the eXile - [sic]

Issue #22/103, November 9 - 23, 2000

SUCK MY BOOK

Mark and Matt,

Your book sucks! A detailed, boring account of what you did and where you went since 1993, it reveals the difference between making a newspaper story and writing a book. What you produced is 256 pages of a not-so-good editorial written with solemn seriousness of sheep being fucked by new zealander.

To save you from bother of asking, I’m sending you photo of my girlfriend’s snapper. Think while you wank - and maybe you’ll cum up with a better idea for your next book.

Best regards,

Emil Azarov

[sic]

Dear Mr. Azarov,

It is a medical fact that if a man is in possession of a snapper in such pristine condition he therefore doesn’t write letters to web-magazines. Snapper quality is inversely related to one’s desire to write twerpy letters-to-the-editor. Thanks for buying our book.

HYMEN HAPPY

Dear Exile

I am a 16 year old Russian girl and I go to a specialized school with intensive English language program. My boyfriend is an American and one day I hope to move there (maybe even with him). Your newspaper is very interesting and highlights many parts of American mentality and thinking. Is America really full of men like you? I don’t mean to show any disrespect but you do not treat people nice and you maybe even hate Russian girls (maybe some girl really hurt you in the past, yes?) My boyfriend is different. He is very sensitive and one day I will give myself to him but only after we are married (I really respect Brittney Spears for staying a virgin). Maybe you think this is really stupid but we are Christians and my boyfriend is from Utah where there is a big community of people with strong beliefs like us. So when I live in America I will not grow a “big ass” (I plan to exercise) and me and my boyfriend will be very happy and no one there has read your stupid paper and became corrupted. I only hope that you learn to treat people with more respect, even if they are Russian girls.

Respectfully Yours

Olga

PS: By the way, before my boyfriend I dated several American boys and they all really liked to fart after dinner. You are probably like that too also!

Dear Olga,

In fact, we like to fart before dinner as well as after dinner. And during dinner. But the best place to fart is in a Russian girl’s face, while she’s working hard to give you a skull shine. This doesn’t mean we hate or disrespect Russian girls. It just means that we have uncontrollable gas.

PLEASE OCCUPY MY COUNTRY

Hi,

I am French and after living several years in Russia and Ukraine, I now back in Paris. I’ve seen that you’ve written a book about the more exciting in Moscow!! Is it possible to buy your book in France? Is there a French version (I mean a translation of your book in French but not a new book whose title may be “sex, drug etc in the old traditional France” of the book?

Thanks for the answer,

Sylvain.

Dear Monsieur Sylvain,

Le fuque off, you sick pervert.

LOTS OF DOTS

Mark,

your article [“Serfdom Takes Its Toll”] is great, I just went on the interview in mid town Manhattan in place like that, OPEN, not even cubicles....................... scary....................................... Fuckers, after 5 min, I wanted to come back with AK 47 (and 2 banana clips) any way best of luck, your work is GREAT

take care

Boris

PS. Let me know if you need any banners or animation with Flash, I’ll do it for you for free

Dear Boris,

What’s with all the fucking dots? We’re all for you taking an AK and a pair of banana clips to the first office you come across. But barring that, we wouldn’t object if you shoved a pellet gun up your ass and fired. You could do that for free!

JEW

I come here from Jerusalem for dedication of new synogogue and I pick up your paper by mistake. I thinked it was a Jewish paper about the long exile of our people. Instead I see it is filth and dirt and dreck and shmutz. But why you say so many dumb anti-Semitic things? We have enough trouble without you schmucks making more cause Russia it is anti-Semitic country and no needs more anti-Semites from America. I tell all Jewish people in Russia not read your chozzerei and not even to look at it.

Happy new year Lionel Tannenbaum,

Rabbi Zev Kopelowitch, Jerusalem.

Dear Rabbi Jerusalem,

Lionel Tannenbaum responds: “Who are you calling an anti-Semite, you dirty Jew?! It’s because of paranoid zealots like you that the rest of us decent Jews get rounded up into cattle wagons and shipped off to death camps. Or are you now going to tell me that there was never a Holocaust, the greatest tragedy of the Twentieth Century. You, Rabbi, are responsible for the deaths of six million of my people (or do you deny that figure as well?). I am shocked and ashamed that you call yourself a Jew.”

CRABICIDE

[RE: “Still Crazy After All These Crabs”]

Try a sure-fire Polish-American remedy...works every time: Shave off left side pubic hairs. Pour kerosene on right side and light. When the little guys start running across, stab them with icepick!

(I suggest you have news photogragher on hand.)

Daisy McDermott

Dear Ms. McDermott,

Better yet, we think the best way to get rid of crabs is to have unprotected sex with as many partners as possible. That way, the hope is that all the crabs will leave us and go bother someone else. It seems to have worked, too.

PRUFESSUR PRECEPTION

Dear Exile Staff,

I’m a professor of Russian history and I am teaching a class on Western preceptions of Russia and the Soviet Union. For the purpose of showing my students *bad* travel writing, I plan to have them read an excerpt from Jennifer Gould’s, “Vodka, Tears and Lenin’s Angel.” You had a very biting and funny review of this book in THe Exile back in 1997 or so; I read it then, but didn’t keep a copy of it. Is there any way I could obtain a copy? I’d appreciate it.

Lee Farrow

Auburn University Montgomery

Dear Mr. Farrow,

What are your “preceptions” of basic English spelling? We’re sure they must be intelugent and intresting. Good thing you’re a prufessur. Americuh’s future is in good hanz.

GOLDEN SHOWER

Dear Matt and Mark,

At first I thought you were cool. Then I thought you were cocky or perhaps dissolute. Now I know you for what you advertise yourselves to be; above average intelligence nerdy (but not wimpy) high school geeks who have repeated the mantra of “nobody understands me; nobody will love me” so many times it has become your reality. In your literary intimate moments you reveal yourselves to be sad and slightly pathetic in the same way that aging strippers and alcoholics priests are. I was wrong; Hunter S. Thompson wouldn’t dismiss you with a wave of hand. Hell, he wouldn’t even piss on you let alone actual speak to you. Whereas, I am sure, Hunter would eagerly engage me in conversation before he inevitably got around to peeing on me; which , I understand, is his way.

Robert Cantor

Dear Mr. Cantor,

This reads like some sick masochistic invitation to piss on you. We don’t do that kind of thing. We’ll gladly shit into your mouth, but pissing is just plain gross.

ON THE DOLE-AN

Dear John,

I love you. And your writing. Why did you leave? Russia needs you, far more than Amazon.com does. Write more.

Respectfully,

A. Black

Dear Ms. Black,

Please send a jpeg of your snapper to Dr. Dolan so that he can write an inspired, snappy review.

O SUZANNA

Hi,

I note with some concern that the loud and proud homosocial nature of Exile is now featuring a regular wimmin’s column by ‘Suzanne Thompson’. I wonder if this is the thin edge of the wedge and have to point out the historical outcome of the acceptance of the ‘feminine’ within patriarchal institutions has often been unfortunate. Perhaps you could reassure the homosocial readership that ‘Suzanne Thompson’ is a female impersonator - I think we all know that this is the best way of representing the nature and views of wimmin.

Yours truly

A. McQueen

Dear Mr. McQueen,

You wouldn’t happen to be related to Kevin McQueen, our film reviewer, would you? As for Suzanne Thompson, she couldn’t stop her menses from pouring out of her vagina, so she went home to get the whole darned thing sewn up. We wish her well.

VAGINA

Exile,

You guys don’t use the word ‘CUNT’ enough in the Exile. CUNT, CUNT, CUNTY CUNT. It’s fun to say, just repeat 5 times fast; CUNT, CUNT, CUNTY CUNT. Or, here’s another version; CUNT, CUNT, HAIRY CUNT.

brian

Dear Brian,

Brilliant letter! That’s wit! Genius! Call our offices to pick up your free eXile T-shirt. Congrats, guy. You the man!

TOILET READING

While strolling the lifestyle section of my local bookstore, I came across your book, the eXile: sex, drugs, and libel in the new Russia. What I noticed most about this book was its ratty appearance. Apparently your book has become quite popular in the boring ‘burbs of Houston, Texas, but not apparently popular enough to get bought. So I did what the rest of the ‘hood had done: I sat down in one of those real comfy chairs every B and N has, and read your book. But half-way through I remembered Mark Ames brilliant idea. And he’s right: I’d rather do this read in the toilet. So, I bought the damn thing. Anyway, I do my learning best in the john, and I think I have it all figured out now. Thanks for the insights.

Sincerely yours,

David Wilton, Lawyer, Houston

Dear Mr. Houston,

Our book is ergonamically designed to make your shit smooth, clean and complete. We hope your experience lived up to the promise.

SHOCK LE MONKEY

Mr Ames,

I was shocked reading this article about Kosovo [“Get Me Outta Here!]... I am too shocked even to add a few more words... When I recover completely my spirit, I will like to discuss a few points of your article with you. Did we commit a gross error by giving our moral support to the Albanians? How do you explain all this f... mess?

A. Rehel

Quebec

Dear Mr. Rehel,

Did we commit a gross error when we allowed a province in North America to maintain its French identity? What the fuck are French people doing over in our hemisphere anyway? Get the hell out! Keep Canada American, for chrissakes, and get out!

WELCOME TO THE DOLL-AN HOUSE

hello, I have just been sent your vacuous, and I can only hope ironic little epistle slating many of the great experimentalists in modern fiction, and to be honest you are talking absolute shite ( yes I have spelt this word correctly according to the English pronunciation - and I do hope we are still at least speaking the same language) I wonder if you have anything positive to say about anyone or if you along with the British tabloid press - caricatured as PIGS by the way - merely enjoy mocking everything that attempts to go beyond the plastic counter culture that has suffocated creativity. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not a traditionalist, not by any means but I simply cannot stand people who criticise that which makes them feel insecure about their own talents (is your ego so threatened?)simply because they themselves are not up to scratch. Criticism is good, I’ll go as far to say healthy but to mindlessly insult those with enough courage to create without offering any alternative is just plain irresponsible. What, pray tell is your considered opinion of say Barthelme or Sartre or Angela Carter? Are you willing to risk criticism yourself by putting across your own “top ten” movers and shakers or is your whole raison d’etre to mock (badly at that)those who inject something creative into this horrid, horrid world? Answers on a postcard please....

Helen Stone

Dear Ms Stone,

We’re going to take a wild guess here and say that your ass is the size of a bulldozer, and your hatchet-headed face could make a horse whinny in horror. We’d like to sit down and engage in a real intellectual discussion about the merits or drawbacks of experimental 20th century literature, but frankly, we can’t stop thinking about how big your ass is. Please help us out by sending us an email. We’ve got a betting pool going around the office. A rough ballpark figure would help.