the teeth are being cleaned, and time formerly deemed lounging in the shower can now be deemed hygienically productive time.
If I may be so bold as to offer a recommendation myself, take this concept further and try eating in the shower. It seems to me that all foods take on an additional savour when consumed in the shower; perhaps it has something to do with the humidity activating otherwise dormant tastes in the foodstuffs. Try a sandwich, chips, crackers and cheese, or a Pop Tart if it’s breakfast time. In particular, a cold drink provides a stimulating contrast to the hot water.
I have not found reading and/or office work to be compatible with showering.
Thank you kindly,
Robert S. Getzschman
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003
From: Jennie Howard
Subject: Friends and Lovers
Dear McSweeney’s,
I used to be “the friend,” back in high school. My girlfriends were pretty and feminine, and I frumped around with skull-buckle boots, geometrically impossible hair, and a bad frown. It never bothered me much, to be “the friend,” mostly because if boys talked to me at all, I could assume that either A.) they understood the creepy thing (highly unusual at Mullet Rock Central), or B.) they would soon be dating one of my friends and I would have to hang out with them anyway.
Ten years later, after many painful and hideous confrontations between myself and I, and thanks in no small part to The Luck of The Draw (all things being equal, intention and mother nature have both had their say in this), I’m on the other side of the fence. The grass is somewhat greener, in that there are rides offered by mechanics instead of strangers screaming mean things at me from passing cars, and there are free drinks on a somewhat regular basis, depending on how I feel about eye contact on any given night. The thing is, when I walk in to a bar with my friend (who, yes, totally considers herself “the friend” when we go out together), and some bar-guy gives me the elevator and tells me I’m the best looking girl in the place, I turn to my friend and we wince. None of my girlfriends ever winced for me.
Jennie Howard
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003
From: Michelle Orange
Subject: Shampoo, spit, recommend
My dear McSweeney’s,
I’m only going to say this once, and then I want all the uni-tasking nay sayers, most specifically Jeb Gleason-Allured (?) who recently attempted to make a case for “de-recommending” the brushing of one’s teeth while showering to save time and water, to return their delicate daffodil necks (spittle! grody!)to the sun in cozy (de-)contemplation of problems more within their grasp.
1. Put toothpaste on the brush before entering the shower, stick it in your mouth, Popeye style, to the side, so you don’t knock your teeth out while jerking uncontrollably toward the wall after catching your reflection in that mirror that, in a tour de force of unflattery, cuts you off at the knees.
2. Use your freed hands to turn on the faucet, and step into the shower, taking some water into your mouth and making a few warm up strokes against your teeth.
3. While the water is heating up and you are wetting your hair, brush a little more, then take a short break, leaving the brush in your mouth with the small little paste-storm you’ve managed to whip up, to set while you wash your hair.
4. Wash your hair.
5. (AND THIS IS WHERE THE SAVING PART COMES IN, SO LOOK SHARP, JEB!) In rinsing, jockey into a position under the shower head which directs maximum water pressure against your scalp. Use your dominant hand to resume the brushing—more thoughtful and invigorated now, after the brief hiatus—of your teeth. Use your non-dominant hand to reach back and assist in the rinsing of your hair.
6. You know, who can say whether you’ll finish rinsing or brushing first? Some days are rinse-intensive, others you spend a few extra seconds on the chompers. In my experience, the more you do it, the better you get at timing completion in tandem. Dude!
7. Turn and rinse out your mouth and maybe some of the shampoo at the front. You dainties out there (and Jeb, I am again looking at you) will want to take this opportunity to spit over the drain so as to avoid introducing your yucky feet to something yucky from another part of your body.
8. Now is the time to either shampoo again (does anyone actually do that?) or condition. Use the minute or two while the conditioner is working its chemical magic (am I the only one who actually does that?) to wash your body. Depending on your technique and what you’re hoping to get out of step 8, timing these two events to simultaneous completion may be more difficult than those in step 5. We’re all friends here, no need to get into it.
This is, I believe, what was meant by “if you do it right.” I’m sorry that it came to this, but I’ve noticed this dissent circling the drain of obstreperousness for a while now, and felt it was my duty to come forward. You don’t need to be a ambidexterous, double-jointed or even of a singular mind to do it right, you just have to want to, Jeb, you just have to want to.
All yours,
Michelle Orange
Date: Tues, 07 October, 2003
From: Jeb Gleason-Allured
Subject: Please De-Recommend
Dear McSweeney’s,
Among your recommendations I came across the following stunner: “Brushing Your Teeth in the Shower/Saves time and water if you do it right.” OK, setting aside for a moment the yuck factor of standing in one’s own spittle/food particles, I would like to point out that while one is brushing (perhaps two minutes?), untold liters of water are being wasted. Far better would be (before or after taking a shower) to wet one’s brush under the sink faucet and then shut off the spigot while brushing. This would expend, along with rinsing, perhaps 1.5 liters of water, max. Dude! “Saves time and water if you do it right”? Maybe you’re some latter day Meribeth Old or Krzysztof Rojek, but the average person likely can’t shampoo, condition or soap-up while brushing. So, out the proverbial window goes your time-saving claim. What are we left with? Frothy paste gobs slowly drifting toward the drain. Lest you think me a know-it-all brow beater, I should say that I, too, am a committed shower brusher. I don’t know why.
Yours,
Jeb Gleason-Allured
Date: Mon, 06 October, 2003
From: Peter Ward Brown
Subject: House in the Suburbs
Dear McSweeney’s,
Progress on the House in the Suburbs has been rapid in recent weeks, and I am told that in two weeks we will have a “walk through” followed by the closing at the end of the month, at which one can hope for some reasonable sense of closure.
I have a friend from college who is a construction super, and he agrees to walk through the house with me for a look-see. He uses a red magic marker to make notes on various pieces of wood regarding their bow or squareness. On the short little wall at the top of the stairs (which he says is called a “knee wall,”) he writes “Dead Man Through Floor?” and draws a big arrow pointing down.
He assures me this is a common practice for stabilizing knee walls, and I nod as if in understanding. His degree was in elementary art education.
With regards,
Peter Ward Brown
Columbus, Oh
Date: Fri, 19 September, 2003
From: Michael Degnan
Subject: I recommend
Dear McSweeney’s,
…a game called Pass the Pigs, by Milton Bradley. It comes in a small case and you roll the pigs (as you would, say, dice) and tally up points. Really much more fun than it sounds (like the Trump game… I mean, probably).
Michael
Date: Wed, 16 September, 2003
From: Katarina Donn
Subject: the CHIEFS win the SUPERBOWL
Dear McSweeney’s,
Please tell your Jeff guy, the one who decides who wins what games during the NFL season that the Chiefs are a three-year team under Dick Vermiel, and this is the third year. The YUK Kansas City thing really confuses me. What’s wrong with Kansas City?
Sincerely,
Katarina
Date: Fri, 15 August, 2003
From: Jessica Morrison
Subject: De Kelp Pot
Dear McSweeney’s,
I was delighted to see my answer of “de kelp pot” posted for last week’s Mc Sweeney’s Brain Exploder, but was dismayed to find “anonymous” in place of my name and the certain fame that would accompany it’s presence. So let it be known that “de kelp pot” was the product of, and should forever be associated with, the name Jessica Morrison.
Sincerely,
Jessica Morrison
Date: Fri, 15 August, 2003
From: Dan Chilton
Subject: Lessons in irrevery…
Dear McSweeney’s,
I’ve noticed that the majority of the “letters” you post aren’t really “letters” at all. They seem to be quick jabs at irreverent observationing, lacking in any real coorespondence-based bantery. I wrote one once, but my mind wasn’t then what it is today. I leave you with that, and this: “You Showed Me” by the Turtles is an eeriely haunting song. Why are you closed on Mondays?
Wonderful,
Dan B. Chilton
Date: Fri, 15 August, 2003
From: Rita Benedetti
Subject: The future of California as seen from Italy
Dear Gabe Koplowitz,
I’m writing to let you know how much I enjoyed your diary as a petitioner for the DICEOB, and I would have liked to take part in the political rally on Saturday. Unfortunately I live in Italy, which represents a sort of impediment for me. Nevertheless I am definitely a DICEOB supporter, and I do hope that one day Darrell Issa will officially become the supreme ruler of California.
This is for several reasons, the main one regarding Mr. Berlusconi, supreme ruler of Italy (officially elected by a bunch of usually non-voters convinced that money brings money and that only poor people steal, while rich ones just play cool by a swimming pool, actually enjoying giving their money to others just for the sake of it and, hey! Who cares anyway?!).
Before the elections more than two years ago, I felt that Mr. B was going to win without my help, otherwise — you can bet on that — I myself would have promoted a SBIEOB (a Silvio Berlusconi Italian Election Omnipotence Bill). I know you might find this not interesting at all, however I think it’s part of my civil duties to inform you of how our life here in Italy turned from a jungle into a Paradise under our Supreme Ruler.
In the pre-Mr. B era, everything was messed up, we had no proper rules, our governors were fighting all the time, we were poor and sad, and our TV was sad, providing us with news we didn’t want to hear, and not paying enough attention to the weather forecast. A jungle, that is. Today you don’t have to fight for anything. Mr. B and his colleagues/friends/lawyers/ starlets, will approve new laws everyday, sorting out all that chaos we had to deal with in the pre-Mr. B era.
One of the first tough decisions he made in July 2001 in Genoa during the G8 — when fights were publicly announced, the atmosphere was tense, and the police was getting ready to hit — was that of forbidding clothes to be hung to dry out of the windows. Our laws now all go in one direction, finally! They all go forward, through any obstacle, fighting for our right to get one direction, one thought, one ruler, one TV, one newspaper. We are finally part of one world!
We are finally free. Free in a free world. A tailor-made world. A world in good shape. The shape of a Bush. I believe that this is what democracy is all about. To have it all made clear for us, the people. One choice, without having to think about anything that doesn’t have to do with fashion, money, and holidays.
I wish you, in that dream-land of California, the same fortune we’ve got here. May the sun shine upon you, the sky always be cloudless, the streets be populated by smartly dressed people, the gardens surrounded by flowers, your teeth be whiter, your dogs happier. May you have a national ad, telling you to buy, because the mere act of buying stuff is good for your state economy. May you have to watch this ad tons of times in a day, listening to a funny tune, like the American happy ’50s soundtrack, so that you can forget that actually somebody is stealing the money you work for, the same money you are supposed to use to increase your national economy with.
May we all forget, and learn how to stare at things so that we are won’t have to understand them anymore. May we all be spotless.
I believe you’re not interested in foreign politics, but this is a small world after all. The same world where an Austrian actor is staring at the governor of California’s chair.
From,
Rita Benedetti
Italy
Date: Wed, 30 July, 2003
From: Peter Ward Brown
Subject: House in the Suburbs
Dear McSweeney’s:
The house in the suburbs that I referenced in letters of February 24, March 3, and April 11 is now being framed by a crew of four carpenters (or possibly three carpenters and one apprentice). While visiting the site is ostensibly “exciting,” there is, too, the unshakable feeling that framed walls all around you are very much like a wooden prison, the studs serving as iron bars.
But I have learned that ignoring such symbolism is the essential challenge of building a house in the suburbs! It is simple coincidence, you see. Nothing more. For example, I was recently helping my two-year-old son out of the house and onto the pile of gravel rocks that sits where one day will be a small front porch. It is currently a steep drop, and it was difficult to be of much assistance because I was hampered by a broken arm. (An injury unrelated to the house in the suburbs, I assure you. Not directly related, anyhow, in any sort of provable way.) As I helped my son down this drop, I lost my balance and in regaining it, my left ankle (motto: susceptible to frequent sprains since 1989!) turned completely over and I started to tumble. In order not to tumble onto my son, I wrenched my body back the other direction and landed, most coincidentally, on my broken arm.
It is fair to say, as I lay on the gravel pile in intense pain on both the top and bottom of my body, that I was arguably “writhing,” and this immediately gave way to a fairly lengthy string of words, which while articulating my sensations at the moment, were of the variety that I prefer not to use in front of my two-year-old son. I am certainly glad that the houses of my new neighbors are also only in the framed/prison stage, and thus no one was around to witness this unfortunate episode.
With regards,
Peter Ward Brown,
Columbus, OH
Date: Wed, 30 July, 2003
From: Bryan Stroud
Subject: In response to Elizabeth Ellen, who wrote a review of Jell-O Pudding Bites
Dear Elizabeth,
My girlfriend laughs at me every time we walk down the frozen-treats aisles at the various grocery stores around town (Columbus, Ohio) because I always stop to see if, by some miracle, the store has suddenly started selling Jell-O Pudding Pops again.
I’m always disappointed with what I find, but it’s almost worth it because Emily (my girlfriend) gets so much delight out of my persistence in vain.
Pudding Pops were indeed damn good.
Sincerely,
Bryan Stroud
Date: Thurs, 24 July, 2003
From: Ben Cohen
Subject: In response to Amy Stender, who wrote a letter in response to my “Quarters” piece
Dear Amy,
I was referring to Aple syrup, actually, which is in fact mined by autumnal bucket placement. There was a typo in the original.
Signed,
Ben
P.S. You love pancakes.
Date: Thurs, 24 July, 2003
From: Tim Maloney
Subject: Sweet Relief
Dear McSweeney’s:
I must say I was relieved when I read Emily Maloney’s response to my response to her letter in your column. You must believe me when I say that I had a fair degree of anxiety about the possibility that my dead grandmother was continuing to write letters ex mortis, and to publications I read, no less. Considering how my grandmother felt about me, this ability could spell bigger trouble for me down the line as her supernatural powers increased. Letter-writing is fairly small potatoes on the scale of ghostly deeds, but you never know where practice might have got her. I’m figuring she might not have a whole lot to do in the afterlife, so this was cause for concern. In any event, I think I can cancel those extra therapy sessions.
I’m also glad to report that I’ve never been to New Jersey, never so much as had a minor crush on a girl named Linda, nor am I an uncle to anyone over the age of seven, and regrettably have never made even one hundred thousand dollars in a single year, so I’m hoping this also means I’m not boring.
Tim Maloney
Date: Mon, 21 July, 2003
From: Amy L. Stender
Subject: RE: My Favorite Quarters
Dear Mr. Cohen,
Thank you for your kind words about the Vermont quarter. I come from a long line of Vermonters and we Stenders have done our fair share of sugaring. You seem to be under the impression, though, that one simply attaches a bucket to a tree and maple syrup magically comes out. Actually, the sap that comes out of a maple tree has the look, consistency, and smell of water. This sap must be boiled down until it’s reduced to a syrup; it takes roughly thirty-seven gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Also, this isn’t an autumn scene on the quarter. Sugaring takes place in the springtime (sap runs best when you have nights below freezing and really warm days). That’s why there are no leaves on the tree.
One last thing: I do hate pancakes, but I don’t mind drinking a little warm syrup right when it’s come off the boiler. It’s like liquid brown heaven in a Styrofoam cup. I hear the Canadians mix a little gin into theirs.
Thanks again,
Amy L. Stender
Date: Mon, 21 July, 2003
From: Cole Louison
Subject: To Justin Dullum
Dear Justin,
I just read your ketchup story, and wanted to tell you a story that begins with a question: Have you ever made plum pudding?
I made it one Thanksgiving and it took twelve hours. I started at noon and finished at midnight, in the first minutes of Thanksgiving Day.
Anyway, I followed the instructions in I think it was the Joy of Cooking (unabridged) cookbook. There are two options, and I took the “Olde Fashioned” one.
Justin, take a guess as to what’s in plum pudding.
No plums. You know those bright little pieces in fruitcake? There’s like a cup of those. There’s also a cup of suet — the kind woodpeckers like, also called animal fat. You melt the suet, but first you have to dice it up, which is a wierd job because your hands get sticky with fat oil and it’s hard to rinse off.
Next: hard liquor. There are I think three different types in plum pudding. A cup of whisky, a cup of bourbon, and one other one. My Dad was pissed.
There’s a dry mix of crushed nuts and flower and things, which gets mixed with the molten suet. This goes into the punch, and makes a gooey, creek-colored porridge that goes into the oven and five hours later comes out as PluPu.
Cooking it: You don’t cook it; you steam it. For five hours. We didn’t have the right equipment, so my Dad bent a cookie-cooling wire rack so it held two bowls of the porridge into over a tray of water in the oven. Then he went to bed and at midnight got up and helped me get the plum pudding out of the molds.
That’s another thing: It’s nothing like pudding. When it comes out, it comes out as a loaf, like head cheese or something, in the shape of whatever you steamed it in. It’s jiggly, but bready looking, and really more or less vomit-colored. And not even plum vomit-colored.
But it’s amazing. Like cheesecake or my friend Tom’s grandma’s Heavy Pie, a thin piece will fill you up. We cut it like bread and had it with ice cream. It tastes of a cocktail snack, an appetizer, a meal, and a dessert, all at once.
My Grandma gets a few catalogs in October that offer a gourmet, wrapped-up plum pudding for sale, but I’ve never ordered one. I would be curious if the color is any different.
Well that’s it. Thought you might like to know.
Your friend,
Cole Louison
Date: Mon, 14 July, 2003
From: Michael McCarrin
Subject: Fieldwork
Dear McSweeney’s,
I have tried night-vision goggles and they are really neat. First, you can’t see anything (because you aren’t wearing the goggles yet), and then you put the goggles on and it’s like a great green moon has risen — but only for you; everyone else still can’t see. The first time I tried them I found this hard to believe, and I kept taking them off and putting them back on to check that the goggles themselves weren’t somehow just shining green light on everything.
If you can’t get night-vision goggles, but you know someone with a really nice digital camera, the “night-shot” option on the camera is almost as good as the goggles. It comes with a zoom too, but it’s not as good for running around. (We played hide and go seek with the night-vision goggles.)
Michael McCarrin
Date: Tues, 12 July, 2003
From: Josh Engel
Subject: There’s a killer on the road
Dear McSweeney’s,
Down at the Astor Place subway today, same dude, looking a little better, singing “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore,” and then bam!, parlays it right into “Riders on the Storm” again.
Yours,
Josh Engel
Date: Tues, 24 June, 2003
From: Emily Maloney
Subject: Tim Maloney
Dear McSweeney’s,
When I saw that Tim Maloney had written you, I just had to respond. I have an uncle named Tim Maloney, and he lives in New Jersey with his wife (and high-school sweetheart) Linda. He was a television and small electronics repairman until IBM swept him up in the mid-1980s. Now he makes a couple hundred grand a year. Not bad, when you think about the fact that he refused to go to college.
He has two kids, Shawn and Shannon. Shawn became similarly technically inclined, and he lives in Boulder, Colorado. I met him once at a Japanese restaurant in Chicago. He was pretty boring, but my dad explained later that Tim, who is my dad’s brother, was even more dull. My other cousin, Shannon, wears a blue vest and works at a Wal-Mart in Hackensack, New Jersey.
To tell you the truth, she sounds much more interesting.
Sincerely yours,
Emily Maloney
Date: Sat, 21 June, 2003
From: Travis Overocker
Subject: Sunburn
McSweeney’s,
I went to the beach today with my girlfriend and her new roommates. She’s a nurse, and always obsesses about things like having enough to eat and making sure that everyone wears sunscreen. I think she’s incredibly sexy when she’s pissed off, so I purposely ignore her advice. Now I have these weird tan-lines where I wore my sunglasses while playing endless games of volleyball all day.
Travis Overocker
Greenville, North Carolina
Date: Mon, 9 June, 2003
From: Sam Mathias
Subject: A secret
Dear McSweeney’s,
I got my wisdom teeth out last week, but now I’ve healed and I’m back in action, except I have big holes in my gums where teeth used to be. Nobody can notice though, except for me and my tongue. Dr. Parsons saw the holes; he told me they looked great.
Sincerely,
Sam Mathias
Date: Sun, 8 June, 2003
From: Betsy Bluey
Dear McSweeney’s,
I have recently become employed as a preschool teacher after my last employer said he’d clone me if he could, and once the local police said my fingerprints were, indeed, not linked to the stolen sand dollar scandal. The kids have taught me the “Hello” song in English, Spanish, Hungarian, Swedish, and ASL, in addition to “Baby Beluga” by Raffi, a touching song about a whale who lives in the ocean and apparently, for now, swims about happy and free. In exchange, I have taught them: that hitting, biting, and/or kicking someone because you want their tool belt actually doesn’t solve anything; that school scissors are for cutting paper, not hair; and that crying because you forgot the sunglasses that match your outfit isn’t going to make them appear.
Betsy Bluey
Date: Tues, 3 June, 2003
From: Tim Maloney
Subject: Emily Maloney
Dear McSweeney’s,
Holy Cow!
I was reading your letters section, which I do on occasion, when I spied the name of a contributor from April of this year: Emily Maloney.
Which name, I shudder when I recall, was the name of my grandmother. Which grandmother upon my birth disowned me entirely because I was not named David William Maloney III, after my father, and apparently a name she quite liked, it also being her husband’s name. About which husband I remember very little except this pipe that he smoked constantly, and that he had once worked for the Police Department in Springfield, Illinois. He had one of those organs like the Kimball Swinger (though not that brand, I think) that I used to love to beat on unmelodically until he asked me to stop.
Anyway, this grandmother of mine was particularly unfriendly about my being named Tim, and found many ways to express this. She spoke to me very little while I was growing up, and was always “forgetting” to send me the gifts that she would remember to send my sisters. Needless to say, I did not grow up with particularly fond memories of her, though I would be a rather pathetic case now if I were still injured by the slight.
My grandmother died last year before that letter was written, and unless I am prepared to believe that she has risen from the grave so that she can post an e-mail to a site that I visit in the equally creepy hopes that I will see it and then get to feeling all spooky about it, I must assume this is simply a coincidence.
I wish Ms. Maloney well, and wonder only if she is a relation of some kind.
Yr. pal,
Tim Maloney
Date: Fri, 30 May, 2003
From: Claire Zulkey
Subject: Hooray?
Dear McSweeney’s,
After about three months without a job, it looks like I might actually be hired again! And by a highly regarded university, no less! I will in some ways miss unemployment. However, I might benefit from eating fewer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which I would be too ashamed to bring to a real office.
Wish me luck,
Claire Zulkey
Date: Tues, 27 May, 2003
From: Andrew Tibbetts
Subject: Goosed
Dear McSweeney’s,
We have a tiny strip of grass between our building and our neighbour. It has the kind of tree that only grows at the hands of landscrapers- perky, pitiful. This spring, a pair of geese landed there and began raising a family. From my window, I can see them. I love them so, so, much. It makes me happy and that takes a lot here.
I came back into work after a late meeting, just to type some ridiculous report that nobody would ever read. As I stepped out of the car, two geese came storming toward me and my body went hot and tight and thumpy. I dove back inside my car and slammed the door. And then I locked it. I was frightened for a long time. I made myself breathe deeply. As a little boy I had gone to feed the ducks and one had bitten my finger. Apparently, I wailed for hours. I have no memory of this event, but it is a Tibbetts family legend. I wonder if a part of me has a previously buried fear of waterfowl that has now been stirred up.
Or am I just a chicken?
I actually drove to the other side of the building and went in a different door. I think I could take those geese, but I didn’t want to have to hurt them.
I am thinking of quitting my job, but it’s really, really, really not about the geese.
Sincerely,
Andrew Tibbetts
Ontario, Canada
Date: Sun, 11 May, 2003
From: Summer Burton
Dear McSweeney’s,
I asked an elderly customer last week if he needed a bag for his trade-paperback best-seller, and he replied indicating that he did desire a bag. I’d like to say that he did so in a particularly snide tone, and I do remember a certain sharpness to his syllables that may have bothered me. But, honestly, I had no inkling of what was to come. I just smiled and reached for his bag while he squinted at me and eventually added “Where do you think I’m going?!” Confused and somewhat shocked, I creased my brow and exclaimed “What?” There was a short and (I hope you’ll forgive me for the following adjective because this is a true story and I really think anyone observing the situation would have used the same word) dramatic pause. He ended our transaction by shoving his palm within inches of my face and growling, “There is no communication between your generation and mine.”
Apparently not, sir.
Faithfully yours,
Summer Burton
Austin, TX
Date: Sun, 11 May, 2003
From: Jennifer Amey
Subject: Roommate Wanted
Dear McSweeney’s,
I am still looking for a roommate. Yes, still. If you know of anyone who is employed, neat but not a freak, and otherwise cool, tell them to drop me a line.
Thanks guys,
Jennifer Amey
Date: Sat, 10 May, 2003
From: Mike Topp
Subject: Santa’s Little Helpers
Dear McSweeney’s,
I think more children should play with elves, but that’s out now.
Sincerely,
Mike Topp
Date: Wed, 7 May, 2003
From: Marc Ciucci
Subject: How did I miss this?
It was in front of my face the whole time for years.
It was in front of everyone’s face for years.
And now, 10 years later, the thought of it turns my stomach.
The cafeteria lunch ladies never wore gloves.
Yours,
Marc Ciucci
Date: Wed, 7 May, 2003
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: Really Taking Care of Business
Dear McSweeney’s,
Why is it that all of these fancy Harvard Business School graduates writing books on management techniques have all missed the obvious connection between amphetamines and increased productivity?
Not productive, personally,
Dan Kennedy
Date: Tues, 6 May, 2003
From: Guillaume Dumoulin
Subject: My guacamole
Dear McSweeney’s,
Yesterday — or was it last week? — I made some guacamole. Only, I forgot to add lemon, and the guacamole turned black (because of the avocados). Thankfully, that didn’t stop my girlfriend from dipping nachos in it. She even said my guacamole was “delicious” several times. While eating my guacamole, we were listening to a very old Cure album and drinking White Russians. All in all, we had a very nice evening. I believe my guacamole has something to do with it.
Thank you,
Guillaume Dumoulin
Paris, France
Date: Sun, 4 May, 2003
From: Deborah Tarnoff
Subject: Facts and Fictions Converging
Dear McSweeney’s,
It’s the end of my first year at NYU Law School, and I’m desperately in need of a plane ticket to my married lover in Santa Monica. So, I scan the Times want ads for job possibilities. For some reason, “media estimator ad agency” attracts me. Of course, I don’t have the foggiest notion what a media estimator is, and yet, I fill out the application and for experience write, “Grey Advertising, Wilshire Blvd.,” having copied the address out of a phone book in the basement of Rockefeller Center. Most significantly, I never mention I’m a law school student looking for a measly three-week job.
As it turns out, the work is easy, and I’m so pleased with my caper that I write married Alfredo a letter wherein I congratulate myself on my brilliance and refer to my employers as “gullible, Goy morons.” Six days later, I’m summoned to personnel where a Muffie somebody gives me one of those “How the fuck did they ever let Jews in here?” looks and says, “So, you think we’re a bunch of gullible, Goy morons?” Obviously, Alfredo’s wife got hold of my letter and sent it on to B. & B. and they have me by the proverbial short hairs. Still, I find myself starting to feel indignant. As if I really was a media estimator (and a damn good one at that), and these anti-Semites were trying to ruin the start of a brilliant career. But before I can get into it, she says, “Just leave… and be grateful we don’t report you to the character committee.”
Dazed, I start walking uptown and soon find myself on a bench at the square across from the Plaza Hotel daydreaming my next move when this sexy man of about forty starts talking to me. Before I can say, “I don’t even know you,” we’re in his suite at the Regency Hotel making love. Everything is perfect until he hands me an envelope with a hundred bucks in it, and it dawns on me that he’s mistaken me for a hooker.
I phone Alfredo to tell him I have the money. Unfortunately, his wife answers. And so — in what I think is a well- disguised voice — I say, “I have a person-to-person phone call to Alfredo from Paul.” She takes in a very long breath. Then she says, “Is this Deborah from New York?” I start to protest, but she interrupts. “I just gave birth” she says, “and my milk is drying up from all the aggravation.” She adds, “You aren’t the first he cheated with, and I can assure you, you won’t be the last.”
Three months later, I get word that his wife also dumped him and I phone her. I thought she’d be pissed to hear from me, but she’s delighted We talk, we compare notes and finally, we meet for lunch. It’s weird, I know that, but the weirdest thing about it is that it feels as though we’re the best of friends when the only thing we have in common is our distaste for a man we’d have killed for last week.
Of course, I can see now how pathetic I was. But because I didn’t know I was pathetic I felt okay, perhaps even better than I do now when I’m not so pathetic.
Sincerely,
Deborah Tarnoff
New York City
Date: Sun, 27 April, 2003
From: Quinton M. Rafuse
Subject: Snow in April, Almost May
Dear McSweeney’s,
I just finished reading a number of interesting and stimulating letters on your website today. A watched printer never prints, so they say. So, as I am at work this quiet Sunday, waiting for a series of maps to print, I read letters from my fellow readers. This is not what I really wished to write about, but is intended as a bit of context and background.
What I did wish to contribute to the McSweeney’s canon, however is a statement of meteorological concern. What is happening? In the last 24 hours there has been an accumulation of greater than 50cm (20 inches) of snow. It is April 27. I do not live in Alaska or Siberia, but southern Canada. This is not generally expected to happen, even here.
I hear people on the street begging for global warming. “Burn more fossil fuels!!” they exclaim. “To hell with the ozone layer!!” they chant.
Well, that’s all I have to say about that.
Regards,
Quinton M. Rafuse
Date: Sun, 27 April, 2003
From: Mike Topp
Subject: Pepper Factory
Dear McSweeney’s:
I bet if you get a job working in a pepper factory, pretending to sneeze gets old real fast.
Sincerely,
Mike Topp
Date: Thurs, 24 April, 2003
From: Emily Maloney
Subject: Compositions
Dear McSweeneys:
It has come to my attention that I have, as of now, a great opening for a short story involving, but not limited to: a giraffe, Superwoman, two oranges, and a kiddie pool. It proceeds as follows:
“They had met at a gallery opening at Fassbender. She stood in the corner by an open window, smoking a cigarette, looking debonair. He was asthmatic. They were an unlikely match.”
Regards,
Emily Maloney
Date: Thurs, 24 April, 2003
From: Jonathan Chaimberlain
Subject: Jobs that I have had
Dear McSweeney’s
Ever been a pool boy? That’s what I thought, but you should know what you’re getting into, especially if you’re a pool boy at some second-cast country club, and especially if that country club is in the heart of a sprawling urban megatropolis with a 10 foot brick fence to keep the undesirables out.
Being a pool boy is, in my opinion, an overrated job, fraught with difficulties other than the “Fetch towels to here, bring vomit skimmer there, rub suntan lotion on Mrs. Johnson’s back” variety. I remember a bright day in 1973 walking around poolside with a jug of chlorine when Mike Douglas thrust a large hairy arm up from his lounge chaise and gestured for another gin and tonic, if by gestured I mean whistled and stuck up his middle finger, which I do.
“I could have you deported to Bolivia and shot, and not necessarily in that order,” he said as I returned with the glass brimming with Bombay and a lime.
He measured me up as he took the top layer off the drink.
“And another thing: what kind of man wears a paisley shirt and striped trunks?” he asked, his rheumy eyes starting to swim.
I started to answer, but he cut me off. “Some hippie, that’s who.” He turned back to his paper and began to consciously ignore me. “Hippies,” he murmured. “Hippies…”
I think you can see what I mean when I say this job isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially when brushes with greatness lead to baseless accusations of bohemianism. Erica Jong once called me a “gutless flounder” when I gave her the “dirty” martini she asked for. Andy Warhol said that I deserved only 13 minutes of fame after he took a swig of a peach Schnapps I had put in a dirty highball glass. And Brandy Alexanders only earn you a punch in the face with Gore Vidal. Brandy Alexanders spiked with chlorine and “E-Z- pH-Test-R,” anyway.
Remarkably yours,
Jonathan Chaimberlain
Date: Friday, 11 April, 2003
From: Erika Leigh
Subject: Fish and why they frighten me
Dear McSweeney’s:
I was two years old, and the fish my grandfather had yanked through the small hole in the frozen lake was flipping, gyrating, gasping, gurgling and getting closer to me as I stood rigid with terror. The beast was huge with gaping jaws and perfectly round, piercing eyes. So I ran as fast and far as I could.
My grandpa got a tasty fish dinner that night and I got my fish phobia.
Thanks for listening.
Erika Leigh
Date: Friday, 11 April, 2003
From: Peter Ward Brown
Subject: House in the Suburbs
Dear McSweeney’s:
I fully realize that this is going to sound awfully cheeky of me, but the house in the suburbs I referenced originally in my letter of Feb. 24, then indicated was not going to be built in my letter of March 03, is now, apparently, going to be built.
What happened was that my wife got us a realtor who now goes with us to the meetings with the House Builders/Sellers. Somehow this has “made the numbers work” and while admittedly I don’t understand much of it, I realize, too, that my main role right now is to not get fired from my job in the gray cubicle that is almost in the corner.
How this effects the Ed Skoog sighting initially identified in my Feb. 24 letter, then reinterpreted as ominous in my March 03 letter, remains up for debate. The Skoog sighting seems torn between representing Closure (Feb. 24) and Doom (March 03), which seems to parallel my own feelings on building a house in the suburbs. Despite all the Good Reasons for doing so, I remain stuck between two certainties, as if in the very white space that comes between “Ed” and “Skoog,” a tiny parcel of land, suitable for building, with great schools, and a Westerville mailing address.
Regards,
Peter Ward Brown
Columbus, OH
Date: Tues, 8 April, 2003
From: Josh Seybert
Subject: Now then
Hello to you,
Two things, not numbered, both true.
My girlfriend and I found out that she was pregnant, and five months pregnant to boot, too. We were both surprised as we were doing all that you were supposed to do and she showed no signs. (Later on we realized she was showing signs, but we were too naïve to notice them.) So I drive her up to family health clinic the next day, and we find her blood pressure to be high enough that it was a concern. So off to the hospital it we go. Jesse has never had her teeth drilled, much less had to go to the hospital and is just going all over the place in panic. Her blood pressure at the hospital was high. Too, too high! They would tell us. I asked what we were in for. You shall rest! They would say. We sat in a dark room in silence for two days, before her parents had her transferred to a better hospital.
The doctors at the better hospital explained to us that Jesse had a case of severe preeclampsia (formally known as toximia) which had stabilized to preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is dangerous as it stop blood from flowing into the uterus. The only cure for this is delivery. They decided to keep Jesse in the hospital, as long as they could, until they would have to do an early forced delivery. Much TV was watched and even more magazines read.
Sunday morning. Jesse awakes to bad pains in the stomach. Liver failure! So on Sunday, March 2, Jacob Seybert was born and I became a dad. Baby and Mom are both healthy. Although Jacob was born at 2 lbs, 2 ounces, his vital signs and organs are all good. All he has to do is grow in his little incubator in the NICU. You can use a washcloth for his blanket. He’s so tiny and perfect.
This all happened in one week.
I forget what the second thing was, but I’ll let you know as soon as I remember.
Yours,
Josh Seybert
Date: Mon, 3 March, 2003
From: Peter Ward Brown
Subject: Convergence Two
Dear McSweeney’s:
As it turns out, we will not be building the house in the suburbs I referenced in my letter of Feb. 24. Once we “ran the numbers” my naïve belief in “great rates” and “creative financing” betrayed me, and in this, I reluctantly admit, there was some sadness.
I am also forced to reinterpret the Ed Skoog sighting I discussed in my previous letter. While it seemed then that the Skoog sighting was a portent signaling the close of the period of my life spent pursuing the intellectual ideal and the opening of the period of my life involving deed restrictions and homeowners association fees, it now seems that the Skoog sighting was meant as more of a warning; as if a raven perched above the chamber door of my suburban house dreams. Quoth the Skoograven, “Nevermore.”
Regards,
Peter Ward Brown
Columbus, Ohio
Date: Mon, 3 March, 2003
From: Anne Dunn
Subject: Convergence, Too
Dear McSweeney’s,
Like Peter Brown, I recently read some old letters to McSwy’s, specifically the correspondence with Gary Pike in the late winter/early spring 1999 issue. And, like Peter, I was struck with a feeling of something “closing down” or “opening up.” In one of his letters, Gary claimed to have been a one-time debate team coach at Fayetteville-Manlius High School in central New York. As I considered that my years at F-M unfortunately did not converge with his time there — that perhaps they might even have been pre-Pike, therefore making me feel old, trousers-rolled old — I felt something clang shut behind me while at the same time a soft new breeze drifted in from another place; a recurring sensation really that has less to do with Gary and Peter, I suppose, and more to do with the fact that my ten-year marriage is ending, that I recently read Dave Eggers’ AHWOSG, and God help me I hope this is as much about beginnings as endings. I’d like to believe there are no coincidences, that we are connected, and I consciously, humbly share this cosmic and holy convergence. (Congratulations on your house in the suburbs, Peter — a closing, but an opening, too.)
Affectionately,
Anne Dunn
Washington, DC
Date: Sun, 2 March, 2003
From: Mike Topp
Subject: Shopping
Dear McSweeney’s,
I bought some invisible tape today, I think.
Sincerely,
Mike Topp
Date: Sun, 2 March, 2003
From: Summer Burton
Dear McSweeney’s:
When I was about six, my grandfather came inside from grocery shopping and I ran to greet him. As soon as I started to hug him, he cackled and spoke — “I am not Buddy! I am a monster who killed your grandfather and I’m living inside his body!” I started screaming and he felt terrible. Previous to this experience, I don’t have clear memories of being afraid of much. Afterwards, I started thinking about monsters and killers, specifically Medusa, whenever I was in my room trying to sleep. I also began quizzing my mom regularly on details and quirks of my personality to make sure that she was still herself. I remember the instant trauma of her answering the question of my favorite ice cream flavor incorrectly (I had recently tried and started to prefer bubblegum ice cream to vanilla.)
While my grandfather redeemed himself by waking me up to watch late-night TV movies about doctors, and also by inventing gardening tools for my grandmother, I’m not sure that I’ve ever fully recovered.
Just so you will all be prepared, my favorite ice cream flavor these days is butter pecan.
Yours,
Summer Burton
Austin, Texas
Date: Sun, 2 March, 2003
From: Malcolm Tate
Subject: Rat Race
Dear McSweeney’s,
Today was a fresh and sunny Sunday in London. I was walking along the boardwalk on the Southbank when two good-sized rats dashed out from a hedgerow at my left, through a crowd of tourists, around a stone planter, back through the same but rapidly dividing group of tourists and into the hedge. Because I am not scared of rats, I had the opportunity to note that these rats seemed to be really enjoying their mad dash. Playing chase is always fun but I think that these rats had an especially fantastic run because amidst the multi-lingual shouting was an almost visible depreciation of London in tourist dollars. Which is a fun kind of impact to have, in a mischievous sort of way. (Besides, they can’t expect to make too much of an impact on anything, really. They’re only rats.)
From,
Malcolm Tate
London, UK
Date: Mon, 24 Feb, 2003
From: Peter Brown
Subject: Convergence
Dear McSweeneys:
I thought it might be interesting to read the earliest letter on your earliest letter page (August 1999 and earlier). I thought perhaps it would offer words of good luck from a famous person or something. The letter is from J. Robert Lennon of Ithaca, New York, and a character that figures prominently in it is “Ed Skoog.” The letter concludes, “If you doubt me, ask Ed. He is the only Ed Skoog in America, we think.”
I am writing you now because when I was in graduate school in the 1990s, I knew Ed Skoog, only not all that well. Insofar as he figures prominently in the earliest letter on your earliest letter page makes me wonder if in reading this letter, there is something in my life that is closing down; or perhaps something new is opening up. I suspect the former, however, because we are building a house in the suburbs.
Regards,
Peter Ward Brown
Columbus, Ohio
Date: Mon, 24 Feb, 2003
From: S.K. Satterwhite I
Subject: This has been on my mind as of late
Dearest McSweeney’s,
These are the boys that I have/had crushes on:
1. Eric Michener — This lasted for several years and ended in me confronting him and being rejected. We remain acquainted.
2. Justin Banta — For some reason I seemed to have more confidence during this time and confronted him within months of the initial realization of the crush. I was once again rejected.
3. Justin Eves — Whom I never told and moved to New York to play jazz guitar and I will never see again, except in my dreams.
4. Andrew McCown — (current) I am at a thorough loss as to what course of action to take.
Victory or Death,
S.K. Satterwhite I, Texan
Date: Wed, 19 Feb, 2003
From: Mark Yakich
Subject: Birthday
Dear McSweeney’s,
This afternoon I painted a couple of pictures. It was perhaps a decent session for someone who can’t really paint. One painting was of an orange and two wine bottles and the other was of a lime, a lemon, and a plum. Plums are expensive these days, but I don’t enjoy apples. If I can sell one of these paintings for $100, I’m going to quit writing for a spell. My wife would be glad to hear that.
Tonight at drawing class I hope the model is hot. I hope at least it’s not a guy. I don’t really want to draw any more penises. They’re boring to draw. So boring. Just little taped-up looking pieces of wood and cloth.
Tomorrow morning I’ll probably wake up again. I don’t agree with that guy who said that the best thing is never to have been born and the second best thing is to have died right after birth.
The day after tomorrow is my birthday. I hope it will be a sunny day and I won’t have to wear too many layers. I hope they don’t increase the terror color code to red by then because I have to take the subway over to Berkeley.
Well, it’ll be twilight soon and I should go. I wish it could be twilight all day long.
Sincerely,
Mark Yakich
San Francisco
Date: Sun, 16 Feb, 2003
From: Scott Underwood
Subject: Capsicum
Dear McSweeney’s
The other day I ate dinner at my friend’s house. I went to the store to buy chips and beer and, because I was out of my own personal groceries, some other food including some raw jalapeno peppers. I like jalapenos, and I put them in a lot of things I eat, such as salads, chili, and omelettes. I even eat them raw, sometimes, with chips and beer.
While he was cooking, my friend ate a jalapeno and then cut a couple up and put them on a hot frying pan. They live in a small apartment and within a few minutes we were all choking and coughing and rubbing our eyes and we had to open the door and windows even though it was a little cold out.
A few years ago, while we visited some relatives in Alabama, my young found a can of pepper spray on my uncle Bill’s dresser. He only sprayed it a little, but the air conditioning efficiently moved it throughout the house and soon all of us were breathing in the stinging air and coughing.
My friend’s apartment felt just like that.
Scott Underwood
Newark, CA
Date: Sat, 15 Feb, 2003
From: Amanda Lee
Subject: But how soon can I fly nowhere?
Dear McSweeney’s
Today I received this oddly disturbing message from Hotwire, an online travel site, and promptly thought of you.
From : “Hotwire Deals” To : “Amanda Lee” Subject : Price Drop on Flights to none found, no date found-no date found! Date :Sat, 15 Feb 2003 15:30:31 PST Lower Fares to none found, no date found >>> BOOK NOW! Dear Amanda, Airfares change all the time, and Hotwire is always working to find you the best deals. We thought you might like to know that we recently found an even lower Hot-Fare(sm) for the none found trip you searched on Dec. 31 for flights departing on no date found and returning on no date found! YOUR QUOTED HOT-FARE: $none found RECENTLY QUOTED HOT-FARE:* $none found The $none found Hot-Fare shown above was quoted to an actual Hotwire user during the past week, using the same airports and dates you previously searched.** Please keep in mind that fares are constantly changing — good deals go fast! — and this particular price may not be currently available. Don’t miss out on any additional savings — visit Hotwire again for the latest Hot-Fares!Sincerely,
Amanda Lee
Date: Tues, 11 Feb, 2003
From: Carla Pavao
Subject: Wind Chill
Our wind chill factor hit -30 degrees today. Just thought I’d share that tidbit of weather information.
Carla
Toronto, Canada
Date: Tues, 11 Feb, 2003
From: Adrian O’Carolan
Subject: House Centipedes
Dear McSweeney’s:
I am not one to be at all unnerved by bugs, snakes, or any other small creature. But, as I have recently found out, house centipedes really give me the willies. I had never even heard of house centipedes before moving to the Northwest, but am now quite familiar with them and I wish that I were not.
The first time I saw one I was on the phone with my mother, and this enormous bug with a million legs longer than Tina Turner’s booked out from under my bed and ran like the wind across the floor and into a pile of clothes. I yelled, no, screamed, “Oh my god what the f-ck is that” and felt like a million of ’em were crawling across my shoulder blades.
Usually I let any found bug run wild in my apartment with the exception of mosquitoes and cockroaches, but there was no way I was going to co-habitate with this thing. I told my mom to hold the phone, grabbed a shoe and holding it by the toe at an arms length, gingerly nudged the nearest shirt in the pile of clothes. Out it skittered faster than a striped-ass ape and I yelled “uhf!” and hopped and almost tripped trying to get away from the damn thing. I launched the shoe and winged it, upon whence it ran in tight frantic circles until I could steel myself to give it the fatal blow. It lay there twitching and I skeeved back to the bed and grabbed the phone. It took me a good twenty minutes after I got off the phone to get up the nerve to get a paper towel and collect its carcass. Ew ew ew I said all the way to the kitchen garbage. Then I took a shower and drank a glass of wine.
I thought that it was an isolated incident, that obviously not more than one of these horrifying things could exist, you know, like the devil, or that big marine monster in Clash of the Titans, and that I had triumphed unscathed but for the occasional turning-out-the-light misgivings, but, alas, I saw more. I’ve gotten a little more used to them, but still find them utterly freaky and repulsive. Sometimes I find little tiny baby ones, which aren’t scary at all, but I still slam a shoe down on those tiny suckers so hard that they are liquefied.
The most recent one I encountered was the worst: I entered the bathroom, flipped on the light, and saw a gynormous one in the bathtub, futilely trying to scale the smooth, curved porcelain. God knows how long it had been in there, but I was grateful I had come across it when it was at a disadvantage. I started and swore, then headed for my trusty centipede shoe. I slammed the shoe down, but it took protection in the curved corner of the tub and merely flang itself, cleverly utilizing the momentum of the shoe wind, further away and began flailing its legs faster. I maneuvered carefully and popped it a good one. It literally exploded into a hundred little disgusting pieces, all of which twitched so wildly they hopped. I ran out of the bathroom, and when I went back to look at it about 30 seconds later, ridden by morbid curiosity, all the little pieces of legs were still twitching.
Best,
Adrian O’Carolan
Date: Tues, 11 Feb, 2003
From: Andro Hsu
Subject: Brushing Your Teeth in the Shower
Dear Sir or Ma’am,
I would like to take issue with the first item in the “McSweeney’s Recommends” section of your website: Brushing your teeth in the shower.
While I sympathize with and encourage the underlying intent of the recommendation, that of conservation of the limited resources time and water, I feel that some clarification is necessary.
Brushing your teeth in the shower only results in conservation when combined with other, normal shower activities, such as using a loofah, soaping one’s body, or massaging shampoo into one’s scalp. While I have never personally used a loofah, the other activities (and, I imagine, loofah-ing) either require the use of both hands, or one hand to be raised in the air or otherwise placed out of commission, thus rendering the brushing of teeth difficult or even impossible.
Any unfortunate readers who unthinkingly heed this item of counsel might possibly find themselves brushing their teeth while performing no activity other than standing under the prickly tingle of the hot water, which, while soothing, conserves no time and, I would contend, uses more water than brushing one’s teeth at the sink. Especially if one turns off the sink while performing the actual brushing.
Please note that my disagreement is only with the first recommendation; the others are excellent and I will take them to heart. I remain
Sincerely yours,
Andro Hsu
Berkeley, California