Edmund Wilson's all-purpose "get lost" letter
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I'd love to see one for doctors.
- Look at your rash
- Discuss your bowel movements...
yeah, but only if below it had a.
--for a broad spectrum anti-biotic because I'm not an idiot and know when I have a bad infection my ownself.
-- I really am not that trustworthy with painkillers but this time my d**m hand is broke... K'
Maybe link to http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/10/07/edmund-wilson-letter/ instead of Wilson's wiki entry twice?
What is the name of that font?
Dear old Bunny. What a card.
I'm going to take a guess at Futura.
Notice that this is accomplished without the outright rudeness and open hostility that entires such as "No I Will Not Read Your Fucking Screenplay" seem to revel in.
There's something to be said for a little bit of class.
Wow. I've read about a French author who had a similar kind of automated answer.. I check my books to see who came up with it first. :)
I'd swear that I've seen something similar to this, maybe on BB.
Also, lectroid: despite the F-word, "I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script" was, in fact, a very polite essay which cited a specific situation in which Josh Olsen went out of his way to critique the work of an acquaintance and, for his troubles, got called a dick. The title is just his way of being as blunt upfront as Wilson is above.
Now Edmund Wilson will be getting all manner of requests from people wanting these nifty all-purpose "get lost" letters.
Reminds me of the old "bonehead reply form" that used to be so popular.
Simon Singh's book on Fermat's Last Theorem had a pair of good examples along these lines. Prominent math professors would get inundated with crackpot "proofs," so one of them printed up cards that read, "The first error in your submission occurs on line ______ of page _____ thereby invalidating the entire proof."
But that wasn't nearly as good as the guy who had a form letter saying, "Your work is so advanced that I do not feel myself qualified to pass judgment on it. Instead, I refer you to the acknowledged expert on such work," and then the name and mailing address of the previous crackpot to write in.
wow that rules.
i know i keep talking about Cantor tonight, but there's a guy out there somewhere who has this "proof" that C = aleph_naught. i wish i was well known enough to have him send it to me to review so i could rip this idea off.
(if your reading, dude, every point in your "tree" is rational. it's the "end" of the branches that we're interested in. brush up on the concept of a limit. first year calculus might help. (sorry bb. had to vent.))
http://www.pvponline.com/2009/11/04/dear-kurt/
re: "I'd swear that I've seen something similar to this, maybe on BB."
Heinlein's fan-mail solution: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/09/heinleins-fanmail-so.html
This just totally renews the teenage crush I had on Edmund Wilson. Bless you, Bunny.
He saved those for his paid journalism, as in his woeful, sadly ignorant attack on Nabokov's Eugene Onegin translation. Here's how he ends:
What a jerk! And imagine, trying to school Nabokov on Russian literature! Should have sent the form letter, Bunny!Nabokov's delightful, devastating reply is also at the NYRB site, worth reading. Wilson's problem was that he could hide his assholishness successfully to himself: Nabokov, wonderfully, never bothered to hide, ever.
Ever seen Heinlein's form letter response?
http://io9.com/5048215/robert-heinleins-bizarre-fan-mail-response-letter