Arts & Letters

As unimpressive it may be to any employer that his potential employee's resume claims he studied how to write a letter for four years at a university that could have taught him a worthwhile subject like science or math, writing actual letters is a dying art form.

As always, I know what you are about to say. "Jesus, how can you say writing letters is dying? Email is just an electronic version of the traditional postal service. If anything, people are writing more letters."

Wrong. You completely misinterpreted the key ingredient.

LETTERS.

I mean actual letters, as in the LETTER "A": the first LETTER of the alphabet. Ever heard of it? Probably. Remember how to write it in cursive? Probably not. Helvetica? As long as you take your Adobe programs semi-seriously. Times New Roman? Nothing "new" about that. Courier? If you write articles for Barry Brothers you use it every day!

What happened? I remember stank-ass Sister Julie (whose breath reeked of bleach, inspiring rumors as to how she calmed down after a hard days work) making us repeat these flaky-fairy-obsolete-and-continuous forms over and over in our budget-ass workbooks until we were all wanting to drown our "Lady of" sorrows in Clorox. These days, kids don't need to learn cursive and it pisses me off. Practicing an art I would never find useful was an invaluable part of elementary school education.

CRITICAL THINKING

Why the fuck did I get so good at 4-Square? 

But beyond cursive, people don't use the post for casual communication. I was talking to my friend Jee in Seoul. Now her English isn't so good. My Korean is impeccable, I just choose to never use it. Frequently I dominate our arguments, which obviously works in my favor.

1. It wastes paper
2. Letters are more foreign
3. If one of us is late on responding to the other we can blame the various postal services used
4. Sending letters takes up other people's time, making us feel more important
5. You can send things other than letters, like coupons, articles from newspapers, drawings, dried flowers (if you are writing a girl - girls love that shit), locks of hair, dirt from your homeland, pieces of endangered species, photo booth photos, etc.
6. Construction paper
7. It's more intimate. It's like sending an email without a condom on.
8. The postal service takes a lot longer (and women talk too much as it is, I mean, am I right fellas?)

Due to this revelation of mine I've decided to start a Pen Pal network. If you or someone you know would like to participate, please mail a check or money order for $15.00 USD to:

Barry Brothers(TM) Pen Pals c/o John Barry

176 McCaul Street, Unit 1

Toronto, ON M5T 1W4

Canada

Use of cursive is permissable. Please allow 2-4 business weeks for you complimentary congradulatory response letter including the name and mailing address of your new Pen Pal.