TONIGHT! McSweeney's Winter Tour
Thursday, February 7. 7-9PM.
Atomic POP. Hampden, Baltimore.
3620 Falls Rd. 410.366.1004Featuring:
DAVY ROTHBART (FOUND Magazine)
ELI HOROWITZ (McSweeney's)
JOHN BRANDON (Arkansas)McSweeney's publisher Eli Horowitz, author John Brandon (Arkansas), and Davy Rothbart (Found magazine) will be appearing together.
All attendants will receive a temporary tattoo and a chance to see a man swallow a sword.
To celebrate, The Shank brings you, courtesy of Molly O'Donnell, some of the things McSweeney's has rejected from one Baltimore writer.
REJECT DIARY
by Molly O'Donnell
Over the years as a part-time writer I’ve amassed quite a nice collection of rejection notes. Some of my faves come from McSweeney’s. Below is a smattering of rejected lists and pieces of mine that McSweeney’s dared not stoop to publish. To commemorate the literary genius touching our fair city on February 7th at Atomic Pop, please accept my humble offering Shank. McSweeney’s publisher Eli Horowitz, I won’t do what you’d expect of me: Turn up at the event, rejected writing in hand, to hound you.
Lists with rejection reply as introduction and commentary following.
List 1:
Hi Molly,
Thanks for the list submission - it was a tough call. We're going to pass on it this time, but feel free to keep submitting!
Jess
lists@mcsweeneys.net
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"Molly O'Donnell" wrote:
Alternate Surnames for New Woman Fiction Protagonists.
Sue Bridesdead
Rhoda Gettinnun
Hermina Barhopper
Edna Pantillheleaves
Monica Widowwannaby
Vivie Waronmen
Commentary: Well, obviously choosing to write a list based on an obscure literary movement from turn of the 19th-century Britain was risky. But honestly if you can’t publish this sort of pretentious crap in McSweeney’s, where are you supposed to submit it? Really McSweeney’s? Really? Was it really a tough call? I have my doubts.
List 2:
Hi Molly -
I'm afraid I'm going to pass on this one, but I do appreciate the look.
Best,
Chris
lists@mcsweeneys.net
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"Molly O'Donnell" wrote:
Things you find out about Portland, OR, only after moving there from the East Coast.
The people have been body snatched and replaced by drops of rain.
Despite this, there is traffic at all hours of the day.
Body odor is misconstrued by some as sexy.
There ARE differences, though undetectable to East Coasters, between waterfalls.
Black people can be as elusive as spotted owls.
Commentary: No, I’m afraid for you Chris, afraid that your readers are missing out on my hilarious East Coast observations about Portland, but have it your way, Chris, if that’s even your real name. I’ll give you a look.
List 3:
Non-response rejection, the worst kind.
Comments Written about Me by a Clinical Psychologist.
1. exhibits a lack of concentration
2. inspires a lack of concentration
3. relapses if improvement exceeds expectations
Commentary: Maybe they were scared the list was longer than this??
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
by Molly O'Donnell
If you wish to contribute, please spend some time familiarizing yourself with our publication, realizing that the level of talent and imagination of our contributors is far above your own, becoming despondent, sobbing intermittently, having a momentary relapse of misleading hope, and finally resigning yourself to your previous crestfallen state. If you think your prose is as sharp as Parker's, your tragic sensibility as uncompromising as O'Neill's, your myth-making as rapturous as Faulkner's, your poesy as poignant as Keats's, we suggest you carefully (re)read these writers and repeat Steps 3-6 as stated above.
Please put the words "SPAM" in the subject line of your e-mail or "DISCARD IMMEDIATELY IF NOT SOONER" in the address line of your envelope.
You can find the appropriate editor's name on our People You Can Never Hope to Know page. Also, please tell us a little about yourself.
Without a certain level of detail, we may find it difficult to laugh hardily and may only be able to muster subtle smirks based solely on our rampant imaginings of your pathetic and delusional existence.
Items to consider for inclusion in your abbreviated (fewer than three
words) biography are as follows.
• your experience and background as a writer • your qualifications for writing a particular story • why anyone would care much less bother to read such exaggerated tales of your importance
No more than one story, one essay, or six poems should be submitted at one time. In certain instances, we review submissions exceeding these limits, but these cases are infrequent and largely due to our having run out of building material for our already huge fleet (we're talking Allied Forces) of paper airplanes.
We prefer to receive no more than two submissions per writer per year, and generally cannot reply to more than none. The only exception to this is if you happen to write a particularly scathing review of a certain literary professor's new book, as he called our theses "manifest." The real challenge is in finding out who this person is, which should be anything but "manifest." (Please note that ANY submission for consideration that happens to be read and also contains the word manifest will not generously be discarded or used for party favors/model aircraft/interoffice humor. It will be used to hunt you and use your human remains as said items. Do you really want the last word you hear to be "manifest"?)
We do not consider simultaneous submissions or material that has been previously published despite the fact that we frankly aren't considering them anyway.
Please do not send originals. Manuscripts, artwork, and other materials submitted must be accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope penned in light-colored ink for easy coverage and reuse. We are not responsible for the return, loss of, or for damage to unsolicited manuscripts, unsolicited artwork, or self-esteem.
We cannot accept submissions that are sent as attachments, in the text of an e-mail, via regular mail, via fax, or via hand delivery, so please send your work to someone who would potentially open it instead of shredding it and using it (or your body as a result of manifest
wisecracks) as confetti at an annual holiday party.
Submissions may be sent by e-mail to the appropriate department, as indicated below.
Fiction: sharpenupmyrazor@drawmeawarmbath.com
Poetry: evenifyouarethenextshakespeare@noonewilleverknow.net
News: bythetimeanyoneseesthis@guaranteeitisnotnews.com
Nonfiction essays: wefranklycannotfathom@whyyouarestillreadingthis.org
We try to respond to all submissions with prank phone calls and general abuse, but, due to volume, this may take up to eighteen years.
AWAKING IS A SNAP
by Molly O'Donnell
The knock at the parlor door was hushed, but Edna heard right away as she’d been listening for the sound for more than an hour. She floated to the entrance gracefully then spent one or two minutes wrestling with the door. Normally she was quite adept at turning the knob using the strength of her fore- and middle fingers, but Robert had kept her waiting so long she’s imbibed twice her usual port intake for the evening. Now her fingers seemed useless sausages and she yearned desperately for not only the freedom to play the piano as beautifully as Madame Ratignolle, but the thumbs with which to do so. When she finally pried open the door, she was surprised to see Robert looking so downtrodden.
“What’s the matter love? What’s taken you so long?,” she asked out of politeness and not genuine curiosity.
Robert glanced around the room, flitting his eyes to every corner to avoid hers.
“I’ve just been held up by an old friend I happened upon on my way here dear,” he replied without much concern over the obviousness of his lie.
Edna and he sat together a long while spinning dull conversation between them like a pair of old women knitting. All the while Edna knew that he had come to find their affair as dull as she had. The summer before, she had felt sparks of passion welling between them as he clasped her thumbless hands in his own and held them to his chest, which caged his fluttering heart. At least when she was alone with her husband, she wasn’t forced to perform the tiresome ritual of feigning actual sexual attraction.
By the time Robert finally retired for the evening, Edna’s ennui had turned to seething hatred tinged with self-pity. After yet another night of supposedly illicit coitus, she was still miserably unsatisfied in her pursuit of an orgasm. Certainly she deserved to have at least one after bearing so many thankless children and spending years smiling disingenuously at her fat husband and his stuffy friends. It then occurred to her that he didn’t seem the least concerned that she was blatantly having an affair.
As with all of her depressive spells, her anxieties and anger came back to rest on her lack of opposable thumbs. Perhaps Pontillier was relieved his thumbless wife was no longer attempting pathetically to button his cravat and butter his toast. After all, these little gestures weren’t worth the three-plus hours it would sometimes take her to accomplish them. It was true that once when Edna was waving her husband farewell on the threshold of their home, she swore she saw him grimace at her bear-like paw, which she was swinging back and forth wildly in bidding him adieu.
Maybe Robert shared this disgust of Edna’s freakish hands. Thank heavens they had enough servants to prevent her from the tediousness of greeting every passer by that tramped through with their visitation cards. Once when the girl had been ill, Edna’s two fingers had become so sore from answering the door herself that she left it open and sat on the stoop. True it was quite unbecoming for a lady, but no more than sitting in the front parlor helplessly staring out the window at those wanting to enter without the ability to admit them.
On second thought, she should’ve let them rot. Who the hell needs more of those calling cards anyway? What a stupid idea. What are you supposed to do with them once they’ve left? Kindling? Although, if stiff enough and well made, they might make for nice thumbs if she took the time to fashion and sew them carefully. But she was all thumbs and none at the same time when it came to sewing too. At that, Edna glanced maliciously at the cat who at least had dewclaws and then went upstairs to bed.
The next day she awoke assured that the world was wrong for its prejudice against her and her eight elegant fingers. She slipped on her mittens (the flaccid bits of fabric on the interior saddened her slightly), and pressed out the door, pretending not to hear the cries of her children as she left. She was off to Madame Ratignolle’s house for her lesson. Madame had said she was turning out to be the best thumbless piano student she’d ever had. Edna tried not to dwell on the thumbless bit.
On her walk there she stopped to admire the elegant ladies in the park pushing prams and looking adoringly at the babies within.
“If only I could give that much of a shit about my kids,” she thought earnestly.
It suddenly struck her that even though she hated her life, she had no special talents or interests. Suicide was obviously the only option she had left. With that thought in mind she glanced up at a sign in a shop window. It read, “$1 million lottery today only.” Her curiosity was piqued and she sighed, realizing that because she wasn’t employed and didn’t have anything better to do, she should inquire about this lottery. She stepped through the door and nodded politely to the intriguing-looking man behind the counter who was whispering to himself.
She spoke waveringly at first, “Excuse me, I saw your sign, and thought I’d ask if it was a joke. How much is $1 million anyway? Is that more than a thousand?”
“What?” the man responded as if clearing his throat, “Ahem, well, yes, it’s a good deal more than a thousand. In fact, it’s enough to last someone many lifetimes in this period. You see I’m an excessively wealthy time traveler who’s grown weary of the 21st-century America.”
Edna thought that this man was obviously mad then considered that she was a suicidal, thumbless, talentless housewife and decided that she had time to listen a bit even if he was mad. She was most likely more bored than he was mad and was happy there was someone equally bored as she to discuss time travel with, a topic that had recently crossed her mind.
Time travel had occurred to her when she was revisited by thoughts of escape. Would women be as frustrated and unhappy as she was in the future? Would she be just as miserable sitting in a cubicle all day and working out afterward in a lifeless, sterile gym in some urban, post-industrial wasteland? Then she remembered that she didn’t know what a “cubicle” and “working out” were and decided to reengage the time-traveling shopkeeper as he seemed to be staring hard down at her mittens now.
“You know it’s very rude to stare at people’s imperfections in such an impertinent manner sir,” she chastised him.
He blushed and looked away, “I’m very sorry, it’s just that… .”
“It’s just that what?,” she interrupted.
“Nothing…in any case, would you care for a lottery ticket for tonight’s drawing? It’ll be on the house.”
Flustered and wanting to leave, she felt as if she could snap the fool’s head right off his shoulders if she could snap at all.
“Please madam, I’m very sorry I was so rude,” he prompted.
She placed her handbag gingerly on the counter for him to put the ticket in the outer pocket, which he did graciously and promptly behind the counter’s high top. Walking to the door, she became dismayed at the thought that she wouldn’t be able to make it out of the shop because of the doorknob. (She’d merely had to push the door with her arm to get it, but getting out was always more difficult.) When she reached the threshold, she looked down to find that the door had a long bar that was easily pressed to release the latch and free her. Relieved, she marched into the street.
Her lesson with Madame went so well she hummed the tune she nearly was able to play two bars of on the walk home. Gazing into the shops as she passed, she came upon the storefront of the same mad shopkeeper she’d had the very strange interaction with earlier. The sign in the window now read, “Winner drawn.” At this, Edna’s earlier thoughts of suicide returned, but she decided to pop her head in anyhow. That guy was crazy and she didn’t have television, so what the hell?
“Wait,” she said to herself, “what if the man means to harm me and the lottery is just some elaborate ruse, and what the fuck is television anyway?”
She came to the conclusion that she might be mad as well and decided to go inside in any case. Behind the counter the same man was standing staring back at her when she entered.
“You won,” he exclaimed.
At this he rushed from behind the counter and held up his hands in revelation: Two thumbs and no fingers. Edna’s was shocked but intrigued, and he was actually hot now that she was getting a good look at him. She rushed into his arms and a half hour later finally had her first orgasm. In the joy of the afterglow, Ed and she decided that they would return to the future where she might find happiness in a cubicle with her million dollars, provided of course that a cubicle was a futuristic device designed to give women endless hours of orgasms.
Right before she boarded the time machine with Ed, she remembered her darling husband and her doting children’s sweet, plump faces, then thought, “Ah, fuck ’em.”
Brings a tear to my eye. It almost brought a teat to my eye, but that would have been weird.
Posted by: fordprefectajt | February 08, 2008 at 12:52 PM