Going through my parents' stuff didn't make me suddenly miss them, but I became more intrigued by them every day. I wanted to know more and more about them, to solve their mysteries. At the same time, I felt a corresponding, if conflicting, urge to speak, or write, about what many people seemed to think was unspeakable: my ever-present lack of grief. So I decided to combine these seemingly divergent impulses into an Tumblr blog called My Dead Parents, which I kept anonymous both out of respect for my family and because, after years of writing fiction, I wasn't sure if I could handle revealing so much about myself in writing.
Anya Yurchyshyn
writes about rediscovering her parents through their letters, after their deaths.
posted by the man of twists and turns
on Apr 20, 2013 -
12 comments
Post A Letter Social Activity Club: "Imagine a day when every personal e-mail you receive is in the form of a piece of mail, in envelopes of different sizes, papers of different colours and textures, handwriting of varying degrees of legibility. Wouldn’t that be pretty nice for a change?"
[more inside]
posted by Fizz
on Aug 22, 2011 -
18 comments
In August-September 1965, India and Pakistan
went to war for the second time since their independence in 1947. On September 19, a civilian aircraft (Beechcraft Model 18) carrying the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat (bordering Pakistan) was
shot down by a Pakistani Air Force pilot (flying an F-86F). Now, 46 years later, the Pakistani pilot has written
a condolence letter to the daughter of the pilot of the Indian civilian aircraft.
posted by vidur
on Aug 8, 2011 -
8 comments
Past, I'd like to introduce you to the present. "Letters Home relies on contributions. We are nothing without readers who are willing to share their stories or respond to others. We don’t think we’re alone in wondering what’s happened to our childhood homes since we left. Or in wanting to share an important event that occurred there – from a birthday party to a marriage proposal, a secret revealed to a lie concealed.
Write a letter to the present occupant (even if it’s still family), the owner of the store that now stands on that lot, whatever or whoever might be there now, and share your memory. Ask them to respond with their own story and photo. Their letter and photo will then be added to your post."
How Letters Home works?
posted by Fizz
on Oct 14, 2010 -
10 comments
A Letter To My Students A letter from
Michael O'Hare, professor of Public Policy at UC Berkley to his students. He lets them know about how the world of his generation cheated them, both by their own and their choices in government leaders, who all fell along the wayside due to the swindle, and how they can pick themselves up by the bootstraps to right it.
posted by deezil
on Aug 25, 2010 -
77 comments
A letter by Rene Descartes, stolen in 1840s, recovered in 2010 by online detective work. The letter was stolen by Guglielmo Libri, inspector general of the libraries of France, who stole thousands of valuable documents and fled to England in 1848. Since 1902 it's been in the collection of Haverford College, its contents unknown to scholars, and nobody there realized that it was an unknown letter. But because they had catalogued it and recently put their catalogue on line, Dutch philosopher Erik-Jan Bos found it "
during a late-night session browsing the Internet". (A Haverford undergraduate thirty years ago had translated it and written a paper on it, in which he recognized that the letter was unknown -- but nobody followed up and the letter had sat in the library since then until it was listed online.) The letter includes some last-minute edits to the Meditations, and some thoughts on God as causa sui.
Haverford, whose president was a philosophy major, is returning the letter to the Institut de France.
posted by LobsterMitten
on Feb 26, 2010 -
21 comments
"Papers that are scientifically flawed or comprise only modest technical increments often attract undue profile. At the same time publication of truly original findings may be delayed or rejected."
In an
open letter addressed to Senior Editors of peer-review journals,
Professor Austin Smith (
publications) and another 13 stem cell researchers from around the world have
expressed their concerns over the current peer review process employed by the journals publishing in the field of stem cell biology.
[more inside]
posted by kisch mokusch
on Feb 3, 2010 -
25 comments
Dunny - an eleven-year-old boy tries to give a love letter to a girl that doesn't like him and winds up at dinner with her suburban family. This is one of those short films that you either love right away from the opening scene or....well, demand you 10 minutes back. If you are not sure, try other works by the same director:
Phillip Van.
posted by Surfin' Bird
on Sep 1, 2009 -
24 comments
Shoot It! Create and mail a real [paper!] postcard from anywhere and to anyone around the world.
posted by ColdChef
on Aug 12, 2009 -
34 comments
Forgotten Bookmarks. "I work at a used and rare bookstore, and I buy books from people every day. These are the personal, funny, heartbreaking and weird things I find in those books. "
posted by milquetoast
on Jul 25, 2009 -
48 comments
The Pajamas Letter.
I recently came upon a mysterious, unsigned letter in the deposit-envelope receptacle of a downtown ATM machine requesting that I draw a picture of my "normal pajamas" and send it back in an included self-addressed stamped envelope. Part Two.
Slideshow.
posted by amyms
on Mar 30, 2008 -
23 comments
LET'S DO THIS. Burning the midnight oil typing out a letter best left unsent—who hasn't done that, right? Only, I think Henry Rollins might be the type to go ahead and send this letter anyway.
(.swf)
posted by emelenjr
on Jun 10, 2006 -
42 comments
Yesterday, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wrote a letter to the President of the United States of America, George W. Bush.
Here it is. (Courtesy Le Monde, 8 page PDF, English.) The letter has been "dismissed by its recipients as a rambling philosophical treatise." (
Times) Further coverage at
NYT and
Le Monde (French). The letter ends 27 years of diplomatic silence.
posted by blacklite
on May 9, 2006 -
95 comments
A soldier's letter home, or clever propaganda? This "letter" has been making the rounds as an email, supposedly from an officer, stationed in Iraq, named "Mark". He certainly seems to know a lot about what's going on. He loves his job, likes his generals, and admires the Iraqi people, who like him and other Americans; and he hates the press and the foreigners he says are fighting reconstruction.
Sounds a little too good to be true.
posted by kablam
on Jul 23, 2003 -
45 comments
