Open Letters

While suck.com has finally been reborn as a limp re-run of its heyday articles (remember 2000!?), McSweeney’s crew has taken the centered-text format to new heights. More than just the ego wash of Dave Eggers and friends, the McSweeney’s Web site has long- and short-format entertainments for the literary minded. The Open Letters page features anthropomorphizing minor monologues in the form of missives written to people or entities who are unlikely to respond. Favorites include: “My Dopplegänger,” “My Ability to Lose Interest in Things Easily,” “The Eight Hour Workday,” and “Manufacturers of Infant Sleepwear.” Sneaking past caustic irony or hokum, these letters surprise with their humor and pointedness.