We Got Letters – Stacks and Stacks of Letters
THE VIEW FROM ARGYLE HEIGHTS by Homeowner Harry (Another ina series of observations about life in West Midwood as it is lived today…ormaybe not)
At the end of my piece for the Summer issue of theNewsletter on the writers of West Midwood (“Reading & Writing & EvenSome Arithmetic”), I urged anyone who I had unintentionally excluded towrite me – bur reiterated that my criterion was a published book listed onAmazon. What follows are the missives I have received via e-mail or postings onhttp://argyleheights.blogspot.com. In order to encourage a free exchange, Ihave protected the identity of those who wished to maintain their anonymity,which was almost everybody. Since thedates didn’t matter, I deleted them for readability.
To: Joe@Enright.com
From: xxcvbrty@aol.com
Subject: Newsletter
Sir, I read your piece with someinterest in as much as I also have a book that was published which you somehowmanaged to miss. In it I present areasoned approach to our economic difficulties and attempt to engage our morefiscally conservative neighbors in a constructive dialogue. It is called Mr.T’s Party: Eat Death & Die! Thank you in advance for your consideration and the $49.99 you willundoubtedly want to remit for the electronic copy of my book I haveattached. Yours, Xxcvbrty
To: xxcvbrty@aol.com
From: Joe@Enright.com
Re: Newsletter
Dear Xxcvbrty, I checked onAmazon.com and your self-published book was not listed. Which is the same reason I couldn’t includemy own book, Flying Saucers and Credit Default Swaps: The Alien Plot to BuyOur Debt, which has sadly still not found a publisher. By the way, I started to read your book andwas somewhat mystified by your insistence that Mr. T of the “A-Team” inspiredthe movement. In fact, it is spelled “Tea”Party, not “T Party”. Otherwise,I found your theory that the “A-Team” TV series somehow caused our economiccrisis somewhat difficult to follow, particularly the part about Mr. T’shaircut.
To: Joe@Enright.com
From: xxcvbrty@aol.com
Re: Newsletter
You can eat death & die too!
The next response I received was from a neighbor who hadordered one of the books discussed in the article but had yet to receive it:
To: Joe@Enright.com
From: vvdwcsuw@hotmail.com
Subject: Where’s My Book?
Look, I’m a patient person. But it’s been a month and I’ve yet toreceive Flying
Saucers and Credit DefaultSwaps: The Alien Plot to Buy Our Debt so I think you owe me a refund. Juststuff it in my mailbox – not my e-mail mailbox but my real Mailbox… Er, you know what Imean. By the way are you related tothat Irish writer, Anne Enright? Shelooks a little like you.
Well, after a little back-and-forth, I managed to straightenthis neighbor out who had somehow ordered my unpublished manuscript fromAmazon, which now has a new shopping category that can be found at www.amazon.com/Upcoming-Books-That-Might-Get-Published-If-the-Writer-Finishes-It-&-Finds-A-Publisher.htm Amazon calls this section “Book Futures”.Interesting. And by the way, AnneEnright, author of the fabulously successful novel, The Gathering, isfrom Dublin, whereas my parents were from Kerry and Limerick. But that didn’t stop me from mailing her arequest for money, claiming to be a long-lost desperate relative. I did the same thing with the ArizonaDiamondbacks rookie pitcher, Barry Enright, figuring he’d be earning millionsin no time, being a major league pitcher and all. But these gambits sort of back-fired. Anne Enright invested her royalties in credit default swaps onbook futures just before the market tanked and Barry Enright was sent down tothe minor leagues in May after letting up five thousand runs in two games. Now they’re both asking me for money onaccount of my blog being so successful and all. Man.
To: Joe@Enright.com
Subject: You Need Drugs!
The drugs you didn’t order arehere! Just use PayPal to send us largesums of
money. Also, with respect to the Argyle Heights blog, I notice you haveposted
that New York City hurricane mapwhich shows the flood waters stopping at
Rugby and Glenwood. Could youexpand that to include Canada? Thanks.
Well this e-mail had nothing to do with books except thatWest Midwood did suffer a couple of fallen trees from Hurricane Irene and booksultimately are made from trees. Hopefully, the Category 3 storm that wouldsweep waters down Foster Avenue from Jamaica Bay all the way to Rugby Road willalways remain only the hypothetical subject matter of Weather Channel disasterporn.
To: Joe@Enright.com
Subject: Blogs Are So Retro!
Just in case you didn’t get thememo, Blogs are dead, moron. If youcan’t say
it in a 130 character tweet, likeforget about it.
From: Joe@Enright.com
Re: Re: Blogs Are So Retro!
I was impressed by this e-mailbecause you took 130 characters to insult me
when you could have used many, manymore. Maybe you’re addicted to tweeting
and can’t express thoughts thatwould take longer than 130 characters? If so, there is hope at www.un-tweet-my-addiction.com. I understand it’s a 130 step program though,so hang tough.
To: Joe@Enright.com
Re: Re: Blogs Are So Retro!
Eat death & die!
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