You Have No New Messages

When I worked at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in the mid-1980s, one of my duties (i.e. chores) was to do an initial weeding of incoming mail. Sometimes I was also sent out to hand-deliver promo copies of new books. When something really interesting came in, it was usually passed around before being sent up to the bigger fish. One day we got a letter from Walker Percy, a big writer at the time, in praise of Kaye Gibbons' not-yet-then-published Ellen Foster. This letter helped launch her public sphere writing arc by calling attention to what turned out to be her debut novel.

Two things: one, more than one person may be checking in official mail (keep that in mind, all you writers out there, always be nice to the "little folks" at the bottom of  the hierarchy) and secondly, I'm rereading Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book (1983), which is what triggered the memory. I made a photocopy of the letter and still have it, but can't reproduce it here because of copyright restrictions. But I can provide a fair use sample of Walker Percy's wicked little Lost in the Cosmos:

Why is it that the Self -- though it Professes to be Loving, Caring, to Prefer Peace to War, Concord to Discord, Life to Death; to Wish Other Selves Well, not Ill -- in fact Secretly Relishes War and Rumors of War, News of Plane Crashes, Assassinations, Mass Murders, Obituaries, to say nothing of Local news about Acquaintances Dropping Dead in the Street, Gossip about Neighbors Getting in Fights or being Detected in Sexual Scandals, Embezzlements, and Other Disgraces[?] (p. 57).

I don't know, but I think Hans Christian Blech may have had an existential inkling about life situations, judging from his look in the photo above (playing Major Werner Pluskat, 352nd Infantry Division in The Longest Day, 1962).  He's on the phone, but all it seems to say is: You have no new messages. Or maybe it's, Sorry, wrong number. Or perhaps more likely, Sorry, help is not on the way. You're on your own. Good luck to you!  

Today's Rune: Joy.