My brother once sent a friend a letter that was cribbed entirely from The Lazlo Letters - specifically, the response Lazlo got from Richard Nixon with the P.S. about King Timahoe and whatever the other dog's name was (____ is still with us and well beyond her years ...). The recipient of the letter at the time hadn't read the book and was understandably bewildered, she'd kept the letter nonetheless. After he died, that friend gave me all the letters of his she'd kept and that one was naturally included. Somehow I figured out what it was, although I think it wasn't until several years later when I was reading the book myself and went, "wait, haven't I read this somewhere before?"

So, years later, I had a correspondence going through high school and into college with somebody I met at a forensics tournament. I was quite the letter writer in the day. Anyway, I had sent off a letter to her, and was listening to Laurie Anderson's Mister Heartbreak, when a thought occurred to me.

So, after I got her response, I wrote out ...

I got your letter.  Thanks a lot.
I've been getting lots of sun.  And lots of rest.  It's really hot.
Days, I dive by the wreck.  Nights, I swim in the blue lagoon.
Always used to wonder who I'd bring to a desert island.

I think I put in a P.S. a pointer to deciphering what the letter was all about, but otherwise it was just the lyrics to "Blue Lagoon" written out by hand.

I hadn't thought about that in ten years.

I'd thought about the song, of course. I couldn't hear the term sea change without doing so, and that term was all the rage politically a while back, and instead of thinking of the play I thought of the song that quoted it.

I saw a plane today.  Flying low over the island.
But my mind was somewhere else.
And if you ever get this letter.  Thinking of you.
Love and kisses.  Blue Pacific.  Signing off.

(24 sep)