Much obliged to you for hanging on as the days rolled into weeks and still this issue did not appear, in the wake of the fire-bombing of our offices by haters who have all been rolled up now except for one who is a foreign diplomat. (.(.

Please visit this issue's special Mogulog for an informational message from Bill's wife Martha and a few pictures & notes from Bill's friends and colleagues.
—WC Smith

Dinjee Benjee,
What one sees is the custom medium, jpt electronic papyrus, released internally from our digital graphics labs. Seems it was purposed to some end the Attorney General or Postmaster General or General So-and-So found appalling, but no one here can remember what that might have been. Hmm. Certain other crucial items we have forgotten as well since the installation of that damn electronic papyrus. Still, it is our job to be more concerned with what manifests in type upon these pages. If the background is dark or otherwise obtrusive on anyone's system, PLEASE let us know. —ed.

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Dear editors,
Fortescue "Kid Spats" Deepelum stands in shadows and cannot be identified by your photograph (In the Beginning was the Word. . .).  Would this be because the author is NOT in fact Fortescue "Kid Spats" Deepelum, but instead the noted jazz authority/writer/academic/jpt boss William Schafer?  "In the Beginning. . ." is a superb and welcome essay on early jazz, its fuzzy perception by the social establishment, and the origins of the term jazz/jas.  Agreed, the impact of "Tiger Rag" by  Original Dixieland Jazz Band cannot be overstated.  Mr. Deep Elum rightly points out that everyone—Armstrong, Beiderbecke etc.—learned from it and made it his own.  Duke Ellington indeed repackaged and recycled and reincorporated the hit a number of times and otherwise imbibed of its abundant inspiration. —Dr. Know 

The Kid insisted on a snazzy but anonymous image, as he does not want to be recognized in his current locale.  The reason is not our business.  —jonni edits

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To jpt Letters Dept.,
Mike’s poem "Mindfully Revolving" did the trick for me.  “Best beware of the bad and uproot them with haste, lest your green grass be suppressed by encroaching weeds wanting space.”  I can tell you this from personal experience, because it happened right outside my window.  So I learned to draw the shade, which is an alternative to the uprooting suggested by Mike.  Still, the guy knows what he’s talking about. Seems to have some experience with habits.    —Another Mike.  P.S. I sell fan belts and hoses.

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Dear editor,
A question concerning white hole cosmology, asked by “a phrenic quick-draw artist, an intellectual hit man,” [The Primal Scream and the Falling of Snow, Frosty Mug Lecture 6] received a fair enough answer in passing, but I was more intrigued by the aside thrown in by Professor Loose, and promise of a lecture explaining how “knowledge accelerates us to the speed of light.”  Does this mean I feel as if I’m slowing down because I’m knowing less as I go along?    —C.G.

Precisely.  (We suppose.)  // Keep the fingers crossed for that lecture.  Think there’ll be controversy? —ed.

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Sirs,
In the Issue 13 letters, one Feters wondered whether a set of murder stories in Issue 12  “bodes a swing to the dark side in jpt. . .”   Your reply was  characteristically enigmatic.  Feters might take clues (indicating both yea and nay) from the contents of that very Issue 13.  Leading off we have Dell’s “Mourning Blues” (true to your homepage caption “The smell of death is roses”), heavy-hearted but superbly written.  But next we have a wonderfully documented jaunt through Kentucky’s abandoned blast furnaces (though these reflections too carry the sense of a passing away); an expert’s thesis on jazz “In The Beginning…” (also raising spirits of the bygone, but swingin’, jazzy spirits); more pepperoni  from W.C. Smith’s zany Book of Wine & Seizures masterpizza; an ale-assisted lecture looking scientifically at the Genesis account of Creation; silly ads; Mike’s illustrated poem exploring habits; Fondlegod’s officious Admonishments; and the usual horseplay of “jpt brass” in Mogulog.  On the grimmer side, some old war poetry.  The whole considered, I don’t sense any ominous trends in the mix—the formula remains mysterial as ever.              —Skill Position

Perhaps not, Position, but have a look at this issue’s lead.  There’s greater irony in play here—or foreshadowing? —than casual perusal will suggest.   —ed.

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Dear Journal,
I realize that "This Futurist Offendeth Our Vanity" is allegorical, obviously fantastic, but it is pushing too far to have a lone magistrate vanquish an armed multitude (in a basement, no less).  Is there not a leave-off point at which a scribe must not ask his audience for further suspension of disbelief?  Mind you, I’m in for the distance, personally.  I’m simply fretting for Wine & Seizures lightweights who might break and run.  —Hootie

Samson took the jaw of an ass and with it slew a nation.  In “Futurist,” Amagog might have been packing big heat we’re not privy to.  Or his breath—recall early in the chronicle, when he was nearly knocked out by his own breath, tainted of cottards & munk?  Picture the poor bastards who were utterly unprepared for it.  Of course, all we’re really told is “so capabol was the magistrate Amagog in battle. . .:  It’s the way these things go down.    —ed

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Dear jpt,
Your correspondence in the Mogulog, Issue 13, spurred my interest in Poe.  I had never thought of him in terms other than as an alcoholic writer of a few poems and horror fictions to haunt school children.  He was also a literary critic and is credited with creating detective fiction. Thanks for opening a door for me to our literature and one of its more famous but not necessarily well-known players.  —DM

Old Poe was into all sorts of things in his short, tragic life.  Which helped make for a short, tragic life.         ——— —ed. 
P.S.  He was an exacting editor, a hair-splitter, opinionated in the philosophies and fine issues of writing, to a point beyond zeal.  Yet some fault has been found with his own writing. Naturally. // Why hasn’t there been a Johnny Depp movie?

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