June 22, 2000
Los Angeles, California

Dear Readers,

Today’s letter is by X, a writer in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where, these days, it just won’t stop raining.

When I first started talking to writers about Open Letters, a couple of months ago, X was one of the first people I called. Okay, she said, she’d write a letter, but to whom?

It was a good question, one I hadn’t really figured out. At first I wanted to have every writer start their letter “To whom it may concern,” but my fellow editors responded to that one with a well-deserved chorus of boos. Still, my assumption was that every letter would be somehow to the world in general, to the Platonic reader; a fully public statement.

And then X sent me her first letter, the one we’re publishing today. And it was addressed to someone specific. And, in fact, once I figured out who the letter was addressed to, it changed everything about the way I read it. For the better.

So X blazed a trail on that one. And I hope and know that other writers will come up with other solutions to the Dear Whom problem, solutions I haven’t yet dreamed of.

One other thing about X’s letter: it’s the first in a series of letters from X to Mike that I hope will continue in our pages for a long long time. Episode two will appear next week.

The first few days of Open Letters have provoked some excellent reactions. You, our readers, have had some good suggestions for changes to the site’s architecture, which we’re going to work on this weekend, including a request for a feedback area, where you can read other readers’ thoughts about the letters, and the site.

In anticipation of the feedback thing, allow me please to share with you one email I got today, about my letter about coincidence from yesterday. It’s by Jonathan Goldstein, a Montreal writer who recently took a trip to Israel in the company of a Jewish Elvis impersonator named Shmelvis. Jonathan writes:

When I was in Israel, I was sitting in the back of the van riding through the desert coming back from the Dead Sea, singing an obnoxiously loud and impassioned version of “Lean on Me” with a couple of the guys, when finally, after a few minutes, the driver up front became so disgusted he turned on the radio to drown us out. And there was the Hebrew DJ introducing the next song and, of course, it was “Lean on Me.”

The guys in the front were so sick of us already that they wouldn’t give us the satisfaction of admitting they had just witnessed a miracle. My friend Evan kept saying to Shmelvis: “You’re religious. Aren’t you freaked out?” But Shmelvis wouldn’t say a thing. We figured he was just jealous that God had reached out to us and not him. Anyway, that used to be the kind of thing that would have made me happy – serendipity – but nowadays it feels like shit is just so random that it’s absolutely scary sometimes – ball-bearings banging around; but just the same we high-fived each other all the way back to Jerusalem.

So we’ll be publishing things like that. You know, signs from God, recipes, whatever. In the meantime, please keep those suggestions coming. And please tell your friends about Open Letters.

And please subscribe. It’s free.

Yours truly,

Paul Tough