Letters to the Editor
mintosh
Published Letters: 70 Editor's Choice: 8
-
Good, Mediocre, and Bad Interpretations
[Read the article: Pride and pathetic]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I also teach English -- and never allow a student to critique a film by simply arguing that it is different than the book it is based on. A film is by necessity different than a book. It requires a unique interpretation of its subject.
That said, kimjacobs is off base in her response to Gina Fattore -- unless she thinks all interpretations are equally sound. Certainly if I were to let out a long fart, and say that this fart was my interpretation of Pride and Prejudice, this would be a bad interpretation (well, at the very least a lazy and unsatisfying one). And while my fart would also be a worse interpretation than the film in question, this doesn't mean that the film might not also be a mediocre or bad interpretaion. Or, at least, that the film might provide a weaker interpretation than does Gina Fattore.
In fact, I appreciate Gina Fattore's critique of the film as bad. She doesn't say it was bad just because it was different. She makes a case, rather, that it has inferior aesthetic sensibilities than the Novel. Moreover, her critique makes me want to look at the Novel again. The film did not. Her critique is engaging. The film was dis-engaging.
-
Whats Wrong with Schaeffer's Amadeus?
[Read the article: Mozart's muses]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know much about Mozart - or Schaeffer, for that matter -- but there seems something a both a bit elitist and essentialist about Rafael's too quick dismissal of Schaefer's Amadeus. I'm not even sure what Rafael's point is - except, perhaps, that the movie became too popular (by the way, to be essentialist on this point - the movie wasn't precisely Schaeffer's). From the tone of Rafael's dismissal, it sounds as if his problem is that Schaeffer somehow got it wrong -- it "has become Mozart's image in the popular imagination" -- and as if the image were a false one. This raises the all too easy question "False according to what?" According to the facts of history, perhaps? To this -- an all too easy answer. Perhaps Schaeffer wasn't concerned with facts.
Maybe Rafael has a sound reason for wanting to dismiss Schaeffer. If so, I would like to hear it. Schaeffer is too important a playwright to dismiss so quickly.
-
Where are all the Mutts in this Story
[Read the article: The beef over pet food]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find it hard to believe that all the BARF people are really feeding their dogs this diet out of simple animal altruism -- even while they support the inbreeding of genetically screwed up and unhealthy full-bloods while perfectly healthy mutts are put to sleep every day in animal shelters. Is humanly selected breeding of dogs really any more natural than feeding dogs kibble?
What this sounds like to me is a bunch of bored upper middle class twits trying to distinguish themselves from ordinary folk any which way they can. So they buy Great Danes and Rhodesian Ridgebacks from puppy mills to distinguish themselves from the rest of us who are so low as to pick up our pooches at the pound, and feed them raw bones to distinguish themselves from the rest of us who are so low as to feed our dogs kibble.
My answer? REAL DOG LOVERS KEEP MUTTS!!
-
Where are all the Mutts in this Story
[Read the article: The beef over pet food]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find it hard to believe that all the BARF people are really feeding their dogs this diet out of simple animal altruism -- even while they support the inbreeding of genetically screwed up and unhealthy full-bloods while perfectly healthy mutts are put to sleep every day in animal shelters. Is humanly selected breeding of dogs really any more natural than feeding dogs kibble?
What this sounds like to me is a bunch of bored upper middle class twits trying to distinguish themselves from ordinary folk any which way they can. So they buy Great Danes and Rhodesian Ridgebacks from puppy mills to distinguish themselves from the rest of us who are so low as to pick up our pooches at the pound, and feed them raw bones to distinguish themselves from the rest of us who are so low as to feed our dogs kibble.
My answer? REAL DOG LOVERS KEEP MUTTS!!
-
Really Farjad
[Read the article: The beef over pet food]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How could you so grossly misunderstand Cynthia's very simple point. Her concern is with the disproportion - with the fact that women are typically described -- while men aren't. I have a feeling that she might be right -- and while I would like to see some research into this question, I also think it entirely fair to ask why this might be the case.
-
Cary. . .
[Read the article: My family treats my dad like dirt]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is a Poet.
-
We might as well sell our souls. . .
[Read the article: How to run good]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let me get this right. The party that prides itself on its committment to the environment is supposed to not just sanction - but endorse and seek the endorsement of - one of the most environmentaly corrupt and corrupting institutions ever conceived? Somebody tell me - how much fuel is wasted making those ugly little cars go around and around the same boring track all day? How much research is put into making cars faster instead of more efficient? How many idiots watch this claptrap and then put all their own personal resources into buying the highest performance cars they can buy? How many of these people end up as bloodspots on the asphault - and how many others do they take with them? I would sooner vote pro-life.
-
you would have to be. . .
[Read the article: Cruel to be kind]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]. . . borderline retarded not to understand that Pete is engaged in a necesssary evil to bring about the greater good. Pete's actions aren't merely good and humane, they are heroic.