Love Letters to...

Aug 28 2024 78 ep. 28
Love Letters to... Podcast artwork

A Podcast About Wonderful & Unexpected Things

Want to listen to something nice for a change? Love Letters to... is a short burst of celebration, delivered to your phone twice a week. Alicia and Melissa shine their prodigious light on the most interesting and impactful people, events, and ideas throughout time.

  History  Society & Culture
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Introducing American Prankster: Wavy Gravy's Life Story

Aug 28 2024 5 mins  
We are excited to share a show we're loving with you! American Prankster: Wavy Gravy's Life Story pairs the legendary entertainer and activist with our friend, podcaster Rainbow Valentine, following the incredible ride of a life that Wavy Gravy has been on through decades of American counterculture. Enjoy this sample, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts! Learn more about

Unusual Domestic and International Laws

Apr 13 2022 17 mins  
In this episode Melissa reveals a few of the strange laws from the domestic United States, and a few international laws, too. How are you breaking the law today, and you don't even know it?? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

April, National Poetry Month

Apr 11 2022 7 mins  
In today’s Love Letters to…, Alicia marks National Poetry Month, celebrated every year in April, with three poets’ love letters to this paragon of springtime (or, probably, autumn, in the Southern Hemisphere). Ogden Nash, Sara Teasdale, and e.e. cummings had thoughts about April - which is decidedly not the cruelest month, whatever T.S. Eliot may have said. Learn more about y

Sylvia Beach, Adrienne Monnier, and Paris's Enduring Shakespeare and Company Bookstore

Apr 06 2022 28 mins  
In today's Love Letters to..., Alicia introduces us to two women who blazed their own trails in life, eventually blazing them together. France's Adrienne Monnier established a unique business on Paris's Left Bank as a bookseller and booklender in 1915, with a special focus on supporting the community of women readers. American Sylvia Beach, inspired by the intellectual milieu she e

Curious George

Apr 04 2022 8 mins  
In today's Love Letters to..., Melissa shares the story of the daring escape of the husband-and-wife creative team of Margret and Hans Rey, two German-born Jews who were living in Paris under the shadow of the impending Nazi invasion. Riding bikes they constructed from found spare parts and traveling on Brazilian passports, they managed to cross out of France, and eventually travel

Pluto and Charon, The Galaxy's Love Affair

Mar 30 2022 11 mins  
In today's Love Letters to... Alicia ponders the nature of love and identity through the lens of Pluto, our solar system's recently "reclassified" dwarf planet. It turns out that Pluto's incessant and requited flirtation with its moon, Charon, meant that teasing out which of these bodies is the planet and which is the moon is more complicated than astronomers thought. Planet or moo

Catherine Granville, Churchill's Favorite Spy

Mar 28 2022 22 mins  
In today's Love Letters to... Melissa shares the incredible story of Krystyna Skarbek, aka, Catherine Granville, A Polish noblewoman of Jewish descent, she became one of Britain's most important spies during World War II, but the end of the war tilted her life in a tragic direction. Her homeland was handed to Stalin, and because she was a woman, the British intelligence services th

Virginia Hall, Most Dangerous of Spies

Mar 23 2022 16 mins  
In today's Love Letters to...Melissa celebrates Virginia Hall, the most dangerous of Allied spies, according to the Nazis. This amazing American woman, not limited by a prosthetic leg, rebelled against every barrier life and the world put in front of her to become a key asset in the defeat of Hitler's Third Reich. Her story has been little-known for decades, but recent books have b

Joan Crawford and Saint Olga of Kiev

Mar 21 2022 25 mins  
In today's Love Letters to... Alicia celebrates Hollywood legend Joan Crawford with a love letter to her, penned by her first husband, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., in 1930. Melissa gives us some insight into the spirit of the people of Ukraine, with a love letter honoring Saint Olga of Kiev - a lady who was not one to be trifled with. Advertise with us! Learn more about your ad choices.

Maureen O'Hara and Luck

Mar 16 2022 24 mins  
In today's Love Letters to... Melissa celebrates the legendary Irish actress Maureen O'Hara, and Alicia carries the Irish theme through to talk about luck - what people say about, how we get it, and how we carry it. Advertise with us! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices