September 1st, 2006

Salvete, dear readers,

The eve of autumn brings more than mere cold nights for those of you currently residing below ground. In fact, the glorious sapphire month of September has graciously bestowed you cretins with another issue of Roderick Popplestone’s Arbitrary Collection.

Voilà, I give you Roderick Popplestone’s Absolute Shortcuts to Rudimentary Pastry.

This time around, my brilliant staff and I have tackled texts by some of the most prolific writers on the globe. In addition to novellas and poems in English, Swedish and French, as was the case with our first issue, a poem in German has now also been included. However, I would very much like to see my staff wrestle with works written in a foreign tongue, i.e. hesitate not to send us prose and poetry in Danish, Italian and Norwegian as well.

Also, should you be literate enough to read this, and be a person of such good taste as to recognise Roderick Popplestone’s Arbitrary Collection as the miracle of human achievement and intellectual determination that it clearly is, then please follow in young Mathias’ footsteps (see archives) and send us your letters of appreciation.

To get you started, might I recommend that you compliment me, and my staff of course, on our literary diversity, for in this new issue you can read everything from texts pertaining to the modern fad that is “film” to the usual assortment of love stories and adolescent hoopla.

And remember: Gambling is good for you; smoking is sexy; and your eventual and unavoidable personal bankruptcy will only help further the national economy, and thus do nothing but good for this fine magazine.

Yours superiorly,

Roderick Popplestone