I just found this in the National Archives. (Story.)
Not the biggest Fiona Apple fan, but this is really awesome:
While I’m devoting my blog to the letters of Fiona Apple today, I might as well share this one that she wrote to me.
I met her very briefly before a show back in 2000, only a couple days after that Roseland meltdown, and I handed her a letter wherein I told her I was in my school’s gay-straight alliance and was wondering if she would write a sentence or two of support. “Could you say some nice stuff about gay people?”, basically.
Quite frankly, 16-year-old me was much more interested in interacting with a celebrity than building an alliance between gays and straights, but Fiona took me at my word and wrote me this really sweet letter. The show was on a Friday, and I got this via FedEx the following Tuesday, and she even apologizes for it taking so long. For much of the 12 years that have passed since these events transpired, this has been the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.
I’ve met her a couple times since, but I never got a chance thank her for taking some time out and being so thoughtful, especially for a lonely weirdo like me. Maybe someday.
Hello Bill,
I got your letter a few days ago, but this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write (it’s my day off)
Of course, I’d love to help — sign me up. As far as a few sentences go, here’s what I’ve got — I hope it’s OK:It’s hard to conjure up some new profound way of commenting on this issue — I’m so tired of it being an issue at all, and I suppose I’m lucky, because I see the truth so clearly. All I know I want my friends to be good people, and when my friends fall in love, I want them to fall in love with other good people. How can you go wrong with two people in love? If a good boy loves a good girl, good. If a good boy loves another good boy, good. And if a good girl loves the goodness in good boys and good girls, then all you have is more goodness, and goodness has nothing to do with sexual orientation. A person who loves is a righteous person, and if someone has the ability and desire to show love another — to someone willing to receive it, then for goodness’ sake, let them do it. Hate has no place in the equation; there is no function for it to perform. Love is love, and there will never be too much.
-Fiona Apple
On one pole, you have people who hate him because he’s too much of an in-your-face good person, which makes very little sense; at the other pole, you have people who love him because he succeeds at his job while being uniquely unskilled at its traditional requirements, which seems almost as weird. Equally bizarre is the way both groups perceive themselves as the oppressed minority who are fighting against dominant public opinion.
“
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Chuck Klosterman It took over a month after the 2011 NFL season ended, but I finally found someone that explains Tebowmania perfectly. Read the entire article here: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7319858/the-people-hate-tim-tebow |
This is awesome.
In which David Frum goes into an impressive rant via Twitter.
You can read, so I’ll let you do just that.
For those not familiar with Twitter, you should read this from the bottom up.
This 11-year-old summarizes everything that’s wrong with our food system in 5 minutes better than I could ever hope to.
Best Albums of 2011
10. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming - M83
9. King of Limbs - Radiohead
8. The Year of Hibernation - Youth Lagoon
7. Cults - Cults
6. Yuck - Yuck
5. LiveLoveA$AP - A$AP Rocky
4. Take Care - Drake
3. Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes
2. Father, Son, Holy Ghost - Girls
1. Bon Iver, Bon Iver - Bon Iver
Honorable Mention:
- House of Balloons/Thursday/Echoes of Silence - The Weeknd
- Metals - Feist
- w h o k i l l - tUnE-yArDs
“Here are the two contradictory facts you must keep in your mind if you wish to understand American politics today:”
1. We are entering the fifth year of a profound economic slump that was brought on, in large part, by our government’s failure adequately to supervise financial institutions to regulate themselves.
2. The main political effect of this slump has been the strengthening of the right wing of the Republican Party, with its doctrinaire insistence on further deregulation; in fact, of the various Republicans who have a realistic shot at the presidency, each one has publicly declared that regulation is one of the greatest evils facing the nation and has sworn to liberate banks and financial institutions from government supervision.
