Dear Magellan,
Pangram: A sentence containing all the letters of the alphabet; especially, such a sentence in which each letter is used only once.

Although "Waltz, bud nymph, for quick jigs vex" is shorter, the pangram "Six quite crazy kings vowed to abolish my pitiful jousts" makes more sense.

To get the full history of how pangrams came to be a useful typesetting tool, visit The Pangram Page
[http://www.fpipes.freeserve.co.uk/pangram.html ].

Lipogram: A text of any length that leaves out all words containing a particular letter of the alphabet, especially the letter e in English.

Or, to put that distinctly in a lipogram: A composition, long or short, that omits any word containing a particular linguistic symbol, such as that fifth symbol of our 26 of which typical Anglo-Saxon vocabulary consists. (Ouch.)

A Loquacious Location of Lipograms:  [http://phrontistery.50megs.com/lipogram.html ]
explains, without ever using the forbidden fifth letter, the history and social implications of writing lipograms. Or find out about Translation and the Lipogram [ http://www.columbia.edu/~jdc9/lipogram.html ] from a linguistic expert, er, virtuoso who has composed a lipogram of W.B. Yeats's poem "Sailing to Byzantium."
David Cerruti

Dear Magellan,
my GOD in HEAVEN. your articles crack me up. your writing style is unique & fun... i hang on every word. i still can't get over it. you're hilarious. i'm going to go read more...
drew
[Name withheld by request.]

This is a very interesting bit of opinions,- but a bit liberally biased. Guns certainly kill people, but they also save lives.How many citizens who have saved their lives with a gun been given airtime on the contrived,-left-wing news media? None, but if an accident or homicide with a gun takes place, it will be EVERYWHERE. Our media & schools talk about white racism, prejudice, -----white, white, white, white....... but virulent racism clearly exists in the African American, American Indian, & other minority communities as well. It should not be given a pass because it comes from another ethnic group other than caucasians,------ racism of ANY KIND IS WRONG.Thus, it should be condemmed equally. Racism is not just a white evil, any fair-minded individual cannot denounce racism of one kind, & all but exclude hateful prejudice coming from other ethnic groups, be it black, hispanic, American Indian, it makes in difference.You cannot combat racism with racist tactics, & many minorities have been told its OK to hate white people for injustices of long ago.How this fits into the liberal agenda of peace among everyone I have no clue, but a fool could see how counterproductive it is, there is good & bad among every race, so why repeatedly focus on the wrongs of only one race?
Sincerely,
Nick Gilbert

Ed. Note: Indeed, indeed, indeed, Mr. Gilbert. Your point is well-made and well-taken. Racism is not just an American problem or a liberal problem or a conservative problem or a Western problem, but a fool could also remember that the language has a word for a big guy who beats up on a small guy. Which is why there are no rich satirists in the world.

Dear Magellan,
I just listened to your interpretation of 4'33" by John Cage [Best Midi's: Sonata for Unplayed Piano]. It wasn't the best I've heard, but it was far from the worst.

I just wanted to point out that the piece in actuality is not for unplayed piano at all. Cage made quite clear that it can be played (yes, played) on any instrument.

As not all people enjoy piano sonatas and classical music I've made a punk version of the song available as an MP3. The main difference to the original performance is that it is played on drums and electric guitars (using rather bad overdrivem amps) in a much faster tempo.

In case you prefer fast rock to piano sonatas and wants to listen to that version, the link is: http://www.truls.org/Jonas/musik/AAahAAA-4m33s.mp3
Regards
Jonas
Jonas Eckerman

Dear Magellan,
Just a quick thank-you for showing again and again that BEAUTY is possible on the Internet. Your continuing features that mix graphics and midi's (and sometimes words) are a delight. I know that you purposely keep your code simple so that low-bandwidth readers around the world can enjoy the entire publication, and I'm repeatedly amazed at the esthetic you can achieve even with such a self-imposed limitation.
                                                                    RTP
                                                                    Dundee, Scotland

Dear Magellan,
You refer to the two staff members whom you assigned the task of reading Alice Munro for the first time [Yea & Nea, Magellan's Log 51] as "literate." I believe you chose the wrong adjective. "Illiterate" would be more accurate. Or maybe: "ill literate." I've never read such a mish-mash of gobbledy-gook parading as serious literary criticism. I read the thing twice and still don't have any idea what they were walking about. Is this some kind of joke? Why do you subject one of the present masters of English fiction to this kind of treatment? I read every issue of The New Yorker from cover to cover, but it is a special, special week when one of Munro's stories appears with its wondrous spell of sub-arctic magic. Shame, shame, shame on you.
                                                                    M.J. Carlton
                                                                    Seattle

Dear Magellan,
I am deeply offended by your crass juxtaposition [Stirring of Empire, Magellan's Log 51] of the sacred words of "The Lost Chord" and the brave words of our president in this time of war, peril, pestilence, and destruction. I've put up with other of your sophomoric attacks on President Bush but enough's enough. I'm going to take my clicks elsewhere.
                                                                    True-blue in Atlanta

Dear Magellan,
Magellan's Log [Magellan's Log 29: Misothamnisty] wrote:
8. How often have you fantasized Dubya and Katherine Harris in flagrante delicto?
    a. Once, and then I vomited.
    b. A few times, but each time I burst out laughing.
    c. Frequently, and I have to admit I really get off to the idea.
    d. Constantly.

The premise is invalid. K. Harris gets jiggy with Jeb, not Dub. Dub does the nasty with that very-badly-dressed spokesladyperson whose name I can't for the life of me remember. And Barbara (senior) concupisces with Dick Cheney, big time, but only when Dick is not at an unidentified secure location with Tom Ridge. You don't want to know who Ari Fleischer does it with.
                                                 Your humble (and enron) servant,
                                                 Bexar T. Permian

Ed. Note: What proof do you have that Ms. Harris, as you so quaintly put it, "gets jiggy" with Jeb? We were writing about innocent FANTASY and here you are making harsh, harsh REALITY claims. And not only do you forget the name of the ever-svelte Karen Hughes; you now cast doubt on her morals. As for you statements re Vice (as Maureen Dowd refers to him) and the Queen Mother, you have certainly exceeded the capacious bounds of American Ruling Class Good Taste. Apparently you've been hearing the same hard-to-believe stories about Ari Boy that we've been hearing (except according to our sources it's less a matter of "who" and more a matter of "what").

The cardinal sounds like a Deist.  God is very far away for him, and in his theology, the Big G isn't a control freak. Obviously, killing 3000 people is a bad thing that certain people chose to do. Forget that they did it in the name of Allah and for the martyr's reward.  Any Catholic knows the bad guys are roasting in hell, and the souls of all those good people killed are resting in the bosom of Abraham. Any atheist knows those religious zealots will never have a reckoning other than their own deaths. Maddening, isn't it, that "truth" is relative?

Killing six million is another thing some people chose to do. But the Christian God's hands are clean, to the cardinal's way of thinking. People do bad things. The suffering that ensues allows some people to rise to selfless heroism, some even to spiritual heroism. In his mind, that is the good that comes of any disaster, whether man-made or a so-called act of God.

That is the way of thinking for those who, like George W. Bush, divide the world into good and evil, them and us, me and you, body and soul, ad infinitum.

As I said above, not that it matters much.
                                                              Chester Rosson

Ed Note: It is always dangerous to apply logic to a system of "thinking" which is at bottom wholly illogical (which is why it is absurd to give Nobel Prizes to economists). Now we are to praise this laissez-faire deity for his perfected Republicanness? I think not.

Dear Magellan,
I am a college student doing a speech on magazines, and why they should be rated just as movies are rated, (G, PG-13, R, etc.), and that age group not applicable should not be able to buy the particular magazine from the newsstand. How do you feel about this?
                                                                    Tammy Dudley
                                                                    CSU Fresno, CA

Ed. Note: Sex is not the problem. Even violence is not the problem. The problem is stupidity. If you are suggesting that magazines should be rated according to the stupidity of the writers, then we're all for it. We would also recommend that each magazine carry a second rating as well, one which would indicate the approximate I.Q. of the average reader.