Deep within the woods of Quebec, as the humans prepare for sugaring season, tamping buckets onto trees and buying out all the puffer vests in Burlington Coat Factory, an unadorned hut with no windows or electricity shelters a mammalian creature with thick fur. He sits at a desk made of Canadian birch, handmade and solid, and he scrawls impatiently on sheets of legal stationery. Sweat drips from his bushy brow. His pen—a freebie from Saskatchewan Motor Lodge—is running out of ink.
Dear Hype Machine (Can I call you Hype Machine? I do not care because I literally shit in the woods),
This year has been a prodigious one for you. The long-lead-time promotional cycles, the efforts to get us to buy records and concert tickets for groups that are so uninspiring and stale that their only shine comes from you, with your many tentacles of publicists, marketers, social media managers, and interns with Instagram. First it was Daft Punk, whom I can't even see because I am a bear and bears' irises cannot biologically identify robots. Then it was Savages, who kept telling me to shut up, no speak up, no shut up, no speak up! I cannot do either because I am a bear and the only sound I can make is, like, “mAwhrrrrr.” And could you have your people tell Justin Timberlake that Men's Bearhouse doesn't make tuxedos in my size? Thanks.
But the worst thing you have created this year is wind-up for The Arcade Fire's upcoming new record, Reflektor. It seems pointless to ask—like trying to use sycamore bark on post-hibernation dingleberries—but does anyone actually like this band? Why the mysterious sidewalk scribbles? Why the invocations to numerology? Why the giant papier mâché heads? I have only ever heard one song by The Arcade Fire. It was called “Salmon Cakes”. Oh, no wait, that is what I ate yesterday. I've never heard a song by The Arcade Fire, but I can guarantee that salmon cakes are more palatable.
Win Butler is nine feet tall. If you had any sense, you would have known that the best way to drum up promotion for The Arcade Fire's upcoming album would be to have Butler enter a duel with a bear. I am a bear. I am asking to duel Win Butler, gentlemen's rules apply.
It's time for the Taste Makers to get a taste of their own taste (I want to eat you).
You can contact me at Bear Hut, Quebec, Canada. I eagerly await your response.
Yours truly,
Todd (a bear)
