There's No Point To This Profession / Without The Occaional Obsession

Here I am on a Saturday morning: sitting on my couch, drinking Lady Grey tea with heavy cream (because I'm out of milk, but not heavy cream. Turns out that's not so unusual.), and giggling like a five year old girl. WHY?

John Moe's Pop Song Correspondences

Featuring:
A Retort to Carly Simon Regarding Her Charges of Vanity ("First of all, that party took place on a yacht. So the way I walked in was perfectly appropriate.")
A Letter to Elvis Presley From His Hound Dog ("I admit it: I do cry all the time. I think a doctor would call it severe clinical depression, if you ever took me to a doctor, like a responsible owner would.")
Marvin Gaye Explains What He Heard Through the Grapevine ("It all started about six months ago when I bought a sack of grapes from an old man on La Cienega.")

The complete series is comprised of twenty episodes.



(I also giggle when people fall down in movies.)

Living In Your Letters

John Cage replied personally to every letter ever sent to him.
("I fight each day a losing battle against paper," he wrote to Mr. William E. Ratliff.)
UbuWeb catalogues the Memogram Correspondences.

Gonna Write You A Letter / Gonna Write You A Book

Berlioz to Liszt (30 April, 1855 from Paris):

I am writing to you these three lines to tell you that the Te Deum was performed today with the most magnificent precision. It was colossal, Babylonian, Ninivite. The magnificent church was full. The children sang like a single artist; and the artists… as I hoped and had the right to expect because of the strictness with which I had selected them. Not one mistake, not one moment of indecision. I had a young man who had come from Brussels [Adolphe Samuel] who conducted the organist in his gallery far away and who kept him in time in spite of the distance. […]
My god if only you had been there…! I can assure you it is a tremendous work, and the Judex surpasses all the enormities I have previously committed. I am writing to you the first, despite my exhaustion, because I know there is no man in Europe who is as interested in this advent as yourself. Yes, the Requiem has a brother, a brother who was born with teeth, like Richard III (but without the hump); and I can vouch that today he has bitten the public. And what a huge public! There were 950 performers. And not one mistake! I cannot get over it.
Friends had come from Marseille (Lecourt, Rémusat, etc.). Lecourt was in quite a state; he was flooding, like a river! Farewell, I am going to bed. What a shame I am the author of this! I would write an interesting article. Let us see what our colleagues our going to sing. This time it is not a matter of piccoli paësi [small landscapes], it is a scene from the Apocalypse. […]

(via hectorberlioz)

Writing This Letter / Hoping You're Okay

To Leonard Bernstein
7 Middagh Street, Brooklyn, NY
Main 4.9079
April 28th 1941

Dear Lenny,
Please forgive the lateness of this - but I have been working all day & night for the last three weeks on the score of the operetta & I haven't had a moment for letters.
I was very, very pleased that you liked the Sinf. da Req. Judging by your remarks you certainly 'got' what I wrote, & it was extremely nice of you to take the trouble to write & say so. I am sure that it's the 'best so far' - and as it's the last, that is as it should be. I might argue with you about one or two of your remarks about my earlier masterpieces - but may be there is something in what you say. The only thing is, maybe those particular vices are less vicious than some others I can think of - such as inhibitions, sterility, self-conscious ideas of originality - but we won't go into that now!
How are you? I saw you were conducting on the Radio on Saturday - how did it go? When do you come to New York? I shall be around until June 1st or thereabouts. Give me a call when you get here. How are your chamber concerts going? As you probably know - the Bowlesesses departed for Mexico.
The Operetta is chaotic. Goberman is not doing it - Hugh Ross has taken it over - & although he has the right mentality for training choruses, (entre nous) he is not so hot on orchestras. However - we shall see.
Thank you again for your note. You ask how the others liked the symphony - all the ones I respect were pleased - including Aaron, Chavez, Colin, Lincoln et all -

Best of luck,
Yours ever,
Benjy B.


(via Letters from a Life: Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten Vol. 3; Edited by Donald Mitchell, Philip Reed, and Mervyn Cooke)