IN THE MAGAZINE

VICE MAIL

Letters - The Writing-Cute-Things-On-The-Spine-Of-This-Magazine-Every-Issue-Is-Starting-To-Feel-Like-A-Lame-Gimmick Issue

ON NOT GETTING IT AT ALL
Dear Vice,

The Porn Rangers are the biggest fuckwits ever. How can they be serious? Sure enough it’s a good cause, but they’re using fully illegal, morally wrong shock therapy to make people stop taking part in the natural process of masturbation. Sure, some pornography is degrading and awful, but they’re not even rallying against that! This is just as bad as child molestation by priests in the church. The sickest fucking thing I’ve read in a long time. Ninety percent of pornography isn’t as twisted as this. Sort out your misconstrued values, you idiots.

ANONYMOUS
Via Viceland.com

While we like the idea of having “misconstrued” values, which literally means that our values are being misunderstood—which is true, they are, by you, right now—we are still going to need you to wipe the crust out of your eyes and look at the cover of that particular issue of the magazine. See where it says “Fiction” in huge letters there? That means “made-up stories,” you fucking anonymously posting turd.


VOICE OF THE GODS
Dear Vice,

I am in love with Jon Benjamin! I love him, I love him, I love him! I want to sing it from the mountains! His thing about the Porn Rangers was both a larf and a hoot, but really for me it’s all about his voice. His silky voice crackles with wisdom and humor and, somehow, kindness. The cadence, the timbre—glorious. I can always sense his voice immediately, like in Family Guy when he plays the convenience-store guy who always talks about movies. I love how he pronounces “Krull.” Anyway, I wanted to thank you for having him read the Heinrich von Kleist story on your website. I listened to the whole thing on headphones so he was right up inside my noodle and I just about jizzed myself with laughter… and longing.

Sincerely,

JULIE BENDHEIM
New York, NY

He is a comedic Thor and rumor has it he is working on a new pilot for Vice’s online-video-network thingy. Or actually, rumor doesn’t have it. We have it. It’s true. He is.


BLOOM GLOOM
Dear Vice,

Things I like about Harold Bloom:

1) He’s so damn merrily pretentious and calls everybody “my dear.”
2) He just wants to be Falstaff SO DAMN BADLY!
3) He’s wonderfully melodramatic.
4) He JUST called Sarah Palin dangerous. JUST NOW. It’s great.

Things I dislike about Harold Bloom:

1) He commits the same sins he condemns everyone else for, including James Wood, who is equally as readable and equally as vapid as he is.
2) He’s a talking point for morons who dislike other critics/theorists (yes, Bloom is a theorist—the “anxiety of influence” is heavily influenced by Freud) simply because they don’t actually understand those critics.
3) I hate people who do the exact opposite and immediately respond to Harold Bloom by throwing around literary-critical terms they don’t understand to delineate where they stand on the whole theory debate.
4) I hate followers of Harold Bloom like this one. If you’d gone to a real school, they wouldn’t have let you be a “poetry major,” let alone not have a core curriculum in literary history.

Basically, Harold Bloom is harmless, and bad readers of Harold Bloom are annoying as shit, “my dears.”

By the way, everyone should go out and read Paul de Man and actually understand him, then come back and rant some more about “resentment” or whatever when they have an idea of what respectable criticism looks like.

L2XE
Via Viceland.com

Ah, see, whining about the things you whined about here but then recommending Paul de Man immediately negates everything you said because it’s all just the same shit wearing a different shitty coat. Deconstruction? Metalinguistics? That’s EXACTLY the kind of tired, masturbatory bullshit we were railing against in the Bloom interview. Man, you must be torture to talk to at parties.

Also, if you had actually read the Bloom interview with your brain turned on, you would have noticed that the interviewer fully copped to not having gone to a great school, and that it sucked not going to a great school. That was the whole point. In the future, please try to keep up.

PS: You’re right, though, about Bloom being pretentious and melodramatic, and those are two of the many reasons we still love him.


POLICY OF WTF
Hello!

I have a question and I hope you can help me with it. In some record stores you can find plastic (or whatever kind of material it is) figurines of bands. I’m looking for Depeche Mode figurines but have not been lucky in my search so far—even though I know they exist. Do you have any advice as to where I could find them? It would be really awesome if you could help me with my search.

Thanks a lot in advance,

NICOLE BELLER
Berlin, Germany

I’m so baffled by this that I have absolutely no comeback for it. You’re weird.


BANGKOK 101
Dear Vice,

In about three weeks I’ll be heading to Thailand on vacation. Apart from the fixed destinations of Bangkok and this Full Moon Party in Ko Pha Ngan I’m planning to attend, I also want to travel around without much of a schedule, just checking out things on my own. However, I don’t want to throw myself into this experience completely unprepared, so I’d like to know if there’s a “Vice Guide to Thailand” available.

I’m sure you would know where to find the bloodiest cockfights and that kind of stuff. Or if it’s possible to get in some really dirty partying? Like, where can I find some underground locations? And do I still have to fear the sketchy Thai prisons and getting sentenced to death if I take drugs over there?

These are a couple of questions roaming in my head before heading into the unknown. It would be really nice of you if you could provide me with this info.

Yours,

LISA
Via email

With any city, the key to “making memories” is to get almost blind-drunk and then go to the area where all the hookers, drugs, homeless people, and dilapidated bars are. It isn’t much of a mystery. Anything else you need to know—like where to eat and what museum to go to if you like that kind of stuff—you can get from any stupid guidebook at Borders.

Comments

Anonymous, on Feb 21, 2009 wrote: OH NO!!! hipsterrunoff.com was hacked by a guy who likes linkin park!! This is very important news, vice!! report on it!! you’ve already posted one of thier articles on your blog(the one about alt jobs), you should care!!
	lazy eyez killa, on Feb 17, 2009 wrote: lawl? really? i’m tired of lol, but lawl? oh yeah, and pwn can go too as far as i’m concerned. you must be a n00b.
Anonymous, on Feb 17, 2009 wrote: Lawl at first letter!
	tokiohostel, on Feb 15, 2009 wrote: what happened to the winning comment feature, is we really that ignorant, vice?
Anonymous, on Feb 13, 2009 wrote: don’t they have google in germany?
Anonymous, on Feb 13, 2009 wrote: if you thought the porn rangers was real i have some property you might be interested in buying.
Anonymous, on Feb 12, 2009 wrote: Lol, wow, that was the best reaming I’ve ever gotten. But you don’t know the half of it. I once got drunk at a party and yelled at some poor kid about Heidegger while I vomited into a trash can. So good. -L2xE
Anonymous, on Feb 12, 2009 wrote: "fondle my sweaters" is still one of my favorite one-liners. thanks, JB.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: the cadence? really? the two chord progression in his voice? fuck you from five to one.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: what are you talking about? the fiction issue? it was probably the best issue in a minute. unless you’re one of those fools that doesn’t like reading.
	tokiohostel, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: worst issue ever part 2
	enstigator, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: are there really "followers" of harold bloom? sure, he’s a fun asshole to listen to rant, but you make it sound like he’s got a fan club with a monthly newsletter updating people on his canon list.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: Obviously, Benjamin’s best role to date was the can of peas in Wet Hot American Summer.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: Lisa, when your in Thailand will you look for Depeche Mode figurines for Nicole?... those Asians are way more advanced than us. they might have ’em
	lazy eyez killa, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: i don’t know about this james wood (singular) guy, but i keep seeing his name and thinking of videodrome and for that i’d like to thank you.
	aahhhhB, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: Lisa, when you come back from your "dirty partying" in Thailand make sure to get tested for HIV (well really all STD’s), hepatitis..and ESPECIALLY neurofibromatosis... I heard that the elephant man picked that up in Thailand too.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: don’t take in any drugs and double-check that the hookers don’t have a penis. other than that, go nuts.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: Julie, I don’t have quite the same timbre, but I do have a backless chair, which I believe Mr. Benjamin does not. Want to hang out, watch Family Guy, and I don’t know, shoot bottle rockets at pigeons? Hit me up. Jesse
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: "2) He’s a talking point for morons who dislike other critics/theorists (yes, Bloom is a theorist—the “anxiety of influence” is heavily influenced by Freud) simply because they don’t actually understand those critics." wait, so you just made yourself a moron.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: "plastic (or whatever kind of material it is) figurines of bands" you’re right, its not plastic. they’re made from unicorn tears and magical wizard shits. thats why they’re so rare. Good luck in your search though.
	duck duck goose, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: okay, i’ll admit it, the porn rangers thing had me fooled for a minute or two, but if you made it through that entire thing and still thought it was real you should question your sanity.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: LX2E probably accounts for a third of the Bloom views on his YouTube interviews.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: Julia Bendheim has read too many Danielle Steel novels. Someone needs to stop her.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: The "legendary voiceover artist" thing was by far the funniest thing in the last issue. Or the online version anyway.
Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote: " the area where all the hookers, drugs, homeless people, and dilapidated bars are" in other words, if you’re in thailand, the possibilities are fucking endless