Spassky at a Safe Distance, Issue 14 – ”A Letter (and Many More After It)”

Spassky at a Safe Distance, Issue 14

“A Letter (and Many More After It)”

1: Introduction

2: Spassky’s Assorted Somethings

3: Story + Bonus

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This is a sort of collaboration between me and that supplicant whose story I “published” in Spassky 5.

I was of course on schedule with a regular Spassky this week, every comma in its proper place and ready for publication. The reader must not think this breach of convention is an act of desperation on my part, but instead a calculated and professional cooperation, involving no favours being called in or references to embarrassing episodes utilised as blackmail.

It’s a good story, not the author’s proudest work, but a good story all the same.

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A Letter of Rejection

Dear Sir,

I regret to inform you that The Happy Dispatch will not be publishing your manuscript. 

Though it was valuable to many at the Dispatch in certain professional capacities, and your advice in many points is sound, it is true notwithstanding that the essay would appear out of place in the magazine – the theme is simply incompatible.

But since the text has merit, and would benefit society at large if published, I feel it is only good form to explain to you in greater detail why we have rejected it, so that it will find better luck on a future submission here or elsewhere.

I believe I began to take issue with the text somewhere in the first sentence. And on my way to the last one seemed only to take more. The first paragraph exhibits some of my reservations:

I’m a man of cleanliness and sanitation, okay. When things are clean and sparkly I’m goddamn happy. Jubilant. But can we hve nice things?? A parently goddamn not. PEOPLE cant help themsselves but turn pretty, sparkly, beautiful, Elysian streets into infistationds of trashtrashtrahs and garbage and filth and TRASH!!1! i’m not reponsible for it butsome ratshittingSONofABItCH is!what do I look likea garbage guardian, goddamn adoption centre? These bastards wherre messing up my neyborhood but not anymore. I fixed it alright. And if you got the same problem i had but dont have any goddamn more just read on and ill tell ya in on how to fix it too!!!?!!

The text follows grammatical conventions erratically, and uses obscenities without moderation or due motivation. I must be blunt – I found myself frowning (in an unfavourable way) frequently. The attitude of the text is simply not consistent with good form and must be altered.

It was in your description (of twenty-seven pages, I count) of how you select which Threats to Cleanliness to eliminate that you elevated my hopes for the manuscript. But the “Things to Keep In Mind” chapter quite restored them to their former altitude. I have considered a few of your “1001 Tips”, and though advice such as “do it IN THE DARK wen evryones sleep”, “makit look like it never happend” and “remember the bitts, pieels and other things so you dont forget ‘em” are quite publishable (if not a trifle exotic) I must object to sentiments like “you need CLEAN-EX, garbje baggs and pure methanol you never noe whatcomesoutta those goddamnterrierlickingdogshitdistibuting[…]” and “bringa hatchet ncase, Harney & Son.’s the best”. 

And these issues were only more acute in the “Catching the Bastards” chapter. For instance:

The shiteabedscoundrels, those drunkenroysterknavesslapsauceloiterers were eesie enuff to cut thru and with Harney’s Hatchet even the meat and bones. Wont be dirtiing or ddecprepiting 6th avenue anymore you wont filthysonofapopmop. Igot the pieels and the metal they had on them. the methanol took caere of thsmell and thClean-Ex worked like majick to get all that weird fluid of thpavement. Quality stuff.

Endorsing “brands” in such a way is not good form! And even less so in The Happy Dispatch’s case – we are partnered with Helley & Son.’s Hatchets.

But all of this is quite secondary to the “Preparing For Disposal” section:

Andif The Residue doesnt fitinto the sack cut it into even smaller pieces. If that doesn’t do itgetabigpot or something and boil it so all thmeat and whatever else turns intoakind of mush. Like gelatin. If that doesntwork well life’s life. Toughluck buddy. Heard of sulfuric acid?

An exceedingly unsafe recommendation. Ill advised. The Happy Dispatch will never print such dangerous suggestions.

But I shall leave my analysis on an encouraging note (I have the reputation of being “too harsh”, I’m afraid). I must compliment your final chapter “Getting Rid of It”, which – save for a transgression against the reader’s Occipital Lobe – I cannot find much fault with:

Three words: Dead of Night. Noone wants t seeyou with it youdon’t want t be seen with it ifyou live neer a parc or a wood oranydamn place with trees in it go where theres most trees. If you dont…well sulfuric acid is onehelloffa thing.

Makesure to find themost Enivormentalyfreendly wey of gettingriddof The Residue. Resykle ifyoucan. Personally I dig abigol ditch and dump itallithere (without the plastic thats bad for the troposphere). Some putit in a reliable dumbpsder otherrs burn it. Dont burn it its bad. Thditch ismore EnvIronmentalyfreindly andhasmost class. And when its all fild in giveit a feu months and hey! you made grass!

I appreciate your consideration for the sanitation of your habitation, it is good form, but The Happy Dispatch is a magazine strictly for murderers and assasins, and though your methods of garbage-collecting and disposing have been enlightening, I suggest you send them elsewhere. And, please, describe waste with less personality and animosity when you do.

Best Regards,

Clyde Killwell, Rejector-In-Chief, Poisoner of Political Oppositions 

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Bonus: The Greatest Invention In Human History

Story of the Week: ”A Christmas Letter”, Stephen Leacock (1914)