Traditional stories always reflect the collective history and culture of a people, and cannot
be easily attributed to one author. Many Indigenous writers have noted how they were
raised to think of traditional stories as living things that grow, develop, remember,
and locate, and in doing so shape who people have come to believe
they are and how they exist as part of the land. Leilah Philip beaver
Land. And now that I know she's Allen, the letters take on a
whole new meaning for me. Is so funny because Allen has influenced my opinion
of way more than has influenced my opinion of Alan. And there's a song
beneath the song. Day in two thousand and five, I received a strange
yet life changing birthday present, a file folder full of photocopied, handwritten letters
between two tenants and their landlord. Did I know then that this folder would
lead to hours upon hours of hysterical laughter and then a successful blog, followed
by a live performance and an odd eleven year journey to authenticate those letters.
I launched The Karen and Ellen Letters as a podcast back in twenty seventeen,
at which point not much progress had been made in actually finding the truth about
these letters. But as we recorded episode after episode, Sarah Stapleton, who
plays Karen, became as obsessed with finding out the truth as I was,
and in real time, as the podcast was airing, we reopened my investigation
into them and we started finding some answers, and those answers were often quite
surprising and almost always a bit challenging. As we've gone along, I imagine
you've found yourself debating whether or not these letters could be real, And it
turns out the answer to that question is as complicated as it is surprising.
Truth can be a tricky thing. It changes from person to person over time,
through memory and through intent. What is the premise and intent of the
story and its truth? Which version of the truth benefits who the most?
As we all know, the truth is most often defined by whoever has the
loudest, most powerful voice. The first person to tell the story is often
determined to be the authority on what the truth is. The more power there
is in immediacy, the more fallible that immediacy is. The supposed truths that
we've built our histories around, we've created our ethics and values and identities upon,
are more often than not distorted versions of some one else's truth or fairly
true at all. But they've become a part of us in many ways.
They've made us who we are. They've defined us in the ways in which
we view those around us. Truth is a tricky thing. Warning. Listening
to this podcast for prolonged periods of time may cause cognitive dissonance. All names
have been changed to protect the innocent and insane. Okay, this is my
first video using this phone, so I'm not really sure if I'm doing this
right. But this is a mouse I caught with a humane mouse trap,
and I wanted everyone to see it because I think it's the right thing to
do if you have my sore a mouse in your house. Now, I'm
just gonna I don't know if I should put my finger in there. I'm
just gonna pull this lever and oh oh, there he goes. There goes
the mouse, and he's fine. The mouse is fine. He didn't have
to die, and now he's free. I want built of old Woo.
You could paint any color you like, just so long as I can live
with you a day. It was the summer of nineteen eighty seven Hoover debuted
its Hoover Junior, a smaller, more mobile, upright type vacuum for apartments
and small houses. The United States Nuclear Defense conducted the Misty Picture, a
test involving the detonation of several thousand tons of explosives to simulate the explosion of
a small nuclear bomb. The American alligator was removed from the endangered species list,
and meanwhile, in Oakland, California, two young women were moving into
an apartment day July first, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark, when I
signed the lease last week, I pointed out the burned out light bulb and
the refrigerator. You said, if I replaced it myself, I could deduct
the cost for my next month's rent, along with any other small expenses that
were your responsibility. So I am sending you this list of things I will
deduct from my August rent. This number one one refrigerator light bulb two dollars
two, oven light bulb two dollars, three, shed padlock eight dollars four,
telephone installation thirty seven dollars. Five extra front door keys. You okayed
six dollars six, fish food ten dollars seven, aljuicide five dollars eight ice
tray for freezer two dollars. Karen, July third, nineteen eighty seven,
Dear Mark, listen number two one oven cleaner, four dollars, two lines
for back bedroom, thirty two dollars, three draino for clogged sank eight dollars
four two cans of paint to touch up walls forty dollars Karen, July ninth,
nineteen eighty seven. Dear Karen, I have received your lists number one
and two of expenses you plan to deduct from your rent. You may deduct
the cost of the refrigerator and stove light bulbs, the oven cleaner if the
oven was dirty when you moved in, and the keys and the padlock,
provided that you return the padlock and its keys to me when you leave.
I will not pay for the other expenses because I do not believe that they
could normally be considered a landlord responsibility. I think you have badly misunderstood me
when I said you could make small purchases and deduct them from your rent if
I was responsible for them in the future. Before you buy anything that you
plan to deduct from your rent, I think you should call me first and
get my okay. Mark July thirteenth, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark,
got your letter. I'd like to work out a deal with you. On
my list of expenses, I did not build nor ask for a pond in
my backyard, my backyard that is shared with Kathy. I also did not
bring the fish with me when I moved in here. The fish were already
living here in your pond. The pond is really icky and the fish are
really dirty. If I don't put algaecide in there, the water will get
even more gross and slimy, and the fish will be poisoned to death.
And since the fish in my backyard are your fish, I shouldn't have to
pay to feed them. That's your responsibility since they are your fish, and
your fish, by the way, are living in my backyard rant free.
I don't know what the going rate is for a pond in the Bay Area,
but I bet it's way more than the ten dollars for fish food.
So you're really getting a good deal here, Mark, and you know it.
PS. A few days ago, I was sitting on the deck.
When I stood up, I tore my jeans that got caught on a nail
in your deck. The jeens cost it forty two dollars I've saved them so
you can see them, okay. July twenty first, nineteen eighty seven,
Dear Mark, Hello, I'm just writing to let you know how much I'm
looking forward to moving into my new home. Karen has described the house to
me, and it sounds well dreamy. I know we will get along famously.
As you know, I'm an artist and have an application in for the
new may g College of Oriental Medicine across the Bay. I'm looking forward to
trying out some of my ideas for art and mind and body wellness on my
new home. I'm leaving money manners to Karen. Being an artist, I'm
not as practical as she is. I've been studying art in Oregon this summer.
One of the things I've learned here is a new oil transfer process for
marblizing walls and ceilings. It's all the rage right now, and we'll probably
bring up the value of our little cottage. Of course, I'll check in
with you before doing any work on my walls, but I know you'll just
love it. I have a gauzy picture in my mind of the house now.
I know that with work and imagination, I can turn my new home
into an enchanted place, yours, Ellen, July sixteenth, nineteen eighty seven.
Karen, your expectations that I'm going to pay for such things as your
te the phone, and now your clothes is totally ridiculous and unrealistic on your
part. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but my last letter didn't seem
to make my point clear to you. My last letter was not intended to
be an author in part of a continuing negotiation, like haggling with a rug
merchant at a Persian bazaar, but rather a simple statement of what I will
and will not pay for. As far as your genes are concerned, I
can only advise you that you look more carefully in future where you sit.
A deck is designed to be walked upon, not sat upon. Sincerely,
Mark, July twenty third, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark, I didn't
understand your letter. I don't want to buy a rug and a Persian bazaar.
I just want you to pay for the stuff I talked about in my
letters to you. And if no one is willing to feed, clean or
pay rent for the fishes, then perhaps we should evict them. Karen,
PS, good news. I fixed my gene, so now you don't have
to pay for them, okay. July twenty fourth, nineteen eighty seven,
Karen, your lease says that you are to pay all utility bills except for
garbage collection and water. When I told you to call PEG and E to
transfer the gas to electricity to your house, I did not give you permission
to have them send the bill to me. I expressly told you when you
signed the lease that you were to pay the gas and electric bill. I
don't know why you've had the bills sent to me, but you should call
PG and E immediately to have them service transferred to your name, because I'm
going to call them and have it taken out of my name. As you
know, I can't have the service turned off since there's only one meter for
yours and the Caldwell's electricity. Karen, you've got to stop playing games with
me. My patience is getting pretty stretched. Mark August eighth, nineteen eighty
seven. Dear Mark, Well, I guess i've arrived. The house doesn't
seem quite as dreamy as I imagined. I think the last tenants must have
had bad feelings about this house, because I can sense bad spirits here.
I've discussed this with my guru, mister Simyla Patel. He is willing to
exercise the bad spirits in this house for two hundred and fifty dollars as he
is a good friend of mine. His regular fee is five hundred dollars,
so this is a great deal. Karen says, you offered to help out
with expenses to make the cottage a more suitable place to live. I'm not
sure if that includes an exorcism, which would definitely help with the bad feelings
around here. Please let me know either way. A s a p.
Mister Patel travels a lot and we wouldn't want to miss him. Ellen p
s I really loved those fishes and told Karen I would take care of them
for you. I've never had fish before, but how hard could it be?
Yours? Ellen, August tenth, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Ellen,
I know that you and Karen have only recently arrived in the Bay Area.
I don't know what the rental market is like where you come from. It
is possible that where you come from, landlords normally pay for exorcisms. However,
I can assure you that the landlords in this area do not pay for
exorcisms or any other means of driving away bad spirits from their property. If
you speak to your friends who have lived in this area for several years,
they will confirm what I'm saying is true. Sincerely, Mark P. S.
I do not want you to marbilize the walls, or wall paper,
print or paint the walls either. Remember the rental agreement you signed prohibits any
redecorating, altering, or remodeling the building by you without my prior written consent.
Mark August twenty first, nineteen eighty eight. Mark, this is my
notice to vacate. As Ellen has made you aware, her sister will be
moving into my room. She will manage updating the lease. Additionally, I
would like to say, for once and for all, you are a real
jerk. I know what I'm being made fun of, and I know what
I'm not being made fun of. And I have definitely been made fun of,
and I, for one, don't find it fun at all. Karen,
September fourteenth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, here's our rent for
the month of September. Thank you for the extension. I couldn't cover the
entire rent on my own and had to be granted early access. To my
trust fund in order to cover the rent for both my sister and myself,
since my sister is only seventeen and can't really work yet. She's supposed to
be finishing high school and we haven't quite figured out how to do that yet.
I thought I was an adult before, but now i'm even You're of
an adult now than I was then, and I feel like even less of
one. I sure, miss Karen, she was really practical and a lot
better at doing adultery stuff like paying all the bills and remembering to lock the
doors and windows and managing you. Now I have to do all that,
plus the stuff I was doing before, plus take care of my sister.
Being an adult sure is hard. Ellen, October twenty one, nineteen eighty
eight. Dear Karen, going to the zoo with you was the best day
of my life. I don't like California a lot, but I like you
a lot. You are the best part of California because you are so dang
sexy. I will never forget what we did behind the Lionhouse. I am
an animal for you. I'm a big tough tiger and I'm a sexy little
kitten. Oh, let's get together soon. So you can pay me the
ten dollars I paid for you to get into the zoo sexily, Yours,
Rob, November thirtieth, nineteen eighty eight, Dear Mark, by the time
you get this letter, I'll be back in Portland. And closed are my
keys and Karen's keys. Rob threw his keys in the trash. He didn't
know he was supposed to return them to you. Karen and Rob are on
their way to move to Seattle, so am I. But I'm not quite
on my way yet. Karen and Rob say they might get married, or
that they might get married there. I'm not sure which I might get married
one day, or am I not. I don't see what all the fusses
with getting married. I don't like a lot of attention. I also like
to spend a lot of time alone. When you get married, you never
get to be alone. I cleaned up the house really good before I left.
The only damage is the microwave door, which broke off his hinges.
Rob broke it accidentally when he hit it with a lobster pot. It's really
not Rob's fault. It could have happened to anyone, you know, but
it happened to Rob. The vacuum cleaner is busted too, but you already
know about that. It really wasn't Karen's fault. If you ask me,
or if you ask her. I'm leaving the painting in the living room for
you as a thank you. You've been very good to me and my sister
and helped us out when you needed to and when you didn't need to.
It's a painting of three cats in a basket. I bought it so we
could have some cats in the cottage, since you wouldn't let us have real
cats in the cottage, even though you let the Caldwells have cats. If
you want to write me, here's our address in Seattle, Well. I
guess this is goodbye, yours, Ellen. December seventh, nineteen eighty eight.
Dear mister Mark, Karen has shown me your letters to her. It
seems that you do not intend to return Karen's security deposit to her. Karen
has asked me to be her legal guardian until she's eighteen. As Karen's legal
guardian, I can tell you that Karen wants to check from you in the
next ten days. Karen wants her security deposit back. Karen also wants the
interest on her deposit for the four months Karen was your tenant. If Karen
has not received a check from you in the next ten days, I will
sue the heck out of you until Karen is old enough to sue the heck
out of you, and then we'll both see the heck out of you.
Karenin also like your cat painting back, Karen says, you owe a retribution
for not allowing Karen to have cats. Even those doctor people in the backyard
got to have cats, So you owe carrying the cost of the cat painting
and the cat retribution. I will find out how much the cat painting costs
from Ellen, and then I will let you know, and then you will
be in big trouble if you don't pay the cost. I'm not sure how
much to charge you for the cat retribution, but I will let you know
when I know. I know you know that I know that I am in
the Coastguard. I know you know what that means. But in case you
don't, that means I'm part of the United States government. George Bush is
going to be my boss soon, and George Bush always gets things done.
So just you remember that, mister Mark, when you're paying all that money
you owe us. Sincerely, Rob, December eleventh, nineteen eighty eight.
Dear Mark, Sorry about Rob. He's an idiot. You just have to
ignore him. Karen and I do it all the time. He's a scorpio,
you know. And you know what that means, yours Ellen, And
here I am with my own dirty niece. I'm not a polite little girl
either. We are taught to be polite because it quiets us, it packages
us, it limits us. I sit here, barefoot myself, thankful for
my father, Thankful that polite was not a word we used in our house.
Thankful we were taught dirty our niece. It's been nineteen years since I
received the Karen and Ellen letters, and the truth of this story and mine
and Sarah's work to uncover it exists in some uncanny valley. It is both
real and entirely unreal, both beautifully human and grotesquely alien, both binary and
incredibly nuanced. It is some intangible thing that we can only really understand in
value through the lens of our individual experiences, like truth itself, and as
each of us take the Karen and Ellen Letters out into the world, the
versions of its truth will multiply and transform, each version containing parts of each
of us, each version prescribing a value or lesson important to each of us.
Stories are the single most potent way of influencing other minds. They're the
best means humans have yet found for swaying one another so hard that we may
stay bent forever. This is a wonderful thing when stories huge capacity for good
is channeled to promote empathy, understanding, charity, and peace. But the
swayful magic of story telling is just as good at sowing division, distrust,
and hatred. You are probably skeptical, and you should be. After all,
I've claimed to be a scholar, but so far I've only told you
a story, and if you leave this book with just one lesson, it
should be this. Never trust a story teller. But we do, and
really we can hardly help ourselves our bosox confidence storytellers don't sway us is exactly
what gives them so much sway, sometimes for the better, but often for
the worse. Jonathan Gottshall The story Paradox, The Story of the Karen and
Ellen Letters is a story of storytelling. Our search for the truth has often
been muddled or altogether dismantled by the many different versions of these letters and what
they mean at any given time, Mark's version, Sarah's version, my version,
and now your versions. And while it's easy, if not entirely human,
to focus on the enduring mysteries and the blurred lines of truth and storytelling,
what I choose to focus on now is how profoundly these letters and our
journey into them has impacted and changed me, and changed the way that I
look at the world and listen to a story and see the truth. Dear
Josh, I've read the letters you sent, I've listened to a few episodes
of the podcast, and I find I don't have much to say about either.
It's been a bit difficult to listen to a podcast based on fragments of
my life told and then retold, and then retold again like a game of
telephone for everyone to see. It's strange that the few years of my life
from decades ago living in that cottage have turned into something so big, because
to me at the time it was mostly inconsequential. When I read the letters,
I don't think much about what was written or what was real or made
up. To be honest, i'd be lying if I said I could even
remember at this point. What I do think about is the impression we clearly
left on Mark that in his recreation of our letters, we were boiled down
to just two stupid girls. It makes me sad because that's something men of
power and privilege tend to do with women who speak their minds or ask for
what they want or deserve, or have opinions. Men minimize strong women.
It's something we see all around us all the time. It's something I've had
to deal with throughout my entire life. And I'm not saying we weren't ridiculous,
because we were, but we weren't what we've been made out to be.
It's clearly built around us, but it's not who we were or are
as people. My sister and I were raised mostly by my mother, a
single woman who never let anyone silence her. She stood up for what she
believed in, she stood up for others who were silence or oppressed, and
she never backed down from a fight. And that's who she taught us girls
to be. To see that strength winnowed down to stupid girls demanding stupid things
shows so much more about a woman's place in the world than it does who
we were It reminds me of how much further we as women have to go
in this world. Here is the truth of those days in that cottage,
an undeniable truth that I won't distort with my opinions, feelings, or memories.
Karen moved in a few months before I did. We'd met through some
mutual friends. We were both looking for apartments in the Berkeley area, so
we decided to get a place together. She moved in first, while I
finished out the rest of my lease elsewhere. Karen was wickedly smart. We
saw the world very similarly and responded to it much the same. It's probably
why living together was sometimes challenging, but never devoid of a mutual respect.
I think it's fair to say, and that everyone would agree, that Karen
and Mark did not get along. They seemed to push each other's buttons.
Karen admittedly enjoyed getting under his skin. She did write him a lot of
letters, mostly to annoy him or put him in his place. I can't
remember exactly how long we'd been living there when my mother got arrested. It
was about a year, if I'd had to guess. My sister was seventeen
and about to graduate from high school. My father wasn't in the picture,
and so my sister had nowhere else to go, so she moved in with
me. I was really angry about it, and I think my anger toward
my mother and the situation was sometimes misdirected at my sister. Both of our
lives changed dramatically then, but in ways that wouldn't really sink in for years.
I'm proud of the woman my mother is. I'm proud of the woman
my mother raised me to become. I'm not often proud of the way my
mother parented us as a person. She was phenomenal as a mother, she
was selfish, reckless, and irresponsible and as a child. That's a hard
dichotomy to live with, and it only gets harder the older you get.
Karen moved out when my sister moved in. She was dignified. She said
that we needed that space for ourselves. We've grown a part over the years,
but my sister will always be my safe space. No one else has
experienced our life. No one else fully understands who I am or how we
came to be the women we are today. No one else gets it like
she does. This experience, these letters and the trip down memory lane that
they've led to has reminded me how critical a piece of my life she is,
and how empty my life has been without that piece. Sometimes you can
miss a person so deeply and not even realize it, and then when you
finally open your eyes to it, it's all you see. That is what
I'll take away from all of this that it helped me find my way back
to my sister, and it helped me see the big picture that is my
life. But it is not always about or just because of me. We
are the stars of our lives, but our lives are rarely about just us.
It's a lesson my mother tried to teach me helped me realize. I
think the rift started and deepened because my sister was a visual reminder of my
childhood and my anger toward my parents. I distanced myself from a situation,
not realizing that I was distancing myself from the one person who understood me,
the one person who also experienced the situation, and I never allowed her to
have that. You ask me what I thought the story was. I'm not
sure I have an answer for you. I guess the story is about seeing
ourselves amid our actions and others perceptions of us. If you asked who is
Ellen, people would probably respond with a sentence or two. She's a flighty
girl who cares deeply for others and wants to understand the world around her.
Or she's a spoiled hippie you can't see or understand beyond her own experiences.
Or she's just a girl in a phase that she'll eventually grow out of,
just like the rest of us. When I separate myself from Ellen and try
to answer that question, this is what I come up with. Ellen is
all of those things, of course, But Ellen is also a woman looking
for the world to validate how she feels and how she thinks. Ellen is
a woman trying to validate the actions and response to those around her. Ellen
is a world of experience, is both unique and banal, passing pieces of
those experiences onto everyone she connects with, and absorbing the experiences of all of
those people. She's so much more than three years of correspondence, twelve years
of research, ten years of Facebook posts, or the opinions of those who've
met her can ever convey or capture. Ellen is more than she can ever
convey or capture, Just like the rest of us, just like Karen,
just like Mark and even Rob. This story is fact in fiction, and
it doesn't really matter where or how the two intertwine. It doesn't matter how
I paint the picture. For you, what matters first is what you see,
and what matters more is what you'll later realize you didn't see it first.
And what matters most is how you reconcile it to and then what you
do with that, and how you take that out into the world with you
and into the relationships you have and forge and celebrate and lose. Thank you
for giving me a voice in this. It's not something I'm sure I want
or need right now, but it matters all the same. My mother always
taught us to take every opportunity to speak up and speak out, and to
never let others winnow you down into a single thing, to never let others
make you feel bad, and that your voice doesn't matter. All our voices
matter, and we need to use them, and we all need to listen
to one another's. To speak and to listen should be one and the same
two things, constantly influencing one another. I appreciate you keeping me and everyone
else anonymous. I don't want to be known, especially not for this,
because a story built around me is not about me. It's not my story.
It's not my sister's story. It's not Karen's story, it's not Mark's
story. It's no one's, and it's everyone's. It's Karen and Ellen's,
and Karen and Ellen are all of us in this story. There is much
everyone who's read and listened as they are my sister and me in some way
or another. We've all written these letters, and we've all put them out
in this world. Brothers define, Karen and Ellen are all of us yours
m sister, Oh sister, I miss your shadow. I miss your shame
When I was afraid, you pulled me through, Sister, big sister,
you said the standard, you said the her, You showed the number when
I needed you. Those old hairy legged boys stop making all that noise when
you beat them in the dirt without Lincoln my first food in the air,
because I knew that you'd be there to grab them by the shirt without thinking,
sister, oh sister. Okay, So because these been so popular,
this is releasing Mouse video. Yes, Mouse number seven secret probably take the
latches off al right, here we go. Mouse is in the lower right
corner. It's just sitting in there. In a moment the doors are open.
It goes there, he goes