Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000
From: Gregory Purcell
Subject: My home.
Dear McSweeney’s,
We’ve just recieved ergonomic pens where I work.
Incidentally, I’ve found a job. Two jobs, in fact. With one of them, I get to work at home. My home in Chicago.
My home in Chicago.
I hope that everyone feels good about the places they live in.
We should all stop to consider the travelling salesmen and the truck drivers, the international business consultants and the full-time carnival hucksters. Think about the circus people and the FBI. The people whose home is the next town away and the next town after that, a drift of motel rooms and clammy, well-lit interrogation chambers. Let’s dream of the rootless ones—those sad few who have traded in all local and familial ties to press hands with a few strangers, to catch the next train, to put food on their laps and attempt to get a bite down before their rendevous with that one, final, anonymous client—yes, let’s dream of them, as we sink back into our cautious, ample beds.
Anyway, I’ve found a job.
Thanks,
Greg Purcell
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000
From: Whitney Pastorek
Subject: Postcards from the hedge
Dear McSweeney’s,
Having a wonderful time, wish you were here. The neighbors have torn down the bushes around their house and are now erecting a chainlink fence. The pile of dirt looks lonely without the bushes, but from the roof, oh, what a view. The kids send their love and hope you’ll remember them with presents (Sally of course is beside herself with anticipation!). As for me, I cry myself to sleep each and every night of your absence as I look at the dust patch in the moonlight and dream about what used to be. I think the boys of summer have gone— don’t look back you can never look back.
thanks so much
whitney pastorek
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000
From: Robert Beier
Subject: From your office correspondent
Dear McSweeney’s,
So I was reading your letters section last night, relaxing after my day at work following the long weekend. I still smelled of bug spray and the great outdoors. I read your editing blurb. I read down the letters and found mine not. I started to panic. I started to cry. My girl came up to my heaving shoulders and asked what was wrong. I said my letters hadn’t made it into the letters page. Edited out. Wiped out from electronic land. She went into the kitchen and took The Very Large Spatula from its nail and whapped me over the head. This usually works when I am overwrought. It worked and I calmed down. My girl (I’m her boy) told me I hadn’t written a letter to you in a while. Oh, oh, now I see. I must write a letter. Now.
I have a t-shirt that is in Spanish. It is a baseball t-shirt. It says in translation “Spring in Venezuela 2000 March 19-21 Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Atlanta Braves” What a momento. Hold on to your donde es? I couldn’t believe it. Major League Baseball strolls into Venezuela in the Fall and declares it to be the Spring for their convenience. The nerve. I am surprised the offended Venezuelan’s didn’t riot. Didn’t throw those free balls right into the Commissioner’s box and given him a little chin music. Wait. Perhaps the Commissioner has the power to change the seasons! Perhaps he isn’t a brute after all. He is a powerful magician. Yes, I will ask him to keep NYC nice and cool all summer. I will chastise him for making it humid. I need The Very Large Spatula. Where is The Very Large Spatula? Donde es?
Regards,
Bob
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2000
From: Newhart, Bryson
Subject: Writing a waste of time
Dear McSweeney’s,
The sun sinks and rises somewhere else. It so wants to scald us. No one cares. For the man whose leg is missing. Try lost and found.
My grandmother, minutes before she died, claimed to see me across the room balanced on one foot. I was in bed, miles from my birthplace, hungover. Too lazy to join my family in going to say goodbye. Loss of love for self and language. Death waits for no one. One feels that about words too. The life they can give. Like the man treading water with a cigarette in his mouth, possibly in his nose and ears. Not my father but he could have been. Between 4 and 40 is nothing I think. It is almost gone already. Here’s something. One day around lunchtime I got on the elevator to go pick up a hot denim sandwich. Inside was a man sitting on a portable toilet with his pants around his ankles. He had removed the plastic seat and was wearing it as a necklace.
What I needed before:
Whale blubber.
A hovering ice floe.
A ball of yarn.
Someone to lick my paper cut.
Integrity.
A future.
What I need now:
A human size hampster wheel.
A miniature picket fence.
3-D glasses and a periscope.
The love of Paul Rinkes.
Best wishes,
Bryce
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000
From: Shane Wilson
Subject: Nothing is useless
Dear McSweeney’s,
I am only 15.
Shane Wilson
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000
From: Keith Crouse
Dear McSweeney’s,
Do you remember when pinball was heating up to compete with Space Invaders & I guess Gorf? There was a pinball machine in Ocean City where the ball was an eightball, with giant bumpers, and there were lines around the corner to play this machine. You walked up two steps to play it – Hercules. A muscled hero, toiling among brimstone, serpents, and swooping devils, presiding over your score in dazzling digital orange. To make the line go faster, they’d let two people play one flipper each. Do you remember those really really old old video games like Shark Attack? Instead of deeply complex virtual reality grids, you had but six increasingly gruesome backlit transparencies of a hostile shark being harpooned. It was done with separate lightbulbs, placed gracefully along the course of a fragmented aquatic attack. You tried to influence which picture was lit by knocking the joystick around and screaming. A quarter was worth alot in those days.
Reporting from the cultural Paris of my preschool youth,
KC
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000
From: Peter Espenshade
Subject: lunch
Dear McSweeney’s,
I’m trying to lose weight before I take my new suit into the tailor so I decided to go for a walk at lunch. When I stepped outside I was struck by this really weird smell, sort of like burning plastic dolls. The smell is all over Burlington and everyone is talking about it. I am now in the UVM library trying to recover. I feel a little lightheaded but I don’t know if my lightheadedness is caused by the weird smell or if it is just my imagination. My teeth feel funny too.
Peter Espenshade
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000
From: Thomas Gibbon
Subject: A True Patriot Speaks
Dear McSweeney’s,
Looking back now it seems kind of foolish. How did we ever think that 32,000 schoolbus-sized nuclear warheads could change the world? It was hopelessly idealistic. But, hey, that was the Eighties for you.
I remember driving to see Casper about the plan and he just said, “Tom, honest to god, it’s all taken care of,” cigarette hanging from his mouth, tail of his mullet protruding from the back of his synthetic baseball cap, limbs twitching with his trademark speed tics. Had I still been on speaking terms with his bookie I would have known Casper’s key lying phrase “honest to god.” As it happened I wasn’t so I didn’t, so I trusted him. Casper was the first domino to fall.
Next Jim bowed out saying there was no way all the pudding would fit, and even if it did those were his favorite pants.
And Ronnie got totally into the couple groove with his woman. They were living like on another planet, man. He didn’t even come over to watch the finale of “V.” Nancy = Yoko.
Poindexter was the worst though, at least for me. He drove up about 11:30 one night, just as Custis and I were getting set to watch Carson. “Tom,” he says, all agitated, “I think I just killed somebody.” I expressed my non-shock and he’s all “No, no, someone real, someone here in Great Falls, with my car, just now!” Fuck, he’d lost his nerve. Our driver was out. The man never drove again. That man could really drive, too.
I have to admit I even sort of chickened out. I hadn’t watched “The Day After” when it was on, you know, media crap, but once things unravelled and I started to get kind of crazy I felt invincible. My uncle had taped it and offered it to me over Thanksgiving, “Show this to your superhero friends at the White House, Tom.” I took that as a challenge. I was going to do it. But first I would screen it. I didn’t want to show it to the boys unseen. It could’ve incriminated me.
Well, you know how it goes form there. I watched it. It was touching. I lost my shit and checked into the Brattleboro Retreat for a couple of months. Our first strike opportunities waned and waned and by the time Gorbachev came to power it was pretty much game-over for the ol’ U.S. of A. The Reds had finally won.
Still, you know, sometimes I imagine what it would be like. Me and Ron and Poindexter and Jim and Casper with our hideously mutated giant bodies hurtling through space on a charred and desolate Earth free of Communism. It brings a little tear to my eye. Let no one say we didn’t try. Let no one say we didn’t care. Let no one say we didn’t love. But in the end it turned out we were just some old guys who wanted to kill everybody. And that was our tragic flaw.
Viva la Muerte!
TG Gibbon
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2000
From: Peter Bebergal
Subject: Things both base and sublime
Dear McSweeney’s,
Today I went to visit my father so the two of us could go to the cemetery where my mother was buried last November. As I waited in the train station for the train that would take me to where my father would pick me up, I decided to go to the bathroom. I have a tendency to only like to use stalls even if I only have to go “number 1.” There were plenty of open urinals but only one stall, which was occupied. I decided to wait it out. I went outside the bathroom and moseyed about until I saw the fellow I assumed was in the stall leave. Just as I walked back into the restroom, a man who had been previously standing by the urinals jumped into the stall, closed the door, and latched it. I chalked it up to his good fortune and went back outside to wait. He took a long time. Eventually, not wanting the same thing to happen as before, I decided to wait in the bathroom. I heard the telltale sounds of the toilet paper being unrolled and figured it would only be another a minute or so. But the wiping process seemed to go on for an inordinanlty long period. I began to get fidgety when I noticed the man in the stall get up on tiptoe, peer out over the stall, and look around, nervously. Suddenly, he burst open the door and ran out of the restroom.
I went in to do my business.
Well. Let’s just say it was an awful mess in the there. As I turned to leave I noticed a good foot from the toilet, an industrial sized empty toilet-paper roll rested on the floor. I looked down and saw a small pile inside of it, not quite as concealed as the poor fellow might have hoped.
At the cemetery, I stood before my mother’s grave and felt the sort of emptiness that becomes the fullness of dread. I tried to speak to her, but she was not there. I placed a stone on her marker, said a few prayers, more for myself than for her, and walked away feeling as though I had missed an opportunity to speak to her. Then I heard the strangest bird song, a gurgling of music and clicks, and saw a large bird with blue wings and a bright green tail was flying low around the tombstones. I was caught breathless in the absolute presence of my mother. I watched the bird land and then take off again, its wings and tail open like a large ornate fan. I said a long and clear hello to my mother. All around me the green and the birdsongs became bright and clear.
Peter Bebergal
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000
From: Mike Topp
Subject: Photography Lesson
Dear McSweeney’s:
Blend into the background. The best photographers become part of the scenery. Hang around a place and appear natural and relaxed. Do what others are doing, whether it’s reading in a park or watching a ballgame-the object is to fit in. This photo is of my shower and I am by the door.
Yours truly,
Mike Topp
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000
From: Theresa Lange
Subject: mama mia!
Dear McSweeney’s,
My mother has gained a lot of weight in the past year. She wears large patterned dresses now which she insists are not muumuus, but if you want to be completely honest about it, they are indeed muumuus. She sometimes wears tee-shirts over tight-fitting biker shorts, but thankfully, she makes sure the tee-shirts are large enough to cover her behind. Sometimes the tee-shirt is TOO large and it looks like she is only not wearing shorts at all! This embarrasses all of us kids because who wants a mother who goes around just wearing an extra large tee-shirt with nothing under it?
Oh, by the way, she also wears aqua socks. Frequently. And she never, ever swims.
Yours in Christ,
Theresa M. Lange, esq.
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000
From: Carman, Sean
Subject: Phil “the Hat” Lambeau, Private Detective
Dear McSweeney’s,
He is a French-Canadian private detective marked by a pervasive, crippling and unspoken insecurity. At the high point of a typical scene he would, instead of threatening his adversaries with intimidation, begin politely referring to his fedora in the third person. Sample dialogue: “The hat won’t go for that,” or “Would you mind repeating that, but this time speak directly into the hat.” The same technique would compliment the inevitable scenes in which Phil sends some deserving thug into the netherworld: “It’s time to tell the hat goodbye, pal!” Blam! Perhaps “hat” should be capitalized. In each show there would be the slightest dark suggestion that the hat possesses special powers. Episodes involving a nomadic people relegated to the desolate tundra would allow us to make use of the word “yurt,” perhaps more than once. Eventually, he would be profiled on “This American Life.” As an interview subject he would be nervous, skeptical and unbearably self-effacing.
Sean
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000
From: Nigel Hrunting
Subject: Vocabulary Assignment
Dear McSweeney’s,
7/3 – 7/5
“Strolling along the [esplanade], a [denizen] of this place of splendor, I notice a group of mentally-handicapped kids eating the shrubbery and drooling on their potato-bag rucksacks. In a [procrustean] gesture, I tell the encumbered children that the plants-in-consumption represent their parents, and that, by eating them, they are in essence killing their parents…
With love,
Nigel
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000
From: Sarah M. Balcomb
Subject: Cats in the Cooler
Dear McSweeney’s,
There are many ways to scare off unwanted suitors. Here is one which wasn’t very successful.
“You waiting for the bathroom?” I asked an archetypical young hipster standing in front of two closed doors towards the rear of a bar in Williamsburg, obviously waiting for his turn in the restrooms. I pinched my arm hard as a reminder not to speak.
“Yeah,” he said rolling his eyes.
One of the doors looked slightly ajar, so I gave the handle a little jiggle. It was indeed closed and locked.
“That really helps,” said the hipster, again showing me the white on the underside of his eyes.
“Sorry, I know, I know, that’s like the most annoying thing. I just want to kill people when they do that to me. I can’t believe I actually did it. I mean, that’s point 53 in my treatise on bathrooms.”
“You wrote a treatise on bathrooms?”
“Well, it was more of a manifesto.”
“No way. That’s awesome.”
“Yeah, well, you know,” I said, then pointed towards the near bathroom door which was opening.
“Thanks, but we have a lot to talk about. I want to hear all about this manifesto.”
“OK, I’ll catch you after I relieve my bladder.”
After using the toilet, I snuck away, fast, in search of a bar where the very word “manifesto” makes men shudder and jump over to the next barstool.
Understandably yours,
Sarah M. Balcomb
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000
From: KEC
Subject: What’s_Going_On_in_my_Life
Dear McSweeney’s,
My life has taken a turn for the absurd, so I feel the need to share:
1) My sister, who is 28, is living with a 46-year-old former deputy sheriff with four children, whom she started dating when he was her (married) softball coach when she was 17. Don’t get me started.
2) Last summer, I was diagnosed with some form of rheumatoid arthritis. The doctors don’t really know what’s going on, but it could involve scleroderma, a disease which, apparently, killed Bob Saget’s sister. There was a rerun of a movie-of-the-week of her story recently. I avoided it.
3) My boss is a filthy little troll who smells like something unmentionable and thinks that “that looks like shit” is encouraging, helpful feedback. Could she perhaps be reading this? Yes, she could, but I don’t care anymore, because if she fires me, at least I’ll receive unemployment.
Sincerely,
Kiersten
Date: 13 Jul 2000
From: Thomas Gibbon
Subject: Everybody loves a parade
Dear McSweeney’s,
Today, walking from the station, everybody seemed to be walking in unison, step, step, step. Like some sort of High Maintenance Parade (expect all floats to be 30-45 minutes late). Later, angel-wings folded, we will sit in our pens waiting to be a spectacle once again. There are too many people in this city. And one of them is I.
Is it right to move to a town because they have lots of bank robberies there? Do I expect that living in one of those towns will somehow push me into becoming a bank robber? As though somehow the banks there are so vulnerable, so tempting, that it is just a matter of time before everybody (one at a time) throws up their hands and says, “Ah, what the hell, give me all your money, I have a gun!”
Oh, but if you (me) had only seen the scenes of Manhattan (from a distance) that I have seen this week, these past days, then you (I) would understand why, why as long as The Talking Heads still play open-mike night at CBGB I must stay in New York.
Trying not to be a hero,
TGGibbon
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000
From: Cynthia Smith
Subject: business plan
Dear McSweeney’s,
So I have a dog, and there are other people with dogs that live in my apartment complex. There is a yard on the side of the complex where a lot of people walk their dogs. Many of the dogs, mine included, “do their business” (that’s a euphemism) there. It’s kind of messy and would be gross if you thought about it much. I stand on the sidewalk, not in the grass, so I don’t think about it much.
Last week, the apartment manager posted a note on everyone’s door saying that the yard on the side of the complex where dogs do their business is gross, and anyone who lets their dog do business in the yard and leaves the business there will be fined. I don’t remember how big the fine was, but it seemed big at the time. I was a little nervous when I took my dog out and she did her business in the yard, but nothing has happened to me so far. And other people still let their dogs do business there.
Cynthia Smith
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000
From: wrockwood
Subject: Your advice
Dear McSweeney’s,
About a year ago, I had a letter published in the syndicated teen advice column “Ask Beth.” I pretended to be a teenage girl who was afraid of catching a “social disease” from a toilet seat.
Beth replied that you could catch trych from a public toilet seat.
My letter was edited so that “social disease” became “sexually transmitted disease.” It troubles me to this day.
Yours in perpetuity,
Bill Rockwood
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000
From: Karl Tobias Steel
Subject:10-4 Good Buddy — Portions of a Correspondence with Neal Pollack
Dear McSweeney’s,
Epistolarily, I engaged Neal Pollack, McSweeney’s Party Hack. He is a surprisingly swift and graceful correspondent; that is, he is like a gazelle, only meatier. It is perhaps exploitative to use Pollack’s name as a trampoline for my own vaulting ambitions, but I liked today’s letter far too much to let it remain unread by you, McSweeney’s readers. The best thanks you could give me, I think, would be to buy Mr. Pollack’s book.
I have edited Pollack’s words out; I think that’s fair, but if you want them in, I’ll send them along, ok?
Here begins the letter. Oh, and don’t bother Neal too much. He’s mine.
> . . . [this will serve to represent Mr. Pollack’s contributions]
Oh! I get it: that’s funny. Here’s another one: RU-486 Airlines: Christians Take Us Surreptitiously.
> . . .
Sorry. Remember the movie “Zebrahead”?
> . . .
Thanks for the indulgence. I’ll sign out now.
KS
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000
From: Bill Spratch Davair
Subject: Hangover tips and marine trivia
Dear McSweeney’s,
When I am hungover, I go to the aquarium, where the cool dark and the swaying plants and air bubbles soothe me. This week there were young women with clipboards standing in front of the octopus tank. Maybe they were conducting a study of arms. Perhaps the octopus is a symbol of their secret sisterhood, designed to protect them from the wrapping arms they encounter throughout life. Or maybe the young women were just taking an octopus test.
Here’s what I also learned: The Pearlfish makes its home the anus of the sea cucumber.
The ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA says, Pearlfish, also called Fierasfer, or Cucumber Fish, any of about 27 species of slim, eel-shaped marine fishes of the family Carapidae noted for living in the bodies of sea cucumbers, pearl oysters, starfishes, and other invertebrates. Pearlfishes are primarily tropical and are found around the world, mainly in shallow water. They are elongated, scaleless, and often transparent. The long dorsal and anal fins meet at the tip of the long, pointed tail. Most Pearlfishes are about 15 cm (6 inches) or less in length. They penetrate sea cucumbers by way of the anus of the host, in some instances apparently feeding on its reproductive and respiratory organs. Yikes!
Something else I learned about sea sea cucumbers: The sea cucumber by the way regurgitates its internal organs when threatened or attacked. While the predator snacks on its jettisoned digestive system the sea cucumber slinks away and grows a new set.
When hungover I also watch cooking shows. If you listen carefully to Jacques Pepin on the cooking shows you will hear him sometimes say “Zen we remove zee coo-kees from zee coo-kee shit.” Last Sunday on PBS I heard him say it six times.
One more thing: Keep a bottle of Visine in the refrigerator. You will always have a cool soothing treat on hand for your inflamed sclera with their nets of red.
Bill you later,
Bill Spratch
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: In the yard
Dear McSweeney’s,
I’m in cubicle #162. The freelancer in #164 is getting on my nerves with his stupid stories. I’m fashioning a shiv out of a plastic spoon and will stick him when we’re coming back in from the yard.
Everybody here talks about what they did to get here. I don’t say much. I mutter something about a dot-com that’s dead now and that’s usually enough. You need a reputation in here.
They do all kinds of shit to break you down. One of the things is they tell you to get ready to start working on something, and then they leave you sitting. You know at any moment they could come and get you, so you can’t get any big ideas. You start thinking you were hearing things when they told you to be ready. Start wondering if you’re getting ready or going crazy.
You’re all I got right now. Everything else is outside of here. I can’t even call my girlfriend. I send notes. You don’t need to reply. In here, if you’re typing…they think everything’s okay. You don’t get hassled. You stop typing and the screws start coming around. In here, the only thing that talks to me are my books. The only thing that listens is McSweeney’s.
Laugh now die later-
Dan Kennedy
Property of: New York
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000
From: Mike Topp
Subject: Laughter
Dear McSweeney’s:
Laughter, according to Reader’s Digest, is “the best medicine.”
Sincerely,
Mike Topp
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000
Subject: Hiro tells about her junior high school in Mikawa, Japan
Dear McSweeney’s,
Here is a real article from elsewhere:
Hi. My name is Hiro. Now I am fifteen years old.
I’ll tell you about Mikawa junior high school. Mikawa junior high school is new. I like our school. Because students are very friendly. For example students enjoyed talking with our teacher. My school has many computar. Students often use computer during class.
We went to on a school trip, Nara, Kyoto and Osaka.
First day we went to Nara. They friendly with deer. But I don’t like deer. Because I’m afraid of the deer. My friend was bitten in the leg by the dog, I don’t like animals. So I couldn’t touch deers. So I couldn’t enjoy playing with deer. But we enjoy walking in Nara.
Second day we went to Kyoto. I was interested in Kyoto than any other places Kyoto has many interesting places. For example Kiyomizu temple, Arashiyama and Kyoto station. Kyoto station is a big, beautiful and new place.
Third day we went to an amusement park in Osaka. But I didn’t feel well So I couldn’t enjoy myself.
Date: Tues, 18 Jul 2000
From: Thomas Gibbon
Subject: The transformation is complete
Dear Earth McSweeney’s,
The private detective business sure is swanky! Just now an intern came into my wood-paneled and leatherly appointed office to ask if I had any assignments for her! Imagine that sort of thing happening to boring old TGGibbon in his cubicle of death and mediocrity. It wouldn’t happen. In case your curious I told her to re-organise my monocle collexion by fabulousness.
As I was waiting to board the municiple dirigible in NeoMegaSpaceGreenPoint this morning I fancied a Snapple. It was ice cold. “Two bits,” said Buck Lee, the proprietor. I tossed him a golden dollar. For change he gave me four shillings.
Once aboard I retired to a stateroom and napped as we drifted gloriously Northwards to Maine. We stopped once in the Adirondacks to shoot some grouse. Those we shot were served to us on a high mountain glen just as our two suns were reaching their midday convergence.
At no point during this sojourn (commute hardly seems the right word) did I sit in chewing gum, yearn for death, stand near someone flatulent, sweat profusely, have incorrect change, or drop my book in the stroller of a drewling larval human.
So, yeah, madness is working out.
Love,
Mick Spaceman, P.I.
p.s. – right now I am drinking champers (Dom) and smoking a cigarette (Nil) while writing some devastatingly clever criticisms of the inhabitants of Omicron Persei 8 (they are addicted to obesity, “Mass is the religion of the O.P.8s,” I just penned). Later I will get my spats cleaned.
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000
Subject: Oncoo Nut
Dear McSweeney’s,
Yesterday was my nephew’s second birthday. I sent him a red plastic fire truck that makes annoying sounds when you push a little button on top. I’m envisioning that my brother will stumble over the fire truck and activate the noisemaking mechanism at 3 in the morning on his way to the toilet.
When I got home last night, late because I was helping Lynette study, there was a message on my machine, the first from my only nephew. His mother helped some.
“Say, Hi Uncle Rob”
“Hi Oncoo Wob”
“Hi Aunt Lynette”
“Mmmmph”
“Say Aunt Lynette”
“Mmmph—Oncoo Nut”
“Thanks for my truck”
“Tanks few ma twuck”
It went on from there, and he even sang “Happy Birthday” to himself, without any prodding whatsoever.
You get the idea.
Oh yeah, my mother has been telling people that my niece has Hoof and Mouth Disease, which humans don’t really get, it’s only for “cloven hoofed” animals. If anyone asks, she has Hand-Foot-Mouth disease. No relation to the one that strikes cattle and sheep, but it looks pretty gross nonetheless. At least that’s what my sister told me.
Robert
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000
From: Jarvis
Subject: The Trouble with Cats
Dear McSweeney’s,
Since the hot weather started, my cat has taken to licking my screen doors and windows every evening when I come home from work. He tends to do it most often when I am in the kitchen, washing dishes. Is there a reason for this new behavior? Does salt - or some other mineral necessary for feline growth- build up on the wire mesh? Do cats need more salt in hot weather? Am I neglecting my cat’s salt need by only feeding him Purina Cat Chow (which, by scent alone, seems to be heavily seasoned with salt). Does he REALLY NEED more salt? I’m not sure. It may have nothing to do with the salt. All I know is that the constant scrape of his hairy little tongue along the screens is making me sick—
Best wishes,
C. Jarvis
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000
From: Liam Black
Subject: Hello
Dear McSweeney’s,
I know that I’ve been writing you often of late (beachcombers, state of the union, amendments to both), but I thought that this might pique your interest: gravity is weak.
That’s right, of all of those forces that interact with ourselves and the cosmos, gravity is nothing more than a wee little baby in comparison to the forces of electromagnetism, strong, and weak. I don’t know what “strong” and “weak” are. I don’t know anything about physics beyond this one little tidbit, quite frankly. I would have assumed that “strong” and “weak” didn’t go much beyond the boundaries of being common adjectives, but there you have it. I was wrong. They’re forces. Of some sort.
Mental exercise: picture the earth and moon. The moon, as even I know, is held in place by the gravity of the earth (and also, to be picky, by lots more gravity from lots more places, but basically it’s the earth that matters here). But picture the moon and earth both carrying a negative electrical charge: we’ve all seen magnets flee from each other in terror, haven’t we? Yes, the earth and moon would, revolted with one another, spin off in opposite directions. Of course, since they still have mass, gravity still affects them — it’s just no match for electromagnetism. Isn’t that amazing? I’ve lived my life assuming that gravity was one of the big boys. Gravity was the bomb. Well, no. Actually, “the bomb”, as in the nuclear bomb, is much stronger than gravity also. I believe the phrase I stumbled across was “kicks the living shit out of gravity”.
I may be wrong about all of this. I hope not, though, as this has been my main conversational point at work this afternoon.
Frequently yours,
Liam Black
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000
From: Kate Gambs
Subject: Special for the children.
Dear McSweeney’s,
I went to eat at a Japanese restaurant last night and saw a little tin can with a coin slot on the top, and it was a little charity tin, know what I’m talking about? It said “For children’s sake.” Just think, for a moment, about how that looks in a Japanese restaurant.
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: THE PROMISE OF A NOTE
Dear McSweeney’s
I was recently sitting in my favorite small French restaurant having dinner and the guy at the table next to me was going on and on and on about money. Talking to the date he was with as if she were the one-person audience of some kind of “Power of Money” seminar. He was getting so into it that he took a dollar bill out of his pocket and held it up between them and said, “The only thing that make this piece of paper worth anything is the gold that the federal reserve backs it with.” I was seething, really. I love having some money as much as the next person, but this vulgar sort of money-porn thing that was going on next to me was making me want to kill this guy. I shot him this look that sort of said, you know, “Shut up about the money, already,” but my look coincided with him pointing out that little tiny eye that’s on the top of that pyramid on the back of the dollar. It came off more like I was interested than angry. At the height of my hating this guy and his weird greed and insensitivity, he stopped talking, kind of looked down at the table for a minute and then said to the young woman, “Oh man, I’m doing it again. This is probably pretty boring for you, huh?” I have no idea why, but at that moment I went from hating him to wanting to be his best friend. I don’t know, maybe I was really attracted to his earning potential or something.
In God we trust-
Dan Kennedy
New York, New York.
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000
From: whitney pastorek
Subject: a little piece of heaven
Dear McSweeney’s,
You know, sometimes life ain’t so bad: just as I was losing hope, abandoning all faith in humanity, my week turned around, and now I’m fine.
I’d been all kffuffled because sometimes it just seems like things here in the big city are spiraling out of control, what with the power outages and water pipes breaking and phone line mix-ups and giant man-eating mosquitoes and boring political campaigns and the peculiar tendency of New Yorkers to steal anything that isn’t chained down (someone stole the old lady from the front of my building last night, which is probably my fault, because I thought I should chain her to the telephone pole but I just kept putting it off and putting it off and then sure enough I came home last night and someone had swiped her, lawn chair and all. I’m thinking I should get a better lock for the security bars on the front windows. You just can’t be too careful.)
But it’s ok now, there is reason to go on.
THE CHANGE MACHINES ARE BACK AT WENDY’S.
Yes. God Bless America.
thanks so much
whitney pastorek
Date: Wed, Jul 19 2000
From: Newhart, Bryson
Subject: Surfing the web is not a waste of time!
Dear McSweeney’s,
This week I went online and discovered exactly what I was looking for. A prewritten letter:
B&B Bumper Boats The World’s Leading Manufacturer of Amusement Park, Concession and Rental Bumper Boats and Go-Karts.
B&B Bumper Boats
“SIMPLY, THE BEST”
Back in the early ’70s B&B produced the first Bumper Boats as an idea to add an exciting water activity to Fun Centers. Since that time we have improved and refined the design into the attractive, hard working “Fun Maker” you see dependably generating steady revenue for its owners today. The roomy cockpit accommodates a large adult and child, a small adult and two children, or an adult going solo. Bumper Boats are not intimidating.
If you want to take pictures of folks having a good time, go to the Bumper Boat pond.
Click, click. I am there now!
Bryce
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000
From: lola rogers
Subject: correspondence and first introductions
Dear McSweeney’s,
I am writing a novel about mad people and their first correspondence. If any McSweeney’s reader may have a story that involves murder, imprisonment, theft (only grand theft please), tanks, or Dan Akroyd & Bill Murray, please post it here.
Take care.
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000
From: Keith Crouse
Subject: I Ruminate Only For The Thrill
Dear McSweeney’s,
When you realize you’re mediocre in bed – isn’t that when you start believing in God?
Sincerely,
KC
Date: Fri, Jul 2000
From: Sarah M. Balcomb
Subject: Riverside facade backed out towards an anti-consumerism surprise
Dear McSweeney’s:
A wraparound skirt is a bad choice for a windy day.
The new doorman in my office building is an artist. His latest work, a pencil drawing of a severed head connected by thick wires to a mind-control box, is going to appear on the cover of the Wu-Tang Clan’s next album.
Last night he smoked out and played Play Station. As usual.
During lunch today, he was on mushrooms. “Things are starting to…,” he said, gesturing wildly in the air like an over-wrought maestro conducting a second-rate orchestra.
Just smiling and nodding,
Sarah M. Balcomb
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000
From: Tsahai Tafari
Subject: niblets and giblets
Dear McSweeney’s,
Hello. I’m a grad student in cell biology, who is trying to go to a scientific meeting for free. As a black cell biologist, I’m eligible to apply for a Minority Travel Award, which means I have to participate in the Minority poster sessions (where we Minorities discuss genomic instability and trade recipes on chicken-fried steak), and I have to write stupid essay-like paragraphs detailing why I want to go to the meeting. I’m not stupid, I’ll take the money if they offer it, but I hate these Minority Events. They end up being a sort of anthropological photo shoot, where people take pictures of black people doing regular human things, like making conversation, eating and being annoyed. To make myself feel better, I wrote the following:
Briefly state within the space provided the focus of your research:
The ‘darky’ phenotype is exhibited by approximately 12% of the population. The focus of this project is to elucidate its role in the establishment of the ‘bubble butt’ and the transposition of prepositions, e.g. “Where did I leave my restraining order for DiShiante at?” By using immersion techniques (moving test subjects to San Diego, California) we hope to discern whether the phenotype can…etc. etc., it gets technical from there.
Tsahai
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000
From: randal cory walker
Subject: dog owners
Dear McSweeney’s
For two years I worked as a dogwalker on the Upper East Side. One dog, Matie, had an owner who was some sort of novelist. His last name was something like Eisner and he wore blue track suits all the time. He also smiled a lot. One day he followed me while I was walking Matie. I was supposed to have Matie out every day for 45 minutes, but on that day I only had her out for 20 minutes because of a complication earlier that day with another dog, Alex. This Eisner guy timed me with a stopwatch. Finding that I’d only had Matie out for 20 minutes, he called my boss and had me fired. If you ever run across this Eisner tracksuit novelist guy, can you let him know that I’d like to speak with him?
Thanks,
Randal Walker
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000
From: Thomas Gibbon
Subject: Duty, Ovid, Christ.
Dear McSweeney’s 2000,
I am writing to you from a time when the internet is like vellum; expensive, obsolete, and theoretically edible. It has been aeons since we last wrote. I blame no one but They-Who-Prefer-Not-To-Be-Mentioned-Publicly, that awful race of discreet aliens who sacked our puny (in the sense that a Faberge egg is puny) world back in September. I hope you fared well under their ruthless domination, what with the beatings and all. As for me I was sent to the Shame Mines of Sixth Grade where I toiled for months before falling face down in the mud in front of everybody. With this I met my quota.
While being transferred to Late Adolescence I escaped and stole the ring of Sexual Potency from Unnamed Coed. This I used to leverage Self-Worth from the Angel-like creatures of Basay Bazhay. Unfortunately I was soon captured and banished to the Attic for non-payment of space dues.
Later I was employed as Mild Stimulant Transponder acting as a human faucet to the greed and lusts of the Puritans of planet Lucre.
I saved enough to book passage on a Tweedliner to Volvo once there I indulged in Doctor Sigma’s mind eraser, my transponder days to forget. Also there I completed my apprenticeship in Boxed Wines. Various princesses of Outer Realms danced before me, but love, even in the clean, crisp purity of space, is complicated, ugly, and doomed.
Now I am on Cybertron, where the electrics flow like a running toilet, and life, it seems, is a dream, as ill-remembered as it is ill-conceived, as heartless as it is compelling, as diaphanous as it is cutting.
All my Best to Lindy and the Kids,
Mick Spaceman, P.I.
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: THE SONG REMAINS SOMEWHAT GIRLISH
Dear McSweeney’s,
For the life of me I can NOT believe that there wasn’t at least ONE Led Zeppelin rehearsal in which any member of the band stopped playing mid-song and told singer Robert Plant to quit using a silly voice.
A fan-
Dan Kennedy
New York, New York.
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000
From: Gillian Beebe
Subject: The other thing that happened Friday, July 21, 2000
Dear McSweeney’s,
Is it funny that you bumped those two letters up against one another? You know, the one about the bumper boats. Well, I need a new bumper, now, yes I do.
I had quite a day Friday. I’ll elaborate below, if I ever get there.
(I don’t believe Randal Cory Walker’s last name is really walker. It’s just a little too much.)
I just sort of wonder how the stars aligned themselves Friday to make it such a memorable day. Overwhelmingly memorable. Did I mention that I got a mysterious letter in the mail that day, too? No one wants to hear the rest of the details. But I ‘m pretty sure I forgot to describe the envelope marked Gillian that arrived, yes, in Friday’s mail. The letter inside the envelope saluted me as Jillian. I should have stopped reading right there, but it had been written in scrawly large script in guess what? Green ink! So I made it past the mangling of my name— isn’t it strange that he spelled it correctly on the envelope? Do you think he just wasn’t sure and decided to try both ways, satisfied that he would likely be right once? It would drive me insane to do such a thing. I’m sure I would dwell on having been wrong once, even if only 50% wrong.
OK, so you don’t really want to know what the green-ink words amounted to, do you? Well, when I arrived home Sunday evening, made it up that cursed hill without inflicting terrible suffering on any living creatures save a few mosquitoes (you don’t have to thank me for saving you from West Nile or Eastern Equine Encephalitis, really—anytime), or humiliation on any local police officers who can’t kill a deer with a broken leg, flopping around in pain and terror right in front of them, with their stupid gun in less than five shots, I found the letter where I had left it, among the ferns in the front yard under the pear tree. The strange thing is, the ink hadn’t run in all that dew.
Fondly (and unemployed and a perpetrator of cervidicide),
Gillian Beebe
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000
From: Scott Matthew Korb
Subject: I confess, Jack’s a dull boy
Dear McSweeney’s,
I’ve been busy. Just busy. That’s all.
Sorry, but I had to work late.
What smell?
O, you can smell her on me? Is that it now? Are you crazy? Look at me. I’m a balding, slightly rotund patent lawyer with mossy teeth. Plus I have these braces. Who besides you would EVER?!
…I fell asleep on the train. Went all the way to Queens.
What a bother.
Signed,
Scott M. Korb
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000
Dear McSweeney’s,
My dog’s new nickname is Little Lord Washington.
Yours,
KP
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000
From: Paul Saulnier
Subject: Bonding with Television
Dear Mcsweeney’s,
So one day I’m watching the television like everyone else… I’m eating potato chips and drinking some sort of popular cola and as you can see, it was a pretty boring and otherwise useless day. I’m flipping through the channels slowly, with integrity, trying to find something good. I stop when I see some fast cars racing each other. “Hey. That’s a station- wagon.” I say to myself. I know it’s actually in the race because it’s covered in racing-car stickers. When it turns the corner, I see that it is a Volvo. “A Volvo station-wagon?” I say to myself. Then the TV answers back in a competent and sophisticated narrator-type voice: “Yes. It’s a Volvo.”
Paul Saulnier
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000
From: Sarah M. Balcomb
Subject: Angled towards the condensation and robbing you all icy
Dear McSweeney’s:
The glass onion: something you can’t see, but it makes you cry.
I think the new doorman at my office is becoming a problem. He keeps inviting me to “get open” with him. Now I’m not sure exactly what this street expression means, but I hope it’s simply a drug reference. I’m not up for a bout of Play Station.
Did you know that he was arrested once for peddling crack? The only time he ever did dope was during that stint in prison.
Today as I waved goodbye, hurrying out of the office before he could pass off another invitation, he blew me a kiss.
Parody is fair use, but satire is an infringement of intellectual property rights.
Reeling,
Sarah M. Balcomb
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000
From: Pete Latshaw
Subject: Hello?
Dear McSweeney’s,
What do you do all day? And don’t say updating your website. Late last February, I sent you two different submissions for your “Lists” section. Not only have you not used my submissions, you haven’t used ANYONE’S submissions. There’s not a single new list up there since early March. Here’s a list of what the staff at McSweeney’s does:
1. Nothing.
Respectfully,
Pete Latshaw
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000
From: Jim Crocamo
Dear McSweeney’s,
I am reading your letters section and enjoying it quite a bit. I am finding it almost as humorous as Mad Magazine’s “Letters and Tomatoes” section, although they have you beat, since they feature responses from a hilarious person.
Take Care,
Jim Crocamo
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000
From: Sarah M. Balcomb
Subject: Standard deviation dominates dishwasher
Dear McSweeney’s:
Yesterday on the subway, I ran into the new doorman at my office. He was wearing a short-sleeved chambray shirt unbuttoned to reveal his freshly shaven chest and a three-inch long silver seahorse. The hoop he normally wears in his ear had been replaced by a diamond. He kissed me on the cheek as he took the available seat next to mine. (Note to self: always choose subway seats which are sandwiched between two other passengers who are large enough to block me from view of anyone entering the train.)
“Where you going?” he demanded to know.
“Home,” I replied, looking down regretfully at the book I would be unable to continue reading.
“Where you been at since gettin’ off work?”
“Hanging out.”
“Yeah, I see, I see, hangin’ out with other people, but too good to hang out and get open with me.”
“Well, you know.”
Then he started rambling on in his usual way, reiterating what a pivotal time this was in his career and providing me with the latest developments in his deal with the Wu-Tang people, as well as several book covers he’s been commissioned to do.
“You could design the cover of my book,” I said, thinking this was the perfect opportunity to scare him away with my bathroom manifesto canard.
“You wrote a book?” he said distractedly, staring at two busty young Latino women in spandex who were now leaning against a poll in front of us.
I started rambling on in my usual vague way about the revolutionary nature of my work, throwing in references to man-eating cockatoos and alien women with three sets of breasts, just to see if he was listening. He wasn’t.
When the two bosomy sex-pots got off the train, the new doorman turned to me and said, “Sorry, but I was trying to hear what they were saying.”
“Hum,” I said.
“They were talking about you. Said you looked just like a friend of theirs who’s also a cute white girl.”
“That’s funny. Wish I could speak Spanish. Well, here’s my stop,” I stood up, got off the train two stops before my stop and walked twenty blocks home.
Sandwiched,
Sarah M. Balcomb
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000
From: Steve Tomsik
Subject: print my letter
Dear McSweeney’s,
Hi.
Print my letter. Why won’t you print my letter? Here is a letter. For printing? Yes. It’s a good letter, isn’t it? Not too fancy, quaint in its simplicity, alluring words with a bit of spice in the way of:
I have been making a lot of love lately, with my girlfriend.
So see, nothing smutty. Just a little something to heighten the reading experience. Some printing, it would be nice.
I ain’t missing you at all.
Steve.
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000
From: Mike Topp
Subject: The Mahatma Gandhi
Dear McSweeney’s:
In a robe and sandals, mix 8 ox. Pimm’s with 6 oz. urine and valerian root tea. Pour over crushed ice—“Not now, honey, I’m being disobedient.” Throw away your possessions. Serves millions.
Best,
Mike Topp
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000
From: Newhart, Bryson
Subject: Big things in Canada
Dear McSweeney’s,
In terms of “world’s largest,” Canada is light years ahead. Notable are Bunnock: a giant buttocks shaped bone. Each year the town that harbors the bone has the World Bunnock Championships. This is an old Russian game played with horse ankles. In Manitoba there is Happy Rock: a slab of rock with a happy face on it. Manitoba also boasts the four dens at Narcisse, one of the largest snake pits in the world. In springtime, children flock to see the “mating ball” when hundreds of males try to mate with a single female by wiggling and rubbing their chins on her back until they become a frenzied mass not unlike a writhing ball of yarn. Sound familiar? Also there is Golf Ball: he holds a hockey stick and wears plaid pants. Other giant Canadian attractions include 12 Foot Davis, Ukrainian Girl, Glooscap, Head, Tire Man, Native American Girl, Mallard Duck, Puffin, and Skookumchuck. Look up “David Yanciw” to find the website.
Best,
Bryce
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000
From:Bob Sassone
Subject: Dream
Dear McSweeney’s,
I had that dream again last night. The one where I’m running around the city, trying to find my family, and I’m being followed by The Joker.
The Joker is always tormenting me. He knows that I have this deep fear of him. In my dream, he is walking towards me, and I stop, paralyzed. I remember thinking that it’s really weird that I can sense myself stopping in the dream, though not really “physically,” if that makes any sense. And I am always amazed that I am aware that I am aware that I realize that I am stopping.
Then it hits me. For some reason I seem to forget this every single time he approaches, but then I remember: I have to stick my tongue out at him! That makes HIM stop in his tracks! And he gets that “oh my goodness, puckered lip” expression that Rosie O’Donnell uses in photo shoots when she’s trying to make her face look thinner. But his is a look of terror! Imagine! I can defeat the infamous Joker just by sticking my tongue out at him! Why does this work? My God, what secret trauma did HE go through in his childhood to be afraid of someone sticking his tongue out? And from someone who is ASLEEP no less?
I am triumphant. I have won. But instantly realize that, in a few months, I will have the dream again. The next time, will I remember how to defeat him?
Sincerely,
Bob Sassone
Gloucester, MA
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000
From: Trina Martin
Subject: wee-wee and bitsy
Dear McSweeney’s,
I’ve quite enjoyed reading the letters from various McSweeney’s letter-writers. You are all funny. You should all be published. New York sounds like a crazy place to live!
Now: I have a story to relate and a question to ask. My mother was visiting and noticed my son pulling on his pants in the crotch-area. “Does your wee-wee itch?” she asked, and my five year-old son looked at her open mouthed. You see, my child has been raised to think of his penis as “penis,” not “wee-wee.” My mother is of the “wee-wee” generation; one did not reveal the correct terms for potentially sexual zones – I grew up thinking I had cookies and a bitsy, resulting in a humiliating occurrence in 5th grade during one of those lectures involving pink pamphlets. So, when my mom said “wee-wee,” my son had no frame of reference. Perhaps he thought she meant the little pig who went wee-wee-wee all the way home. I don’t know. All I know is he said, “my what?” and my mom said, “Your wee-wee. Does it itch?”
I’m not sure why my mom asked him in the first place. Maybe she was just making conversation.
I turned to my mother and, knowing she was sensitive the whole sex-terminology world, said, "Around here, we call it the “p” word."
“Oh, " she said, looking puzzled. “Pecker?”
My questions: What body terminology was used at your home? Does anyone else have a bitsy, or did my mom make that up? Is the word “penis” worse than “pecker”?
Sincerely,
Trina Martin
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000
From: Mike Topp
Subject: Frequently Asked Questions About alt.fan.harrrison-ford
Dear McSweeney’s:
1. What Harrison Ford-related web sites are there?
2. Does Harrison Ford read this newsgroup?
3. If I post a personal message to alt.fan.harrison-ford, will Harrison Ford reply?
4. Does anybody have Harrison Ford’s e-mail address? Can I have it?
5. Can someone tell me where he lives? I want to write to him!
6. Is there a Harrison Ford fan club I could join?
7. I want Harrison Ford to sign my original ‘Star Wars’ poster. How do I get him to do that?
8. What can I get out of alt.fan.harrison-ford?
9. I’m new to the Internet. What tips can you give me so I won’t get flamed?
10. What’s with the talk of teddy bears and OCHFD and lawn mowing movies?
11. Is there a mailing list related to Harrison Ford?
Yours truly,
Mike Topp