An Open Letter from the Illustrious Authors of Bowen and Sons Media Enterprises:Dearest Readers,
We at Bowen and Sons are pleased to announce two items of great import and good testament: the end of our annual 3-month hiatus, and the launching of a new and improved, sleeker, more streamlined format to our electronic newsletter. Certainly, upon reading this current “new article,” one will have deduced that a new article has been published within the realms of our mechanized abacus machine, and certainly one couldn’t help but notice the elegant and refined new look of the interior walls of our strange gizmatic typewriter world, but we thought it best to take a moment to answer a few of the questions that our most loyal readers have had on these two subjects.
The first of these announcements- and, clearly, the most important - is especially pleasurable for us to make. As our long-time readers know, it is customary for the men of Bowen and Sons to disappear entirely from the world of business and critical auteurship between the months of October and January. The reason for such a lengthy period of absence is two-fold: First and foremost, there is a question of dignity. Every year, our lord and savior Jesus Christ apparently holds a massive birthday party - so massive, in fact, that all of the department stores in the nation hold sales of merchandise and decorations so that everyone who goes to this party can come stocked to the brim with new clothes and appliances to show off for everybody else at the party to be jealous of - and every year, it seems to us that everyone in the country, with the exception of the Jews, receives an invitation. Everyone, that is, except the men of Bowen and Sons.We have never been invited to this Christ Party, though we hear about it from every peon and whelp we encounter on a daily basis, from the lowest worker orphans working in our Nitroglycerin plants to our company’s very own Vice Chairman Walter Peckell, who is not himself high enough in rank within our empire to be considered “one of us,” but with whom we do most of our communications about how the businesses shall be run. He is a sort of interpreter, translating our wishes and demands from the language of knowledge, wisdom, and voracious hunger for gold that we speak to the guttural language of poverty and moral ambiguity that the rest of our workers understand. But with his dual citizenship, the straddling of the wrought-iron fence between our worlds and theirs, comes a price: he is one of them because he can never be one of us. And so, like the rest, he is welcomed every year into the arms of the grubby, filthy masses, all congregating at a secret location which we have never been able to pinpoint; year after year we would find a clue, hear a rumor, a whisper on the wind, and follow it, only to find we had been fed misinformation and red herrings. Giant trees, covered in lights, in every city in the nation, in every home we snuck into whilst thinking, “this could be the one.” Lies. Treachery. We were duped too many times.
It became too much to bear, one year - Mr. Foulke disappeared entirely, no doubt in the depths of a particularly craven ether binge; Mr. Woudspelle refused to leave his library and violently harmed himself whenever another tried to gain access; and Mr. Rutherford forbade his house staff to sleep indoors lest they disturb the parade of whores and magicians he purchased in an attempt to lighten his mood. And, so, the time came when we were all forced to say, “it will never happen.” The Men of Bowen and Sons do not admit defeat - not for anything but this.
Thus, dear readers, you see why we go into hiding for a period of three months before the year’s end; the very mention of this Christ Party reminds us too greatly of our defeat. The pain is too immense; we hide from the world so that the world will not see our tears.
When the party is over - we estimate that by December 26 of every year the world has returned to its secular status quo - we emerge from our secret bunker beneath the sands of Nevada once more to carry on with our business and pretend we’ve never heard anything about this Christ party, or were too busy to attend.
The second announcement we wish to discuss with our loyal readers, that of the new and improved format for the Electronic Newsletter, has just been made! Huzzah! You can now find detailed biographical information on the Bowen and Sons team- information that has always been there, but was always hidden away behind a vault and a pornographic “jump up” advertisement where none of our readers ever saw it. In addition, the striking and glorious portrait of our Men, though an immense testament to our greatness and dignity, was appearing too often. It is now given reign to lord over the Company Biography, where it shall remain as a constant reminder of masculinity, camaraderie, and cultural purity.
Most Warmly,
T. Archibald Foulke III
J. M. Rutherford
R. Thurmane Woudspelle
Hon. Dr. G. Onyx Brimsby