in the nows

kristin prevallet, aka citizen kay, now has a blog:
http://kayletters.blogspot.com/

"I've been writing a lot of letters to the government lately. But, since
the government is busy, I keep on getting form letters (or no letters)
in return. So, I decided to set up this blog to chronicle my letters
and, hopefully, use it as an incentive to write even more letters. I'm
just trying to stay informed, and to voice my opinions to the
powers-that-be, rather than to just my friends, who are all on my side
anyway."--citizen kay

kristin prevallet's a fascinating experimeteur, and i's wondering if she'll apply her instinct for experiment to this form she's exploring now--yes indeedie, i's'll be enter fested to see where she goes with this new project.

thanks for your commitment and hope citizen kay!

the form letter-cum-bureaucratic void into which these observations, analyses and dreams of a better world so vehemently throw themselves recall, of course, the letters to the president on the mcsweeney's site:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/letters/president/

ok, i's a big 'ho for a laugh, so i particularly loves the letters to the prez. i does enjoy the diction shifts and 'inappropriate' subject matter often introduced--i's always game for a quick real in the "ha!".

but the digressions in the "letters to the prez" not only create surprise (that ol' juicy bit of bait/literary device), they satirize the form. when a citizen rambles off into personal material, for e.g., our awareness of the breach reveals our expectation that the official lives at such a remove from his (in most cases) citizenry that he has little concern for the citizen's lived experience but rather concern for votes and said votes's correspondence to positions on abstract policy. such satire as that of the "letters to the president" can help develop awareness in the reader and thereby be an effective agent in the work toward political change.

plus, it's fun. and we might as well have our fun while we may. now that the electronic voting machines have been instituted things may get frighteningly him. in the words off one our great poets: "dork dork we all vote unto the dork."

ah ha hurrah, and that's it in the nows for tonight.