September 13th, 2005

Dear Jonathan Franzen,

It is strange where moments of "Eureka" occur. I was sitting on the toilet in the Entomology wing of the American Museum of Natural History when the latest one fell into my lap. Folded open, spine pinned back, i was reading an article you had written in the New Yorker about bird-watching. You represent to me one of those contemporary authors i try to avoid out of fear that i will hear how un-original my own voice is. As a result of this chauvinism, i've dismissed an entire era of writing (post-1960), insisting that i cannot be bothered by the present when so much past literature requires my attention (how much attention i give it, is another issue altogether). Nonetheless, left with nothing productive to do with my time in the bathroom stall, i let myself read your article, and quickly found myself engrossed.

You wrote a piece that never left the theatre of birdwatching, yet you were able to offer a tome to your glass bubble marriage that finally broke, and continued onto the delicious subject of your post-marriage dating cycle of younger women. In your expansion of these ideas, i found a parallel in my own circumstances, despite the fact you are probably 20 years my senior, and the similarities we share are the stripes on a watermelon's skin rather than the fruit inside. As i neared the end of the piece, i could feel that i'd made up a room in my head where these words and themes could stay for awhile so that i could visit with them and perhaps share a grey, cloudy day over a nice long conversation. I might, i thought, even indulge in my desire to go watch me some birds ever since i picked up that used copy of the Audubon Society's Field Guide of North American Birds at a stoop sale some 3 years earlier. I enjoyed your tone, your language, your relaxation with the written word, and immediately began to feel a little jealous. At this point, the recognition of jealousy, i looked up from my magazine, glanced to my right at the bland, grey metallic wall of the stall, and felt the processing of over 500 mental associations in about three seconds. "Eureka!" The lamp lit.

What i enjoyed about your writing is that you understood from the beginning your reasons for doing, feeling, and being and you articulated them clearly. You didn't litter the page with floral garbage, concealing how you really felt. You knew precisely why you enjoyed birdwatching and how that related to everything else you presented to your readers. You knew this and demonstrated it with such incredible precision and skill.

Now i believe that there exists people who are so connected to their brains that a blank page represents a surface to iron on the decal of their mind, but, alas, i am not one of them. In order for me to demonstrate a similar lucidity, i must be in a constant state of production, because in that effort, i will have expanded my thoughts to their fullest, most hyperbolic illusions. By giving room to every emotion, i can critically glean whether it is native, artificial or poorly identified. What's left is the placement of the quill directly in the grips of my gut. I'll then paint a page with the raw representations of my internal population, which is exactly what i look for in other authors. What i'd like to read is what i like to write. You accomplished this. You illustrated the rare quality of someone who has the anatomical blessing of their head being connected directly to their gut.

There can be, when this occurs, no separation from the writer and the page. To do so would cut off the life support for these types of auteurs. Their words are not approximations of a silhouette cast on the side of a moving elephant. What the reader consumes must be as close to the truth, as near as possible to the force that expels the roots from the seed buried deep in the earth.

I am not quite there. I put so much importance and power into the small, tapered point at the end of my pen, but i need to strive harder to bring it to the paper more often. Thank you for your inspiration.

Most respectfully regards,
DC

August 28th, 2006

An Open Letter To The Man Who Invented Parking Lots,

I don't even know who you are, or where to begin. Perhaps i should start with a little introduction.

I live in a city. I won't specify which one. I live in a city because i need hustle. And after the hustle, i need some bustle following that. That's awfully cliched and generic. Let me try this again. What i need is a place so small and compact that standing in a crowd makes you feel smaller. I want to feel small by virtue of the number of others around me. But, i want to be able to remove myself from this at anytime. I do not want Nature to have an unfair advantage over me. This is the opposite of where i came from: Colorado. The Centennial State is HUGE. Immense. But not because someone made it that way, it is gigantic with or without the people. I cannot dispel that largess, ever. Colorado is so spread out. This means that simple errands are carried out over large distances and durations. When i lived in Colorado, i would have to spend at least 10 minutes just driving to get milk. Never mind the walking to and fro the car, which was placeed in a parking lot.

Here's where you, kind sir, come in. I'm sorry to say, but i LOATHE parking lots. You don't have them here in the city (or they are rare species that have degenerative genes that won't be passed on). So much could be built on the land that parking lots consume (or more importantly, so much land could be spared the trampling). When did you think to invent them? I must know, when you came up with the idea for them, did you weep knowing you were contributing to the decimation of this great land? Or did you celebrate? Did you happily submit your plans for the first parking lot thinking you'd finally found a use for that pesky six acres of open space that was poking your community in the eye? Or, i hope, did you sigh with deep melancholy that you had created something society 'needed' but realized you had started something you could not stop?

I for one would like to go back in time and PUNCH YOU IN THE FUCKING NOSE. You are behind so much waste that has led to more waste, and so on. God dammit, i'm really pissed about this! I think i'll put my pen down...

...okay, that didn't work.

Dear sir, i hope that wherever you are buried, the current landowners receive a bid from some commercial real estate developer to graze the land of your peaceful last resting place, and pave it over with hot, scorching asphalt. And for every jalopy or hybrid SUV that rolls across your decomposed bones, you somehow, poetically, realize the error of your ways.

Good day,
DC

March 7th, 2006

Dear Mark Twain,

I just finished watching Ken Burns' documentary on you, and by its account, i owe you a deep gratitude for being able to amble about in my favorite craft - that of writing. It says you were the embodiment of the American pioneering spirit that opened the way to a powerful American verse to form. As one person put it (and forgive the banal re-quoting without citation) you swam deeper than anyone into the rich possibilities of the American vernacular, making it seem possible for others to swim at those depths as well. I offer my first of many disclaimers in what is a letter to a figure of literature whose name alone intimidates me so much i don't even mention it in casual conversation; your moniker receives the kind of fear i was told to reserve for God (who unfortunately fits well into the beginning of one of my favorite curse words). This person who placed you in such high regard in his documentary is just one person, one viewpoint, one editorial. I have to remind myself of that before i blindly accept that without Samuel Clemens the Great American Novel would never even be something for which writers strove. That being said, i can't help but be fascinated with the man behind "Tw--n", Mr. Clemens.

You came from the modest Midwest (for the time period, thought of as "the West"), rising up to great heights in the East Coast millionaire complex. The superficial parallels between that and my own origins and journey are not missed - minus the 'millionaire' bit. I proudly report that you didn't start writing novels and enjoying their success until well into your 30's. I soak myself into the Epsom salts of this fact, allowing my toes to poke a little above the surface of the water, thinking i may be allowed to let the bath cool a little before i must jump out. But, just as i resign to let my appendages wrinkle in the tub, i am forced to consider that according to this documentary, you weren't a mere mortal. In fact, according to Mr. Burns, you weren't even human. That's just great.

But wait. The one mistake you should be credited with (again according to Mr. Burns) is the length of your life. You lived too long. You enjoyed such great fame and accord for your writing which all came from a mind of incredible acumen. As a result of your success, you were able to live a life much longer than perhaps most people would, free of strenuous physical labor and squalor. This mind over the years would continue to conjure up schemes and scenarios in order to stimulate your addled attention span. Unfortunately, these conjurings did not match your early literary output, and most put you in a financial downfall that would lead to you living your later years in a struggle to avoid impoverishment. Nothing i'd learned about you in my juvenile years spoke of these later struggles. In fact, i can assure you that your legacy remains on solid footing 100+ years later, yet, something troubles me about the intentions of this documentary to show this aspect of your life. You are already, as i've stated, fictional. Even your name is fiction. What purpose does it serve to try to round out the common view of you by showing your foibles in conjunction with your successes? Ken Burns, a man whose view of himself could easily be labeled as "lofty", is attempting to bring you down singlehandedly.

That is not my goal. You are but one man. As i am. As we all are. Today, I was standing on the platform of a train stop that i rarely frequent and i noticed, in the span of my 10 minute wait, eight, succinct ethnic stereotypes. The fresh-off-the-boat Korean laborer; the beautiful Black homosexual; the fluidly seductive, blond Russian; the tired and indefatigable Orthodox Jew; the strangely jovial, petite Latino; the clean and undeterred, white hipster; the cross-minded East Indian; the pre-fabricated elderly woman. There i was, just one man appending these labels to these complete strangers, not yet prepared to accept the cannibalistic quality of this act. And then i thought of you. Well, i first thought of how small the categorization of my fellow commuters made me feel, and then, finally, i thought of your legacy and your America. You captured the American language into print, a form in which our accent had previously not existed. This has allowed so many of us that have followed you the ability to break our fellow citizens into categories like i did - something we do everyday - but never once consider a single one of those partitions as not a part of America.

I don't know if what i'm attempting in my written word amounts to anything worthwhile. That is not the question i should ponder in a literary world laying inside of your shadow. Instead, the attempt to further the documentation of this vernacular you first published deserves the real and meritous attention.

My deepest gratitude,

DC

March 11th, 2007

Dear Gem,
The date above means that it is twelve years since the last time we spoke. I wonder how long ghosts live. You've, since your vanishing from my life in 1993, continued to exist in my head in one form or another. At first, as an apparition conjured from many sightings wherein i would sneak around campus just to see you in the flesh. This growing old after a week or two, you soon took residence in my mind and subconscious.

Occasionally, over the next few years, your name would pop up in conversation or i would make the imbalanced comparison between you and whichever female counterpart i was currently seeing. As comparisons grew more and more blurry and obscure, echoing the treatment my memory of your specific qualities received, you landed a plum role in my dream world. You would sometimes take the form of the "One that got away" in the evening's star-studded lineup. You never went too far away in my mind, which may or may not explain actions on my part to continually revive your impact on my life by reaching out to you.

No one knows why i'm interested. You are not the same girl who 14 years ago professed an angry and perhaps regrettable love for me. Who knows what you are like these days, but i still find myself endlessly attracted to that cognition of someone as fruitfully as i had with you - once. You can end this infatuation simply by engaging me. I know, blame you for this, but i have no other explanation as to why after countless rejections of my attempts at reconciliation, i continue to find energy to draw up into this endeavor.

Honestly, you're nothing. You are nothing more than a 2-dimensional cut-out with clothing that adheres to you with the folding of a dozen tabs. You are a hobby, an endless pursuit that quite thankfully has never been snagged. I don't want to know you, in the end. I want to know the boy you fell for, and thus here trapped amongst your numerous refusals. In the end, you are not the fascinating personality i seek, and perhaps you realize this and thus see no reason to indulge such a self-centered individual's attempt at temporal hubris.

And frankly, i don't blame you.

Most sincerely,
DC