Comrade X was recently asked by a fellow Comrade to submit one of his posts to the "Shouts and Murmurs" section of the The New Yorker. Not surprisingly, it was rejected, as that bourgey rag doesn't appreciate revolutionary humor IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. However, they did send me the rules for submission to that section of the magazine:
How to Submit to Shouts and Murmurs
Please submit humorous articles if:
1. You are Steve Martin or a friend of Steve Martin (and have a Certificate of Authenticity to prove so) or know someone who knows Steve Martin or have a letter of introduction from Steve Martin.
2. You are David Sedaris or a friend of David Sedaris or have a letter of introduction from David Sedaris or can write self-indulgent inoffensive slightly humorous putatively autobiographical pabulum about your life of privilege and the things you have done or would like to have done in it.
3. You can reference current affairs that will not offend anyone and are not connected to any controversy of any note among groups of people who do not read our magazine and can put these references in contexts derivative of David Sedaris or Steve Martin.
4. You write things which will slightly amuse but not inflame the deadened passions and affected insouciance of our geographically and socioeconomically targeted readership.
5. You mention rich people no one but us has ever heard of and put them in popular culture contexts. Bonus points for writing yet another article that uses Twitter as a format.
Please DO NOT submit if:
1. You are someone we have never heard of.
2. You are poor.
3. You do not envy us our positions.
4. You are actually funny.
5. You are relevant.
Criteria for accepting submissions:
1. You make us smirk so hard our monocles fall off.
2. You make us feel condescendingly superior to everyone else in the world.
3. You get us laid by the secretaries by providing us with something that makes THEM smirk so hard they fall off their Ferragamos.
4. You include a very substantial check with your submission.
5. You inflate our egos to the bursting point.
Failure to follow these steps will result in a very quickly-submitted and highly condescending email rejection that is designed to make you want to never submit again. Good luck!
