{"id":418,"date":"2015-09-15T16:22:28","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T16:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/?p=418"},"modified":"2016-12-03T02:26:13","modified_gmt":"2016-12-03T07:26:13","slug":"death-blobs-of-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/?p=418","title":{"rendered":"Death Blobs of the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

When this self-employment thing isn’t going so well, I will be able to tell myself I’ve been getting rejections for a very<\/em> long time. Or passive non-response rejections, anyway. [ETA: they did reply, and kindly, even if it was indeed a rejection. See next post<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

The below is a 1986 letter from my esteemed father to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (which still exists<\/a>, who knew?). You can click to embiggen, but for ease, I’ll retype:
\n\"20150915_114519-picsay\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dear Sirs:<\/p>\n

While it probably is not unusual that my wife and I are regular readers of your Mystery Magazine, I think it probably is<\/span> a bit unusual that my eight year old daughter is a regular reader, too (although I have to say that she generally goes after your shorter stories rather than the longer ones).<\/p>\n

Alden is in the fourth grade at Orchard School in South Burlington, and was fascinated by your “Mystery Photography” contest this month. I know that this story wouldn’t win in an open competition, but I wanted to send it to you in case you even write to individuals who submit entries. Alden worked on this for quite a while, and, partial as I am, I think this is quite interesting in a rather weird way. Her spelling leaves a bit to be desired — although unfortunately I have to note that some of my freshmen students spell not much better than she — so I have typed a “cleaned up” version of her story which is enclosed.<\/p>\n

I hope you’ll be able to acknowledge her entry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hey, Dad, major party foul on the “dear sirs.” Did you know Hitchcock’s wife Alma Reville was one of his primary scriptwriters<\/a>, his former boss, and a total badass? I’m sure it wasn’t 50\/50 (because I’m sure it still isn’t), but there could<\/em> have been a chick on that staff in 1986.<\/p>\n

That said, here is the photograph of the month:<\/p>\n

\"20150915_114526-1-1\"<\/a>Death Blobs<\/h1>\n

I lived in Massachusetts, quite peacefully. I had four children, all dearly loved and my husband was dead.<\/p>\n

One night my eldest daughter woke me up saying, “Mother, 4 blobs are outside!”<\/p>\n

“Of course,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”<\/p>\n

Next night I heard my husband calling me. I went outside, equipped with gun, silently.<\/p>\n

Indeed, there were the blobs, all four.<\/p>\n

“Who are you?” I asked them. None spoke, but were silently approaching.<\/p>\n

I shot once, twice, thrice, four times. Each blob opened. Out stepped my four precious children. Each with a deep wound on their left breast. Humming: “Ne’er believe us, ne’er retrieve us.”<\/p>\n

And now, sitting in my jail cell, I still hum…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When this self-employment thing isn’t going so well, I will be able to tell myself I’ve been getting rejections for a very long time. Or passive non-response rejections, anyway. [ETA: they did reply, and kindly, even if it was indeed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-to-the-past"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6y0gZ-6K","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}