Like Proust But For Email
The first issue of a new newsletter. No pressure.
Welcome to the first edition of Ironic Sans: The Newsletter. I’m nervous and excited and grateful that you signed up. You can read my thoughts behind starting the newsletter, or just dive into this inaugural issue.
Miranda July sent perhaps my favorite email newsletter. Over 20 weeks in 2013, she sent 20 issues featuring emails from the Sent Mail folders of people like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lena Dunham, Kirsten Dunst, and six of her other friends from various disciplines. It was a collaborative art project in newsletter form called We Think Alone.
Each weekly collection of sent emails followed a single theme in this order:
An Email About Money
An Email That Gives Advice
An Email That Mentions Barack Obama
A Business Email
An Email That Includes A Picture of Something You Want
An Email To Your Mom
An Email That Includes A Dream You Had
An Email That Includes A Picture of Art
An Email Where You Describe What You’re Working On
An Email You Decided Not To Send
An Email That Includes A Picture of Yourself
An Email With I Love You In It
An Email With A Link In It
An Email About Being Sad
An Email About A Fear
An Angry Email
An Email That Includes A Song
An Email That’s An Apology
An Email About The Body
An Email About A Problem You’re Having With Your Computer
I loved getting it each week. There was a bit of a voyeuristic thrill, even though of course each email had been selected by the writer and didn’t contain anything controversial. But it was interesting to see a different side of people that we’re not typically exposed to. July said the project “has given me the excuse to read my friends’ emails… and for better or worse it’s changed the way I see all of them. I think I really know them now.”
So, since you’ve agreed to receive emails from me in the future, perhaps it’s only fair that I should share with you some emails I’ve sent in the past. What if I treat Miranda July’s topics as a sort of email-based Proust Questionnaire, and dig into my own Sent Mail folder to see what I’ve sent in some of those categories?
Will this be interesting or dull? Who knows?! So exciting. Let’s take a look.
An Email About Money
December 9, 2002, 11:03 PM
To: Jodey
Subject: Re: Oh, Coney Island... where hast thou gone?
That's awesome about the Historic Preservation Commission. Congratulations! What's first on the agenda?
In other news... I was gonna get you this for the holidays, but then I realized that it costs 3 million dollars. So hopefully the article will suffice:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/12/02/offbeat.stuffed.whimsy.ap/index.html
David
An Email That Mentions Barack Obama
October 9, 2008, 6:58 PM
To: Mike
Subject: Re: Sheppard Ferry [sic]
What I didn't mention, but may be worth pointing out, is that Mr. Fairey spoke with the Los Angeles Times about Obama/Hope knockoffs. He doesn't like when either campaign uses knockoffs of the poster in a negative way. But he acknowledges, "When something becomes pervasive enough, it becomes a reference point that people are going to use for commentary and parody. They build their own thing off of it and use it for their own agenda."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/shepard-fairy-o.html
David
An Email To Your Mom
April 18, 1999, 11:17 PM
To: Mom
Subject: Picture I scanned…
Attached is a picture I took a couple weeks ago when they marched the elephants down 34th street in the middle of the night to get them to Madison Sq Garden for the circus (the elephant trucks are too big to fit through the tunnel, so they walk them through the tunnel at one in the morning).
You should see a little icon representing a picture at the bottom of this e-mail, if memory serves. Click on it to open the picture. I'm going to try attaching two different files to this same e-mail, so let me know if either one of them gets through.
-David
An Email That Includes A Picture of Art
April 14, 2009, 5:06 PM
To: Art Fry
Subject: Thank you for the photo shoot
Hi, Art.
I just want to thank you for taking the time to do a photo shoot in your home a couple weeks ago. Your inclusion in my project is most appreciated.
I'm sure you've been photographed plenty of times and have as many pictures of yourself as you need, but I always offer to send my subjects a print if they want one, so I'm attaching a couple images so you can see how they turned out. If you'd like a print of either one, I'm happy to send it. Just let me know.
Thanks again.
Sincerely,
David Friedman
An Email That Includes A Picture of Yourself
March 2, 2006, 11:07 PM
To: Brian
Subject: My latest photo idea!
So how would you like to be my first subject for my new photo series? Can you come over for a few minutes this weekend to pose? I've got an idea that I think can turn into a really cool series. I have to shoot a few and see how they go to see if it's worth pursuing.
I was inspired by this website http://www.jowlers.com that I saw a few months ago. I thought it was hilarious. I've been thinking that it would be fun to do "jowler" photos, but treat them like a more serious shoot. Everything on there is just point-and-shoot.
I used myself this evening as a test subject and did a "jowlers" self-portrait. (See attached).
Are you willing to subject yourself to such silliness? If so, let me know if you can come by this weekend.
David
An Email With I Love You In It
January 23, 2008, 2:39 PM
To: Ellen
Subject: Fog starting to lift… a little.
I just had a delicious big bowl of leftover soup (heated in a pot) with egg noodles. I feel like the haziness is starting to lift a little but I’m still foggy headed. A shower definitely helped too. I’m going to have some Theraflu Daytime now.
I love you. You take good care of me when I need it.
David
An Email With A Link In It
September 18, 1999, 8:11 PM
To: Jay
Subject: Thought you may be interested...
Since you have such a fast connection that you can get so many tons of mp3 files, I thought you might have use for this little bit of info: on beyond.com, they are selling the Diamond Rio mp3 player (not the latest model, despite what their website says), which has 32 MB of ram, with two different rebates so that you end up getting $100 back, spending just 50 bucks (their price is already 20 bucks off the list). The limited-time offer is at http://www.beyond.com/hardware/mp3.htm
Requires use of your parellel port.
Incidentally, memory-expansion cards cost more than the Rio itself (after rebate) so if you want more memory, you may be better off just buying a second Rio!
If you use 128-kbps (at 44.1 kHz) compression, which is almost CD-quality, you can fit 35 minutes on to the Rio's built-in 32MB of memory; 80-kbps compression gives you 56 minutes; and 64-kbps compression gives you 70 minutes.
I dunno if it's something you've thought about, but I've yet to see a better price for one. Thought I'd pass it on.
I'm off to CBGBs. Bye!
-David
An Email That Includes A Song
May 15, 2005, 11:20 PM
To: [An email address I don’t recognize and I have no idea why I sent them this]
Subject: Welcome to Song
This was one of the first Song airplanes to get back-of-seat TV screens.
An Email About A Problem You’re Having With Your Computer
January 18, 2006, 11:36 PM
To: Rachel
Subject: Re: damn font is driving me crazy
Hey, Rachel.
Windows isn't able to recognize the file as a font. I'm not sure why. But I have another idea. Can you send me a jpeg which shows an example of the font? Just write some words or the alphabet or something in Photoshop or another image editing program and save it as a jpeg. I might be able to get a copy of the font as a TrueType font, if I can show someone a sample of it.
Also: What is the font called? Adria? Adriatic?
David
Whew! It took longer to go through old emails than I thought it would. Maybe if I didn’t have every email I ever sent since 1997 this would have been easier. Less to go through. Or maybe it would have been harder for the same reason.
What did you think? Should the We Think Alone Questionnaire become a tradition for everyone starting a new newsletter?
As is the fashion, I’m going to end each newsletter with links to things I’ve enjoyed recently. Here’s the first one:
A Thing I’ve Enjoyed Recently
You might have seen Mary Neely’s tributes to Broadway musicals that she’s made during quarantine. If not, you should check them out. They’re delightful. But she recently produced a music video that’s my new favorite thing of the pandemic era. It’s in the spirit of early low-budget music videos directed by folks like Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze so it feels like a throwback while it is also very much of-the-moment.
The song is Catch The Good Times (Before They Fly By) by Oberhofer. And I’ve probably watched this video at least ten times.
Speaking of Miranda July
She has a new movie coming out, and there’s a great profile of her in last week’s New York magazine.
And This Just In
This weekend was GBJam 8, an event where developers race to make original Game Boy games. I was contacted by developer Gary Kang who was working on a game that takes place in New York City. He wanted to use some photos I shot around New York with a Game Boy Camera twenty years ago as part of his game. Of course I said yes. And his game turned out great! It’s called “Lost in New York” and you can play it here in a browser — and it works great on an iPhone, too, with touch-screen controls that mimic the Game Boy layout. See if you can find my pictures in the game.
Thanks for reading the first edition of the newsletter. There’s a lot of variety in store for future issues so I hope you stick around. See you next time!
David
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))<>(( to you, too