A Student Writes a Rejection Letter Rejecting Harvard’s Rejection Letter (1981): Hear It Read by Actor Himesh Patel

in Education, Harvard, Letters | March 16th, 2023

The doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er and sports edi­tor Paul Devlin has won five Emmy awards, but he may well be bet­ter known for not get­ting into Har­vard — or rather, for not get­ting into Har­vard, then reject­ing Har­vard’s rejec­tion. “I noticed that the rejec­tion let­ter I received from Har­vard had a gram­mat­i­cal error,” Devlin writes. “So, I wrote a let­ter back, reject­ing their rejec­tion let­ter.” His moth­er then “sent a copy of this let­ter to the New York Times and it was pub­lished in the New Jer­sey sec­tion on May 31, 1981.” In 1996, when the New York Times Mag­a­zine pub­lished a cov­er sto­ry “about the trau­ma stu­dents were expe­ri­enc­ing get­ting reject­ed from col­leges,” she seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to send her son’s rejec­tion-rejec­tion let­ter to the Paper of Record.

It turned out that Devlin’s let­ter had already run there, hav­ing long since gone the pre-social-media equiv­a­lent of viral. “The New York Times accused me of pla­gia­rism. When they dis­cov­ered that I was the orig­i­nal author and they had unwit­ting­ly re-print­ed them­selves, they were none too hap­py. But my mom insists that it was impor­tant to reprint the arti­cle because the issue was clear­ly still rel­e­vant.”

Indeed, its after­life con­tin­ues even today, as evi­denced by the new video from Let­ters Live at the top of the post. In it actor Himesh Patel, well-known from series like Eas­t­En­ders, Sta­tion Eleven, and Avenue 5, reads aloud Devlin’s let­ter, which runs as fol­lows:

Hav­ing reviewed the many rejec­tion let­ters I have received in the last few weeks, it is with great regret that I must inform you I am unable to accept your rejec­tion at this time.

This year, after apply­ing to a great many col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, I received an espe­cial­ly fine crop of rejec­tion let­ters. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the num­ber of rejec­tions that I can accept is lim­it­ed.

Each of my rejec­tions was reviewed care­ful­ly and on an indi­vid­ual basis. Many fac­tors were tak­en into account – the size of the insti­tu­tion, stu­dent-fac­ul­ty ratio, loca­tion, rep­u­ta­tion, costs and social atmos­phere.

I am cer­tain that most col­leges I applied to are more than qual­i­fied to reject me. I am also sure that some mis­takes were made in turn­ing away some of these rejec­tions. I can only hope they were few in num­ber.

I am aware of the keen dis­ap­point­ment my deci­sion may bring. Through­out my delib­er­a­tions, I have kept in mind the time and effort it may have tak­en for you to reach your deci­sion to reject me.

Keep in mind that at times it was nec­es­sary for me to reject even those let­ters of rejec­tion that would nor­mal­ly have met my tra­di­tion­al­ly high stan­dards.

I appre­ci­ate your hav­ing enough inter­est in me to reject my appli­ca­tion. Let me take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to wish you well in what I am sure will be a suc­cess­ful aca­d­e­m­ic year.

SEE YOU IN THE FALL!

Sin­cere­ly,
Paul Devlin
Appli­cant at Large

How­ev­er con­sid­er­able the mox­ie (to use a whol­ly Amer­i­can term) shown by the young Devlin in his let­ter, his rea­son­ing seems not to have swayed Har­vard’s admis­sions depart­ment. Whether it would prove any more effec­tive in the twen­ty-twen­ties than it did in the nine­teen-eight­ies seems doubt­ful, but it must remain a sat­is­fy­ing read for high-school stu­dents dispir­it­ed by the sup­pli­cat­ing pos­ture the col­lege-appli­ca­tion process all but forces them to take. It sure­ly does them good to remem­ber that they, too, pos­sess the agency to declare accep­tance or rejec­tion of that which is pre­sent­ed to them sim­ply as neces­si­ty, as oblig­a­tion, as a giv­en. And for Devlin, at least, there was always the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Read Rejec­tion Let­ters Sent to Three Famous Artists: Sylvia Plath, Kurt Von­negut & Andy Warhol

T. S. Eliot, as Faber & Faber Edi­tor, Rejects George Orwell’s “Trot­skyite” Nov­el Ani­mal Farm (1944)

Gertrude Stein Gets a Snarky Rejec­tion Let­ter from Pub­lish­er (1912)

Meet the “Gram­mar Vig­i­lante,” Hell-Bent on Fix­ing Gram­mat­i­cal Mis­takes on England’s Store­front Signs

Steven Pinker Iden­ti­fies 10 Break­able Gram­mat­i­cal Rules: “Who” Vs. “Whom,” Dan­gling Mod­i­fiers & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Benedict Cumberbatch & Ian McKellen Read Epic Letters Written by Kurt Vonnegut

in Books, Environment, Letters, Life, Literature | January 16th, 2023

Kurt Von­negut is one of those writ­ers whose wit, human­ism and lack of sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty leave you han­ker­ing for more.

For­tu­nate­ly, the pro­lif­ic nov­el­ist was an equal­ly pro­lif­ic let­ter writer.

His pub­lished cor­re­spon­dence includes a descrip­tion of the fire­bomb­ing of Dres­den penned upon his release from the Slaugh­ter­house Five POW camp, an admis­sion to daugh­ter Nanette that most parental mis­sives “con­tain a par­en­t’s own lost dreams dis­guised as good advice,” and some unvar­nished exchanges with many of famil­iar lit­er­ary names. (“I am cuter than you are,” he taunt­ed Cape Cod neigh­bor Nor­man Mail­er.)

No won­der these let­ters are cat­nip to per­form­ers with the pedi­gree to rec­og­nize good writ­ing when they see it.

Hav­ing inter­pret­ed Shake­speare, Ibsen, and Ionesco, book lover Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch obvi­ous­ly rel­ish­es the straight­for­ward ire of Vonnegut’s 1973 response to a North Dako­ta school board chair­man who ordered a school jan­i­tor to burn all copies of Slaugh­ter­house-Five assigned by Bruce Sev­ery, a recent­ly hired, young Eng­lish teacher.

In addi­tion to Slaugh­ter­house-Five, the board also con­signed two oth­er vol­umes on the syl­labus — James Dick­ey’s Deliv­er­ance and an anthol­o­gy con­tain­ing short sto­ries by Faulkn­er, Hem­ing­way and Stein­beck — to the fire.

Revis­it­ing the event, the Bis­mar­ck Tri­bune reports that “the objec­tion to (Slaugh­ter­house-Five) had to do with pro­fan­i­ty, (Deliv­er­ance) with some homo­sex­u­al mate­r­i­al and the (anthol­o­gy) because the first two ren­dered all of Severy’s choic­es sus­pect.”

A decade lat­er, Von­negut also revis­it­ed the school board’s “insult­ing” objec­tions in the pages of  the New York Times:

Even by the stan­dards of Queen Vic­to­ria, the only offen­sive line in the entire nov­el is this: ”Get out of the road, you dumb m(———–).” This is spo­ken by an Amer­i­can anti­tank gun­ner to an unarmed Amer­i­can chap­lain’s assis­tant dur­ing the Bat­tle of the Bulge in Europe in Decem­ber 1944, the largest sin­gle defeat of Amer­i­can arms (the Con­fed­er­a­cy exclud­ed) in his­to­ry. The chap­lain’s assis­tant had attract­ed ene­my fire.

Word is Von­negut’s let­ter nev­er received the cour­tesy of a reply.

One won­ders if the recip­i­ent burned it, too.


If that 50 year old let­ter feels ger­mane, check out Vonnegut’s 1988 let­ter to peo­ple liv­ing 100 years in the future, a lit­tle more than 50 years from where we are now.

In many ways, its com­mon­sense advice sur­pass­es the ever­green words of those it namechecks — Shakespeare’s Polo­nius, St. John the Divine, and the Big Book of Alco­holics Anony­mous. The threat of envi­ron­men­tal col­lapse it seeks to stave off has become even more dire in the ensu­ing years.

Vonnegut’s advice (list­ed below) clear­ly res­onates with Cum­ber­batch, a veg­an who lever­aged his celebri­ty to bring atten­tion to the cli­mate cri­sis when he par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Extinc­tion Rebel­lion Protests in Lon­don.

1. Reduce and sta­bi­lize your pop­u­la­tion.

2. Stop poi­son­ing the air, the water, and the top­soil.

3. Stop prepar­ing for war and start deal­ing with your real prob­lems.

4. Teach your kids, and your­selves, too, while you’re at it, how to inhab­it a small plan­et with­out help­ing to kill it.

5. Stop think­ing sci­ence can fix any­thing if you give it a tril­lion dol­lars.

6. Stop think­ing your grand­chil­dren will be OK no mat­ter how waste­ful or destruc­tive you may be, since they can go to a nice new plan­et on a space­ship. That is real­ly mean, and stu­pid.

7. And so on. Or else.

Von­negut, who died in 2007 at the age of 84, nev­er lost his touch with young read­ers. Who bet­ter to recite his 2006 let­ter to his fans in New York City’s Xavier High School’s stu­dent body than the ever youth­ful, ever curi­ous actor and activist, Sir Ian McK­ellen?

Cum­ber­batch is a won­der­ful read­er, but he’d require a bit more sea­son­ing to pull these lines off with­out the aid of major pros­thet­ics:

You sure know how to cheer up a real­ly old geezer (84) in his sun­set years. I don’t make pub­lic appear­ances any more because I now resem­ble noth­ing so much as an igua­na. 

Now if only these gents would attempt a Hoosier accent…

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Ian McK­ellen Recites Shakespeare’s Son­net 20, Backed by Garage Rock Band, the Flesh­tones, on Andy Warhol’s MTV Vari­ety Show (1987)

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Nick Cave’s Beau­ti­ful Let­ter About Grief

Watch Sir Ian McKellen’s 1979 Mas­ter Class on Macbeth’s Final Mono­logue

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads “the Best Cov­er Let­ter Ever Writ­ten”

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Its cur­rent issue cel­e­brates Kurt Vonnegut’s cen­ten­ni­al. Her most recent books are Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Isaac Asimov on How Libraries Can Radically Change Your Life (1971)

in Letters | December 30th, 2022

Back in 1971, Isaac Asi­mov sent a let­ter to cel­e­brate the open­ing of a new library in Troy, Michi­gan. Thought­ful as always, his let­ter addressed the chil­dren of the Troy com­mu­ni­ty as fol­lows: “Con­grat­u­la­tions on the new library, because it isn’t just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the far­thest reach­es of the Uni­verse, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and con­sole you—and most of all, a gate­way, to a bet­ter and hap­pi­er and more use­ful life.”

In total, 97 writ­ers (includ­ing Dr. Spock, Dr. Seuss and E.B. White) sent let­ters to mark the occa­sion. You can read through them in the Troy Library Flickr stream here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent

Isaac Asi­mov Laments the “Cult of Igno­rance” in the Unit­ed States (1980)

Isaac Asimov’s Guide to the Bible: A Wit­ty, Eru­dite Atheist’s Guide to the World’s Most Famous Book

Isaac Asi­mov Pre­dicts the Future of Civilization–and Rec­om­mends Ways to Ensure That It Sur­vives (1978)

How Isaac Asi­mov Went from Star Trek Crit­ic to Star Trek Fan & Advi­sor

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Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Nick Cave’s Beautiful Letter About Grief

in Letters, Life | July 11th, 2022

We would rather not grieve. Because we avoid it, death can leave us numb, and we may not know how to talk about it with­out turn­ing loss into a les­son. “Even when it’s expect­ed, death or loss still comes as a sur­prise,” writes psy­chother­a­pist Megan Devine in her book on griev­ing, It’s OK That You’re Not OK. And in grief, it can so hap­pen that “oth­er­wise intel­li­gent peo­ple have start­ed spout­ing slo­gans and plat­i­tudes, try­ing to cheer you up. Try­ing to take away your pain.” Every­thing hap­pens for a rea­son, they’re in a bet­ter place, they’d want you to be hap­py, this will make you stronger….! How­ev­er well-inten­tioned, “plat­i­tudes and cheer­lead­ing solve noth­ing.”

Is loss a prob­lem to be solved? Can we avoid grief with­out shut­ting out the inti­ma­cy of love? There are many sage answers to these ques­tions. Few, for exam­ple, have writ­ten as ele­gant­ly or ago­nized as pub­licly about love and loss as singer Nick Cave of The Birth­day Par­ty and The Bad Seeds. These are sub­jects to which he returns on album after album and in entries of his cult-favorite blog The Red Hand Files, where Cave pub­lish­es answers to an assort­ment of fan ques­tions.

Mus­ing in 2019 on whether arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence will ever pro­duce a great song, for exam­ple, Cave states one of his major themes plain­ly: “A sense of awe is almost exclu­sive­ly pred­i­cat­ed on our lim­i­ta­tions as human beings. It is entire­ly to do with our audac­i­ty as humans to reach beyond our poten­tial.” From this capac­i­ty come our great­est imag­i­na­tive feats, Cave writes: our abil­i­ty to con­jure “bright phan­toms” in our deep­est grief.

Cave wrote these last words in 2018 to a fan named Cyn­thia who told him about her fam­i­ly’s loss­es and asked the singer if he and his wife Susie com­mu­ni­cat­ed with their son Arthur, who died trag­i­cal­ly in 2015. In answer, Cave avoids the clich­es that Devine says do noth­ing for us. He nei­ther denies the real­i­ty of Cyn­thi­a’s pain, nor does he leave her with­out hope for “change and growth and redemp­tion.”

Dear Cyn­thia,

This is a very beau­ti­ful ques­tion and I am grate­ful that you have asked it. It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are for­ev­er inter­twined. Grief is the ter­ri­ble reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-nego­tiable. There is a vast­ness to grief that over­whelms our minus­cule selves. We are tiny, trem­bling clus­ters of atoms sub­sumed with­in grief’s awe­some pres­ence. It occu­pies the core of our being and extends through our fin­gers to the lim­its of the uni­verse. With­in that whirling gyre all man­ner of mad­ness­es exist; ghosts and spir­its and dream vis­i­ta­tions, and every­thing else that we, in our anguish, will into exis­tence. These are pre­cious gifts that are as valid and as real as we need them to be. They are the spir­it guides that lead us out of the dark­ness.

I feel the pres­ence of my son, all around, but he may not be there. I hear him talk to me, par­ent me, guide me, though he may not be there. He vis­its Susie in her sleep reg­u­lar­ly, speaks to her, com­forts her, but he may not be there. Dread grief trails bright phan­toms in its wake. These spir­its are ideas, essen­tial­ly. They are our stunned imag­i­na­tions reawak­en­ing after the calami­ty. Like ideas, these spir­its speak of pos­si­bil­i­ty. Fol­low your ideas, because on the oth­er side of the idea is change and growth and redemp­tion. Cre­ate your spir­its. Call to them. Will them alive. Speak to them. It is their impos­si­ble and ghost­ly hands that draw us back to the world from which we were jet­ti­soned; bet­ter now and unimag­in­ably changed.

With love, Nick

Cave’s full let­ter, above, is as elo­quent a piece of writ­ing on grief and loss, in its way, as John Don­ne’s famous med­i­ta­tion (a poet for whom Nick Cave has a “soft spot,” he writes in anoth­er entry). At the top, you can hear a very mov­ing read­ing of the text by Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch for Let­ters Live. Read more of Cave’s brief-but-deep med­i­ta­tions and lyri­cal replies at The Red Hand Files.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nick Cave Answers the Hot­ly Debat­ed Ques­tion: Will Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence Ever Be Able to Write a Great Song?

How Do You Help a Griev­ing Friend? Acknowl­edge Their Pain and Skip the Plat­i­tudes & Facile Advice

An Ani­mat­ed Leonard Cohen Offers Reflec­tions on Death: Thought-Pro­vok­ing Excerpts from His Final Inter­view

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Sir Ben Kingsley Reads a Letter Written by Gandhi to Hitler (in the Voice of Mahatma Gandhi)

in History, Letters | July 1st, 2022

Sev­er­al years before Indi­an inde­pen­dence as World War loomed, Mahat­ma Gand­hi found he had lit­tle sway in inter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics even as he built his move­ment at home. The phi­los­o­phy of satya­gra­ha did not sound noble to the British in 1939, for exam­ple, when the Indi­an leader wrote a let­ter exhort­ing them to let the Ger­mans take their coun­try, their homes, and even their lives rather than fight back. That same year, he wrote to Hitler, address­ing him as “Dear Friend” and writ­ing, “It is quite clear that you are today the one per­son in the world who can pre­vent a war which may reduce human­i­ty to a sav­age state.”

Gand­hi’s first 1939 let­ter to Hitler implies that the Führer was the only world leader who want­ed such a war. The Indi­an leader ful­ly under­stood the stakes. “My sym­pa­thies are all with the Jews,” he’d writ­ten in a 1938 arti­cle. “If there ever could be a jus­ti­fi­able war, in the name of and for human­i­ty, war against Ger­many to pre­vent the wan­ton per­se­cu­tion of a whole race would be com­plete­ly jus­ti­fied.” Still, he con­clud­ed, “I do not believe in any war.” He stuck to his prin­ci­ples even after Ger­many’s inva­sion of Poland in 1939.

“Not deterred by the out­break of war,” Alexan­der LaCasse writes at the Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, “Gand­hi wrote to Hitler a sec­ond time.” Just above, you can see Sir Ben Kings­ley read that let­ter, in char­ac­ter as Gand­hi and per­haps sound­ing much like Gand­hi did when read­ing his let­ters aloud. Gand­hi “took cor­re­spon­dence very seri­ous­ly,” Nick Owen writes, and he “wrote — and was writ­ten to by — almost any­one.” In this much longer let­ter from 1940, Gand­hi extols the prac­ti­cal virtues of non-vio­lence and attempts some moral rea­son­ing:

If not the British, some oth­er pow­er will cer­tain­ly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. You are leav­ing no lega­cy to your peo­ple of which they would feel proud. They can­not take pride in a recital of a cru­el deed, how­ev­er skill­ful­ly planned. I, there­fore, appeal to you in the name of human­i­ty to stop the war.

“There is no evi­dence to sug­gest Hitler ever respond­ed to,” or even read, “either of Gand­hi’s let­ters,” writes LaCasse. And maybe lit­tle evi­dence that Gand­hi expect­ed a response. “I am aware that your view of life regards such spo­li­a­tions as vir­tu­ous acts,” he writes. “But we have been taught from child­hood to regard them as acts degrad­ing human­i­ty.” He con­tin­ues to pro­fess Hitler a friend, writ­ing “I own no foes. My busi­ness in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friend­ship of the whole of human­i­ty.”

Before his death in 1948, Gand­hi called the Holo­caust “the great­est crime of our time.” Accord­ing to a biog­ra­ph­er, he also added, “the Jews should have offered them­selves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown them­selves into the sea from cliffs. It would have aroused the world and the peo­ple of Ger­many.” Had he sug­gest­ed this in a let­ter to Europe’s Jews, it is unlike­ly they would have been per­suad­ed.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Carl Jung Psy­cho­an­a­lyzes Hitler: “He’s the Uncon­scious of 78 Mil­lion Ger­mans.” “With­out the Ger­man Peo­ple He’d Be Noth­ing” (1938)

When Mahat­ma Gand­hi Met Char­lie Chap­lin (1931)

Mahat­ma Gandhi’s List of the 7 Social Sins; or Tips on How to Avoid Liv­ing the Bad Life

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Watch Brian Cox of “Succession” Read Hunter S. Thompson’s Profanity-Laden Letter

in Letters | April 1st, 2022

Bri­an Cox has maneu­vered over four decades of act­ing while remain­ing a bit anony­mous from one role to the next. Or at least that was the case until his star turn as Logan Roy, the sten­to­ri­an patri­arch at the cen­ter of HBO’s Suc­ces­sion. Now it is hard to sep­a­rate Cox from his char­ac­ter. His way of deliv­er­ing the deli­cious insults of the show’s scripts are both fright­en­ing and hilarious–as is his way of punc­tu­at­ing a scene with two sim­ple words: “Fuc& Off.”

Look, we try to keep swear­ing to a min­i­mum on this site, but Cox does won­ders with that phrase. Just watch one of the many super­cuts of Logan Roy say­ing it, and hear a mas­ter at work.

So the clip above, from a UK event series called Let­ters Live, shows why Cox is a per­fect fit to read Hunter S. Thompson’s let­ter to a cer­tain Dave Allen, direc­tor of pro­gram­ming at the writer’s local net­work affil­i­ate, KREX-TV. Allen had tak­en the CBS news off the local sta­tion, and Thomp­son was hav­ing none of it.

Thomp­son wrote many blis­ter­ing, pro­fan­i­ty-laden let­ters from his Col­orado home. The above was col­lect­ed in Hunter S. Thomp­son, Fear and Loathing in Amer­i­ca: The Bru­tal Odyssey of an Out­law Jour­nal­ist (Gonzo Let­ters, Vol­ume II, 1968–1976). Allen joins a list of recip­i­ents of Thompson’s ven­om that includes his edi­tor at Ran­dom House, Loren Jenk­ins of Newsweek, Paul Gor­man of WBAI-FM, and many oth­ers, most of whom owed him mon­ey for this or that writ­ing assign­ment.

Let­ters Live keeps its epis­tles short, and Bri­an Cox acts out Thompson’s short note, pour­ing con­tempt through every turn of phrase.

The pro­jec­t’s YouTube chan­nel offers many oth­er let­ters from his­to­ry, read by actors like Olivia Cole­man, Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch, Stephen Fry, Matt Berry, Carey Mul­li­gan, Gillian Ander­son, Ian McK­ellen, and many more. It’s worth check­ing out, espe­cial­ly if his­tor­i­cal swear­ing is your thing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hunter S. Thomp­son Writes a Blis­ter­ing, Over-the-Top Let­ter to Antho­ny Burgess (1973)

Hunter S. Thomp­son Calls Tech Sup­port, Unleash­es a Tirade Full of Fear and Loathing (NSFW)

Shake­speare­an Actor Bri­an Cox Teach­es Hamlet’s Solil­o­quy to a 2‑Year-Old Child

The His­to­ry of Ancient Greece in 18 Min­utes: A Brisk Primer Nar­rat­ed by Bri­an Cox

The Scotch Pro­nun­ci­a­tion Guide: Bri­an Cox Teach­es You How To Ask Authen­ti­cal­ly for 40 Scotch­es

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

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Benedict Cumberbatch Reads “the Best Cover Letter Ever Written”

in Film, History, Letters | August 26th, 2021

In the 1930s, many a writer jour­neyed to Hol­ly­wood in order to make his for­tune. The screen­writer’s life did­n’t sit well with some of them — just ask F. Scott Fitzger­ald or William Faulkn­er — but a fair few made more than a go of it out West. Take the Bal­ti­more-born Robert Pirosh, whose stud­ies at the Sor­bonne and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Berlin land­ed him a job as a copy­writer in New York. This work seems to have proven less than sat­is­fac­to­ry, as evi­denced by the piece of cor­re­spon­dence that, still in his ear­ly twen­ties, he wrote and sent to “as many direc­tors, pro­duc­ers and stu­dio exec­u­tives as he could find.” It was­n’t just a request for work; it was what Let­ters Live today calls “the best cov­er let­ter ever writ­ten.”

Pirosh’s impres­sive mis­sive, which you can hear read aloud by favorite Let­ters Live per­former Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch in the video above, runs, in full, as fol­lows:

Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat but­tery words, such as ooze, turpi­tude, gluti­nous, toady. I like solemn, angu­lar, creaky words, such as strait­laced, can­tan­ker­ous, pecu­nious, vale­dic­to­ry. I like spu­ri­ous, black-is-white words, such as mor­ti­cian, liq­ui­date, ton­so­r­i­al, demi-monde. I like suave “V” words, such as Sven­gali, svelte, bravu­ra, verve. I like crunchy, brit­tle, crack­ly words, such as splin­ter, grap­ple, jos­tle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowl­ing words, such as skulk, glow­er, scab­by, churl. I like Oh-Heav­ens, my-gra­cious, land’s‑sake words, such as tricksy, tuck­er, gen­teel, hor­rid. I like ele­gant, flow­ery words, such as esti­vate, pere­gri­nate, ely­si­um, hal­cy­on. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blub­ber, squeal, drip. I like snig­gly, chuck­ling words, such as cowlick, gur­gle, bub­ble and burp.

I like the word screen­writer bet­ter than copy­writer, so I decid­ed to quit my job in a New York adver­tis­ing agency and try my luck in Hol­ly­wood, but before tak­ing the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, con­tem­pla­tion and hors­ing around.

I have just returned and I still like words.

May I have a few with you?

Though not known as an unsub­tle actor, Cum­ber­batch seizes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to deliv­er each and every one of these choice words with its own vari­ety of exag­ger­at­ed rel­ish. Though none of these terms is espe­cial­ly recher­ché on its own, they must col­lec­tive­ly have giv­en the impres­sion of a for­mi­da­ble mas­tery of the Eng­lish lan­guage, espe­cial­ly to the ear of the aver­age Hol­ly­wood big-shot. One way or anoth­er, Pirosh’s let­ter did the trick: accord­ing to Let­ters of Note, it “secured him three inter­views, one of which led to his job as a junior writer at MGM. Fif­teen years lat­er,” he “won an Acad­e­my Award for Best Orig­i­nal Screen­play for his work on the war film Bat­tle­ground.”

A World War II pic­ture, Bat­tle­ground was writ­ten at least in part from Pirosh’s own expe­ri­ence: a few years into his Hol­ly­wood career, he enlist­ed and made a return to Europe, this time as a Mas­ter Sergeant in the 320th Reg­i­ment, 35th Infantry Divi­sion, see­ing action in France and Ger­many. After the war he went right back to writ­ing and pro­duc­ing, remain­ing active in the enter­tain­ment indus­try until at least the 1970s (and in fact, his writ­ing cred­its include con­tri­bu­tions to such pro­grams that defined that decade as Man­nix, Barn­a­by Jones, and Hawaii Five‑O). Pirosh’s was an envi­able 20th-cen­tu­ry career, and one that began with a suit­ably brazen — and still con­vinc­ing — 20th-cen­tu­ry adver­tise­ment for him­self.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hunter S. Thompson’s Ball­sy Job Appli­ca­tion Let­ter (1958)

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Incensed Let­ter to the High School That Burned Slaugh­ter­house-Five

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Let­ter of Advice to Peo­ple Liv­ing in the Year 2088

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads a Let­ter Alan Tur­ing Wrote in “Dis­tress” Before His Con­vic­tion For “Gross Inde­cen­cy”

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Albert Camus’ Touch­ing Thank You Let­ter to His Ele­men­tary School Teacher

“Stop It and Just DO”: Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Advice on Over­com­ing Cre­ative Blocks, Writ­ten by Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse (1965)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Letter of Advice to People Living in the Year 2088

in History, Letters, Literature | August 10th, 2021

A few years ago we post­ed Kurt Von­negut’s let­ter of advice to human­i­ty, writ­ten in 1988 but addressed, a cen­tu­ry hence, to the year 2088. What­ev­er objec­tions you may have felt to read­ing this mis­sive more than 70 years pre­ma­ture­ly, you might have over­come them to find that the author of Slaugh­ter­house-Five and Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons sin­gle-mind­ed­ly impor­tuned his fel­low man of the late 21st cen­tu­ry to pro­tect the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment. He issues com­mand­ments to “reduce and sta­bi­lize your pop­u­la­tion” to “stop prepar­ing for war and start deal­ing with your real prob­lems,” and to “stop think­ing sci­ence can fix any­thing if you give it a tril­lion dol­lars,” among oth­er poten­tial­ly dras­tic-sound­ing mea­sures.

Com­mand­ment num­ber sev­en amounts to the high­ly Von­negut­ian “And so on. Or else.” A fan can eas­i­ly imag­ine these words spo­ken in the writer’s own voice, but with Von­negut now gone for well over a decade, would you accept them spo­ken in the voice of Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch instead?

First com­mis­sioned by Volk­swa­gen for a Time mag­a­zine ad cam­paign, Von­negut’s let­ter to 2088 was lat­er found and repub­lished by Let­ters of Note. The asso­ci­at­ed Let­ters Live project, which brings notable let­ters to the stage (and sub­se­quent­ly inter­net video), counts Cum­ber­batch as one of its star read­ers: he’s giv­en voice to wise cor­re­spon­dence by the likes of Sol LeWitt, Albert Camus, and Alan Tur­ing.

Cum­ber­batch even has expe­ri­ence with let­ters by Von­negut, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly read aloud his rebuke to a North Dako­ta school board that allowed the burn­ing of Slaugh­ter­house-Five. Von­negut’s work makes clear that he did­n’t suf­fer fools glad­ly, and that he con­sid­ered book-burn­ing one of the infi­nite vari­eties of fol­ly he spent his career cat­a­loging. In light of his let­ter to 2088, the same went for human­i­ty’s poor stew­ard­ship of their plan­et. Von­negut may not have been a con­ser­va­tion­ist, exact­ly, but nor, in his view, was nature itself, a force that needs “no help from us in tak­ing the plan­et apart and putting it back togeth­er some dif­fer­ent way, not nec­es­sar­i­ly improv­ing it from the view­point of liv­ing things.” This is, of course, the per­son­i­fy­ing view of a nov­el­ist, but a nov­el­ist who nev­er for­got his sense of humor — nor his ten­den­cy to play the prophet of doom.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Incensed Let­ter to the High School That Burned Slaugh­ter­house-Five

The Graph­ic Nov­el Adap­ta­tion of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaugh­ter­house-Five

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads a Let­ter Alan Tur­ing Wrote in “Dis­tress” Before His Con­vic­tion For “Gross Inde­cen­cy”

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Albert Camus’ Touch­ing Thank You Let­ter to His Ele­men­tary School Teacher

“Stop It and Just DO”: Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Advice on Over­com­ing Cre­ative Blocks, Writ­ten by Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse (1965)

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch, Mar­garet Atwood, Stephen Fry & Oth­ers Read Let­ters of Hope, Love & Sup­port Dur­ing COVID-19

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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