Took a walk to the bodega. Everyone talking about The Letter. Sandwich guy wonders how it'll play in November. Guy selling masks says the absence of BHL was notable "and, for me personally, a red flag."

Cop cuffing homeless guy stops to chat: "Doesn't The Letter foreground malleable abstract principles before material struggle?" I nod sagely. Homeless man, squirming in his cuffs, says, "And what do we make of the Friends of Jeffrey who signed it?" Yes. The wisdom of the street.

Stoop kid says he's got no AC, can he have a buck for a cold soda. I ask about The Letter. He says, "why is a basic profession of belief in free speech and the exchange of ideas so controversial?" I ask him if he wants to join my Kapital reading group but he runs off.

The heat makes me need an iced coffee. I ask the barista if "The Letter is a shared pseudo-event, a collective willing toward meaning in a time of narrative fragmentation." "I can't really hear you through your mask," she says. Exactly. She gets it.

Uber driver says his brother in Yemen was thrown in prison for protesting a US drone strike. "That blows dude, but what about The Letter?"
"I hope it'll convince the Saudis to stop double tapping my family's funerals." Me too, I say, before giving him two stars for poor convo.

I wake from a nap in which The Letter followed me down a hallway, reciting its signatories. 91 year old cousin is on the phone. She says her doorman is asking about a letter. "No, no -- it's The Letter," I tell her. "Whatever. What does it say?" "You're better off not knowing."

Knock at the door. I ask the UPS guy if he knows about The Letter. "I only do packages," he says. "No, the Harper's thing." "Oh that! Of course! Persuasion subscriber since day zero right here." We fist bump, free speech warriors, and I wave as he skips back to his truck.

"So what's this letter stuff all about? You literary or something?" asks the tattoo artist inking David Frum's words on my thigh. "It's The Letter." "Yeah, why this letter?" "The Letter." "But--" "The Letter."

David Frum thigh tattoo still bleeding, I'm standing outside Yglesias' DC townhouse, calling to him through a bullhorn. "Why won't you sign my copy of The Letter, Matty? What did Ezra say?!"

I walk toward the White House, stopping at one of the new security walls. An unidentifiable federal officer demands I turn around. "I just want to deliver The Letter to the President." He shoots me. But I clutch The Letter to my chest, knowing free speech is the universal salve.