Our Policy on Letters to the Editor,
and other business

Our policy on letters to the editor is not unique. We welcome them. A letter must, however, meet at least one of the following criteria to be considered for publication:

- it is good
- it has been written on the back of a Jersey City Postcard (see exhibit A)
- it is so creatively punctuated we are struck dumb with awe

exhibit A

In addition, you must personally meet the following criteria: you actually exist and are using your given name, even if it was given in error.

Letters of complaint are assumed to be typos and will be eaten by a large dog. If the letter is regurgitated it may be reconsidered.

Readers contemplating legal action are reminded that slander is spoken, libel is written. Truth is a defense of libel, and satire and parody are considered a form of expression protected under the Bill of Rights, and saleable. Nevertheless, for publicity value, we will not discourage you. Contact our lawyer for details. Serious inquiries only, please.

A Random Light Reading
LR is published by Communipaw Communications, Inc., 490 Communipaw Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey. This is Volume One, Number One, but we prefer to call it the 'Wavy Lines Issue'. There is no date on the cover because we feel the humor found within LR does not require such context. We intend LR to issue quarterly from our offices.

We had our accountant take a look at the figures for a monthly ("That's every 30 days," she said), compare them with a quarterly ("That would be every 90 days," she concluded), and make a recommendation. She suggested we seriously consider a septennial ("Every seven years; it'll go fast, you'll see") based on our resources as she understood them, but she's obviously new to the publishing biz; readers lose interest after the first few years. Our officers decided to go with a quarterly because such a schedule affords the pure luxury of being able to completely rewrite a given issue three or four times instead of just once or twice.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, one of our favorite laws, is commonly interpreted in the courts to mean that everything tends to chaos. This isn't especially true in publishing, which generally tends to blandness (The Law of Conglomeration), but it serves as a handy axiom as regards LR's finances and operations.

Advertising Redux
It wasn't David Ogilvy who said "Advertising is for boobs," a statement subject to myriad interpretations, it was us, naked and independent. We like the look of a good ad as much as the next warm body, but we made a decision rather late in our brainstorming ("Why wasn't I given a memo about this?!" asked our accountant) not to go through the contortions necessary to keep Munificent Beings happy. Frankly, we're not very attractive to advertisers anyway, and as Groucho Marx said, probably before he died, "I wouldn't want to belong to a club that would want to paddle me hard if I said something they didn't like."

Remember: the next time you hear somebody yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, it's probably an ad man who wants results but doesn't care how he gets them.

Style
LR's copyediting department approaches grammar and style on an instinctive level, though we do occasionally consult the Chicago Manual of Style in hindsight. The liberties we took with their exacting formula for ellipses alone would probably get us shot, were they to be running the whole show. But we're nobody's slave.

Well, almost.

N.J.S.A. 54:32B-1
New Jersey mail-order brides: our lawyer feels that Light Reading does not favorably conform to the New Jersey Division of Taxation's criteria for determining the taxability of periodicals, because although we're comfortable living with the idea of LR as a quarterly -- the minimum periodicity for such a royal pardon -- we're unwilling to commit. This is a technicality, but then so is the state of New Jersey, which is fond of its revenue nonetheless. Needless to say we have the relevant authority to collect sales tax, but would prefer if you wouldn't refer to us as a middleman.

Postcards
Communipaw Communications also publishes postcards. In 1993 we introduced a series featuring Jersey City. There are several unsold sets extant. Should you wish to purchase these unsold extant sets, you may do so. Should you wish to purchase several thousand sets, you may do this as well. Cards cost $.50 ea. Write for a list. Caveat emptor: they are good for missives, not letters. [Note: Our stock of Jersey City Postcards was later sold to the Jersey City Public Library. Some of them are apparently still available, here.]

Editorial Responsibility
Opinions in LR are those of LR and its underwriter, which is wholly responsible for its content. This, is LR.

Many thanks to Ron Coulter for agreeing to volunteer for our editorial anomaly search and destroy mission. We have added him to our auxiliary dictionary, which is largely a ceremonial honor.

 

Light Reading is printed on recycled paper using ink made from the blood of endangered species. Printing kills.