from the prehistory of joey thumpe

In the early 1990s I made a hobby out of writing letters to celebrities, politicians and captains of industry. I wrote these letters under the name "Joey Thumpe," for which I assumed the persona of a crackpot. I saved these letters (and the responses I received) in several volumes.

In a conversation at work, I casually mentioned that I had used the pseudonym. A little later I got an email from a colleague with a link to one of my early letters. This was a letter I wrote (as Thumpe) to the Michigan Review in 1998. It's the second letter in the picture at right. I vaguely remember it, though I don't recall why I bothered writing it. Probably just to see how far I could push the envelope. At any rate, this predated the crackpot letters that I would write as Thumpe a few years later. I hadn't yet developed my alter-ego's personality. So I guess this is a bit of the prehistory of Joey Thumpe.

Enjoy.