Finn:

I am writing you this letter in regards to the column you have asked me to write for you. Now, while we two have as of yet no formal agreement as to the duration of the column, we have made certain verbal commitments as to the regularity of written pieces. It is that one a week commitment that I am writing to you about.

As you know, this isn’t my profession. I am a tattooist and that alone requires hours of drawing time, all outside the normal operating hours of the shop. By necessity this must take precedent over any written pieces to be produced for you. Food and shelter are not provided to me by your website, but these things are necessary for my survival. In addition to needing food and shelter, to which I admit being a living biological creature whose belly needs to be filled every now and again, I also have a life. This life involves friends.

Now, we all have friends. We have good friends, we have bad friends, we have the friends that we make crude jokes with, and we have the friends that make us sit up a bit straighter and make us look after ourselves a bit more. We have friends, the ones that we think of in those quiet hours when all we have to do is survive the night. These are the ones we write letters to.

You may consider yourself a good enough friend of mine to be able to sit me down and coerce me to write with bribes of whiskey and pints, and this is true. I thank both you and Muse for that every night it happens. I also tend to curse the two of you the mornings after, but that’s just part of the price to be paid. Some of my friends live so far away, you can’t even make those sort of we’ll see them over the holidays plans. I’m not able to sit down with them and have a bit of craic while I’m working away on something larger. And yet, they still are good friends, even if they’re in Australia, or Africa, or America. I have to write them letters. It’s a filial obligation. I’ve written a few letters recently, part of the reason why I am behind production for your piece that I promised you I would have by the end of the week. I couldn’t be there to speak to you directly today, so I’m writing you a letter.

See, I reckon that letter writing is alright. It’s the only way in which you can convey a large piece of information without being burdened by having to explain external factors. Half of me jokingly says it’s kinda like being inside that boundary line where quantum physics ends, and regular physics begins. You’re operating within a limited time, where all the events around you don’t matter. They’re still there, but their relevance is limited for the duration of the letter.

A letter let’s you get away with certain things. It eases the burden of grammar, and properly backed reference points for your discussion, as it were, at hand. A letter is accepted as a writing of intent, even if it is begun with a load of waffle that people who wear suits to work think of as good erudition. A letter holds more weight than a phone call. A letter has purpose. It is universally accepted that one doesn’t just happen to fall against a key board and write a letter, even if it is begun with a load of dry shite.

It is also universally accepted that a letter has an audience. The recipient is known of, if not known. After all, you’re no to going to write a letter to no one. Not even if it’s a message in a bottle. Yet the letter is written by someone with intent to impart information to an audience. Think of the mayhem you could cause with one of those.

It’s self-contained but already, by its nature, carries with it enough outside information as to make it comprehensible, and its entire purpose is the transference of knowledge. It’s a perfect set up. A letter will allow for its little asides that are sometimes needed. After all, those wee rambles in a letter are often just clarifying a common point of knowledge between known audiences. They’re accepted, because they will help flush out the knowledge being passed on in story form. They’re just part of a larger picture, and were included in there with intent. Therefore they are generally allowed. And if not, well, they’re still part of the letter. Some things just must be accepted, whether we like them or not. Kinda like rain and snow.

Intent is always the wobbly bit of a letter. When a letter comes from a friend living away from you, there’s always the part of you wondering, is it bad news? When a letter from the bank arrives part of you wonders if you haven’t some how fucked up your overdraft and they’ve found a way of giving you a bollocking by post.

Now, as the author of a letter, you’re intent had best be good, because the recipient, no matter how well known, does not know what he is reading until the moment it is read. How you doing? I’m writing you, mo chara, a letter. I hope it finds you well. There’s no need for paranoia here, if you’re the type.

A letter allows for those wee asides, those Tenacious D moments of intellectual idiocy. The framework can be made small enough to have those personal moments of contact. At worst a letter is a means of communication between two people. That’s the worst. At best it’s a long awaited letter from a very close friend or family member. It’s a direct physical communication from someone who can’t be there at the moment. A letter is blessed, because it carries with it no manifestation of intent. It cannot, and therefore will not force its audience. It’ll only be read if it’s wanted to be read. It’ll only be understood as its reader intends to understand it.

See, a letter is an intellectual thermo-nuclear device. It allows for so many outside factors to become relevant that it can be made for more than one person. The reference point between all readers then becomes a common knowledge of the author, because all good letters need to have a personal appeal.

This is the one true blessing I see out of the digital age. You can, now, communicate with everyone you know at once if you set it up right. You can say your peace, and let it out there with the comfort of knowing that it will get to its intended recipient. A post on a site, by its very nature, allows for the same universal acceptance of a time delay that a letter does. It allows the author of the letter a certain freedom of foreknowledge. Remember what you know, use common sense, proceed with caution. Mind your karmic footprint.

And this is why the letter’s author must have good intent. It’s self-contained, so it has more power than a phone call. It’s not a buzzing in the ear; it’s a weight in the hand. It’s there and its intent has been there for a while. And since a letter is a one-way conversation, and every conversation needs a pause, we are allowed to enter in some thing new to the mix.

Such as, knowing that this is a letter, and it is a letter sent between two people, it allows for drastic shifts in reference points. A good example would be that, between you and me, I hope no one ever tries to find some mystical mumbo-jumbo-numerico bullshit in this letter. I’m just writing you a letter, half having a laugh. We’re not solving the world’s problems here.

There’s nothing so sacred that it can’t have the piss taken out of it. A letter from a good friend allows for that. When you’re reading a letter from a good friend, you’re giving yourself time to read it. You’re giving yourself pause, and you’re allowing yourself to relax for a time. It’s a letter from a friend. You can allow yourself a bit of humour. Even if it does mean that you still have the foreknowledge that his next piece is gong to be about homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks. At least you know he’s still going to find it funny. He’s your friend and he’s written you a letter.

It’s there in the word itself. Letters are the raw material from which letters are forged. Author, go forge your letter well. Remember that the title of my column is complete with cheese. Even bad humour is funny, and there’s nothing so sacred. You know that the pope has to have his own secret screamy shouty laughy room. He’s got a quiet place where he’s allowed to go for five minutes and be human. Fuck’s sake, no one is that pious. You know what I mean. We all lose the plot some times. You’re my friend, and I’m writing you a letter. We have amongst us certain points in common.

Writing a letter allows us to communicate within a certain reference that is self-contained, and can self-reference. A letter is woven together like a story. It’s an event in itself, with the time it takes to write, the time in travel, and the time to read. Combine this with the fact that a letter is a discourse on an event that had nothing to do with the letter itself, but is the letter’s sole reason for existence and I’m hoping you’re starting to see why ducks are funny. It’s a mad world. A letter can truly be a literary thermo-nuclear device. It can carry with it; burden free, so many layers of intent. A well-written letter from a friend can be a thing of substance. It’ll make you ponder. A poorly written letter can convince you that you’re friend has gotten to the point where he sleeps upside down, hanging by his toes, and wrapped up in his own wings, but that’s another story.

I do reckon I like the flow of a good letter from a friend. You know your friend is half mad. You know your friend is doing nothing more than filling you in on the latest gossip, and telling you a bit about what they’re thinking. But it, like a letter from home, is worth making time for. This holds true even if you’re behind schedule on every aspect of your workload.

This is why I haven’t written your article. You’re just going to have to accept this letter as an apology on my behalf. I would also like to point out that letters do give you a nice opportunity for a quick exit when you’ve finally reached that 1,500 word count. Or in this case, a touch more.

Mad as badgers,

Jonny

PS:

The other brilliant thing about letters is that they allow for an extra-added bit when you forget something. Every week as best I’m able for the duration. That’s as good a written agreement as I can give you at the moment, but there it is in writing. I’ll see you soon, mo chara.