1
Thank you for the offer of a burrito. My assistants have communicated your offering, and I have given it a lot of thought, and examined memories of previous burritos, which I was fond of, and were of the chicken and beef variety.
I think I would enjoy meeting you and meeting this burrito and shoving it in my mouth. The bond that develops between a political refugee and a burrito is significant. But I must speak directly.
I believe this burrito to be a potentially delicious burrito, but I do not believe that this burrito will sit well in my stomach. I hope you do not take this as an unkindness. It is, rather, a statement of fact. It is for this reason I must regretfully turn down your offer of treating me to lunch at Chipotle.
—Julian Assange
2
I believe you are well intentioned, but surely you can see it is a bad idea for me to get off of this elliptical machine even though I have been on it for more than the allotted thirty minutes.
Consider the consequences of me leaving this machine. My paunch will grow at a rate faster than the greed of your corrupt government. My abs, no longer rock hard, will permit my lily-white stomach to pillow over the waistband of my bluejeans. It is most toxic and I cannot allow it.
I must question the choices and motives behind your desire: the opportunism to weaken a body that has grown strong; the desire to climb hill after hill on a fat-burn setting; the wish to listen to Lady Gaga remixes while softly peddling a machine that is neither bike nor stair.
Equinox is an extremely wealthy organization, with ties to powerful interests in the U.S. government, and a most excellent 7 P.M. Wednesday spin class that pumps me up so I feel like a living god, an albino Sun Ra.
But I cannot heed your claims that I have been on this machine for too long. There is work to be done, and, in the interest of truth, lean muscles, and a tight little butt, I must push forth.
—Julian Assange
3
I cannot accept this T-shirt that has been shot out of a cannon into the stands of a basketball game.
I believe this is a quality shirt, a hundred per cent cotton, the fabric of our lives.
I believe that this shirt would not naturally wish to harm good people who are trying to enjoy the Harlem Globetrotters.
In other circumstances, I may have accepted this shirt, but since it has been shot in my general direction against my will I cannot accept its having landed in my lap. Especially when the woman next to me was waving her arms and screaming like a horrible banshee.
T-shirt guns are the most powerful and insidious shapers of enthusiasm at exhibition basketball games. I merely wish to watch these players complete trick-filled layups and enjoy their good-natured alley-ooping while downing a super-salty pretzel dog.
You are being used as a hired gun to propel cotton projectiles out of cannons not meant to injure but to gift people with apparel. Not because you want to, of course you don’t: I imagine the wages are negligible, the level of enthusiasm you must muster unfathomable, and the synchronized clapping, if I may be frank, disgusts me. You do it because, in the end, you are a jobbing T-shirt gun wielder.
It is contrary to my interests, and I thank you for the offer of this XXXL T-shirt, but I must, with inexpressible regret, turn it down. I will give it to this woman next to me, who has more or less already torn it out of my hands.
—Julian Assange
Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty
