Written Correspondences from Good Natured Gentlemen Who Have Read Our Previous Installments and Wish to Comment on Some Aspects Thereof

To the Editors of Axes & Alleys:

Answers.com says Edward Lawrence Doctorow is a 74 year old American novelist best known “for his skillful blending of fiction and fact into reconstructions of eras in American history.” His famous book Ragtime was once made into a Broadway play. His latest, Borden (Movable Type Press, Bestoria, 2005) was inspired by the editors of this magazine. Eddie the Geez to his friends, E.L. circles the Sun once every 365 days and loves marbles.

It’s true. I really love the pieces used to play marbles game! Right now I have a really neat collection of four marbles. It’s bigger than any other collection I’ve ever seen. To be honest, I’ve never seen another marbles collection.

This is because nearly every magazine out there devoted in some way to marbles is about marble’s game. House rules, different playing surfaces, how to make an opponent’s marbles split in half with simple telekinesis…there’s just nothing for me: the guy with a marbles collection!

The few magazines which do talk about marbles collecting and not marbles game are black and white on easily ripped and burned paper. I heard many of these publications lose a lot of copies because they often spontaneously catch fire on the way to their distribution points!

But still, not one of them is a glossy marbles collecting magazine featuring full-color photos of various marbles and scantily clad models with new kinds of marbles, marbles accessories or advertising marbling conventions, marbles cozies and marbles statuary.

I once did a very accurate survey of marbles collectors. I found out that most of them are male and in their late 40s or early 50s. They also live in the mid-West U.S. and the central
provinces of Canada. The Randalson Survey of 1997 also found out that most mid-West U.S. and Canadian males in their late 40s and early 50s prefer glossy, full-color magazines. The solution is pretty obvious, right?

The marbles collecting community should rise up and overthrow the federal republics of Canada and the United States. This is the only way in which our needs will ever be addressed. If that solution does not seem as obvious to you as it does to me, take some time to think. See! Beyond bloody revolution there aren’t any other ways to get a glossy marbles collecting magazine printed.

Only by girding ourselves with big weapons, storming Ottawa and Washington, putting blade to the throat of the miserable non-marblers and taking the reins of power ourselves can we produce and distribute a highly-targeted trade publication with moderate advertising rates, attractive content and great layout.

When I did my accurate survey of marbles collectors, I also did a survey of magazines. Not a single magazine has been produced without an orgiastic and violent revolt of the reading and collecting class. Time, Newsweek, Harper’s Bazaar, Go Icecream!, People, Astounding, Tashkent Week in Review, W, National Geographic, The People’s China Monthly, Cake or Death, Billboard, Philatelic Jargon, and Foreign Affairs: Nude Edition were all started as a direct result of revolt. It is blood, always blood that oils the machines of publication.

I’ve dared plenty of people who disagree with my conclusions to come up with a factually-based alternative. They can’t! You can see I’ve based my conclusion on facts and when that happens there’s no way to argue with it.

So, if you don’t believe there’s a need for a glossy marbles collecting magazine and a violent confrontation to get it, you better stay out of our way when it’s time. If you’re with us, you better get an accurate watch because when the revolution comes, you’ll be late and you’ll shot as a traitor.

I remain, as always, your humble servant,

E.L. Doctorow
Gambia

Ed. Note – Axes & Alleys was indeed founded after the Revolution of 1902.