Most Fridays I send out a real love letter that I’ve transcribed from a stack I bought at the flea market. Missed one? Check the chronological list.
September 25, 1961
Dearest Kay,
This program is being brought to you from the student lounge in the commons at Illinois Institute of Technology through the courtesy of the great penniless philanthropist R. M.
Our program will begin shortly but first a word from our sponsor:
“I vow upon my honor as a scholar and a “gentleman” that will share with all my fellow men, all my material assets. All will be at the disposal of anyone who finds a need for them. And I will be at the disposal of anyone who finds a need for them. And I will uphold this vow for the remainder of my natural impoverishment. Yah! S’alight!
Applause.
Applause fades out.
“S’ok.”
More applause.
5 minutes of thunderous applause
10 minutes of roaring applause
15 min. of rumbling applause
20 min. of normal applause
25 min. of intermittent applause
30 min. of scattered applause
35 min. die-hard applause
40 min. of questionable applause
A 45-minute pause — to wait while Mr. M. stops clapping.
185 total or 3 hours and 5 minutes shot. Cut out announcer and speaker. Run into the following program by 2 minutes.
3 hours of applause (with variations) is better than the originally planned program anyway.
It’s like he’s at the Cannes Film Festival.
Right now, as you may have gathered, I’m in the lounge in the Commons, not really locked in a padded cell cutting out paper dolls.
I love paper dolls and need to write about them someday.
There are no clocks in this place. Clocks are much too common, simple, inaccurate, antique and inconvenient for the great engineers of IIT, who probably prefer to tell time by rubbing two sticks together or calculating the shift in the stars, which aren’t visible at this time of day. However, how can one say for sure the stars aren’t visible at this time of day if the time of day is what one is seeking? Logical, no? The fact that they aren’t visible, however, must have a simple answer and is only a complication in an apparently highly complex problem and will be eventually cracked by modern technology.
Here he writes “<later>” and the tone changes a bit.
The only difference between Bandersnatch and frubjub is that they’re spelled differently and have different meanings.
No, really, I’m in one of more lucid moments. They even let me have a sharp instrument, a pen, a pen to write with, a pen, a share instrument. Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah.
This is what used to pass for comedy, you guys.
It must be the strain. Something, anyway. A realistic and intuitively obvious lack of you is a better explanation. I need you more than I do food. So maybe it is trite, but it’s true. My love is still unique, because it comes from me, a unique individual.
An interesting specimen, this unique individual. An above-average command of English vocabulary and a little German besides, and he can’t say what he feels so strongly that he wants to or feels like he could drive the pen through the table trying to put strength and feeling into his poor attempts.
He’d like to shout it to Champaign, but he isn’t physically strong enough. Sheer size of the letters, the words, is not enough. Stymied. Run up against the well-known, insurmountable wall but too much in love and carried away by a dream girl to carry it off.
His only counsel is the pen, the paper and the ink. The pen is too much of a follower, the ink tends toward a watered-down effectiveness, and the paper just lies there, waiting.
Time and distance create an impossible barrier to direct communication and so the poor unique individual finds himself faced with what, for all practical purposes, amounts to a unique and insoluble problem.
I wonder if I would have found these kinds of letters charming when I was in college? I think it’s sorta sweet but mostly self-indulgent and even a little self-centered.
This unique individual has other characteristics also. He feels like a student again. His mind no longer stagnates completely in a dull routine. But the wholeness will not be complete until he can apply himself to studying full time on a campus he has grown to love with the girl he has grown to love even more profoundly.
He, although unique, because of that uniqueness, like many others (who are also unique) did not realize what great treasures he had until they were taken out of reach, at least temporarily.
I can’t judge Russ too harshly, though. I can’t imagine how annoying I am in all my emotionally unhinged letters of the 1990s. I sorta feel like when this project is over, I have to transcribe at least three super embarrassing letters I wrote to people over the years to atone for how much shit I’ve given this poor man.
Oh, he knew that he had more than anyone else ever hoped for, but now he realizes how much more. How far greater than all the world could offer he had in his grasp, where he could admire and show devotion. Now his is separated from hers and can only try, in an insufficient way, to satisfy what can only be a longing.
How true is what I have always believed: that love is the most basic and necessary requisite for a human being. The outgoing, sincere, and wonderful love of a human being. Darling, what I say to you, whether good, bad, or mediocre, is at the very least spontaneous, and as sincere as any words could be. I can only describe how deeply the words are meant because I can’t make them appear self-evident of deep emotion. I write them with complete and unfaltering devotion, and I only wish they could be stronger and more eloquent in what they say, so that you may have all that you justly deserve.
Oh, hell, he won me over. This is actually sweet.
Until I see you again, and every day of your life, sleep tight, sweet dreams and take extra good care of yourself.
Love always,
Russ
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