The Sun

Dear Editorial Staff:

I would like to inform you that I will not be cancelling my subscription to your fine magazine on account of not having a subscription to your fine magazine nor can I see getting a subscription to your fine magazine at some distant point in the future only to cancel it, because as I may have mentioned The Sun is a fine magazine.

Can I keep up the subterfuge? The voice of a letter to the editor? I think not.

A few months ago, I started reading all the magazines that I could get my hands on from A-Z. I am presently on H, having just read Hers and Home Energy, while looking forward to (not in the least) Horoscope Today (I think the name of the last might be off by a little). Anyway, as part of this project, I started grabbing whatever magazines I could find (China News and China Today -- once again, the names might be slightly off, who has time to look these things up -- being the first examples that come to mind). The intent was (and remains) to read a copy of every last magazine I can... and by read, of course, I mean skim ever so slightly; mainly, looking at all the pretty pictures.

To this end, I acquired a small stack of The Sun. True, the project was to only read the one, but I found a stack at the local library (amongst the free books they give away, more on this later) and in trying to decide which particular issue to grab, I settled on a Reader's Dozen (the provenance of the term and/or its relation to a Baker's Dozen being a mystery to me). Personally, I blame the covers. They tend to be photographs (fine, they are always photographs) of interesting people. They are the sort of pictures that draw you in (and by you, of course, I mean me). And then once you're inside (or me, I really am OK taking about me), the pages are filled with interesting stories... and not the type of stories that are easy to speed read. I mean, sure, they tend to be short and to the point. For example, every issue readers (could be you, could be me, but lets face it, since this Letter to the Editor is being posted to my own personal website rather than being mailed off to the magazine in question, it's more likely to be you in this particular case) write in and describe some story from their life, say their honeymoon... or a lost friendship... or (just guessing here, since I have not seen the following example in the magazine... not yet) being fired from a job... or whatnot. And the vignettes are short (so not really stories) sometimes clocking in at a paragraph or two. I mean, I may not be the best speed reader out there, but you got to give me something to work with. Speed reading is all about the skimming and skipping (yes, 'm' comes before 'p', so it's definitely skimming and skipping, as opposed to skipping and skimming), essentially reducing the quantity imbibed (by, you know, not imbibing it all). But no so luck on a short hundred word blurb... or a poem that takes up a quarter of a page. So, really, what I am saying is that when I sat down (and yes, I do sit down) to read this magazine, I actually (of all the horrors) had to read it... with precious little skimming or skipping.

It's that good.

And look, before you start thinking I'm some sort of literary twerp (all indications on this site and this rant to the contrary... or are you going to be mean), I don't usually go for poetry. And the poetry in The Sun really isn't that much different.

Words on the page
Searching for the words
To put on the page
So I have words on the page

Is it good? Is it bad? Seriously, do you even have to ask? It sucks. But at least it was short.

Well, when reading The Sun you can bet the poems are short because they publish exactly one (um, the exact count might differ) long article each issue (like, a masthead article, usually an interview, actually probably always an interview, but being on my fourth issue, I don't want stick my neck out on that) and the remaining articles are comically short. Um, short. What does that mean? Well, like, in comparison, this rant is now getting on there. And if you're thinking, 'OK. You've made your point. Get on with it now.' You might prefer The Sun, because in that fine magazine, they almost always make their point and move on... or at the very least, move on.

Hmmm?

Maybe I should do the same.

Dear Sirs and/or Madames

I got a stack of The Sun for free at a local library. They give stacks and stacks of reading material away day after day all of the time. Seriously, I had been thinking about cutting up cardboard boxes (that my Amazon deliveries come in: seamless plug, seamless plug, seamless plug) into little strips (1"x6", roughly, as who has time to measure), glueing those cardboard strips together to form cardboard blocks (six strips to the block, I am nothing if not neurotic), and finally (gads, yes, but finally, get to the point, man), assembling those (strips glued into blocks) into some sort of modern art robot (end of sentence, take a breath). But I am, instead, now just going to use old pulp paper-back mystery novels that I grab by the handful from the free stack at the library.

Anyway, stacks! That is the operative (and hence, underlined) word. Reading material is cheap. It's ubiquitous (much like the word ubiquitous these days). And I cannot see paying for it (in any way, shape, or form) ever again. As such, I will not be subscribing to your fine-fine fine-fine-fine very-fine literary journal. And subsequently, you will never have to endure reading a long winded letter from yours truly (that would be me, once again), as to why I am now cancelling my subscription (they sure do seem to get a lot of those-there cancellation letters; hence the impetus for this rant). And, no! It would not be because I am short on the rent and need the money by way of a refund check.

Besides, upon reading said literary masterpiece (The Sun, not this rant, though I can understand your confusion if you thought I meant the one and not the other), I passed said rag onto my girlfriend, who immediately sensing the wonders between the pages, subscribed!

And she wonders why we fight endlessly over everything, but especially over money.

'The only reason you're reading that is because I got it for FREE from the library where they have a subscription that you can read for FREE.'

As such, and in brief, I am not writing to cancel my subscription, but my girlfriend's subscription.

And if you will not do that for me, at least publish this letter so I can lord it over her from now until the end of time.

Sincerely,
Brett Paufler

'Hey, honey. Do you have a stamp I can borrow?'