An auspicious and encouraging promissory note from Benjamin “Benny” St. Maur

Dear faithful, good-looking readers,

One afternoon, recently, as I was playing croquet in my spacious and well-tended gardens, alone, drunk, in my bathrobe, I realized I hadn’t made a post to the Donnybrook blog in ages. My readers must be so lost, must feel so alone, I thought to myself as I sipped my top-shelf whiskey, without my divine guidance, like a lighthouse beacon, illuminating for suckers what’s hot and hip and happening around Denver.

It was terrible of me to leave you like that without any word of warning. Consider this an apology, and allow me to explain.

I made an important decision, several months ago, just as the whole lot of us were moving into the luxurious, paradisiacal Donnybrook neighborhood. Donnybrook is an ultra exclusive academy, as you know, but it is, in fact—if you aren’t aware—also its own township, a rather exclusive and secret one (yes, we have our own zip code), populated only by myself and my dear friends Angora Holly Polo, Guido Sarducci III, Fritz Godard, and the others—you know the lot. Household names, all. Anyway, as I settled into my new maison, with its illustrious reputation and its many resplendent halls and chambers, I decided it was time I got to work on something serious. It must have been all the marble floors and ornately-carved statuettes; I began feeling quite somber and grimly dedicated. With orders for my staff to hold all calls and turn away all visitors, I set myself to task. I feel it is my duty to bless the world at large with the things I have to say, with my unique style of sparkling, witty, conversational prose. I decided to write some reputable fiction. I’m in the thick of that now. What this means for you is that my general silence is probably going to continue for some months. I imagine the rest of the year will look something like this for yours truly:

Ol’ “Benny” St. Maur, infamous and beloved black sheep of the Donnybrook elite, will spend the next several months on a spectacular bender, locked alone in his Composition Chamber, behind his great mahogany writing tableau, furiously scribbling his next “great, somehow unpublished” American novel, appearing only occasionally in public, staggering down the lane to the Donnybrook Country Club, bedraggled, bearded, eyes bloodshot, quite in need of a haircut, only to slur some vague insult in the direction of the owner of the country club under his foul breath and, when asked to repeat himself, lose his nerve, claim he said nothing, and walk away while downing half a whiskey sour in one shot and silently swearing literary revenge against that bastard: “I’ll write him into the novel and then I’ll kill him—or, better yet, I’ll write him into the novel and then I’ll tarnish his social reputation!” while barely managing to stumble out the door without colliding with the door frame, now mumbling, more loudly, curses to the night, full of new courage thanks to the fresh air and the absence of anyone who can actually hear him, dragging himself back up to St. Maur Manor only to pass out three feet from his bed, wake up with a mouth that tastes of whiskey and shaving cream, thankful only that he doesn’t remember why his mouth tastes like shaving cream, crawl over to his typewriter, stare at the empty pages stacked next to it, and realize he hasn’t in three months of solitude written anything but his supposedly brilliant closing line: “yes I said yes I will Yes,” a line he’d written the night before, a line which he thought was going to be the greatest written line in all of literature.

It’ll be nearly a week before he realizes his error when, during a conversation with Angora, she informs him, “You idiot, that’s the last line from Ulysses!” and a different, darker kind of bender begins.

But fear not, because while I will be quite occupied with my great and important Work for the next few months, I’ll still every now and then have the time and the inclination to provide you with a glimpse into my tortured brilliant mind via the collected Donnybrook musings. I’ve got some wonderful ideas up my sleeve. In the coming months, I’ll

•    share with you the ingenious new way I’ve designed for ultra-critical critics to hella criticize art;
•    show you how we Donnybrookers absorb the massive amounts of knowledge we all possess;
•    tell you what’s worth listening to around Denver;

and, most amazingly, I’ll

•    present you with a full-blown writing lesson, Donnybrook-style,
because I figure, seeing as how we are, technically, a writing academy,
it’s probably about time we impart to you some of our brilliance and
wisdom on the craft.

What I’m trying to tell you is you have plenty of Benny-penned goodness to look forward to for the rest of 2007, and beyond, but you’re going to have to be patient. In the meantime, try to be content with the musings of Ivyy Goldberg and Colonel Bravado and the rest, will you? I know it’s not quite the same, but you’ll have to learn to live with it. You’ve got to.

With love and squalor,

Benjamin “Benny” Burwell St. Maur