Queens Gazette
This is a letter I've had sitting on my desk for quite some time. It's been there as a thing to send to Frank but I'll just type it here. Strangely the Queens Gazette website has a different version of the letter. Did they actually bother to edit it? Or did the author have 2 versions. I think the printed version is better.
Dear Editor:
Last week at my local supermarket, I ordered a half pound of Virginia ham on sale at the deli department. While the deli counter person cut my meat, I went to the bakery area to get a roll for the sandwich I was going to take to work for lunch the next day. I had already bought a half pound of macaroni salad to go along with my sandwich. Ok-I guess you can say I'm a big eater.
Anyway, when I got home, unwrapped the ham, and saw the way the deli person had carved my meat, I was nearly in a state of shock! It was cut ultra thin. Each slice was thinner than a sheet of one ply toilet paper. I picked up a slice of ham, barely able to grasp it. The ham was nearly translucent. I had to look at it twice to see it once. I didn't know if I was supposed to eat it or take a cross section and view it under a microscope.
I like a big thick slab of ham, or any cut of meat, something I can sink my teeth and crowns into. Well, the next time I order cold cuts, I will make sure to tell the deli person to cut me really thick slices. In fact, I will do it right now. I forgot to order the half pound of low sodium Swiss cheese to put on the other half of my sandwich!!!
Sincerely,
Mark Lane
Little Neck
Labels: deli meat
posted by Paul at
10:46 AM
8 Comments:
Thin meat??? That would shock the shit out of me too. I bet Mark Lane would like to sink his crowns into that deli counter person. Bastard.
you'll read anything, won't you?
Imagine the kind of letter you'd get from him if he needed toilet paper and you only gave him a sheet of one ply (the kind you have to look at it twice to see it once)
Also: thank heavens Mark's cutting down on salt
Dear Mark Lane,
Take eight or sixteen, or however many it takes, of the ultrathin slices, stack them together, and voila! a big thick slab of ham.
Sincerely,
Editor
Maybe it's just because it's New York City, but this has a whiff of conceptual art to it. (Also, the phrase "take a cross section and view it under the microscope" to me implies college-level biology training). Right now at a gallery in Astoria there may be a framed copy of this letter, positioned above a thinly-sliced ham sandwich in a terrarium, being slowly consumed by insect larvae.
Frank is right. I would like him to re-write the letter as a proper Little Neck working class sandwich-eater might have written. (no cross-sections)
No cross-sections, a less sprightly tone, and poorer sentence structure.
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