For decades The Stuyvesant Bee has been a password known only to the LITERARY ELITE, whispered at CIA-sponsored cocktail parties, discussed in zoom meetings hosted by Paris Review interns, loudly recited at salons & saloons around the reading world.
Created by literary genius, swimming enthusiast, & raconteur Mike Topp, of New York City, The Stuyvesant Bee has been appearing in notable email inboxes for years. Enya is an enthusiastic devotee. Donald Rumsfeld used to call him “Mr. Funny Papers.” As famous novelist Valley Glamorous once said: “If you don’t read The Stuyvesant Bee, then you ain’t shit but shit in a shit box.”
Thus it is our greatest honor that Mike Topp has agreed to allow X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine to reprint The Stuyvesant Bee, in full, one issue at a time, which we will be doing every Sunday.
Mike Topp agreed to answer several questions about The Stuyvesant Bee, which are printed below. We thank Mr. Topp for his time. Mike Topp truly is, to use the common phrase so famously associated with him, “The Bigfoot of Cool.”
-chris dankland
When did you start making The Stuyvesant Bee?
I STARTED MAKING IT IN 2007
How did you distribute The Stuyvesant Bee?
I JUST EMAILED PEOPLE ON MY CONTACT LIST!
What, if any, are the great newsletters of our time?
THE INSPIRATION FOR THE STUYVESANT BEE IS I. F. Stone’s Weekly, a newsletter on US and world politics written and published by I. F. Stone. I LIKED THE IDEA THAT ONE PERSON COULD WRITE AND PUBLISH A NEWSLETTER. ALSO ERIK SATIE’S NEWSLETTER–THE FIRST ISSUE OF HIS NEWSLETTER WAS NUMBER 62, SO THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE STUYVESANT BEE WAS ALSO NUMBER 62.
How do you feel about bees? Smash or pass?
I DECLINE TO ANSWER SUCH A LOADED QUESTION.
