Letters from February, 2001

Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001
From: “gabriel delahaye”

Dear McSweeney’s,

Last night on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” there was a contestant named Kevin, who referred to himself as ‘Kev-dawg’ and who my roommate described as being ‘crazy bald’, and this certain Kev-dawg talked about the time when he was younger and worked as a busboy in the same restaurant where Drew Carey was a waiter and the whole thing just really begs the question: is there a particular subsect of people in our American culture who meet each other around the coffee machine, early in the morning, dressed nice and, of course, in comfortable shoes among whom, inevitably, one of them turns to the others and says ‘Oh MAN! Did any of you guys watch ’Millionaire’ last night?’?

This is not rhetorical.

Your friend until what I like to call ‘the bitter end’.
Gabriel.

Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001
From: “Newhart, Bryson”
Subject: Sorry, but disregard the last one too

Dear McSweeney’s,

Why send you a letter that is “too cute for words” only to say at the end, “Pleave me out of it?” Why do I keep on doing this? While it is true that someone might make a face at you in an e-mail and then say that the face actually represents … No, not true. It doesn’t even make sense. Nor did I almost fall out of my chair because I saw a face with arms on it. Never happened. It would be neat, I said, if we all had arms that grew out of our faces? Why would this now be neat? Didn’t I almost fall from my chair only the armrests held me in? And finger tooth? Thumb tongue? Don’t think so.

Must stop this,
Bryce

Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2001
Subject: Locating McSweeney’s in South Florida (Boca Raton)
From: Victor

Dear McSweeney’s,

I was introduced to your magazine by stumbling across it at a Borders bookstore in Boca Raton. I read the first dozen pages then bought it on the spot. Sorry, nothing peculiar of any sort happened to me when I bought it, though I was already juiced up at the time as I had just found out in the magazine I looked at before yours that Subaru will be introducing the Impreza WRX Turbo to the U.S. for the first time. Yes, I like to go fast while sideways.

Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2001
From: “Andrei Sinioukov”

Dear McSweeney’s:

On this day, Wednesday, February 7, 2001 I have so far written over four pages worth of emails (pasted together, Times New Roman, 12pt.) Some of them, however, addressed to different people, just repeat each other more or less. Unlike this email, to you, which is completely original.

Yours truly,
Andrei.

Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001
From: Peter Vaeth
Subject: My Debut

Dear McSweeney’s,

Today I played the role of a “flighty” customer in a Customer Service Video for the Major National Retail Pharmacy Corporation for which I toil daily, suit-and-tied.

These were my lines (C is for Customer):

C: I’d like to pick up my prescription, I called the automatic phone thing this morning.

C: 847-555-2500

C: Can I still get it now?

C: (belittled, taken aback) Uhh, okay.

I hit my mark and nailed my lines. I’m playing a store intern later this month in a Mentoring Video. I can’t shake the feeling that this is the start of something. It helps to write about it.

Thanks for being there,

Peter Vaeth

Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001
Subject: Time travel

Dear McSweeney’s,

I am writing regarding the letter of one Mr. Bill Burman. This letter suggested an experiment to prove the possibility of time travel. I took the necessary steps to complete the experiment and was at somewhat of a loss when my future self did not appear 5 minutes later.

My first conclusion was that time travel will not be possible in my lifetime. This upset me because there are a couple of mistakes that I made at ages 5-8 that I would like to go back and help my younger self avoid.

After lamenting the impossibility of time travel I realized that there are some scenarios that would make it difficult for my future self to return to the spot where I currently sit.

1. What if the said “time machine” has no ability to accept location coordinates and when you go back in time you must end in the same location from which you began your trip? What if I find this machine in China? I would have to wait quite some time for my future self to arrive when my present self resides.

2. Take into consideration is that I am writing from California. What if when I find this time machine California has fallen into the ocean creating a location that the machine doesn’t understand or, employing both the last scenario and this one, I am unable to bring the time machine to California because California doesn’t exist?

3. If my future self lives in a world where California doesn’t exist, why would she want to come back here? The writer assumes that his future self would like to return to 2001. This may not be the case. His future self may have weighed the choices between knowing at a younger age that time travel was possible or not returning to 2001 and found that the latter was the better choice.

I think Mr. Burman needs to give his experiment and the possible consequences/outcomes more careful thought. My future self may be trapped in china right now, which he would be indirectly responsible for.

Thanks,

Amanda (present self age 24)

Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001
From: Garrett Scott
Subject: Krauser reading

Dear McSweeneys,

I feel a little bad that I may have been perceived as having been hovering creepily around Mr. Krauser after last night’s reading. I mean, I could have just let him keep my wife’s ball-point pen. I lingered after our brief conversation and he thought perhaps I wanted to shake his hand when instead I thought he was about to give back the pen, so my right hand was veering obliquely away from his proffered right hand (toward the pen in his left) when I realized what was going on and had to execute a sort of swoop of my hand to get back to his. After shaking hands we both just stood there, looking at each other.

“Well,” he said.

“Um, can I have my pen back?” I answered.

Anyway, he gave a fine and entertaining reading and we are quite happy with our copy of LEMON. And all I could do was squabble over office supplies. My apologies.

Garrett Scott

Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001
Subject: Missing drafting pencil…

good afternoon everyone! There was a drafting pencil on Patrick Grizzard’s desk on the 11th Floor that belongs to Ken, which someone walked away with it. If you have it in your possession please be kind enough to bring it back to Ken on the 11th Floor.

Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

Dear McSweeney’s,

Remember the good old days? Back when I had lost my job? And I just sat in here drinking and eating the last of my groceries and writing you letters every day? Yeah, things are going pretty well now. Except I’m out of food. And I haven’t got a job.

At least I’m writing to you again-

Dan Kennedy

New York, New York

Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001
From: “Dan Kennedy”
Subject: AMUSE THE MUSE HE MUSED

Dear McSweeney’s,

One thing has lead to another and to another and I find myself with a muse of sorts. Totally serious. One of the eighties supermodel sort. One who would be written up on page six for simply going out to dinner on an ordinary Tuesday evening back then, but who now calls me on a Tuesday and tells me to report to her apartment on the Upper East Side to “Surprise” her by cooking dinner. One who has told me there’s a reason we’ve met, even though she swears to God that she doesn’t know me from Adam. I think that’s about all I can say for now without messing everything up, according to some movie that she made me rent.

Too superstitious to run-
Dan Kennedy
New York, New York

Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001
From: Scott Matthew Korb
Subject: In Berlin

Dear McSweeney’s,

I am in Berlin, with less than two minutes, no less than one minute to send this. Shoot.

Nothing to report, I guess.

Shoot,
SK.

Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001
From: “Brooke Norton”
Subject: NYT

Dear McSweeney’s,

Thanks for publishing the email correspondence between DE and DK. Even though I’m just a reader and a fan, I knew that something wasn’t right when I read that article. The “pop star” comment especially weirded me out. So, thanks again, and rock on.

Brooke

Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001
From: Akshay Ahuja
Subject: new york times clarification

Dear Mr. Eggers,

I enjoyed your book and like reading mcsweeneys. So I hope you won’t be offended when I say that your clarification of Mr. Kirkpatrick’s article was unnecessary and mean-spirited. I read the article when it first ran and – although I agree that it contained many distortions that you did a thorough job exposing – didn’t think that it made you look bad at all. In any case, anyone that read your book probably got the impression that you’re a nice guy, and not greedy, something a comment about a lawsuit or a generally snide tone, no matter how hateful, isn’t going to change.

The clarification, however, does not make you seem like an especially nice guy. I doubt the article made you lose a single reader or a friend, so why publish something that is deliberately just as malicious (or more) as what Mr. Kirkpatrick wrote, and resort to kind of petulant “you-told-on-me-so-I’m-going-tell-on-you” tactics? Not that you shouldn’t respond in any way — you’re perfectly within your rights if you send a letter to the nytimes correcting his article, and never speak to Mr. Kirkpatrick again, and tell everyone you know that he’s an awful guy — but this sort of petty tit-for-tat retaliation doesn’t even put you on slightly higher moral ground. One breach of trust doesn’t necessarily justify another. In any case, the clarification, justified or not, made for distasteful reading and I don’t think it should have been published.

Thanks,
Akshay Ahuja

Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001
From: “Mieka Strawhorn”
Subject: Porker/Poker?!?

Dear McSweeney’s,

Recently my friend “Scott” had a small gathering of people over to his house to watch ABC’s top rated program The Mole. He provided snacks for the occasion which included deviled eggs, little cheese things, nachos supreme and something he cooked up in his Fry Daddy called a “Porker on a Stick” except that when he brought that out I thought he said “POKER” instead of “PORKER”. Either way I wasn’t going to eat one.

Mieka Strawhorn
Berkeley, CA

Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001
From: “Billy Morocco”

Dear McSweeney’s/Dave Eggers,

In planning to avoid a dismal Sunday, I printed, but saved for reading, the recent clarification on the Times article. Though it delayed my enjoyment (and my response here), it was the perfect remedy for a slushy weekend. As one just finding my own writing voice, I find myself having to avoid some people (even some friends) who would have me more focused on “success” than stories.

The question of how seriously one’s convictions and integrity (literary or otherwise) can affect a work is one that can freeze otherwise flowing fingers. For whom and what am I writing? How can I control that? Should I? For me AHWOSG saves itself by its own weapon: words (especially the embossed “clarification/warning” on the cover: “Silence has its own set of problems” [forgive me, or omit, if this is incorrect]).

It is hard to face the fact that, even when one can pull together a story, the finished work is going to be yanked through a series of label-affixing tunnels. And that it is With this trepidation that we have to aim if we hope to have the story reach out.

An explicit thank you to all at McSweeney’s for the balance your publications (existence) brings to the table; and to Mr. Eggers for the addition to one writer’s (and reader’s) conversations with the self.

Bill Morocco
Annapolis, MD

Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001
From: Laszlo Hollifeld
Subject: wow, what support!

Dear McSweeney’s,

I wonder…is your site only publishing the positive feedback for Mr. Eggers’ thin-skinned stunt?

Love much,

Ron Magyar

Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001
From: “Daniel Bloom”
Subject: the DE and DK thing: a reader’s POV: I loved the TIMES piece, no problem with it

Hi DE and DK,

I read the email exchange. I know neither of the people involved, and live way out here in Taiwan, but I follow book chat all the time, being a writer myself.

Funny, I read the Times piece when it came out last week, on the Web, and found it to be very good, and illuminating and interesting …. and never felt at all that it was snide or anything like that. So I think DE is over-reacting to the piece and didn’t read it correctly. But then again, that is his POV.

However, the use of off the record emails, is a no no for DK and he deserves a spanking for that faux pas.

But just to tell you…for a neutral corner … I loved the Times piece when I read it, still love it, feel DE took it too personally (but understand why) and think DK was a bit unethical in what he did.

Now it is all even more interesting and thanks for your piece, too, alerting me to all this.

Cheers,

Dan Bloom
Taipei, USA citizen, 51, no connection to Times or pub biz

Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001
From: “Mike Topp”
Subject: Dyslexia

Dear McSweeney’s:

I came down with a bad case of dyslexia over the weekday.

Regards,

Mike Topp

Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001
From: “Mike Topp”
Subject: Love Is Funny

Dear McSweeney’s:

Love is funny. One minute you’re flat on your back, being fed grapes, and next, you’re tied to an anthill, covered with honey and grapes.

Sincerely,

Mike Topp

Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001
From: Halcyon
Subject: I like your style

I don’t read the NYTimes. Don’t read McSweeny’s either, actually. But was pointed to the DK-DE correspondance via metafilter.com. Thanks for fighting the good fight.

Love,

Halcyon

From: “Don Dowling”
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001
Subject: Kirkpatrick exchange; letter to the editor for on-line publication

Dear Dave Eggers:

My wife & I read your book when it came out, and loved it. As we live in Lincolnshire, Ill. (contiguous to Lake Forest), when we read your book my wife even drove over & checked out your childhood home (the address to which you accommodatingly provide). We also subscribe to the NYT, and caught the Kirkpatrick piece the day it hit. And now I’ve plowed through your entire “DK-DE” e-mail colloquy, which makes for a great read. (Who’d have guessed a NYT writer couldn’t distinguish “addition” from “edition”?)

I’m writing with a reality check. As a disinterested admirer of your stuff, I want you to know that Kirkpatrick’s piece does not come across as offensive to you. You complain that Kirkpatrick’s tone was too snide; I fear you’re too close to the situation. Surely you don’t expect objective journalism to be fawning puff stuff. Kirkpatrick’s piece took a fair middle-ground.

Indeed, your substantive beefs laid out in your “DK-DE” e-mail exchange seem petty, to this disinterested fan. For a journalist to quote an off-the-record statement could easily be harmful — but in this case, Kirkpatrick’s off-the-record quotes were innocuous, as were any falsehoods about the lawsuit, the Canadian groupies, and selling tickets for charity. Even if false and even if violations of journalistic ethics, the actual mistakes published in the NYT were far from libelous; indeed, in this disinterested fan’s eyes, they didn’t even reflect negatively on you.

At the end of your “DK-DE” e-mails you ask Kirkpatrick how he’d like it to be said in print that he wears eyeliner and is divorced (assuming these are not true). That’s a bad analogy. A better analogy would be to ask how Kirkpatrick would like it to be published that he leases a Toyota — when in fact (let’s assume) he owns a Mazda: Totally false — but who cares?

We’ve all heard, ad nauseam, the warhorse cliche that people trust journalism only until the day they get written about themselves. Everyone except the exceptionally-naive knows that detailed newspaper pieces longer than a couple of paragraphs invariably contain some inaccuracies and reflect their writer’s tone of voice. Some stories contain catty libel, and should be censured. Kirkpatrick’s doesn’t, and shouldn’t.

I fear you’re being too sensitive. You may not like what comes along with being a public figure, but by having published your book you opened the door to articles just like Kirkpatrick’s. Lighten up.

—Donald Cullinan

Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001
Subject: correction

Dear McSweeney’s,

I’m afraid that in his letter to you of February 23, Tom Acitelli misattributes the line “Time wounds all heels” to John Lennon. That is, in fact, an old one-liner, much older than Mr. Lennon. I have, for example, a 1940s pulp detective story with that as its title.

Lennon said other quotable things, though. Like “Living is easy with your eyes closed” and “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.”

Okay.

Kevin Walter
NYC

Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001
From: “Delahaye, Gabriel”
Subject: My new roommate, and where does he actually live?

Dear McSweeney’s,

I have this new roommate, so the offer is off. Er, he moved in like two weeks ago and I’ve seen him once. He doesn’t have a bed. He wanted to keep the bed from my old roommate, who was moving out, but I talked him out of it. My last roommate found a giant piece of yellow foam on the street which he wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags. Although he narrowly avoided contracting scabies, he also spilled beer on his bed, which was really just a big sponge, so you can imagine the smell. He carried the yellow foam to work and said Hey, is it cool if I put this in the back? I imagine their reaction to have been similar to my own when he asked me virtually the same question. Actually, he didn’t ask, and I paid for the couch, maybe I’m complaining about a moot point, but I really did pay for the couch. My new roommate sleeps on the bare, hardwood floor, and the one time that I’ve actually seen him since he moved in I saw the pillow on the floor and said You know, S—-, you can sleep on the couch. And he said That’s cool, but he still sleeps on the floor. Today his door was open and there was the hardwood floor with just a crumpled pair of jeans in the middle of the room.

Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001
From: “IoIoC”

Look we met neal pollock we read all your books we got a good thing check us out on E! look at our commercial and we talk from france we call you and we talk about working together good?

[address omitted.]

Thank you so much, ioioc

Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001
From: Karl Sabbagh
Subject: FIFTH WINDOW ON THE LEFT

Dear McSweeney’s,

I was once in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, doing some research for a television programme about Ramanujan. While there I happened to pick a book off the shelves which had a photograph of a vaudeville performer, Mrs Senrab. I showed this to my colleague, Christopher Sykes, who was with me, and asked if he saw anything strange about her name. He said no, and I pointed out that it was actually ‘Barnes’ backwards. Whether she had just turned her own name in reverse to produce a more exotic stage name I don’t know. I then said “It’s like the street in Washington called ‘Tunlaw’ which is actually ’Walnut” backwards. There was a gasp from a nearby table where a young American woman was working. “I live on Tunlaw!” she shrieked, quietly. What caps the whole story is that Christopher Sykes lives in Barnes.

Karl Sabbagh

Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001
Subject: That article from the “Times”

Actually I didn’t think that the article in the “Times” about David Eggers was that bad. A bit snide maybe but it is the “Times” after all.

I though the whole e-mail deconstruction was pretty fascinating to read. But if you’re so pissed he published your not-for-attribution e-mail….do 2 or 3 wrongs make a right? Was it cool that you did the same thing?

.k

Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001
From: Laird Brown
Subject: a message to dave ..

Dear Mr. Eggers,

I am sorry to hear that you received some miscolored press in the New York Times. Even though it rubbed you the wrong way, you will not be marked by it. The Times readership, however, does not enjoy your good fortune.

Once I was walking through Bloomies and was accosted by a superior young man. He attempted to sell me a pair of reading gloves. Specifically, they were reading gloves for the New York Times, Sunday edition.

The gloves looked very much like the white cloth gloves gentlemen used to wear to formal dances, except they were black. And they were black because the Sunday Times is so sooty, that if you weren’t wearing black gloves when you started reading the paper, you would be when you finished. So Bloomingdales decided to market black reading gloves at ten dollars the pair.

I declined the offer. I understood that my hands would be protected from cheap ink. But over time, it struck me that I’d be wearing something akin to boot polish rags to read a newspaper. This hardly seemed stylish, nor worthy of Bloomingdales.

So I commiserate with you. A smear, or even smudge, is an uncomely thing.

On a cheerier note, I heard that you will be coming to Toronto in the near future. My friends at This Ain’t The Rosedale Library bookstore will be sponsoring your appearance. I very much hope to attend this event and will dress appropriately. I expect to wear brown leather gloves. It can be coolish in Toronto.

Warmly -

laird brown