Mister Teradonovic,
Thank you for submitting Squid Ascending Staircase to Big Swinging Pendulum Press. Unfortunately, it does not fit our needs at the present time. Best of luck with your future writing endeavours.
REMEMBER: Don't be concerned if people think you're "nuts." What does being nuts mean, anyway? Squirrels value nuts so highly they bury them to save for a desperate future time. Perhaps your true value will shine at some desperate future time.
As a matter of fact, I do know what the word fatuous means. Do you know what the word dipshit means, dipshit? Not only was your review of Star Blap XVII: The Frontier Two frontiers Down From the Final Frontier fatuous, but it was perfunctory and otiose. Look them up, asshole. Do you know how many people loved the movie you trashed? Do you have any idea what the opening weekend gross was? Man, you are the worst movie reviewer since Michael Medved dug a hole in San Bernadino for Justin Long. You know what I'm talking about!
BTW, you're not doing yourself any favours by asking the police to investigate the cast and crew of Star Blap XVII for sending you vaguely threatening email messages. Just because my email says Mega Maxi Major Studios doesn't mean I had anything to do with Star Blap XVII. In fact, it doesn't mean I have anything to do with Maxi Mega Major Studios - have you never heard of identity theft?
Once a dipshit, always a dipshit.
Mister Teradonovich,
We're all very excitedly looking forward to your amazing lecture next week on "The Use of Death Imagery in the Films of Adam Sandler." As long as you don't mention...you know, what we discussed in private, it should be great.
Looking forward to it!!!
REMEMBER: the most important part of "potential" is being "potent."
TERADONOVICH YOU GODDAM PUSSY WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT PIECE OF SHIT INTERVIEW YOU SENT ME? MAX SCHMELLING TELLING US HE WAS HAPPY TO LAND THE PART OF HUMPHREY BOGART IN THE SEQUEL TO THE AFRICAN QUEEN? WHAT VACTOR WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN FERKING ECSTATIC? IF YOU CAN'T GET SOMETHING MORE INTERESTING, I'LL GIVE THE FILM BEAT TO MY NIECE - AND SHE'S ONLY THREE YEARS OLD!
Oh, and your expenses cleared. Congratulations. There's a check waiting for you the next time you are in the office.
FERKING INCOMPETENT SCHMUCK!
REMEMBER: Life may be strange, but don't be a stranger.
Hey, Elmo,
Recovering from New Year's isn't worth the revelry, but, somehow, we always forget and do it all over again. BMHATW Mom and dad are annoyingly perfect, as always. They sent me a postcard from Corfu. I don't know where that is, but it looked exotic. Ginny still has too many children. Rob still doesn't have enough - like medical science is gonna do anything for him! ROTFLMAO
Would it kill you to write once in a while, or do you use up your words on your stupid column and don't have any left for your family?
Don't be a stranger.
REMEMBER: When the old leaf gets dry and starts to fold in on itself, time to turn it over to the garbage man and start another one.
Dear elmore.teradonovich@alternaterealitynewsservice.ca,
Your account(s) have been recently flagged by our security and fraud department in order to prevent any monetary loss or unauthorized charges. It appears that your credit card account(s) have been tampered with and accessed by an unauthorized user.
Protecting the security of your account(s) is our primary concern. Therefore, as a preventative measure we urge you to secure and confirm your account immediately. Once you have been identified by the system, your account status will be restored to normal as our security and fraud department continue their pending investigation in this matter. Please continue below to safely secure your account:
https://www.nottryingtoripyouoffreallywerenot.ca/NASApp/NetAccess/
Please note that you must authenticate your information within the next 48 hours. Failure to do so could result in a suspension/termination of services, as well as your liability of all possible unauthorized activities on your account(s). Thank you for your patience and cooperation in this matter as we work together to protect your account(s) security.
REMEMBER: Thinking you know what you know is not as good as knowing you think about what you don't know. Still, knowing what you don't know is half the battle...you think?
Yes, Mister Teradonovick, we agree that the world could use a novel about a fearless film reviewer for an internationally known news service who risks his life and his very sanity to save the world from an invasion of flying alien marine cephalopods. Unfortunately, Squid Ascending Staircase is not that book.
How could you improve the book? Burning it to ashes, and then burning the ashes to ashes would, in our opinion, be a great improvement. To say the characters are wooden would be to do a disservice to trees everywhere. You have an annoying tendency to cut away from scenes just when your characters stop pontificating and actually do something. Why, why, why would you interrupt Terry Elroy's confrontation with Faljoulian, the alien commander, for a chapter on the gestation period of wombats? As fascinating as the gestation period of wombats is, that chapter kills the forward momentum of the story. Kills it dead.
Then, there is your use of language. It takes a special kind of perverse perseverance to have 27 spelling errors on your first page alone in these days of Ultimate Spellcheck. Your metaphors are not so much obscure as utterly incomprehensible (we have started an office pool for the first person who can come up with a reasonable translation of the phrase "more wicked than a dozen canaries on holiday in Brighton" into English). And, your profligate use of alliteration is a slap in the face of poets everywhere.
Please, do not contact us any further on this matter.
Oh, and, in future, you might want to limit the profanities in your responses to rejection letters. Better to use honey to catch a flaming Olghoulian Batarmasque, no?
REMEMBER: being patient is not the same thing as being a patient. Adjust your behaviour accordingly.
Brenda Brundtland-Govanni was getting no pleasure out of reading through Elmore Teradonovich's email. Her mother had made snooping in other's people's emails look so easy. It wasn't a calculated thing, either: everything, no matter how unusual, how...outre, came easily to Barbara Brundtland-Govanni. Hunting down guerrillas in obscure corners of the world (and Cleveland). Turning down ambassadorships to alternate universes. An uncanny knack for finding a parking space close to the door of the establishment she was going into within seconds of arriving. Of course, Barbara Brundtland-Govanni had minions to help her. Brenda Brundtland-Govanni had to do all of her own minning. It was demeaning.
Brenda Brundtland-Govanni's displeasure had nothing to do with the legality of her search. In the fine print of every Alternate Reality News Service employee's contract was a clause giving the company the right to sort through all electronic information created on, stored in or accessed by company computers. It was right below the clause that stated that moving another employee's cheese without their express written consent was a firing offense (somebody in legal clearly needed to work on their reading list!). Of course, Brenda Brundtland-Govanni's contract didn't contain that clause. She imagined. Who ever read the fine print, really? And, Pops Moobley's contract didn't contain that clause. She knew this because the first - and only - time she had tried to read his email, she was locked out of her own computer for 24 hours and, no matter what she did, it made a "Tsk tsk"ing noise at her the whole time. When she asked legal if he was allowed to do this, they shrugged and quickly changed the conversation to the odds that this would finally be the year the world went on the remnimbi standard. (For completists, it should be noted that Pops Kahunga's contract did have that clause, but it didn't matter because he didn't use electronic devices. When anybody asked him how he could survive that way, he just smiled and whistled a happy tune.)
No, Brenda Brundtland-Govanni's displeasure came from the fact that she actually had a reason to read through Elmore Teradonovich's email. Reading through somebody's private communications just for the hell of it is fun. Reading through somebody's private communications because you're looking for the leak in your news department is...work. And, work just didn't work for her.
Okay, the rejection letters were kind of amusing. (So, Teradonovich has time to write a novel? Brenda Brundtland-Govanni made a mental note to work him harder.) Still, the Alternate Reality News Service's film writer had, over a 30 year career, managed to have none of the glamour of the industry rub off on him. In its own way, this was quite an achievement: his was a tawdry, boring life.
More to the point, there didn't seem to be anything in the email that would even hint that he was the leak.
Brenda Brundtland-Govanni leaned back in her stiff-backed chair, ignoring its ominous creaking (she went through chairs faster than a 12 year-old goes through Halloween candy) and rubbed her eyes. Another three days wasted. Could this day get any worse?
A knock came on the door and Darren Clincker-Belli poked his head in. "Ready to go?" he chirped.
Yes, Brenda Brundtland-Govanni answered her own question, yes, it could.