From: Barrett Brown [mailto: barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 11:54 AM
To: websubmissions@mcsweeneys.net
Subject: Re: Submission: A Different Kind of Company

Done and done (also changed a couple of words here and there); let me know if this works:

A Different Kind of Company

Heathridge Partners can assist your small- to mid-size business in the development of a comprehensive marketing strategy. We take a dynamic approach to advertising that sets us apart from our more conventional competitors; in doing so, we provide exceptional value to our clients. Before we move on to the next step, though, we'd like you to tell you a little bit about what we're all about.

Although we're a fairly large, full-service agency with copywriters, alchemists, and HTML coders on staff, we take pains to cultivate a responsive atmosphere in which the client is always the first concern, and in which the concerns of the client always come first. In fact, this would be our company motto if our company motto were not already an ancient Greek phrase known only to our administrative staff and senior copywriters.

We get a lot of questions about our name. No, there's no "Mr. Heathridge" here. Ha, ha! In fact, our name is taken from a rural English grove, the pre-Anglicized moniker of which has been lost to the mists of history. There it was, at Heathridge, that the trees shaded the undergrowth; there it was, at Heathridge, that the stream fed the trees in turn; there it was, at Heathridge, that the tribal priests first effected to cajole the earth into the yielding of its bounty by offering the blood of virgins fair; there it was, thus, at Heathridge, that man began his quest to control nature by means of magick. We draw on this lesson as we draw on all lessons, for it is only through the acquisition of knowledge that one may further the acquisition of power, and it is only the acquisition of power that the knowledgeable man seeks. This is known as the First Circular Maxim.

Because we consider the success of our client to be our ultimate aim, we take an unusually proactive approach to providing the client with the most effective possible marketing collateral. If a client is unsatisfied with a first draft, we'll happily provide a revision. And if a client is unsatisfied with the revision, we will seize control of the client's firm by force in order that we might better provide the firm with what we, as marketing professionals, know to be effective marketing collateral. And though you as the CEO will be executed as matter of precaution, your children will be provided for in a manner adequate to their social station.

Imagine a kitten sleeping amid a bed of flowers. Now imagine a hooded figure approaching from the east. He picks up a felled branch, examines it for flaws, and then – having been duly satisfied with its quality - hoists the branch above his head and brings it crashing down on the kitten, which awakens in horror and pain. The hooded figure strikes a second time, leaving the kitten mauled beyond repair, and then turns and walks back towards the east from which he came, leaving the kitten to die frightened and alone. Does this image disturb you? If so, you have only yourself to blame, for you conjured it of your own volition. Or, rather, you did not – it was we, through the use of magick, who compelled you to conjure it. That is the Lesson of the Hooded Figure From the East. Incidentally, the kitten was not a kitten; it was the cost barriers inherent to traditional buyer-to-buyer marketing, whereas the hooded figure was actually Heathridge Partners and the felled branch was dynamic thinking. That is the Second Lesson of the Hooded Figure From the East, and the fact that this allegory, like most things, provides more than one lesson is itself The Third Lesson of the Hooded Figure From the East. To wit: you, the client, see only the surface. Heathridge Partners sees what is underneath. That is the Fifth Lesson of the Hooded Figure From the East, and the Sixth Lesson of the Hooded Figure From the East is that there are three additional lessons that will never be revealed to you, the profane.

We do not recognize the authority of the United States government.

Heathridge Partners is only a "marketing agency" in the sense that any "entity" can be said to be a marketing agency. In fact, we are a marketing agency in less than that sense, as there are indeed entities in existence which primarily concern themselves with the marketing of products and services, whereas we are concerned chiefly with the nature of certain prime numbers and their relationship to humanity, while we are only concerned with humanity to the extent that humanity can be said to relate to certain other prime numbers. And whereas most "marketing agencies" derive most of their income from marketing, we are funded largely through arms deals and inheritances passed down from long-dead Balkan royalty.

It would be faulty to believe that the plasticity of the world around us constitutes an indication that the forces of magick are no longer in play, or even that they were never real to begin with. It is the conundrum of the cynic to believe that the existence of hamburger wrappers and television commercials somehow rule out the simultaneous existence of forces more profound, and of the great Actors who wield them. Does the cynic believe that hamburger wrappers and television commercials possess the power to define the world in which we dwell, and to auger the nature of same? If so, it is he who himself believes in magick, and without evidence at that, while we believe in magick only because we have successfully used it to revive Julian the Apostate, whom we revere as we would a master and love as we would a father.

We "provide" "free" "estimates."

Now that you know what Heathridge can do for your company, why not give us a call? The answer, of course, is that we do not have a "telephone." But we do have an iPhone, the absurdity of which appeals to us very much.