Slog - Comments on “Your letter received and promptly burned. I prefer not to have strangers prying into my mail." http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned That was Groucho Marx's first response to a query about publishing his letters. Now there's a new edition you can preview on Amazon. (And then, if you're a cad like me, buy at Powell's.) I went straight for the correspondence between Groucho and the poet, Anglophile, and anti-Semite T.S. Eliot. The pair had swapped correspondence and photos. T.S.'s letter are tight and square, Groucho's funny: "Dear T.S.: Your photograph arrived in good shape... I had no idea you were so handsome. Why you have not been offered the lead in some sexy movies I can only attribute to the stupidity... Copyright 2008 Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:10:17 -0800 Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:48:59 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by Issur Christians are all anti-semities. I never liked Elliot's hack poetry. Compared to the Psalms he's dust.

]]> Issur http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned#c791439 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned#c791439 Arts Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:24:06 -0800 Comment by Jude Fawley @1 - Ok - thanks for that, Mr. Issur.

Anyways - Brendan, thanks, that was an interesting letter to read. Any idea what Groucho's stamp says at the end of his letter? At first I thought is was Embassy of Fredonia or something, but its not.

Marx discusses how new writers had brough sex and the lavatory into the open. Is this true with regards to the lavatory? Or was that tried and quietly discarded cuz no one likes reading about you taking a shit? I'm not up enough on modern literature to know for sure, so I thought I through the question to the ether of slog.

]]> Jude Fawley http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned#c791453 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned#c791453 Arts Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:39:30 -0800 Comment by Jude Fawley I meant throw, not through. P.S. I wonder who will compile my internet postings into a book in 50 years?

]]> Jude Fawley http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned#c791458 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned#c791458 Arts Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:40:56 -0800 Comment by Fnarf Eliot peaked in his twenties. His later poems (including most of "The Wasteland") are unreadable, his criticism mostly ridiculous. But most of all, Eliot's primary motivation in life, his desire to be English, always escaped him. HE WAS BORN AND RAISED IN SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI.

Actual English people were perpetually amused at his mostly unsuccessful attempts to ape upper-class Englishisms, like the bowler hat and the rolled umbrella. He was constantly asking people about the correct way to do such and such, and never getting it quite right. What he was never able to fully grasp is that social climbing of that sort is the one thing that no Englishman of any stripe can ever tolerate.

Oh, and he wrote "Cats".

]]> Fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned#c791506 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned#c791506 Arts Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:22:34 -0800 Comment by keshmeshi @2,

I'm pretty sure the stamp says "Library of Congress."

]]> keshmeshi http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned#c791528 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/your_letter_received_and_promptly_burned#c791528 Arts Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:48:59 -0800