I am very real

#1

Post by etrain » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 2:23 PM UTC

Re: I am very real

#2

Post by delinka » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 3:28 PM UTC

I am curious for more. Does the source book have more on this story? I'd like to know whether the letter was ever shared in the community.

Re: I am very real

#3

Post by sosuke » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 3:30 PM UTC

While not nearly as important, the idea that authors are real makes me immediately relate to my own experience that customers don't seem to understand that software is made by real people too. People with feelings, who are fallible. Several comments on blogs or reviews on the app store show to me that people don't feel they are being insulting or rude if they aren't facing the person they criticize. The more I wrote this comment the more I started to seem the Internet as a whole falling victim to anonymous words that cut deep. We've had to develop unnaturally thick skin.

Re: I am very real

#4

Post by phireal » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 3:31 PM UTC

delinka wrote: post #2

I am curious for more. Does the source book have more on this story? I'd like to know whether the letter was ever shared in the community.

It must have been shared with at least one other person as it explicitly states that there is only a single copy in existence. For us to be reading it means either the recipient or the person they shared it with subsequently shared it with others.

Re: I am very real

#5

Post by jsharpe » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 3:34 PM UTC

I'm curious, how, if "... no copies of this letter have been sent to anybody else. You now hold the only copy in your hands." is true, how is it reproduced on this site?

Re: I am very real

#6

Post by tjr » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 3:40 PM UTC

jsharpe wrote: post #5

I'm curious, how, if "... no copies of this letter have been sent to anybody else. You now hold the only copy in your hands." is true, how is it reproduced on this site?

He also wrote, "Do you have the courage and ordinary decency to show this letter to the people, or will it, too, be consigned to the fires of your furnace?"

Re: I am very real

#7

Post by sheepthief » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 3:42 PM UTC

jsharpe wrote: post #5

I'm curious, how, if "... no copies of this letter have been sent to anybody else. You now hold the only copy in your hands." is true, how is it reproduced on this site?

Shaun here - I run Letters of Note.

Presumably Vonnegut kept the draft, or kept the original and sent McCarthy the one copy. The letter's text was later included in Vonnegut's book, Palm Sunday, as mentioned on the site.

Re: I am very real

#8

Post by ilamont » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 3:47 PM UTC

I was curious how this document was released, if only one copy was distributed to a person who was probably not inclined to share it. The first newspaper reference on Google I could find is dated June 1982.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=L6pNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=r...;

Anyone have access to Factiva or LexisNexis?

Re: I am very real

#9

Post by dasht » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 3:50 PM UTC

jsharpe wrote: post #5

I'm curious, how, if "... no copies of this letter have been sent to anybody else. You now hold the only copy in your hands." is true, how is it reproduced on this site?

The web site got the letter from a book that Vonnegut put together and published in 1981. Presumably he saved a copy himself, as many letter writers do.

Re: I am very real

#10

Post by sheepthief » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 3:50 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #8

I was curious how this document was released, if only one copy was distributed to a person who was probably not inclined to share it. The first newspaper reference on Google I could find is dated June 1982. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=L6pNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=r... ; Anyone have access to Factiva or LexisNexis?

Vonnegut himself released it, in his book, Palm Sunday.