Posts tagged as Letters
J Mascis, "Not Enough"
If you are an old person who takes drugs, or a preschool age child who doesn't take drugs, or anybody else, really, you might enjoy this video for a song from J Mascis' new, mostly-acoustic solo album. I've been enjoying the video, the song and the rest of the album a lot lately. J Mascis is a longtime favorite of mine, and I've been fairly stunned by how excellent he and his band Dinosaur Jr. have been since the original line-up reunited in 2007—nineteen years after recording the classic Bug, which was the first album of theirs that I got. It's just been announced that they'll be performing Bug in its entirety on their tour this summer. I actually don't much like the classic-album-in-its-entirety thing that has so overtaken the concert scene of late. I miss the expectant tension that comes with not knowing a set list. But I still think I want to see this. Bug is just too awesome. Here's the band playing its first song, "Freak Scene," in 1988. READ MORE
Old-School Letter Writers? Way Worse Than Blog Commenters
They say blog commenters are the worst people ever. But "they" have never worked at a magazine or newspaper. Here's New York magazine columnist Will Leitch's snailmail correspondence today.
Letters I Would Consent to Have Sex With, in Descending Order
1. I
2. J
3. L
4. P
5. O
6. Q
7. B
8. D
9. R
10. A
11. G
12. C
13. S
14. T
15. H
16. U
17. V
18. N
19. F
20. E
21. Y
22. M
23. X
24. K
25. Z
26. W READ MORE
Maggie McGirr Strikes Again!
Busy Connecticut lady and Bush administration enthusiast Maggie McGirr, who is famous (to me) for writing letters to the editor, is still on her game! The proud owner of dozens of published letters to the editor of the Times struck gold with this one today. It's actually very good: "What remains a mystery to me is the behavior of the cellphone user when his phone goes off in a place where it is unwelcome – in a concert or theater performance, for example. He gropes frantically through all his belongings as if he has no recollection of having brought it and therefore no idea where it is. Then when he finds it, after eight rings or at least one chorus of 'Celebration,' he can't remember how to turn it off." OMG SO TRUE, AM I RIGHT?
Letters From The Gulf, Parts 8 and 9: "BP Dropped Off Crates of Bottled Water"
Dan Horton, a friend and former colleague, works on tugboats out of the New York Harbor for a living. Two weeks ago, he flew down to Louisiana to take a job on a barge unloading crude oil from the skimmer boats that clean the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Crew are only allowed to send and receive one email a day; his girlfriend, Lori, passes along his daily email to friends and family. With their permission, we're passing them along to you. -Dave Bry READ MORE
Letters From The Gulf, Parts 3 And 4: 'Haven't 
Seen Anything Alive in the Water Yet'
Dan Horton, a friend and former colleague of mine, works on tugboats out of the New York Harbor for a living. Two weeks ago, he flew down to Louisiana to take a job on a barge unloading crude oil from the skimmer boats that clean the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. There's limited computer access on board; crew are only allowed to send and receive one email a day. Dan has been sending letters home to his girlfriend, Lori, who has been passing them along to friends and family, and now, with their permission, I'll pass them along to you. -Dave Bry READ MORE
Have Some Bacon! You and I, We Are Going to Die
The New Yorker gets mail about its review of Jonathan Safran Foer's vegetarian book. Including someone who said he was writing from the parking lot of a slaughterhouse: "I wonder if Foer has ever visited, or considered the impact of, a thousand-acre soybean monoculture. We have demanded cheap food, and so we have received cheap, destructive food production. Second, vegetarian moralism denies an essential fact of living: death. Everything dies, and not always in its due time." The great beyond eagerly waits for all forms of meat, including the writing kind of meat!
Other Voices, Other Wombs
So there was a thing that happened in this corner of the Internet over the last week or so and people said some stuff and then some other people said some stuff back and then a lot of people said a lot of things about it and there were letters exchanged and the like? You know what I'm talking about. Anyway, here are a few additional responses.
The English Patient
There's a rather remarkable letter in the current London Review of Books concerning the treatment of Britain's mentally ill. It begins this way: READ MORE
