Letters of Note

[Lizard_King]

So, other than the recent Hark! A Vagrant inspired pickup of James Joyce's porno letters (don't ask), this (http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/09/my-good-friend-roosvelt.html) is probably some of the best correspondence I've seen recently: Fidel Castro at age 10 writing to his good friend Roosvelt. At the end,you can even imagine that he have inspired one of the more significant moments in There Will Be Blood. What else have you guys seen lately, other than the recent Hitler-Mercedes (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1288967/How-imprisoned-Hitler-wrote-Mercedes-dealership-begging-car-loan.html) letter that's been making the rounds?

[Kurdel]

That Castro letter is the cutest thing ever!

[Wisbechlad]

An oldie, but a goodie.

http://www.ntk.net/2000/02/25/moscow.gif

[Skipper]

We all Mustapha Kunt during the Spring. Cards be damned.

[Lizard_King]

Yeah, that is a classic.

[Dean]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/deanodonnell/busthreat.jpg
12345

[Dan_Theman]

I honestly wonder if $10 would have made a historical difference in Castro's outlook ... probably not, but it's neat to think about something like that.

[Kolonial]

I honestly wonder if $10 would have made a historical difference in Castro's outlook ... probably not, but it's neat to think about something like that.

Everyone knows Mickey Mantle caused the entire revolution in Cuba by taking the spot Castro was trying out for on the Yankees.

[jpinard]

So the next Communist Dictator is going to come from Nigeria? Because that totally sounded like one of those e-mail scams.

[Tracy Baker]

An oldie, but a goodie.

That nearly killed me.

[Daniel Morris]

I honestly wonder if $10 would have made a historical difference in Castro's outlook ... probably not, but it's neat to think about something like that.

There were other inflection points for Castro --- for instance, his tryout as a pitcher for Pittsburgh Pirates scouts. They gave him lots of credit for his "nasty curveball," but didn't like his velocity so they didn't offer him a contract.

[Lizard_King]

And now for something completely different: the memo for if the moon landing goes pear shaped (http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/11/in-event-of-moon-disaster.html).

[Gordon Cameron]

I've always loved this famous snippet of a letter from Chopin to Ferdinand Hiller, in 1833, in the very salad days of musical Romanticism:

"I write to you without knowing what my pen is scribbling, because at this moment Liszt is playing my etudes, and transporting me outside of my respectable thoughts. I should like to steal from him the way to play my own etudes."

What I would give to have been in that room on that summer day in Paris!

Chopin in less happy days, in November 1848, with less than a year to live, and after the end of his legendary liaison with George Sand:

"Even if I could fall in love with someone, as I should be glad to do, still I would not marry, for we should have nothing to eat and nowhere to live. And a rich woman expects a rich man, or if a poor man, at least not a sickly one, but one who is young and handsome. It's bad enough to go to pieces alone, but two together, that is the greatest misfortune. I may peg out in a hospital, but I won't leave a starving wife behind me."

His comments about Sand, post-breakup, as written to his sister:

"A strange creature, with all her intellect! Some kind of frenzy has come upon her; she harrows up her own life, she harrows up her daughter's life; with her son too it will end badly; I predict it and could swear to it. For her own justification she longs to find something against those who care for her, who have never done her any discourtesy, but whom she cannot bear to see about her, because they are the mirrors of her conscience. Thus, to me she has not written one word more, she will not come to Paris this winter, nor has she mentioned me at all to her daughter."

edit: Hmm, perhaps given the forum these are meant to be letters of a political, rather than merely historical, import. Well, maybe later I'll dig up Chopin's thoughts about the 1848 Revolution just to keep in compliance...

[AlanT]

And now for something completely different: the memo for if the moon landing goes pear shaped (http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/11/in-event-of-moon-disaster.html).
"Widows-to-be". What a charming turn of phrase.