"Your next article should just be nothing more than a quote from someone else, nothing more"
Tom Scocca · 09/01/15 02:52PMTo: scocca@gawker.com
To: scocca@gawker.com
A massive infographic formulated from an array of handwriting studies claims to show that over 5,000 personality traits are reflected by the words we write onto paper. Too bad we don't do that anymore, too bad the study of handwriting (graphology) is disregarded in most circles as probably bullshit, and too bad that this study still analyzes cursive.
When a jailed member of the controversial Russian punk band Pussy Riot decided to go on hunger strike to protest her incarceration proceedings, Sir Paul McCartney stepped in. He penned a hand-written letter to Russian authorities, demanding they release the two remaining jailed members of the wronged band.
Nine letters from J. D. Salinger, written between 1941 to 1943, reveal the elusive Catcher in the Rye author's book recommendations, writerly ambitions to "tear the country’s heart out," fears that he would "probably fail completely," and his clumsy attempts to flirt via correspondence. All in all, he's got an awkwardly charming resemblance to Holden Caulfield that you were hoping for.
In 1999, when I was 19 years old, I was arrested and charged with first degree murder, several counts of attempted murder, attempted robbery, and several counts of criminal use of a weapon. I was convicted of first degree assault and third degree weapons possession, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2002.
From crime to AIDS to the debt, America is facing a lot of problems. But there's a simple solution, according to this letter: cast this woman in a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. Not only will "less [sic] children... be harmed by confused followers of Leonardo DiCaprio," but Los Angeles might get the Olympics again.
This brutal, heartbreaking love letter was found in 1998, lying on the mummified body of Eung-Tae Lee, a 30-year-old Korean man who'd died in 1586, some four hundred years before. Lee was tall and bearded — "The dark mustache made me feel that he must have had a charming appearance," says the former director of the Andong National University Museum — and left behind him a pregnant wife, the letter's author. Here it is, via Letters of Note:
In 2007, the New Yorker published staff writer Raffi Khatchadourian's lengthy and nuanced profile of "American Al Qaeda" Adam Gadahn, the California-born death metal enthusiast who converted to Islam, moved to Pakistan, and rose to the leadership of Al Qaeda. What the magazine has never reported: Gadahn wrote back.
Earlier this year, I wrote to every American death row inmate scheduled for execution in the near future. I asked them about their personal history, their lives in prison, and their thoughts on America and its justice system. Today we hear from Abdul Awkal—a man who was scheduled to be executed by the state of Ohio last week, before receiving a last-minute reprieve.
Bloomberg LP is an incredibly successful media company. It is famous for tight security, tyrannical, controlling editors, plush offices which act like a luxurious cage to ensure that employees never leave the building. It's a place built to engender paranoia. That's probably why employees feel the need to write their tips to us on company stationery, and mail them to us.