Seek Ye the Dickheads: O's Revenge and the Second Rejection

I know some of you have been clamoring for this since it came in, and I'm not one to deny. However, a word of warning: O has taken a turn for the incomprehensible. Since I can't make heads or tails of what he's talking about, I used Aaron's incredibly funny rejection of O's first submission to reject his second submission (it's posted below O's letter).

So, without further ado, take it away O (once again, I left his grammar and spelling as it was when it came in):

Dear One-Fourth of Nothing,

how sad for you that your attempt to criticise a supposedly clichéd "harangue" is so terribly clichéd. Sarcasm, the last resort of the feeble minded with nothing better to say. At least you are consistent, that is some positive feedback for you. Your idiocy is unrelenting, congratulations.Your attempt at litotes is as self-serving as the rest of your convalescent drivel. "Oh thank you, we had no idea we were so important". The quantity of your inability was never called into question (refer to remarks regarding your consistent intellect above). It was rather, and obviously, your unfortunate QUALITY of being without ability that was pointed out. Your insignificance does nothing to alter your crapness.

At least you have lived up to my epitath for you and the other three-fourths of vacuity: smarmy. Little MFA graduates with little talent and little minds form little magazine with self-proclaiming online presence in burgeoning niche market. That's what they told you at grad school, find out what no one else is doing and jump on that opportunity. For what? To cover your own disasterous attempt to be involved with literature as this simply proved to our poor little four friends how hopeless their reltionship there-to really was. The pathetic nature of this sad tale is revealed finally in that your glowing consolation prize is in fact a booby-prize. Your masthead should proudly read, a proclaimation of untalent.

You will never be able to cover the fact that you debased morons have publically professed to the world that you have the editorial perspective and right to tell people what does and does not qualify them as poets and you have said it as follows: a poet is someone who has necessarily read Yeats. Your ideas and minds, not mine.

Seek ye the dickheads?

This is not a case of one line reductionism, but rather the happy circumstance of one line
encapsulating and expressing an essence so well and so completely. Your stupidity, your talentlessness, your unapologetic hypocrisy. Oh, but of course you are a part of the wonderful legacy of true to god American culture. Why don't you raise yourself up there on that pedestal? If yer don't blow yers own trumpet, sure's hell ain't no-in else gun do it fer ya, are ent dey boy?It pleases me to no end to have you recognise for whom Toole intended the label and that you so eagerly wrap it about yourselves; a confederacy of dunces you are indeed. I suggest you four ol' pals give up that shining American ambition to succeed in the face of your poorly given gifts OR accept that you are just businessmen and businesswomen representing that god given right to conduct business that Americans defend to the death (usually of others) and drop the facade of literature.Fast talking swift marketing demographic positioning losers. That is what you are.

You are not capable of the harsh self-examination needed to even begin the path of becoming artist. There is no more story here, no depth. Like the whole concept you represent you people are just the one-dimensional death gasps of a dying culture: American Idiocy. A tradition y'all can be proud of!

What you need to pass on is yourselves.

O.

And, in case you missed it the first time around, here's the second rejection (I added a note of my own at the end):

My dear Oleg,

Thank you for your submission to the online edition of Barrelhouse. We really appreciate the time you took to put your manuscript together, but I'm afraid we're going to have to pass on it.

Here's why:

In the pseudo-drama that must be your life, you must know, as per our good friend T.S. Eliot, that something in the play must concretely correlate, objectively, to the emotions expressed of the protagonist. And Eliot, a harsh judge he, ascertained that Shakespeare's Hamlet failed in meeting this standard of Objective Correlative, for there was no true object worthy of Hamlet's existential crisis.

And yet, sometimes I too wish to create tests and have people greater than me fail in them.
Oh Jonathan Franzen, you're work The Corrections is indeed highly praised, but it fails my own personal test, that is, The Plausibly Named Younger Brother Test. For lo! No one I know is named Chip, except indeed for the California Highway Patrol. And thus, though you indeed managed something magnificent, ultimately you failed. I would have picked Roger, or Devon, or Reyshawn.

So you see, dear Oleg, for that is the name I have assigned you, for it is Perfectly Plausible Given
What We Know Of Your Whole Name Through Your Email Address. You, the protagonist, have chosen an object unworthy of your talents. We at Barrelhouse are like a yet innocent Claudius, he only contemplating a regicide and not yet a regicidian. But yet, you anguish as if we had already done the deed!

Fie! Dear Oleg, and wait patiently in the shadows, for I assure you our project is to destroy literature but yet we do not yet have the power!! But we will!!! WE WILL!! HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And now I must go, for I have failed many other tests, including the Patience of the Reader Test. Fie! Fie! Anon!!

As always, I want to emphasize that this is the subjective opinion of one reader, so take it for what you will. Once again, thank you for your submission. We hope you find a home for your work in the future.

Aaron
One Fourth of Team Barrelhouse
www.barrelhousemag.com

PS: Oleg, if you're going to be in the Washington, DC-area on March 24, please drop by the reading Barrelhouse is hosting at the Warehouse Theatre's screening room. It starts around 8 pm and in addition to stories from the first two issues of the magazine, you may be flattered to hear that we will be readings sections of your submissions to what promises to be a packed auditorium. While we feel your works don't quite meet our idiosyncratic standards for the print journal or the website, we believe speaking them aloud in the voice of an emotionally disturbed eight-year-old will bring down the house in ways you couldn't have possibly predicted.

Hope to see you there.

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