I recently learned from St. Louis Daily Photo that Bob Cassily, founder of the City Museum, was one of the people who helped capture the man who attacked the Pieta.
The man who attacked the Pieta was named Lazlo Toth.
That name was later adopted by Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci, aka Lazlo Toth, American, credited with writing The Lazlo Letters, one of the very few things that made my Dad laugh.
The Lazlo Letters inspired me to write my own hoax letter to the M&M/Mars company, in 1981, under the name Ginger Deak, suggesting they package just the green M&Ms in a bag. They did write back that they heard that suggestion before, and the urban legend that the green ones were an aphrodisiac, and they thanked me for my letter.
I would have mentioned it before on this blog, but I had somehow misplaced those letters. I thought they were in one of my two copies of The Lazlo Letters, vol 1, but they were not.
I evidently forgot that Mom must have loaned my original copy to "an acquaintance in Chesterfield." She seems to be pretty mad that it never came back, based on her annotations to Volume 2, my 1992 Christmas present.
Mom is bitter that our copy did not come back.
The Momster makes threats.
Mysterious Chesterfield acquaintance is fingered.
I have no idea who the Chesterfield acquaintance is. But, it is nice to have that mystery solved, and to get a smile from the long-dead Momster.
Wow. Beautiful! I too had a problem with never getting this book back from someone (EVERYONE) I borrowed it to. I attribute this to the fact that this book is effing hilarious. Around the same time wrote a letter to M&Ms, a friend and I wrote a letter to new president Ronny Raygun. We said that if he sent us a check for a billion dollars, we'd build the super weapon that he was talking about that he so needed. Needless to say no check arrived, and frankly, I don't think we even got a reply of any kind. Thanks for this post.
Posted by: Joel | February 05, 2025 at 04:27 PM
PS: The letter to Mars about M&Ms being defective is my favorite in the whole book. I love that you wrote your own letter to them - brilliant!
Posted by: Joel | February 05, 2025 at 05:49 PM
Joel - a college boyfriend and I spent an afternoon composing our letters. His letter went to Al Haig. It went something like “Dear Al, I was worried after the assassination attempt on rhe President, but I felt safe knowing you were in charge at the White House.” I don’t believe he got an answer. I am sorry the President didn’t respond to yours. I think you should try again with the new president.
Posted by: theQueen | February 06, 2025 at 04:09 AM
... if someone did do that in this case offering a Big Fancy Secret Thing, he might end up with a contract. Not sure it's worth it...
Posted by: KC | February 06, 2025 at 08:36 PM
KC - not a safe thing to do these days
Posted by: TheQueen | February 07, 2025 at 05:34 PM