2024, books, Kids, Media, Stories, Technology

Letters

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The rabbit hole that is the internet never ceases to amaze me.  A few days ago I stumbled across a YouTube video called LettersLive.  It was Oliva Colman reading a 17th century letter from a wife to her husband.  It was hysterical.  Since then I’ve found several other clips of letters ready by other celebrities.  I adore letters – some of my favorite books are epistolary (Guernsey Potato Peel Pie Society, Daddy Long Legs, Cold Comfort Farm and Julie Schumacher’s Payne University series).  Turns out that LettersLive is actually a series of live events that began back in 2019.  I’ve found four of them so far. There are usually 20 or so letters read during the evening, many of them funny, many of them insightful, some of them incredibly touching and almost all thought-provoking.

Letter-writing is certainly one of our lost arts.  I remember Steve writing to his friend every week until his friend passed away; it was an amazing feat.  When YA was young, I used to send a letter to Nonny and JB every week – mostly just bullet points of the week along with a page of photos.  I send a lot of cards these days, but don’t consider them letter-writing.   Watching the LettersLive has made me think maybe I should start up the Nonny habit again.

LettersLive is sponsored by Montblanc, which seems perfect but funny.  Celebrating letters is “write” up their alley but what they are sponsoring are live performances and a technology-fueled YouTube site.  I can’t think of anybody better!

The only problem with LettersLive is that there aren’t endless quantities; they are not putting up new YouTubes every week.  Once I’ve listened to all the letters read at the four events, I’ll have to wait until the next one which is in Berlin sometime later this year.  I’ll have to dole them out to myself carefully!

Do you remember the last hand-written letter you received?  Or wrote?

39 thoughts on “Letters”

  2. I’ve not written or received many letters of any sort in recent years but “hand written” is the real sticking point. Email missives, though inelegant, are more convenient and spontaneous than physical letters and the post office less reliable than it once was.

    I enjoy a good epistolary as well. Quite recently I enjoyed The Bee and the Fly by Lorraine Tosiello and Jane Cavolina, an imagined correspondence between Louisa May Alcott and Emily Dickinson. Other collections of letters I’ve liked have been Marcel’s Letters by Minnesotan Carolyn Porter and The Element of Lavishness, excerpts from the 40-year correspondence between New Yorker editor William Maxwell and novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner.

    There is a website, Letters of Note, https://lettersofnote.com that reprints letters mostly by notable persons (because those are the ones that got saved). The site has spawned several book collections.

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    1. Hey Bill – do you still have a copy of The Bee & The Fly? I can’t find it anywhere (except Amazon of course)…

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        3. She’s willing, but is hoping to get it back promptly. I’ve read it but she hasn’t yet.

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  5. Sometime in February I began devoting an hour every Wednesday to writing hand-written notes to people whose addresses are in my book, folding them into envelopes, addressing and stamping them and sending them out the next morning. I estimate that I went through most of my accumulated addresses before Easter. Responses have been scarce, including two “returned for unknown at this address” things that came.

    My wife has a uncle who resides 20 miles north of us. A couple years ago I began sending him postcards weekly. When I see him, I hear that he appreciates being remembered, but not so much as one written thing has come my way.

    It’s unworthy to “write in order to get responses”, but to write and actually get nothing back seems to be like the popular description of insanity.

    I’ve pretty much given up.

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    1. I had to come to terms with this years ago. I probably put 20 cards in the mail every month. Mostly birthday cards but also get well, thinking of you, new house, you name it. 20 cards a month comes out to a lot of cards per year, and on my birthday I do occasionally think “hmmmmm”. I made the decision that I wanted to do it because I wanted to do it and not because I’m gonna get a lot of stuff in return. But it’s still hard occasionally. That being said I do belong to a group of card makers who publishes a birthday list every year. I send 6 to 8 cards off that list every month and last year I got 42 cards from that group. So that helps a little. And with one exception, all of these people in the card group are complete complete strangers. I’ve only met the one.

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  6. Just received one yesterday from a s-i-l, who ended with
    “Now it’s your turn to write.” I will, and hope I can find time soon.

    One of the first books to disappear at the book sale was The John Lennon Letters…

    I too enjoy the epistolary fiction… and I should try reading some books of real letters next.

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  7. Sandra gets hand written letters from four people. She sort of scans through them. I am not sure she can read even printed matter. But if I read them to her she has no reaction. Two are from her dearest friends in Two Harbors. One is from an annoying friend in TH. One is from a former student of mine and a member of the church. She cannot remember who she is because she had no contact with her. She also got letters from a life long friend from her north Minneapolis neighborhood. She liked when I read those. Then at last Christmas I realized they had stopped. He had died. She was sad for her three minute memory span.

    Clyde

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    1. I sometimes, when I have the time, and this is a secret, do watercolor postcards or full note cards to send to people anonymously thanking them for things they have done for the community or some charity or a program. Never for me. I try to write a special note which cross references the artwork, which is expressive or sketchy but hopefully decode-able. I don’t have the time lately.

      Clyde

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  8. I write and receive the occasional handwritten card and letter, but I rely on email for purposes of communicating in any meaningful way .

    I carried on a regular letter exchange with my late friend Sister Beth for a number a years after she retired from teaching and moved to the retirement home of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Mankato.

    She’d type a “general” letter, i.e. a letter she could send copies of to a bunch of nieces and nephews and other family members, wherein she reminisced about her childhood and talk about her current life in the convent.

    Sister Beth had an abiding love for her parents and her six or seven older siblings. Despite hardships in her early life (her mother died when she was five), she had such fond memories of growing up in rural southern Minnesota. She entered the convent right out of high school, and had lived a rather sheltered life.

    In her letter she always enclosed a card or a handwritten page addressed specifically to me; I’m sure that was true for other recipients as well. She had a lovely cursive handwriting that became more and more shaky as she aged and gradually lost her sight. She died a few years ago at the age of 98.

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  9. I have somewhere packed away a letter my Great Aunt Annie wrote to my paternal grandfather (her brother) complaining to him about how their parents’ estate had been divided up among their 12 siblings.

    My maternal grandmother’s sister was noted for the nasty letters she sent to my grandmother and my aunt’s and uncles. She held a long grudge against my grandmother, and she let everyone know how angry she was at everyone

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  11. I used to write more letters than I do now. I could try harder. I do write letters to my aunt in Rockford, IL. She doesn’t write back, but if I haven’t talked to her in a while, I know she appreciates hearing from me. She’s very alone now, and she is one of my last remaining direct family members. She was my mom’s sister. She’s the only one left on the Gleason side except for a few distant cousins that I don’t know very well.

    I wrote a very nice letter to my estranged brother, but he didn’t respond. I saw him the day we closed on our woods. He glanced at me, then walked right past me like I was a potted plant. I should try to write another nice letter to him, but I don’t think he will respond and it hurts too much. My other brother and I just pick up the phone and call each other often. I’m so grateful for him.

    I can type faster than I write now. Using email is a much more efficient method than hand-writing, but I agree that a hand-written letter is far more meaningful.

    I don’t make beautiful cards like you do, VS. It feels like a Hallmark card doesn’t quite cut it because yours are so nice. Your cards are very much appreciated. I don’t think I know when your birthday is!

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    1. I’ve no doubt that MOST of us can now type faster (and neater) than we can write and wonder if some of the character of a handwritten letter could be returned to typed missives if we found old manual typewriters upon which to compose them. What do you think? Where would we even access manual typewriters?

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  13. OT – Don’t know if anyone is interested in this. This was posted to FB by Dan Rein, a volunteer DJ for KFAI. It’s a link to his “Century Song” show that aired on 5/19/2024, the day following the death of Spider John Koerner. The last 45 minutes (starting at 74.00 min) is a concert with Spider at one of the Hosmer Library shows. This will be available on KFAI archives for two weeks following the date it aired; the show includes two typical Spider jokes. Pure gold as far as I’m concerned. Listening to this, Spider’s influence on a young Bob Dylan is very much evident.

    https://kfai.org/player/?episode_id=84862

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  14. my mom writes birthday Christmas Father’s Day cards in her calligraphy handwriting

    it’s delightful

    I buy a fountain pen every couple of years hoping to get into hardwritten lifestyle one of these days but it gets left in a coat pocket and disappears for a year or two

    I learned to do papers in catholic school with a fountain pen and like it even though it’s a lefties challange I suppose I should try again amazon has a good one for about $15

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  15. Better Late than Never, Baboons from JacAnon

    This is my third attempt to reply–today I had a few appointments for myself and a new PCA for Lou inthe house, so my time has not been my own. Uff Da.

    I love to get a letter and I hate sending them. Handwriting has always been difficult for me. When I wanted to write a letter in the past 20 years I typed it, then signed it byhand. Usually those letters were to my Uncle Jim who died last October. Those are rare. About 8 or 9 years ago I received a handwritten letter from my niece thanking me for being her aunt and for our relationship. It made me cry.

    A High School friend and I email each other intermittantly. It is the most mundane of communications–about kids, activities, pictures of my garden. I truly wish these were save-able because they are a picture of daily life now. I found some letters from my Great Grandmother Hoel to her daughter, my Grandma, giving advice about taking care of the chickens, etc. I love those daily details.

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    1. Does the new PCA mean that the one Lou liked so much won’t be back? Or is the new one just to cover for when the other one isn’t available?

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  16. This past weekend I started listening to a podcast titled Letters From War. The podcast came about when a man in Arizona emailed The Washington Post back in 2016 and told them that he hundreds of letters written by a single family during World War II. When reporter Dan Lamothe started reading them he could not put them down. Here’s what he had to say about them:

    “About Letters From War

    Hundreds of letters, written between brothers fighting in the Pacific during World War II. Almost one a day, for every day of the war.

    The letters detail everything from the monotony of training, to the struggles of the Great Depression back home, to the prospects for the Chicago Cubs, and ultimately the horrors of some of the most intense and significant battles of the war in the Pacific. In this podcast, you’ll hear the story of these brothers — the Eyde brothers — and of World War II, as told through their letters, in their own words.

    Bringing the letters to life are modern U.S. military veterans. At key moments in the story, we’ll talk to them about how these letters compare to their own experiences — what’s universal about war and what’s changed. How they felt reading the words of these men who fought some 70 years ago. And why everyone who picks up these letters feels like the Eyde brothers become a part of their family.”

    I highly recommend this podcast.

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  18. I used to be a good letter writer, when I was a teenager. I gradually slacked off, just didn’t have as much time or energy.

    I did buy some postage stamps for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and felt I should use them for something, so I mailed off cards to a number of friends with packets of seeds to plant. That was four years ago, and I haven’t been sending very much since then.

    I have boxes of letters from the 70’s and 80’s. Letters succumbed to creeping e-mail after that.

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  19. Handwritten letters are like gold. I’ve saved at least one letter, usually the most recent, from each important person in my life. I have one that my grandpa sent me when I was maybe 10, and he was bedridden. I have one from an old California boyfriend, complete with little drawings.

    Sometimes I’ve sent letters I no longer need back to the writer. I have some I sent to my folks which are particularly valuable, being from a time when I didn’t keep a journal…

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