Letters to the Editor
Quiet Type
Published Letters: 656 Editor's Choice: 32
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Cable news -- the next marketing frontier
[Read the article: Police confirm identity of hostage taker]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He wanted Pepsi? This is product placement gone amok! Stop the marketing madness!
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My Great Escape
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I watch lots of the HGTV home makeover/home selling/home flipping stuff. It puts me into a hazy, glazy obliviousness and I rather like that.
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America, land of control freaks.
[Read the article: A friend is involved in Scientology. Should I interfere?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If it isn't one thing, it's another. If it isn't Scientology telling you what to do, it's some person you recently met.
Look closely at everyone you know. There isn't a person in this country who hasn't picked his own poison just to get through the day. Does it really matter which poison it is?
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you're not allowed to get this cranky till you're 50
[Read the article: I'm an existential artist. People just don't get me!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW? You aren't that original. A seriously original person would never consider writing to Cary or any other advice columnist on any subject, never mind this one. I mean that literally: The thought would never enter their mind.
You want original? Talk to a schizophrenic.
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Buy-buy
[Read the article: Mitt Romney's emotional moment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Good God, was there a byline error here? I mean Michael Scherer had anything to do with this drivel? Damn, my chin is quivering and eyes watering just considering that terrible possibility.
When did SALON writers suddenly get so gullible? I worked in advertising for a couple of decades, and good presenters could create just about any emotional expression on a dime if it helped them win the pitch.
All the world's a stage, especially in advertising or politics (same thing, really). And you guys are suddenly impressed by this?
I will mark this day as the day Salon became as stoooopid as everybody else. (sniff, sniff, wipe my sleeve)
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Her cable career is calling.
[Read the article: What Bush knew, Take 5]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think it's the Discovery Channel that has a program featuring the world's dirtiest jobs. Time to book this poor sweaty girl on it.
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A little re-channeling
[Read the article: My dad is a writer -- a very, very bad writer!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your dad sounds like one of the more colorful (and relatively benign) eccentrics in the annals of fatherdom. Steer him toward writing his autobiography. THAT's the interesting stuff. I bet you wouldn't even mind reading it. Hey, I'd read it myself.
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His story
[Read the article: My dad is a writer -- a very, very bad writer!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you, Anonymous, for liking the advice to steer Dad toward writing his autobiography. I wish my dad had. He died a couple of years ago in his early 80s. He was deeply troubled, dictatorial and obsessive all his life, made himself and the rest of us miserable, and died a stranger.
I do wonder a bit about LW's situation, if all this "read my novels" demand is Dad's way of eking out any kind of contact with family members who are essentially staying away from him. If the LW thinks this could be a factor in the madness, I have another suggestion. My own dad and I would get into trouble when we tried to talk to each other, but we finally experienced some pleasant togetherness when I started taking him to concerts in his 70s.
Those memories help mitigate some of the regret. But I would love to be able to know him through the story of his life.
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Steal away.
[Read the article: I left an abusive marriage, and now I'm in love with a thief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW, this one line from your letter sums up what goes wrong with every woman anxious to get past an old love by taking up with a new one.
"He's everything my ex was not."
Women go into a state of bliss about that, but it's just not enough reason to get involved, and it's a really great way to blind yourself to some other things your ex was not -- like a dishonest thief.
If your gut were telling you this guy was okay in spite of the things he seems happy to admit to you, well, I'm all for going with that pretty smart organ.
But obviously big-time alarms are being set off, to the point that you can't even bear to hear him finish his sentence.
Sentence. Yeah. That sounds like his future, by the way.
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What an extraordinary person.
[Read the article: The demons you know]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I clicked the link to Kamen's essay,"How Iris Chang Became A Verb." Must-reading for anybody who has ever had a friend.
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I second Omni32
[Read the article: The whole "working mother" thing actually works]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Introverts will like being stay-at-home parents, (or stay-at-home anythings.)
Extroverts will suffer from it."
Amazing how two simple sentences can cut through mountains of yakety-yak, straight to the truth.
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Bonds of childhood
[Read the article: I left an abusive marriage, and now I'm in love with a thief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's been a couple of days since I posted on this, and today it's occurred to me to wonder if LW is confusing her comfort factor in having known him as at least semi-innocent kids with her need to hope he's grown into a decent man?
She admits to distrust-y feelings about him, but can't seem to trust those feelings. Likely this is mostly about her previous abuse and subsequent inability to see the forest for the trees, but it's also probably heavily informed by nostalgia. Childhood bond is powerful stuff.
I wonder if this were some man who she'd just met in adulthood, would her judgment be much more grounded.
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oops - re:childhood
[Read the article: I left an abusive marriage, and now I'm in love with a thief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My mind plays tricks. I just re-read her letter; there isn't any mention of childhood, just old friendship. "Never mind" (channeling Gilda Radner).
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You just met a girl named Maria?
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tsk, tsk, Heather. You call yourself a couch potato? I've seen Maria Bamford on a couple of Comedy Central stand-up shows over the last couple of years, and she is the real deal crazy-funny.
Thanks for the heads-up on her internet appearances. (I remember the high-school sneerer from one of her specials; it's the kind of bit that burns in your memory in its vicious simplicity.)
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The kvell and kvetch test.
[Read the article: Was this review helpful to you?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If there's too much kvelling, it's a shill from the marketing department.
If there's too much kvetching, it's a shill from the competitor's marketing department.
See? It's easy!
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We're nuts to think he's not.
[Read the article: The Decider? He's really more like the Magi]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The man is mentally ill. We need to stop covering him and quoting him as if he is not.
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The real mystery of absinthe
[Read the article: Everything you know about absinthe is wrong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Interesting enough article. But I'd much rather know why suddenly it's legal. What urgent legislation went through, and who sponsored it? Who's going to make the bucks? Obviously the product placement machinery was already in place, as it was prominently featured in an episode of "Mad Men."
Please do a follow-up. The what is okay. But what about the why?
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Ah, love.
[Read the article: My married boyfriend's ditching me for Christmas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The topic of Christmas plans didn't even come up for this "couple" until a week before, when Mr. Right casually announced he's going home without her?
Marry him. Two divorces are better than one.