MetaFilter posts tagged with correspondence

Or was that squeal thing you did supposed to be the crying doves? How did it go? "Aii! Aii! Aii! Aiaiaiai!" It was a massive turn-on, but it was not science.

ocherdraco — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:42:04 -0800

John Moe's Pop-Song Correspondences

Including:
An Invitation to
Joni Mitchell to Sing
at the Opening of
the Tree Museum.
"Why couldn't we have just cut the trees up? Then it would have been a log museum. And we wanted a tree museum." A Letter to Prince Regarding the Crying of Doves and the Fiasco That Resulted From the Presentation of a Speech on That Topic. "Despite the provocative title of the speech you proposed, we are not in the habit of hiring speakers who are not ornithologists. But frankly, Mr. Prince, your androgynous, highly charged sexuality hypnotized us. We went crazy; you were a star; we wanted you to take us with you. Also, as you know, we were all quite fond of your father, Tubold. Knowing how rigorous Tubold's academic standards were, we thought his son would be just as thorough and insightful. But you are not like your father, Tubold. " A Note Placed In The Pay Envelope Of Billy "The Piano Man" Joel. "And our businessmen were irate about your description of them getting "stoned." Do you not know the difference between drunk and stoned? Hint: One is acceptable businessman behavior, the other's illegal. But even if you were to say they were getting drunk, that still would not be OK. As a matter of fact, just don't sing about the businessmen. They're nice guys and good tippers."

I've got a box full of letters, think you might like to read

Horace Rumpole — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:08:30 -0800

Letters of Note reproduces and transcribes letters from the famous, the infamous, and the not-so-famous.

The Missive Maven

Joe Beese — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:22:56 -0800

The Missive Maven. Extolling the virtues of snail mail: old-fashioned postal letter-writing and all of its yummy accoutrements

Field Force to Lhasa

Abiezer — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 14:36:41 -0800

Field Force to Lhasa 1903-04 Captain Cecil Mainprise accompanied General Sir Francis Younghusband's expedition to Tibet in 1903. He wrote 50 letters home which trace the expedition’s progress into Tibet. Read this insider's account on the day they were written some 105 years later. Final post is 18 November 2009. [Via]

"Letters and letters and letters."

amyms — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:51:30 -0800

I love you because you play awesome songs on the jukebox. Who are you? Come here, we can talk. That's Number 165 from 300 Love Letters (but there are really 400 and here's why, and here's an explanation of the project itself). Asia Wong's other projects.

"I have a great Deal of Leisure, which I chiefly employ in Scribbling, that my Mind may not stand still or run back like my Fortune."

amyms — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 09:25:39 -0800

"John Adams and Abigail Smith Adams exchanged over 1,100 letters, beginning during their courtship in 1762 and continuing throughout John's political career. These warm and informative letters include John's descriptions of the Continental Congress and his impressions of Europe while he served in various diplomatic roles, as well as Abigail's updates about their family, farm, and news of the Revolution's impact on the Boston area." The Adams Electronic Archive has transcripts [example] as well as high-resolution scans [example] of the letters. You may be familiar with some snippets of their correspondence from the movie musical "1776" ("Til Then" and "Yours, Yours, Yours" scenes on YouTube).

The Darwin Correspondence Project

carter — Wed, 16 May 2007 08:39:17 -0800

Darwin wrote to 2000 people during his life; 14,500 of these letters still survive. The Darwin Correspondence Project is putting annotated transcriptions of these online, and they've covered about 5,000 so far, including a letter written when he was 12 after he had got into trouble with his sister for not washing regularly while at school. There's an intro here. See also Darwin Online, discussed here. And the prolific network theorist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi has co-authored a paper on statistical similarities between Darwin's and Einstein's correspondence (#51 on the list).

Papa & the Kraut

miss lynnster — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:45:15 -0800

“The thing about the Kraut and me is that we have been in love since 1934, when we first met on the Île de France, but we’ve never been to bed. Amazing but true. Victims of unsynchronized passion.” Author Ernest Hemingway and actress Marlene Dietrich met while traveling across the Atlantic. Their friendship lasted until the Nobel Prize-winning author's death in 1961. In 2003, the JFK library received a donation from Marlene Dietrich's daughter of 30 letters, cards, and other documents that had been written to her mother by the author. Hemingway's estate had already donated 31 letters from Dietrich. These letters have now been unsealed and are set to go on view.

Childrens Letters During the Great Depression

jonson — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 06:54:09 -0800

During the Great Depression, thousands of young people wrote to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for help. They asked for clothing, money, and other forms of assistance.

A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright

matteo — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 09:59:48 -0800

“To speak in a flat voice / Is all that I can do. / . . . I speak of flat defeat / In a flat voice.”
James Wright's letters chronicle many of the major innovations in American poetry in the middle of the twentieth century. They also provide a compelling personal narrative of his life. Here, the American Poetry Review publishes a selection taken from the new volume "A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright". More inside.

Van Gogh's Letters,

jragon — Wed, 22 Jan 2003 19:59:44 -0800

Van Gogh's Letters unabridged & annotated. Searchable by topic or keyword.

crunchburger — Mon, 29 Oct 2001 19:22:25 -0800

Notorious American correspondence player and chess writer Claude Bloodgood has died. 'A convicted murderer who was sentenced to death but reprieved, Bloodgood was the best known of US prisoner players.' I love obituaries. And what could be sweeter than the cold hand of death dragging Chess Rogues down to Gehanna?