San Francisco, California
September 12, 2000

Dear Readers,

Today’s letter is by Stephen Osborne, a scooter enthusiast from Vancouver, British Columbia, and the editor ofGeist, “the Canadian Magazine of Arts and Culture.” Later this month, Geist (to which you should really subscribe, even if you are not a Canadian; even if you despise arts and culture), will be celebrating its tenth anniversary by publishing a special issue that will include a reprint of Ian Brown’s open letter about quitting writing, as well as a great deal more of Geist’s usual blend of provocative writing and photography that tells the truth about life, art, and Canada.

Stephen is the author of an excellentbook of essays on Canada, entitled Ice and Fire: Dispatches from the New World. He also contributed the opening letter to the last batch of Canadian Letters that were published in Saturday Night, back in March; it concerned cowboys and car thieves. It’s a pleasure to be publishing Stephen’s work again.

In other news: the weirdest thing happened on Sunday night. Unbeknownst to me, and unbeknownst to each other, two Open Letters contributors in two different countries each gave public readings of their open letters, in bars. It was like Live Aid, but unplanned, and not televised, and with Canada standing in for Britain: Craig Taylor read hisEminem letter at the Idler Pub in Toronto, while simultaneously Amy Sohn read her open letter about long-distance love (which we will publish here tomorrow) at KGB Bar, in New York City. Audiences in both nations were reportedly blown away.

We’ve never organized an Open Letters reading, or event of any kind, really, though Sarah Vowell did read from herletter in Los Angeles over the summer, in front of a throng who had gathered at the public library to hear her.

But back in early July, I received a generous email from a reader named Rich, who pledged, “If you are ever doing a reading in Pittsburgh and want someone to throw you a nice, small cocktail party, you could ask me.” At the time, I considered it an outside shot that I would ever be able to take Rich up on his kind offer, since we had (and have) yet to publish a single letter from the Pittsburgh area – but now I’m thinking that perhaps Sunday’s eerie convergence is a sign; a sign that all of us should descend on Pittsburgh, in say mid-October, stage some sort of massive public read-in on the banks of the Monongahela led by Amy and Craig and Sarah, and then repair to Rich’s house for mixed drinks. I’ll write him and see what he says; begin renting vans.

Yours truly,

Paul Tough