{ a swoop and a dart }

Short Letters to Famous People (Again)

Dear Phillip Seymour Hoffman,

So much has been said about your life and death in the last few months, but I just wanted to add to the official record that we miss you. Watching your masterful, masterful performance in Capote this weekend only made this sentiment more pronounced.

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Dear Whoever is in Charge of the Latest TV Ad Campaign from Dick's Sporting Goods,

Nice work. I hope you're moderately famous in the advertising world, because those ads are good and you deserve some recognition.

(Here's one--there are a bunch more)

 

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Dear Leslie Stahl,

Everyone knows it's not a button, it's a key. Well, everyone that ever had me as a teacher, at least.

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Dear Jack White,

We are most excited for your visit to Shreveport Municipal Auditorium in June. I hope you are excited too, and PLEASE DON'T CANCEL YOUR CONCERT. Thank you.

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Dear Lauryn Hill,

My informants are wide-reaching and effective. My friend Nadine tells me you are performing in Canada this summer, in addition to a bunch of other places. Perhaps this means a new album is really in the works, instead of just purported to be in the works. Please?

 

Short Letters to Famous People

It's been a while since the last installment.

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Dear Angelina Jolie,

I know it's a coincidence that your new movie comes out the month someone here turns seven (right? May 2014, not summer 2014?), but thank you. She's not even afraid of you, even if her parents might be just a tiny little bit.

 

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Dear Eleanor Estes,

If only you were alive to know that the same girl who might make a paper chain to count down the months until evil Malificent hits the theaters also burst into tears recently in the middle of Barnes & Noble when her mama had to break the news that you died in 1988. She loves your sweet books, and has read The Moffats, The Middle Moffat, Rufus M., The Hundred Dresses, Ginger Pye, and Pinky Pye since school started and is almost done with The Moffat Museum. There are only a few books of yours left for her to read that are still in print, and she will no doubt love every last one. Thank you.

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Dear Jeni Britton Bauer,

It took me a while to finally make my first batch of ice cream with your cookbook, but OH MY GOODNESS. The Buckeye Classic I made yesterday? RIDICULOUS. Best ever. I can't believe I made it. You win everything.

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams on Vimeo.

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Dear Jalon Stephens,

Maddie and Gracie were really excited to get to attend your signing ceremony with the University of Minnesota last night at the gym, and we hope very much that you'll make the U.S. Olympic team in 2016. Hooray!

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Dear Lauryn Hill,

People are still talking about you, yearning for what could have been. This pretty much sums it up: "What’s followed (The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill) has been series of bafflements, each more baffling than the last."

Sigh.

Now that you're out of jail, though, what do you say? Sing for us a little more when you're not so mad at the world? You sound pretty mad. Like, madder than Zach de la Rocha on a bad day.

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Dear LeBron James,

We're house hunting again, but we refuse to rent even the nicest house on LeBron Avenue in Montgomery. Hmph.

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Dear former Lt Col Richard Cole,  former Lt Col Edward Saylor, former Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, and former Lt Col Robert Hite,


I didn't know about your yearly toast of the Doolittle Raiders until this past weekend, and I am sorry for that. Now that I know, it will remain one of the most touching stories of patriotism and loyalty I've ever heard. Thank you.

One Short Letter to a Famous Person

Dear Tim Burton,

I've had this drawing by my four year old on the side of my fridge for a few months now; perhaps you could use it as inspiration for your next movie?

Short Letters to Famous People (at the Oscars)

Dear Tim Gunn and Nina Garcia,

We were so glad to see you on the red carpet last night. Everything is more gracious, under control, and generally better when you're around, we think.

p.s. Did you get to pick who visited you on the red carpet for an interview? We think you did. Because there is no way either one of you could have disguised your distaste for a few of those get-ups we saw. (Meryl Streep, we're looking at YOU.)

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Dear Jonah Hill,

Up until about a week ago, my opinion of your live-acting wasn't really all that great (but nice job on the animated stuff!). But then I saw Moneyball last weekend and I was more than pleasantly surprised by how good you were—how 'bout a lot more of that, please? Oh, and I'm a Billy Crystal fan for the most part, but if I was there last night I would have looked the other way if you had decided to stick your foot out and trip him for his snide little remark about cupcakes. Just saying.

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Dear Actors and Actresses who Talked About Their Childhood Memories of Going To the Movies,

Thanks a lot for making me all weepy about how much I love movies, too. My children already think I'm crazy-crying-at-weird-times-lady, and you didn't really help me out on that count.

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Dear Octavia Spencer,

You too. See above.

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Dear Viola Davis,

I'm sorry you didn't win. I was rooting for you.

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Dear Brad Pitt,

I feel as if I've earned the right to comment on your general appearance, having assessed it closely over the course of the last 20+ years... unless you are preparing for the most amazing role in the universe, please get your hair cut. Thank you.

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Dear Gary Oldman,

I completely and totally missed that you were Sirius Black. Well played sir, well played.

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Dear Julia Roberts,

I didn't actually see you at the Oscars (were you there?) but I did see you on a trailer for Mirror, Mirror during one of the commercial breaks. And so did the three small girls I live with. And we are all VERY EXCITED.

 

Oh, how I love the movies.

Time For Another Installment of Short Letters To Famous People

[you can read more short letters here, here, here, and here.]

 

Dear Lauryn Hill,

You know what? I give up. A whole bunch of us got really excited after that NPR story and interview you gave last year, and now? Still waiting. Surprise performances at stores in SoHo are not the same as an album for those of us who live 14 universes away from SoHo.

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Dear Lewis Carroll,

I know you've been dead for longer than almost anyone currently living has been alive, but I thought you'd like to know that Maddie recited Jabberwocky from memory for the entire dentist office this morning in preparation for her poetry project presentation. She even made a dental hygienist a little weepy.

p.s. It's a struggle to overlook your streak of creepy I learned about during the research phase of my senior paper in high school, but I work at it tirelessly in the House of Alice in Wonderland Fanatics.

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Dear Steve Jobs,

The usual. Also, I hope you're feeling better.

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Dear Frank Buckles,

You became a bit of an icon on this blog over the last few years. I hope I live to see the day when a WWI Memorial is constructed/restored/rededicated on the National Mall in a place where everyone can reflect upon the war to end all wars. A thread to the past was cut when you died this week, but your legacy will remain. Thank you.

Short Letters to Famous People, Part IV

Dear Lauryn Hill,

I've written you in the past—three times, actually—to urge you to come out of hiding and record a new album. It has been, after all, 12 years since The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released. It still holds up, by the way. Nice work.

I had no idea that there were so many 30-somethings out there waiting for you, too, until I was in the car on Monday waiting for Maddie's piano lesson to end when a story came on NPR's All Things Considered about you. The story ran through your blazing but short-lived career, confirming the strangeness of your absence and wishing right along with me for your return. I could hear the wistfulness in people's voices as they talked about you.

And then... an interview with you. You didn't sound strange at all. You sounded like a mama of five children who wasn't really interested in leaving them all the time for a music career. And you made me—and people like me—rekindle the hope that there might just be another album coming, maybe even this year. Could it actually be true? Oh, I hope so.

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Dear Elena Kagan,

A quick question that I fear will be otherwise unasked in your confirmation hearings:

Did you love Nancy Drew when you were little?

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Dear LeBron James,

I went to my first Cavs game in 1974.

I can't speak for other fans in other cities, but speaking from personal experience, I can't imagine a fanbase that loves its team more than the one in Cleveland.

We cry when our teams lose in the end. And then we believe they can win again. Because one day, we will celebrate victory like people who have been waiting a lifetime.

You aren't going to find that in Chicago, Miami, New York, or anywhere else. But you know that already. We were born in the same place.

Listen to them if you must, but in the end, pick us, please.

More Short Letters To Famous People

Dear Sonia Sotomayor,

If only you could have seen Maddie's face this week when I told her about The Washington Post article in which you declare Nancy Drew to be one of your earliest inspirations. Did you read The Case of the Crooked Banister all those years ago? It is #48, and the book Maddie just finished, in order. Thank you for planting the seed that any Nancy Drew-reading girl can grow up to potentially become a Supreme Court Justice if she plays her cards right (and stays away from car chases, burning buildings, and creepy human-squeezing robots. Good heavens).

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Dear Spike Jonze,

Thank you for loving Where the Wild Things Are as much as I do. I can't wait to see your movie.

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Dear Lauryn Hill,

So should I just go ahead and consider you retired? Because it's been quite a long time since my last short letter. I hear you're headlining the Stockholm Jazz Festival, though, so maybe I'll give you a few more months-extension to record a new album. Thank you.

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Dear Jill Scott,

You are, quite possibly, the best embodiment of a fictional character I have ever seen. Thank you for taking Precious Ramotswe on, for taking such good care of her, and for acting in one of my new favorite TV shows of all time. How many days until I can buy the box set of DVDs?

p.s. I've taken to saying "Dumela Mma" in my head when I'm out and I live in fear that it might slip out audibly one of these days. What did that crazy lady just say?



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Dear Martha Stewart,

I'm on to you—your craft room is ingeniously organized and perpetually neat because you don't use it. No one who uses her craft room is ingeniously organized and perpetually neat. Well, maybe Beth. I know for a fact she uses her craft room and is ingeniously organized and perpetually neat. But that's it. You, Martha, have a craft staff, and their office is elsewhere.

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Dear Reese Witherspoon,

While investigating the back-in-print Trixie Belden series to present to Maddie for cross-country entertainment this summer (oh, how I loved Trixie Belden, though I never realized you had to be a Nancy girl or a Trixie girl—I obliviously was both) I stumbled across an image of you and was terribly excited to hear a Trixie Belden MOVIE was being made with you as its star. Alas, then I realized I had stumbled into something called Fan Fiction. And I backed slowly out of the room—er, site, so as not to draw attention to myself. I do not understand Fan Fiction, exactly. But I'm glad Trixie is back in print all the same, even if a movie deal is not in the works. Perhaps someone a little bit more 13-year-old-ish would make a better Trixie anyway : )

p.s. I don't think Trixie would have worn pink, Random House. But thanks for bringing the series back anyway!

 

Oh, late 1970s-early 1980s. How I loved you and your 95¢ books.

More Short Letters to Famous People

Dear Stephen Colbert,

When you started your show a few years ago I didn't think you were funny at all. Somehow you've become one of the funniest people in the entire world. What's your secret?

p.s. Your Ben & Jerry's AmeriCone Dream ice cream is pretty good, too.

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Dear David Blaine,

It's time to do some more street magic. Enough with the drowning alive and being frozen on the top of a skyscraper junk. STREET MAGIC. Thank you.

p.s. I have been enjoying your NBA Playoffs commercials very much.

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Dear Stephon Marbury,

I know I've mentioned this before, but I think you and your $15 shoes are pretty darn cool. Thank you for making a difference in the lives of so many kids.

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Dear Lauryn Hill,

OK, really. Zion must be going to COLLEGE by now. It's time. for. something. new.

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Dear Billy Collins,

I heard you read some of your poems on Prairie Home Companion last weekend and you've inspired me to go check out every poetry book you've ever published.

p.s. I'm sorry I didn't notice when you were U.S. Poet Laureate.

Short Letters to Famous People

Dear Lauryn Hill,

It is time for you to come out with a new CD. That baby of yours, Zion, must be at least 7 years old now, so I know you have a little time on your hands. Thank you.

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Dear Will Smith,

Thanks for getting me back on the elliptical. There's just nothing like a song by you to get me motivated to move around.

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Dear Mary Berner,

I bought your new magazine, Cookie, even though I said I wouldn't. I couldn't help it, as I happened to notice you included the They Might Be Giants concert I attended this past summer in an article— plus I had a morbid curiosity about it. But guess what? I found a glaring grammatical error in the premiere issue. And I'm not telling you where it is.

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Dear Tom Cavanaugh,

I'm so excited for your new show, as is my pal Kristina. We miss you in Ed. I don't know what this new show is about, exactly, but I'm willing to give it a try just because you're in it. Please don't disappoint me.

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Dear Santino,

I don't really like you that much anymore. I think you're a sore loser. I'm rooting for Chloë now.

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Dear Steve Jobs,

I've hardly touched an actual CD since we welcomed our 60 gb iPod into the family. Just thought you should know.