The LetterMan Welcome
Dear Fellow,
I guess it isn’t out of place to say “Happy New Year” at this time of the year. Or is it?
I am delighted to resume writing to you again. It was a long break, indeed. I had to take a break for the whole of January. And, it was worth it. I feel better prepared to write through the year than in the first week of January. Oh, it is good to make out time to refresh again.
What’s New?
I guess you must have noticed the change. Talking about the title of this publication. Speaking your mind, right? Now The LetterMan Despatches? What happened to RANDOM DESPATCHES? Alright, alright . . . you are just on the suitable ground of speculation. In fact, that is the primary reason we must commence this year with “The LetterMan Welcome”.
For a while, I have had to reason through a publication that allowed for a personalised experience. RANDOM DESPATCHES currently has the connotation of a publishing enterprise—which is fitting, because it currently has four literary pieces bearing its colophon. (You can check them out here: RANDOM DESPATCHES Store.) Writing under that header was quite limiting, given the impression you all had about it. So, a more personalised experience called for a new name, a new publication.
History Behind the Name
I think it was JEMMA, a friend who runs the podcast The Voice JEMMA, who first called me the Letter Man. It was merely a joke. Just a casual outburst. Somehow, the name spread among folks on Facebook. I can’t really explain the diffusion, but it was really quick. The name dragged on from early last year to this time around.
Ending last year, a book was published, curating “secret” letters written by the former president of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. The book is entitled The Letter Man: Inside the ‘Secret’ Letters of the Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjoa. However, the word Letterman, according to the Google Dictionary, refers to ‘a student who has been awarded an emblemb, in the shape of the initial letter of their school or university’s name, for achievement in sport.’
Preference for originality will not allow me to go on using the name, given all of these other uses of the title. Quickly, I contacted my friend Captain Feyic, who gives the title more life than anyone else yet. Almost without serious thought, she replied, “Ah . . . that one is their concern. All I know is yours is LetterMan!” Did you notice what she did there? She explained the reason behind her rendition: both words “letter” and “man” are now joined together. Not just that both words now start with capitalised letters—LetterMan. Her explanation is that this is more a noun than the other renditions of the term or title.
What Now?
Yes, I am now your LetterMan. You can safely call me The LetterMan. And I am committed to living up to what connotation this very rendition of the name offers—I will write you more personalised letters in this space than all other previous attempts. Every narrative essay or book review—the primary content you will get from this space—will come to you in the form of letters written by me to you. I think this is the easiest form of self-expression that I know yet. (Letter writing is a hack to practising writing. On days, I feel overwhelmed or unmotivated to write, but have to write, I end up writing letters to a fictional character, a friend, or begin with “Dear Friend and Father” which is referring to Jesus. You should try writing more letters to sharpen your writing.)
I am committed to ensuring you have a more personalised experience in this space going forward. This means you mustn’t hold back your suggestions and opinions as we journey into the year. To a large extent, I will be guided by your responses. (There are 1,322 fellows—and still counting—receiving updates from this end.) I really need you, to accomplish the vision this new name came with. I hope you will be supportive too.
The Close
You can feel the excitement and energy in this welcome, I guess. I do not know what lies ahead in this journey, but I know and trust in the One who is the fountain of all beauty, creativity, and wonder—Jesus, the Son of God. J. R. R. Tolkien will say that, through all of our artistic endeavours, we are but mirrors reflecting hues of a single, great, white beam of light which is God. In other words, we are “sub-creators” as God is the “Creator”d.
On this note, I call on you to anticipate more beautiful stories told through the updates from here. Anticipate beauty and wonder. I still believe there is wonder and beauty in a world suffering a decline in reason and ordere.
See you next week, by God.
Your LetterMan,
Tongjal, W. N.
aThe book which curates the “secret” letters of the former president of Nigeria was authored by Musikilu Mojeed. It was launched on the 2nd of December last year.
bYou must have seen these baseball jackets bearing a big H or big whatever letter. The big letters are the initials of the varsity team on which the owner of the jack is a teammate.
cCaptain Feyi is my personal preference for Feyisayomi. She bears the name Captain Selvolution, though. She is your guaranteed personal coach; one who sees coaching more as discipleship than anything else. Check her out on Facebook: Captain Selvolution.
dI found this idea from a biography on the literary community The Inklings, written by Humphrey Carpenter. The author wrote of Tolkien’s lectures on Fairy-Stories: ‘ . . . [Tolkien taught that] in writing stories man is not a creator but a sub-creator who may hope to reflect something of the eternal light of God.’ The actual idea is rendered more extensively in this poem Tolkien wrote to Lewis, an excerpt from the biography by Carpenter The Inklings:
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
With Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons – ’twas our right
(used or misused), That right has not decayed:
we make still by the law in which we’re made.
eA friend shared this quote from G. K. Chesterton last week; I think is fitting for this conversation on the decline in reason, order and wonder in our world: “The world will never lack for wonders. Only for a lack of wonder.”
Weldone wungaka