You HAVE to listen to this NPR story about the Juliet Club in Verona, Italy. Yes, the home of that Juliet who loved a young man named Romeo. So wonderful. Photo courtesy of the Juliet Club, aka il Club di Giulietta.
The Juliet Club!
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Category Archives: love letters
Valentines Day recap
I think this fantastic mailbox embellishment may be the work of the women behind Good Mail Day but in the un-credited world of the internet jpeg, I am not certain. In any case I LOVE it!
My family got several hand delivered valentines- so sweet.
The handmade cards, of course, slay me but I am also so fond of this store bought card that my son got from a friend at school.
But by post the yield was small this year. Good thing I got valentine mail on Wednesday and Friday because on Thursday, Valentines Day, all there was in my mailbox was a real estate brochure and a credit card bill. I was actually quite depressed. But then I remembered that whole ‘better to give than receive’ thing and all the other blessings in my life and I stopped pouting. Thanks so much to all the people who gave us a little paper affection this year.
The World Needs More Love Letters
Are you familiar with the paper mail project that is The World Needs More Love Letters? It is the brainchild of Ms. Hannah Brencher and the basic idea is for people to send love letters to strangers.
A few years back Brencher started writing love letters and leaving them in public places in New York City to be discovered and appreciated. This initial project quickly grew into coordinated efforts by groups of people to write bundles of love letters for strangers who could benefit from some postal love.
Right now they are asking for love letters for baristas in the busy holiday season. Explore the site to find all the ways that Brencher’s lovely idea has blossomed.
Photo courtesy of moreloveletters.com.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Today is my favorite paper mail holiday. And the results of extensive advanced planning are good. Between what was made by kids in my valentine workshops, by my own children, and by me I sent out 75 pieces of mail!
I am happy to report that my family and I also received valentines, which are hanging in our kitchen window. And I have been getting mail from readers-thank y’all so much. AND I have received 2 letters so far from the Rumpus’ Letters in the Mail subscription. The first was a 2 page rant from Margaret Cho and started out, “Dear Rumpus, This is what I think about eating on planes.” The second arrived yesterday. It’s a 1 page cartoon story by Dean Haspiel about a bar here in Brooklyn called Montero’s. For those of you who have watched the HBO series, “Bored to Death”, the character played by Zach Galifianakis is based on Haspiel.
Subscribe! Its fun to get short forms of writers’ work delivered to your mailbox.
Jail Mail
There is a piece by Geoffrey Gray in today’s New York Times Magazine about a man and woman who fell in love by way of letter writing. Damien Echols was on death-row in Arkansas. Lorri Davis was a landscape architect living in Brooklyn. After seeing him in the 1996 documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, Davis wrote to Echols, setting off a correspondence that changed both their lives profoundly. Read their epic love story here.
Peanuts
My family and I recently went on a fabulous vacation to Philadelphia. We had a great time and among the gems in that city is a gallery on Arch Street called Space 1026, which was having an exhibit of Charles Schulz’s love letters. Yeah, the Peanuts guy. His letters were written in the early 1970′s to a Philadelphia native named Tracy and he was so into her that he longed to bleep her nose and reminisce about a hug at a bookstore. It was such a benign collection of asexual writing and drawings that my childhood image of Peanuts and their creator has remained intact.
