Tuesday 27 May 2008

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.

3 comments:

Falwless said...

hahahahaha.

U crk me up.

Falwless said...

Incidentally, that could also be read as "you cork me up," which is not only not what I meant but is rather disrespectful given you have a fiancee. I do apologize if you misread it.

The Imaginary Reviewer said...

Actually, I thought it meant that I creak you up, which I didn't really understand.

Hmm, I wonder how many instances of txt speak have been misunderstood and led to fights (or even death)? Possibly an avenue for a big university study...