15 + 20 points
Misdirected Fan Mail by One Fifty
September 19th, 2008 3:51 PM
I thought of this task as having a subtitle. Misdirected Fan Mail: Annoy the French.
Since I obtained a pack of postcards for Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D in a Wendy's kids' meal, I've been saving them for something awesome. Pranks to friends? Wild propaganda for the movie I don't care about? Seven-part mail-based treasure hunt? In the end, though, this task was exactly what I had been looking for.
I thought that no one would more appreciate fan mail for the movie than someone very close to its production: Mr. Jules Verne.
There are seven postcards in the pack. I considered spamming the same guy for a month, but decided I'd have a better chance of getting a reply if I scattershot them and sent them to seven different people across France.
An exhaustive search of the French white pages netted me fourteen candidates. After weeding out the hyphenates, two doctor's offices, and what looked like some kind of museum, I had seven addresses for people named J. Verne, from both genders and three nationalities. I checked out the standard address format and got to work.
Now is as good a time as any to mention that I don't speak French.
My goal was to develop a note that was plausible (not too obviously a prank) and that would either make them laugh or completely piss them off. After all, we're talking about a national hero here. I wrote it in English because I know if I got a postcard in a foreign language, I'd fall over myself trying to translate it. That would guarantee closer attention, and hopefully, make a response more likely.
Sadly, the era is ending before I have a chance to see the movie, so I had to cull LiveJournal reviews to find a few special movie moments to mention. Luckily, the good fans of LJ came through.
Ultimately I came up with this:
I switched it around a little, occasionally swapping out the "punching a plant" line for "the time they hit a fish with a baseball bat," or "when they used the T. Rex skull like a boat," but that was the gist of it.
I'm going to the post office right now. Bon voyage, little postcards. I greatly hope to hear from you again.
EDIT TO ADD: The Mailing
The guy at the post office got me the stamps I needed. We bantered a while. As I was leaving, he said, "You know, I think Jules Verne is dead."
I said, "That's why, just in case, I'm sending it to seven of him."
Since I obtained a pack of postcards for Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D in a Wendy's kids' meal, I've been saving them for something awesome. Pranks to friends? Wild propaganda for the movie I don't care about? Seven-part mail-based treasure hunt? In the end, though, this task was exactly what I had been looking for.
I thought that no one would more appreciate fan mail for the movie than someone very close to its production: Mr. Jules Verne.
There are seven postcards in the pack. I considered spamming the same guy for a month, but decided I'd have a better chance of getting a reply if I scattershot them and sent them to seven different people across France.
An exhaustive search of the French white pages netted me fourteen candidates. After weeding out the hyphenates, two doctor's offices, and what looked like some kind of museum, I had seven addresses for people named J. Verne, from both genders and three nationalities. I checked out the standard address format and got to work.
Now is as good a time as any to mention that I don't speak French.
My goal was to develop a note that was plausible (not too obviously a prank) and that would either make them laugh or completely piss them off. After all, we're talking about a national hero here. I wrote it in English because I know if I got a postcard in a foreign language, I'd fall over myself trying to translate it. That would guarantee closer attention, and hopefully, make a response more likely.
Sadly, the era is ending before I have a chance to see the movie, so I had to cull LiveJournal reviews to find a few special movie moments to mention. Luckily, the good fans of LJ came through.
Ultimately I came up with this:
Dear Mr. Verne,
I just saw the movie you wrote, Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D. I loved it! I especially liked it when Brendan Fraser punched a plant in the face! You should write more movies. Maybe a sequel where they go to Atlantis. You are so cool!!!
Your fan,
Me
I switched it around a little, occasionally swapping out the "punching a plant" line for "the time they hit a fish with a baseball bat," or "when they used the T. Rex skull like a boat," but that was the gist of it.
I'm going to the post office right now. Bon voyage, little postcards. I greatly hope to hear from you again.
EDIT TO ADD: The MailingThe guy at the post office got me the stamps I needed. We bantered a while. As I was leaving, he said, "You know, I think Jules Verne is dead."
I said, "That's why, just in case, I'm sending it to seven of him."
postcards.JPG
Somebody else made this image. Probably an underpaid grunt working for whatever division of Wendy's comes up with advertising material for the toys in their Kids' Meals. How do you think you get a job like that? And what does it look like on your resume?
sample_letter_sm.JPG
Smudged for the privacy of J. Verne of Fleury Sur Ouche, France.
0920080944.jpg
The stamps depict a beachfront sunset in Guam.
wow, outstanding - haven't seen the movie but it sounds more ridiculously embarrassing from J. Verne than i could have imagined
Doc Brown for Back to the Future did him well, however.