|
When my husband and I were in London in November, we found a true gem in a used bookstore: Love Letters to the Beatles, a 1964 collection of authentic letters written by real girls, compiled by New York music journalist Bill Adler and illustrated by the satiric cartoonist Robert Osborn.
“Here is the great American love affair — teenagers and the Beatles — as recorded in the wildest, warmest, wittiest, wackiest letters ever sent through the U.S. mails,” the back flap reads.
That’s not just some publishing-house bluster. A cursory flip through the book made me want to take it home despite it being a second printing that cost (redacted) pounds, which converted is roughly (weeps) in CAD.
Advertisement
The book was created with co-operation from the Fab Four — a.k.a. they allowed Adler to go through their American fan mail — and the result is so charming. Some letters are addressed to the whole band, some are addressed to individual members (Ringo holds his own!). Some are reproductions of letters in the girls’ own handwriting; some are typed, spelling mistakes and all.
There are marriage proposals and requests for locks of hair. Many of them are very funny.
Evelyn P. from Indiana writes, “Dear Beatles, I have 4 Beatle books, 115 pictures of you all over my room (not counting the picture which measures 4 feet by 2 feet). I also have 13 Beatle pins, 2 Beatle albums, 4 Beatle dolls, 1 Beatle charm and 3 Beatle scrapbooks. I would have more but I am very conservative.”
Laura A. from Boston writes, “Dear Beatles, This is my 43rd letter to you. Please answer quick, I am desperately running out of stamps.”
Anne-Marie D. from Long Island writes, “Dear John, You are too skinny. You should eat pizza or lasagne to fatten up. Then there would be more of you for more of us.”
What I love about this book is that it so lovingly captures the essence of being a fan. That all-consuming obsession, that need to know everything, that need to declare your fandom in all avenues available. The fan letter is the most pure expression to me; these girls probably never received a reply, and their words may have never even been read by their intended recipients. And still, they sent them. (Osborn’s illustrations also add to the charm; he doesn’t mock these girls but instead puts their daydreams on the page.)
‘Fangirl’ is often used as a pejorative, even though it’s girls who run this particular economy. You can draw a straight line from the Beatlemania captured here to the Swiftes.
And now, Heated Rivalry. The mania around the gay hockey show has, for many women, rekindled a feeling we haven’t felt since we were teenagers. If I still had a locker, you best believe Hudson Williams, who plays Shane Hollander, and Connor Storrie, who plays Ilya Rozanov, would be plastered all over the inside door. It’s fun to be a fan, to be part of a fandom. To yap about the thing you love with other people who also love it.
Sometimes that thing is niche; sometimes that thing qualifies as a “mania.” But you can almost always find your people.
Being a hater is easy. I think sometimes people take a deliberately contrarian posture about things that are popular because it makes them feel smarter/better/cooler/more interesting than the hoi polloi. To them I say, you are missing out.
Being a fan, though — that’s earnest work. It’s vulnerable. It’s declaring your full-throated admiration and love for something. It’s an act of self-confidence — and even bravery — to like what you like, without fear of judgment, without apology and crucially, without guilt. There are no guilty pleasures. Only pleasures.
When I was in high school, my favourite band was Pearl Jam. I would spend hours on the Ten Club message board. I have a Pearl Jam tattoo, if you want to gauge my level of commitment. It’s a tattoo lots of fans have, of the stickman from the Alive single, and it was traced from a patch I stapled to everything — including, as I’ve written before, “to the satin evening bag I brought to grad because heaven forbid that four to six hours should elapse in which someone, somewhere, didn’t know I was a fan.”
I’m not so… devoted… in my fandoms anymore, but man, has it ever been fun, via Heated Rivalry, to go back to a time when those all-consuming obsessions shaped who you were, and the youthful optimism of believing you’ll always feel that way.
|
