The Imaginary Reviewer Writes a Letter, Part the Sixth

For some of my newer readers, the hatred and anger I occasionally show to Now Magazine may be confusing. What do I have against Toronto's largest and most revered listings publication? Why do I write mean things about them - such as the fact that everyone who works for them smells of poo and hates freedom - on my blog?

Well, click on the links to the right, entitled "The Imaginary Reviewer Writes a Letter" Parts 1 to 4, and you shall see why. I wrote several letters of extraordinary quality to that very journal early last year, asking them for a reviewing job, and they did not have the decency to send a single reply. Part 5 of that series showed me receiving similar treatment at the hands of Toronto's second listings magazine, Eye Weekly.

Well, screw them. Screw them hard in the bum.

Now Magazine had their chance. They could have hired me to write reviews for them, and they would have been inundated with fan mail and increased ad revenue, but no. Now I wouldn't even write a review for them if they begged me to. I have set my sights higher, far, far away from the Papist dogs of Toronto's awful magazine. I have set my sights on something much better: Vancouver's Georgia Straight listings magazine.

The letter reproduced below was sent to the editor of the Georgia Straight several weeks ago. As it had to travel from one side to the other of the second largest country in the world, I am not surprised that I am still yet to hear back from them, and I remain confident that an offer of long-term employment will be soon forthcoming.

As usual, click on the small image for a far more readable version.

The Imaginary Reviewer Writes a Letter: Part 6

You’ll forgive me, loyal readers, for being unable to contain my excitement; The Imaginary Review, after 18 months and more than 150 reviews of things that don’t exist, is finally going places. I’ve finally got that big offer. I’m finally able to blow this popsicle stand and move on to the big bucks.

You see, dear reader, an hour ago I got an email from a man called Bill Wilson, President of a group called Americans for a Limited Government. The have invited me to ‘become a key member of the exciting new conservative “bloggers central,”’ which I believe to be an offer far too good to pass up. So with your indulgence, I’d like to run my response by you before I send it for truesies. Let me know what you think.


Dear Bill,

It is with fluttering heart and throbbing member that I read your epistle, such is the excitement that it gives me. Such praise! Such ebullient tribute! Such overdue recognition! Thank you!

When you tell me that I play “a critical role…in gathering, assimilating, and disseminating news and commentary,” you’re referring to that review of lovers I wrote for Valentine’s Day, aren’t you? Or is it the pet review from last year? It’s both, isn’t it? Yeah, I thought so. I remember writing them both and thinking to myself, “Imaginary Reviewer, that is some bad-ass disseminating, right there. The world had better ready itself for this dissemination. I’ve never disseminated this much in quite a while.”

Wait, forget that last part. I just looked up ‘disseminate’ in the dictionary, and it doesn’t mean ‘wank’. I take that last part back. Let’s move on.

When you tell me that you “personally, [are] deeply grateful to [me] for taking the lead in fighting some of the most important battles our country has faced over the past decade, and more,” I find myself nodding in agreement. It was a brave move, I think, fighting against the headwear industry in my imaginary hat review last year, and I know that I put a lot of noses out of joint when I gave a less-than-stellar review to Puff Daddy’s covers album. But one has to pick one’s battles, when one’s country is at stake, wouldn’t you agree?

By the way, when you say “our country,” what exactly do you mean? I only ask because I had assumed you were American, what with you being the President of a group called ‘Americans for Limited Government’. And, you know, with that whole part where I’m not American, I was given the – no doubt foolish – impression that you hadn’t done your research. But no, such an important man such as yourself would not send such a profound invitation without knowing that I am British. I’m sure your organisation’s title is ironic. You’re probably based near Newcastle or Carlisle.

By the way, the features of the website you have invited me to join sound incredible. Being able to post my own blogs? Interfacing with bloggers worldwide (and not just in “our country”)? Being able to customize my profile? Whoa there, Seabiscuit! You just blew my mind!

And if I may quote you again, you say that you “have asked ALG's Director of New Media, Adam Bitely, to follow up on this note with a letter of his own providing [me] the exciting details on how NRN can help [me] grow [my] own blog.” Grow my own blog? Really? I tried growing a Venus flytrap once and it died. Well, when I say ‘died’, I mean ‘never even sprouted’. I hope you know what you’re doing.

So thank you for your invitation, I can’t wait to join my fellow members of the “Conservative Blogosphere,” as you call it. I will do my best to help ‘our countrymen’ – nudge nudge, wink wink – limit the government through hilarious reviews of imaginary creations. I’m sure I’ll be able to push forward your aims of funding ballot initiatives throughout the US with my series of seasonal gift reviews throughout December.

So, in summary, thank you Bill. I promise I won’t let you, Adam Bitely, or the other ‘Americans’ down.

The Imaginary Reviewer

PS: Being able to post my own blogs? Seriously? Christ in a bathtub, this is going to be HUGE!

The Imaginary Reviewer Writes a Letter, Part 5

Loyal readers will remember my attempts to secure employment at Now Toronto Magazine, an ultimately futile endeavour given the fact that everyone working for that Godforsaken rag is a complete tit. For those of you unfamiliar with that Sissyphean quest, see the links on the right of the screen for parts 1 to 4.

My disappointment at Now Toronto Magazine's utter shiteness has subsided, and I have affixed my gaze on one of Now's competitors in the world of free weekly listings magazines based in Toronto: Eye Weekly. I have sent out a very nice letter, which I reproduce below. Please keep your fingers crossed for me, I need to eat and soon.

(Clicky = biggy)

The Imaginary Right to Reply

It’s time for another Imaginary Mailbag! Today, I’m opening the floor to a couple of people who have something to say about specific reviews that I’ve conducted recently. Enjoy.


Sir,

When I heard that you would be reviewing the latest work by Mister Andrew Swithin, Two Irish Priests and a Transvestite Midget Walk into a Bar…, I was highly excited. Here is a writer whose talents are all too often ignored these days, and I hoped you’re your review would redress the balance. Reading your analysis of the piece, however, left me sorely disappointed. I feel that you have done Mister Swithin a great disservice with your review, and while I don’t doubt that he is more than capable of responding himself, I do not know whether he reads your website. With this in mind I am writing this letter to correct you on a few points, and I hope Andrew will not mind my doing so.

Firstly, I believe that your review is based on a flawed premise, namely that you accuse Two Irish Priests… of attempting – and failing – to work on a meta-humorous level. This, I feel, is incorrect. You compare the work to that of Rodney Ambrose (such as the famed A Punchline and a Set-Up Walk into a Bar…), but I don’t feel this is fair. Two Irish Priests… begins on a meta-meta-humorous level (in a ‘knowing of the knowing of the joke’ sense; c.f.: Etheridge’s A Humorist Walks into a Fourth Wall…), but skips down two levels by the time the punchline arrives. An added layer of humour is derived from this uncomfortable slip through the intra-joke strata, which you fail to recognise in your review.

You also criticise Two Irish Priests… on the basis of its unbelievable premise, again missing the whole point of the piece. The cement that binds the humour and the pathos is the unlikely scenario; without this, the whole thing would fall apart like a poorly made sandcastle. If Swithin had not replaced the traditional bartender with a talking giraffe, the priests, midget and even the mushroom-shaped pints of Guinness would escape their moorings and disappear into the ether before the pay-off would be able to occur. Take DeFalco’s ill-advised Knock Knock/Who’s There?/[Silence] series as an example of when the lack of an unbelievable premise creates a kind of comedic black hole. Anyone experiencing DeFalco’s work suffers such a lack of humour that anything remotely funny in the surrounding area is sucked away and is gone forever. Swithin avoids this with the talking giraffe bartender.

There were many other regretful elements to your review, such as the mistaken application of Fox’s law (which states that level of humour is proportional to the number of porpoises in the work), and your inability to differentiate between the chicken in the Crossing the Road series and the rubber chicken of physical comedy. I hope that future reviews of new works by popular joke-writers are not so poorly done as this.

Regards, etc
Sir Walter Cholmondeley



Sir,

Your review of my recent feature, The Chronicles of Hornier: Prince Asspian, was grossly unfair. You compare it to Joel Garner’s 2006 film, Butt-Loving Lesbian Love Pile 3, saying that next to this movie, my film is “left wanting, like a nymphomaniac at a eunuch convention.” In defence of my film, Garner was given a large grant by the arts council, while Asspian was wholly self-financed. In outlining the strength of Garner’s casting choices, you neglect to my own discovery of Shia LeBeef, whose career is certainly going to grow in the coming years.

I also take umbrage with your assertion that many of the scenes in Asspian seemed “tacked on”. The scriptwriter and I worked long and hard to create a story that combined exciting action, fluid dialogue and the hottest young starlets sucking and fucking. To suggest that it is “tacked on” for a character to sleep with a faun in order to extract information, or for two characters in the midst of a battle to be overcome with lust and start shagging on the battlefield, is, quite frankly, nonsense. I reject the accusation.

Despite these complaints, I am gratified to acknowledge your praise for the film’s cinematography. The use of such extreme close-ups was a matter of some debate for me, but in the end I feel that they were warranted. I’m pleased that their glistening majesty were appreciated.

I look forward to a more fair and balanced review of my upcoming release, Indiana Slut and the Kingdom of the Crystal Dildoes.

Regards,

Sir Anthony St John- Headingly

Now Toronto Magazine Respond!

My regular readers will be familiar with my attempts to secure employment with Now Toronto Magazine and my inexplicable lack of success therein. Even after four letters to four different staff members on the publication, I have heard nothing from the esteemed halls of Toronto’s largest source of dominatrix shemale small-ads.

Despondency crept into my bones, and I started bemoaning my lot. “I feel so rejected,” I thought. “If only I had a way of getting back at Now Toronto. If only I had a means of ridiculing them in some public forum. Possibly in the form of a sarcastic review.”

Then – miracle! Now Toronto replied to my letters, with a personal letter! “Huzzah!” thought I, “I have something to review!”

And so I set about analysing the contents of the epistle. Firstly, I was surprised by the presentation of the letter. From my time working in the offices of large companies, I am accustomed to sending and receiving letters written using a word processing package and printed out on headed notepaper. It was with some surprise, then, that I found Now Toronto’s reply written using crayon on a piece of thick blue paper.

The content of the letter was very interesting. The author of the missive (who omitted to attached their name to the letter, such was their modesty), has an amazing vocabulary, as many unknown words have been included in the letter. There were so many words I didn’t understand that I had to consult a dictionary for assistance. When the words did not appear in my Oxford English Dictionary, I looked for the words in various online foreign-language dictionaries, and remained unable to decipher many of them. Words like ‘Becoz’, ‘Pleez’ and ‘magaseen’ escaped any attempt at translation; such words could only be the work on an intellectual, and I was forced to abandon my attempts to understand them.

(Incidentally, it was quite lucky that the letter even reached me, given that my address on the envelope was misspelt in several places and my name was obscured by what appeared to be caked-on pasta sauce.)

As a result of my difficulty with some of the obscure words used by the letter’s writer, I am sad to say that much of the meaning seems to have passed me by. I gather that they are thanking me for my enquiries into reviewing for Now Toronto Magazine; but given that one of the paragraphs is halted abruptly, mid-sentence, so that the writer could draw a doodle of a flower and a bee, I must confess that I cannot state with any certainty what overall meaning the letter is trying to convey.

In summary: Of all the letters I have ever received, from the ‘Cease and Desist’ orders from the estate of Jorge Luis Borges to the gallons of fan mail I get each week, I have to say that my reply from Now Toronto is one of the weakest. I understand that they must be busy writing reviews of new Japanese restaurants and sweaters, but I think their writing staff needs to make more of an effort with correspondence.

Oh, and the letter smells of poo.

The Imaginary Reviewer Writes a Letter: Part 4

Regular readers of The Imaginary Review will remember my previous attempts to secure employment at Now Toronto Magazine, the foremost listings and reviewing entertainment-type publication in Canada's largest city. They will recall how utterly superb these letters were, full of correctly-spelled words and subtle threats. They will also remain bemused as to my total lack of success; not only have I failed to receive a contract for a high-paying reviewing job, but I have also failed to receive acknowledgement of any kind.

It occurred to me, therefore, that the good people of Now Toronto must get letters like this all the time! They're the best, and it should be no surprise that every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to pen their analyses of soon-to-be-released movies and CDs.

I therefore decided to go all out. My one, final throw of the dice. A letter so brilliant, so completely erudite, so gargantuanly splendid, that two pages were not enough to contain the superlative sentences and 100% correct verb conjugation. A letter so fantastic that only the celebrity presence of Yogi Bear could carry it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: My Fourth Letter to Now Toronto Magazine. Warning: Clicking the picture below to enable legibility may give you an overwhelming desire to offer me employment, whether you are in a position to do so or not.

The Imaginary Reviewer Writes a Letter: Part 3

When I - unfathomably - failed to receive a reply to either of the two letters I sent to Now Toronto Magazine, I considered giving up. Every morning I would go downstairs to the mailbox, checking to see if the good people at Toronto's premiere listings magazine had responded. Once I had found nothing in my own letter box, I forced open my neighbours' letter boxes and found nothing but birthday cards, cheques and medical results, all of which I kept for sentimental reasons. I then started ambushing the mailman each morning, and was eventually forced to lock him up in my basement until he revealed the location of my mail. He was most uncooperative, but no matter. He is with God now.

And so, all this rejection started weighing heavily on my mind. What if the good people at the magazine were not interested in my services? What if they hadn't enjoyed my reviews? What if I wasn't good enough? What if I sucked?

I quickly came round from this delusional state, and realised that both of my previous letters must have been undelivered, due to the problems inherent in Canada's postal service (not least their shortage of delivery persons, caused by a spate of mailman abductions in my area). I wrote another letter, addressing it to another member of the Now Toronto staff, and made sure I used my best handwriting on the address. I will not be deterred!

As before, if you click it, it will be legible.

The Imaginary Reviewer Writes a Letter: Part 2

Last week I posted a letter that I had sent to the entertainment editor of Now Toronto magazine, asking her if the publication needed someone to write some reviews for them. Several weeks later, the letter still has not been replied to, a development that I find somewhat odd, given the quality of the epistle and the fact that I recently acquired a new printer.

So it occurred to me that my strategy had been all wrong. The entertainment editor of Now Toronto was probably the wrong person to contact. How busy she must be! Toronto is a large place and entertainment is on practically every corner! Indeed, I know of some corners where entertainment is available in pairs and even threesomes (Dutch is extra, however). With all that entertainment on offer, simply selecting what entertainment to review must take up a lot of her time! She can't be expected to respond to every single urchin who comes begging at her door! So, I decided, maybe I was setting my sights too high.

For this reason, then, I wrote a second letter to Now Toronto magazine, for the attention of their Senior Music Writer. And to make sure I was not ignored again, I added a diagram. I imagine the brilliance of my letter must have knocked the gentleman in question out of his seat, making him bang his head on a desk and forcing him to take several weeks off work to recover, as I am still awaiting a reply.

As before, click on the image to embiggenify.

The Imaginary Reviewer Writes a Letter: Part 1

If you're one of those people who enjoy reading the blurb to the right of the posts on The Imaginary Review, you'll know that I would ideally love to be reviewing things that actually exist. My love of reviewing things is so great that I'm content to write these reviews of non-existing objects, but I would be overjoyed if some magazine/journal/newspaper/whatever were to employ me for the sole purpose of applying my critical eye to things that are both real and not at all imaginary.

With this in mind, I have decided to take the bull by the horns and whore myself out to some local publications. Below is the first letter that I sent to the entertainment editor of our local entertainment newspaper, Now Toronto. The letter was sent more than two weeks ago, and I am yet to hear from them; presumably they're still counting all the money that they wish to offer me in exchange for writing their reviews.

Click on the pic to make it big and readable.