Monday, April 16, 2007

An Open Letter to the Creator and Proprietor of "Perfect Blue Buildings," Containing Grievances Regarding Website Function and Content

Dear Sir:

We have been observing the goings on of your webpage for various lengths of time, though overall one could safely describe our surveillance as "for years." While there have been times that your content could have been referred to as "enjoyable" and "thought-provoking," recent months have not proven to be so enlightening.

The erratic nature of the website's most recent content behooves us to speak up, for the sake of those unwilling or unable to confront you on this subject.

Sir, we have reached the end of our patience, and are hereby demanding redress for the following issues:

1) Posting Irregularity. In the past, you could consistently be counted upon for at least two to three posts per business day. While we acknowledge the limitations of your current living situation vis a vis weekend posting, we had understood the workday verbosity to be an intentional compensation for that lack. However, in recent months, you have hardly been able to meet such undemanding standards. Some weeks, you barely post at all--one or two posts, mostly rambling and often merely cribbed from other sites. Then you typically post three or four times in a single day, igniting hope that you are returning to form, before once again slipping back into your now-typical slovenly, haphazard schedule. Take a lesson from your local newspaper, sir: regular writing produces regular readers. You have no doubt noticed that your once-boasted "readership" has withered away to a few scant repeat viewers. This is no accident, nor a coincidence. If you can't be counted upon to post multiple times every day, rain or shine, no matter what "work" you have scheduled, then you can no more expect your readers (who have equally busy, if not busier, lives) to check it as often.

2) Content Unpredictability. In the past, your website could be fairly well-depended-upon for containing the same types of posts: pop culture commentary, mixed with a fair helping of "confessional"-style posts that peeled back the layers and revealed your deep-seated emotional issues. While the content of these style choices may not have seemed to some to be the most enlightening, it was still comforting to rely upon your writing as a source of personal encouragement, albeit by comparison of one's emotional state to your own. However, it seems that lately you are unable to decide what format and style you most prefer. You bound back and forth willy-nilly among ludicrous fluff posts, scathing political commentary and partisan baiting, heavily-veiled personal comments, random linking, droning religous sermonating, and near-constant self-reflection. Day to day, it's hard to predict where the greased football of your literary whims will bounce. Where are the symbolically-obvious poems? The long and meandering screeds about being dateless? The deliciously self-loathing posts about how no one understands you? If we can't count on you to deliver for us the content we had come to expect, before being so recently disappointed, then we shall look for our entertainment elsewhere.

3) Feature Disappearance. Perhaps one of the most frustrating things of all is your lack of commitment to the "new features" introduced on your website. Whither "the PBB Cool Ten"? Why have you abandoned "Brown-Bag Poetry"? After two and a half entries, has "Shuffleblog" fallen to the wayside? Are you ever going to post pictures again? What about "Friday Fiction"? Are we to assume we'll never see another "Bible Redux"? (Our associate Gerard is especially despondent over this.) Will Louis Fielder never write a book or take full and undisputed possession of Taylor House? You have let us down, sir. Furthermore, you've left us in the lurch, teasing us with stories and poems and never coming through. I can only assume that your provocative "future post" title from last week will never be realized. While some features have been thankfully left behind (such as the regrettable and dreary "PBB Dead Letter Office") and others are so utterly tiresome in their smug self-satisfaction (like your many fake holidays and awards shows) that once a year is TOO often, the loss of these other items has left us disillusioned and vaguely annoyed. (Much as we are over the cancellation of "The Black Donnellys" and "October Road"--as I'm sure you can relate.) [Editor's Note: Quite.]

And now, beyond all this, we have noticed a recent trend of unsubstantiated authorial hubris. The self-referential quality of your website has been steadily increasing, and has reached such a point that we feel we can no longer keep silent.

Sir, we request--nay, we demand--that you desist from your current course of internet posting, and return to a more staid, predictable, and consumer-friendly format. We would venture to guarantee that your website traffic would resume, your comment boxes would remain full, and your ego will be sufficiently stroked.

Do not take this lightly, sir; for we do not take it so.

Most urgently and sincerely,

The Undersigned.

[Editor's Note: The names of the Complaintants have been redacted to protect their identities.]

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