The time Mick Jagger wrote M.C. Escher and received a response

June 17, 2022 7:01 AM

Read the letter and response – or listen to Benedict Cumberbatch and Sanjeev Bhaskar perform them, playing Jagger and Escher respectively. That closing, though.
posted by gestalt saloon (31 comments total)

Epic way to end a letter.
posted by Snowflake at 7:15 AM on June 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

Yeah, that sign-off is sweet. Pretty egotistical of Mick to assume a first-name-basis from the start.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:17 AM on June 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

I can see why Mick was looking for cover art for that album.
posted by swift at 7:21 AM on June 17, 2022 [5 favorites]

This is amazing.
posted by minsies at 7:38 AM on June 17, 2022

I'm impressed he replied at all, actually.
posted by Caxton1476 at 7:38 AM on June 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

A link worth pursuing from below good old Maurits' reply:

'I hate everybody including you'
How to say no

A dinner! How horrible! I am to be made the pretext for killing all those wretched animals! Thank you for nothing. Blood sacrifices are not in my line.

George Bernard Shaw | Letter to Archibald Henderson, 1930 |

among others ...
posted by philip-random at 7:48 AM on June 17, 2022 [14 favorites]

ooh that ending
posted by bitteschoen at 7:51 AM on June 17, 2022

M.C. was more of a Mott the Hoople fan.
posted by brachiopod at 8:49 AM on June 17, 2022 [4 favorites]

I must decline, for secret reasons. (E.B. White from the How to say no link)
posted by chavenet at 9:05 AM on June 17, 2022 [7 favorites]

According to Wikipedia, that Mott album was released less than a year after Jagger's letter. Maybe they had the sense to address him as "Dear Mr Escher" and that made all the difference?
posted by Paul Slade at 9:09 AM on June 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

Love this and the "no" letters! Thanks gestalt saloon and philip-random for the chuckles.
posted by storybored at 9:17 AM on June 17, 2022

Mott the Hoople, probably started their letter, Dear Mr. Escher.

And now I'm imagining Escher's reply.

Dear Mr. Hoople,

I am delighted to accept your request. It is so refreshing to hear from a member of today's vagabond, devil-may-care "rock and roll" culture who does not ignore (or has completely forgotten) the basics of politeness in correspondence. Would there were more like you, Mr. Hoople! But I fear you represent something all too rare among your fellow "rock and roll" musicians. The stories I could tell, of Mr. Jagger of the "Rolling Stones" in particular!

etc. etc.
M.C. Escher
posted by Naberius at 9:24 AM on June 17, 2022 [6 favorites]

Maybe it’s the mood I’m in, but god that “I hate everyone, including you/how to say no” link was deeply satisfying. As Doris Lessing says, “Please forgive my churlishness. I am sorry, I really am.”
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:55 AM on June 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

I do, as you rightly suppose, occasionally eat something and (as a result) go to the dentist but that is some way from agreeing to be shat on by a stranger.
posted by nickmark at 10:19 AM on June 17, 2022

And now I'm imagining Escher's reply.

Dear Mr. Hoople,

I am delighted to accept your request.

I hope that, with this collaboration, you will do me the great honor of allowing me to address you as Mott the.

etc. etc.
Maury
posted by chavenet at 10:22 AM on June 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

That’s Mr. The Hoople to you.
posted by saturday_morning at 10:58 AM on June 17, 2022 [6 favorites]

I feel like any discussion of famous "No, I won't attend" responses should include Johnny Rotten's letter to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:13 AM on June 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

Dear Bongo, No
posted by deadbilly at 12:39 PM on June 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

Dear Mick,

You can't always get what you want.

love,
Maurits
posted by mule98J at 1:09 PM on June 17, 2022 [12 favorites]

I must decline, for secret reasons. (E.B. White from the How to say no link)

White was famously introverted, and funny:

- The letter is dated 28th September, 1956
- White's turning down an invitation, issued by a fellow writer and critic, to join the Committee of the Arts and Sciences for Eisenhower (CASE).
- Sen. Joseph McCarthy had been censured in December 1954 (and would die, in-office, in May 1957)
- The Watkins v. United States opinion, and other First-Amendment, right-to-privacy decisions? 1957, after these 'communist' cases occupied the headlines for years

(Incidentally, in the January 19, 1952, issue of the New Yorker [the week after Ike declared his candidacy for the G.O.P. nomination], White wrote: The perfect Republican, it can now be stated with finality, is a man whose Republican tendencies are extremely dubious—so dubious, in fact, that the Party is not sure that he is a Republican at all. Our mental picture of the Eisenhower backers during the pre-acceptance days is always of them down on their knees at bedtime, praying, “Please, God, make Dwight a Republican!” Another qualification of the perfect Republican is that his views on vital issues not be known. This, of course, is not wholly true in Eisenhower’s case. People do know what the General thinks about several matters. However, the information is scanty enough to make him ideal for the candidacy.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:49 PM on June 17, 2022 [5 favorites]

Clicking down, I love the Douglas Adams one.
posted by MtDewd at 5:21 PM on June 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think the difference was probably that Mr. The Hoople's album used an already published work, "Lizards" dating to 1943. Jagger was highly presumptuous in asking for new or unpublished work. "Yeah, we'll put your name on the album and give you some money. It'll be awesome."
posted by rhizome at 9:24 PM on June 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

I dunno, I think it's all of it. The first name, the "could you please" just do this big project, the "we could negotiate a fee if...", but also the whole assumption that Escher would even know who Jagger was, would know how big the Stones were, would understand how much money he could potentially demand, would see this request as some kind of honor or favor being done to him...

It's kind of sad because Jagger's trying so hard to be complimentary, but just doesn't seem to understand that the entire letter drips of presumption.

I'd like to think that Escher wasn't so petty as to take such offense just at being addressed by his first name, and that he was choosing that as his understated way of saying 'this is not how you do it' to the entire thing.
posted by trig at 5:39 AM on June 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

Oh, the Douglas Adams one really is delightful.

Also, apparently there's a special anniversary omnibus edition of the complete Hitchhiker's Guide with bonus extra material, and since my original and beloved omnibus edition had an unfortunate encounter with a queasy dog, I think I can justify the purchase.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 6:33 AM on June 18, 2022

I'd like to think that Escher wasn't so petty as to take such offense just at being addressed by his first name, and that he was choosing that as his understated way of saying 'this is not how you do it' to the entire thing.

In 1969, Jagger would have been just 26 while Escher was already 71. For men of his generation, I think Jagger's attitude in the letter was a sign of casual disrespect and rude presumption. We see the same thing in nursing homes today, when young staff think they're being friendly by casually addressing their elderly charges by their first names, while the residents themselves often resent it.

Finally, it's worth remembering that, back in 1969, anyone over 40 thought of rock stars as being more or less the scum of the earth. The Stones' reputation in the adult world was then one of being drug-addled yobs whose caterwauling racket barely counted as music at all. My guess is that most people of Escher's age would have had exactly the same reaction to Jagger's letter that we see here: "Who does this little prick think he is?"
posted by Paul Slade at 7:19 AM on June 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

Dear Mick,

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name
right, next time, you pillock.

love,
MC Esh
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:49 AM on June 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

Exactly - it's rude to address people by their first name but also kind of rude to correct them like that, so I'd like to imagine that Escher would have just bristled in silence if the name bit were the only faux pas, but because that whole letter was just a giant set of faux pas layered on each other in some kind of moebius loop of oblivious cringe, he chose to use "I'm not Mauritz to you" as a stand in for all the different kinds of "are you kidding me" that letter inspired.
posted by trig at 9:25 AM on June 18, 2022

To be sure, Jagger had spent a couple years at the London School of Economics at the beginning of that decade, so he had some exposure to elite proprieties. It does sound more like Jagger was in a bubble and clueless as to normal people interactions, which given his circumstances comes as little surprise. It would be hard not to lose touch.

"I'm not Mauritz to you" is a bit sniffy, but I think it's excusable as tit-for-tat.
posted by rhizome at 2:00 PM on June 18, 2022

But what about the Fraternity of the Famous? Jagger was famous, Escher was famous, doesn’t that mean that they have something in common, like being brothers or something?
posted by njohnson23 at 2:39 PM on June 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

But what about the Fraternity of the Famous? Jagger was famous, Escher was famous. Doesn’t that mean they have something in common, like being brothers or something?

Escher probably had no idea how well his works fitted with the times. He turned reality inside out, upside down, and sideways in the same image, like, you know, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll.

Alas, he and Jagger were divided by the uncrossable line: age 30. Ageism was cross-cultural and pervasive worldwide, and only a precious few (from the previous generations) could cross that line. Polemics, not brotherhood, connected him and Jagger. The old order was rapidly fading, and the times they [were] a changing.

Note: okay, yeah, I know. It was a pipe dream, but it was our pipe dream.
posted by mule98J at 4:30 PM on June 18, 2022

It was a pipe dream, but it was our pipe dream

Mine arrived a few years later with punk's Year Zero reset: "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977!!"
posted by Paul Slade at 11:23 PM on June 19, 2022