In January of this year, as this humble journal was approaching its first anniversary, our pioneering colleagues at Haypenny announced that the time had come to close its imaginary doors forever. Y.P.R. was shocked and saddened by this news, and knew immediately there was only one thing for us to do: call it quits, A.S.A.P. So, following in Haypenny's size-15 footsteps, on January 21st, 2004, this stupid Web site shut down forever. For a day.
whatfore (dot org) parodied what was, at the time, the hotttest thing spreading across the wires: the goofy patois of everybody's favorite gossipmonger, Uncle Grambo, proprietor of, obvs, whatevs (dot org). Huzzah!
February, the runty month, was devoted to Writers on Writing: tales of rejection and revision, lessons in how to write well, letters to and from editors, and poets on poetry. Some highlights to begin:
When April rains came, and this awkward journal was fumbling through puperty—expanding in content, reach, and proofreding—a new design was needed to accomodate our lanky limbs. We retired the durable but boring layout for what turned out to be a slick-looking lemon that caused readers using Netscape or Mozilla browsers to see only jumbled gobbledygook.
Luckily, Jon Armstrong, the writer and Web designer, came to the rescue. He cleaned up our faulty code and gave us a paint job. The current layout you see before you now crashes Mozilla only.
The very merry month of May saw the launch of The Hunter Becomes the Hunted, a series of interviews with interviewers about the art of the interview. Interviewees included:
Also in May, Y.P.R. posted the complete text of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It's pretty good so far.
I like New York in June
, how about you?
Y.P.R. enjoyed the month quite a bit, because our formerly salacious and illegal thoughts about Mary-Kate and Ashley turned into salacious and legal thoughts about M-K & A.
Come September, as the political climate was approaching its boiling point, the Y.P.R. editors collaborated with Dennis DiClaudio of (parenthetical note) and Matthew Tobey of The City of Floating Blogs on a new Web site called The Starboard View, providing an outlet for conservative thought on the liberal blogosphere. Unfortunately, like the dreams of the reality-based community, it did not last.
Carrying on, September also saw the dèbut of The Y.P.R. Book Club—the only book club for which absolutely no reading is required. Y.P.R. readers participated by submitting parodies, deleted chapters, adaptations, and reviews of an assortment of topical books including:
October and Y.P.R. geared up for the big showdown with truckloads of election-related material. It was fun, those days full of rosy optimism and unbridled hope. Sigh.
November spawned a monster by way of a mandate from the people. Y.P.R. did not handle this well. We dimly remember making rash suggestions on the morning after.
And in December, we pretty much took the whole month off. Y.P.R.: we try sometimes.
Selected Tips from Emily Post's Etiquette for Ukrainian Dinner Parties
Finally, we'd like to thank all of our good-looking contributors, and tip our hats to those who, no matter how many times we said no, kept submitting.