Dispatches from the Funkstown Clarion Herald Tribune Mirror: 

International Version #3 by Simon Bluespire

My distant cousin Clement Hooker, once a townsperson of Funkstown, Maryland, is currently stationed in a secret location in Finland doing genetic experiments. Once a proud portion of the fourth estate, The Funkstown Mirror has merged with several other newspapers during the last hundred thirteen years, and insists on the old-fashioned process of publishing the news on paper, which leaves Clement without any reliable access to it in a timely fashion. But he has used bitcoins to have it digitized in Odessa, where it is then translated into Ukraine, emailed to a foreign exchange student fluent in Esperanto, who then translates in into Morse Code that is then turned into sick beats in discos in Donghae, South Korea, where an obese deejay who suffers from motion sickness translates it back into English. Before he prints out the results on a dot matrix printer, Clem sends them to me, and I hereby share the results with you…

A TRANSCRIPT OF THE NIXON TAPES THAT WAS NOT ESPECIALLY GERMANE TO THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE, BUT SEEMS OF ODD HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE NONETHELESS (RECENTLY RELEASED DUE TO A FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST BY M. SUNDROP)

APRIL 25, 1971: The President AND H. R. Haldeman, 12:57-1:02 P.M., OVAL OFFICE

PRESIDENT NIXON: Is that sandwich here, Bob?

HALDEMAN: It’s there in front of you.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Not this Goddamn thing. Now what I want you to know, Bob, is that this isn’t the sandwich I am going to eat.

HALDEMAN: Yes.

PRESIDENT NIXON: I mean I am the president of the United States.

HALDEMAN: Sure. The Reuben is gone.

PRESIDENT NIXON: This Rueben atrocity here—am I really expected to put that thing in my mouth? I mean the point here is that I need a sandwich I can trust. I had Buchanan in here, and he was supposed to ask for a ham sandwich. A ham sandwich.

HALDEMAN: I could get Colson to check on that.

PRESIDENT NIXON: If Timahoe was sitting here on the carpet of the Goddamn Oval Office, I wouldn’t feed a Rueben sandwich to him, much less that Reuben sandwich to him. I mean a dog wouldn’t eat that much sauerkraut for Chrissakes.

[Withdrawn item. National Security.]

PRESIDENT NIXON: Look, [jowly munching] I cannot run this high office on an empty stomach. And believe you me, the prosperity of this country—do you think [more jowly munching] that sonfabitch [Ted] Kennedy has these problems, Bob?

HALDEMAN: I think we can [unintelligible].

PRESIDENT NIXON: Good. Get [even more jowly munching] on that. Now get that Rueben outta here. Oh, turn that transistor up. [The Rolling Stones’s “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” is audible. Papers flutter.]

[Sound of jello squishing.]