Hello Daniel Pinkwater,
Many years ago, while it was still fashionable to use reconstituted trees to communicate over long distances, I wrote to you in care of one of your publishers. To my amazement and everlasting joy, I got a response from you after a few weeks. We wrote back and forth several times; I believe it was around the time that personal computers were becoming popular because at one point you sent a dot-matrix representation of a potato–precious! You also casually threw out the observation that God might be a toothbrush. I wish I had given that possibility more serious consideration; it might have kept me from falling in with the wrong crowd. Somehow I heard otherwise and took the hook. Since then I have continued to toil away in obscurity while you have become a big-shot, household-name, international megastar. We all enjoyed your live concert from Hawaii and, to a lesser extent, your radio addresses on that underground Socialist radio network. Recently I was at the bookstore with my 6-year-old daughter, a precocious reader and general whiz kid like I and her mother were at that age. We picked up a copy of _Lizard Music_, read it to each other over several bedtimes, and I am happy to say its magic works on the latest generation of nerds. Thanks for being there for me when I was a little outsider. I never would have worn that banana around my neck to middle school without your encouragement. My daughter, Sophie, would really think I was cool if you sent her a picture of a potato. I assume you have upgraded your potato rendering software.
Your old pal,
Steve
Thanks for the account of a life marred by early exposure to cheap literature. I regret that contractual considerations make it impossible for me to send your daughter a representation of a potato directly--however you may be in touch with webmaster and art-dealer Ed on this topic.
