Open Letter to Mr. Jules Siegel

[The Great Quail]

Mr. Siegel,

Nice to hear from you again! It's always a pleasure to accommodate your
wishes on Spermatikos Logos, as we have so often before.

This time, you wrote:

> I have to say that you are incredibly snide and unfair when it comes to my
> work. I received a notification to your llink to my Pynchon article. As a
> result, I've permanently removed the page with the notice below. Please
> don't come back with some comment about my inability to understand irony.
> Your comment about "presents" isn't amusing, and it isn't correct. It's just
> a sophomoric and creepy little smear.

I am sorry that a single remark on our Pynchon site has caused you to take
down your memoir. Though you rather remind me of a spoiled child who, upon
not getting his way, snatches up his toys and sulks home, you are of course,
perfectly free to remove your site as you see fit.

For the record, my comment was not intended to be ironic, nor was it a
creepy little smear, nor was it a jibe against your trolling for presents:
it was just a tongue-in-cheek reaction to the nature of the gifts you
expected to receive, both the welcome erotica and the unwelcome
pharmaceuticals. You might find this difficult to believe, Mr. Siegel, but
some of us find it amusing that people read your article and apparently send
you erotic books crammed with drugs. I was merely making a somewhat arch
pointer to this, as is my own right as co-editor of the site.

Believe it or not, Mr. Siegel, despite the fact I find you personally a
self-centered, self-promoting eccentric basking in the glory of another
man's work, I find you amusing in an Oscar-the-Grouch sort of way, and I am
actually sorry that I offended you.

More sorry still am I that I caused you to remove your article, because I
truly believe that Pynchon fans all over the world should be able to read
it. In that light, If you agree to put your page back online, I will retract
my snotty, sophomoric, and creepy remark, and refrain from editorializing on
your Playboy article in future links.

If you choose to hide your light under a petulant bushel, however, I am
afraid I shall have to simply delete the link altogether, banishing
countless Pynchon fans and Kilgore Trout enthusiasts to second-hand
bookstores to search for Playboy magazines from the Seventies. Naturally,
your good name will live on in the widely-read and hotly debated "Lineland,"
but I would still rather point our visitors directly to your informative
article.

Please reconsider, and I shall remove the offending text at once.

Cordially,

--Quail, so-editor of "Spermatikos Logos."