Date: June 6, 1996
From: Drew Wollheim
Subject: Nice site! And...

Hi there scamperions! I just wanted to say that I really like your site. You are funny. I showed it to my wife too, and she thought it was funny and weird.

We wonder what kind of fellow you must be to be writing these things and drawing these pictures. Take care! -DW

Mundane,

You're married?

You must not have told your wife about your days as a mercenary. About the mutiny aboard the HMS Crotchbellow. About the pattern of passive-aggressive treachery. About the lurking. Vilification. Random despair. Corruption and fragmentation. Cutting serifs off lower-case letters. And your seductive, selective telling of history is probably your most heinous act to date, and we mean that in the biblical sense - when men were gods and women were whores. When animals roamed free and stole babies and glances, and kept them in clay containers beneath the ashes where they would be found thousands of years later by Kurosawa during an opium dream.

Can you embalm us for taking you to task then? Can you? Well sure you could, but then that would be your most heinous act to date. There's no getting around it because when you get fully around it you meet your own ass and it stabs you in the back and you end up hugging your knees and rocking while your lips do that strange curl what you learned in the merchant marines... If your "wife" can't handle the truth then our guess is that she's settled for the wobbly facade that you've presented her with. What is it this time, Chief? Are you the priest with the heart of gold? Are you a vampire and baby-killer whose only satiety comes from the rising vapors of despair from the ravaged bodies of your willing victims? Are you a shoe-tip curler? A bell-maker? A string-aligner?!

Well we don't care what you've told her! Only know this: That we will not rest until we figure out what we were originally going to say. We have a mind to write to you in this manner:

Dear Dad,

We're glad the beets are doing well this year. You've come across such hardship in the past, and we know that your vegetables were really the only source of pride in your life. We tried to please you, but we knew always that we just weren't cut out to be beets. Our brother didn't even like to be buried as a kid, and though we grew used to it we just couldn't put our heart into it. Not completely. By the way, those insecticides have severely atrophied our mucus membranes.

Before we go, let us say one more thing: There comes a time in every young man's life when he realizes that he wants - no, needs - to be a dumplin. Should he go ahead and be a dumplin? Should he bow to temptation? A risky question fraught with paradox: dumplins can't bow, of course. But your average dumplin also can't know that. Only the elite dumplins of the highest order even have the clearances to know it. The rest just operate in a state of extended ignorance. Anyway, that time comes and the question arises like the mighty mummy. And to that we say: don't think of yourself as a freak. Never! We say: think of yourself as a delicacy. For you are a delicacy if you are a dumplin. A dumplin in Thailand can command a hefty price. In Prague dumplins are worshipped like gods! (Granted, only by one man - but we think we know where he is.) And if you determine that you are not a dumplin, if you determine that you are indeed a man, well then you are still a delicacy to the Xanu tribe in Argentina.

yum,
-scamper.org