Letters to the Editor
Vickiesq
Published Letters: 36 Editor's Choice: 3
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Purging CF
[Read the article: To hell with Caitlin Flanagan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The "Elle" article perfectly describes the seductions of CF. Reading her first pieces in "The Atlantic Monthly" I was delighted by her prose until I discovered the rot at the core. All her clever stylings are employed in the service of a deeply regressive philosophy of family and marriage and the role of women in those institutions. Her most recent piece on the purported "oral sex" epidemic among girls of the upper middle-class, ever her focus, was peculiarly repugnant in its ultimate conclusion that her children are safe because they are boys but the girls are a lost generation.
But, what has purged me of CF's toxicity is understanding that she speaks from the privileged position she occupies in a certain stratum of LA society. My husband and I are both fulltime professionals but I daresay we live a quieter, more comfortable life than CF and her Hollywood spouse. We share the household duties, including shopping and cooking. We eat homecooked meals. We do the laundry and we change the beds. We don't work long hours or have long commutes. Our incomes are not stratsopheric but we have free time for walks, movies, concerts, and birdwatching. My son spends a couple of hours daily in afterschool care but he likes the play time with his friends. I venture I spend more time hanging out with my child than my parents ever did with me in the '60s. I may be "solving" my ambivalence by "idealizing an approach." But we're happy.
So CF is an interesting gadfly but, ultimately, she's irrelevant.
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Take heart
[Read the article: Confessions of a utility actor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The writer/actor should take heart from the example of Ford Rainey, another "utility actor" whose acting career didn't launch until he was in his 40s and who was still appearing in TV sitcoms in his 90s. He also played diverse serious and classical roles. Mr. Birkenhead may still have a rich acting career ahead of him. And his writing is human and appealing in its concerns.
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The commons
[Read the article: My next-door neighbor died and I didn't do a thing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This weekend, my neighbors held a baby shower for one of our number, a 44 year old woman having her fourth baby but first daughter. Our ages range from 16 to the mid-70s. We are a nurse, judge, a lawyer, a student, an artist, a scientist,a community activist, some mothers who don't work outside the home, some other mothers who do work at paid employment. We probably aren't on the same religious or political page. But we found a way to be together on a fresh spring afternoon and share the pleasure of a baby girl joining us.
When another neighbor died last spring, even though we were not intimate, I attended his funeral and heard them read French poetry. I wrote his wife a condolence note. I helped his daughter locate and execute a power of attorney for her mother. Now I try to chat with his widow over the back fence.
We've been thinking about moving to a house with more privacy and space and without 90-year-old plumbing. But I don't see how we can leave. Our neighborhood affords us a sense of belonging I would urge the LW to try to develop. It will enrich her life, ease her grief, and calm her fears.
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Pro-Anne
[Read the article: My son, the stranger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm adding my voice to the letters supporting Anne Lamott and her work. I also have a son I love and who sometimes infuriates me. And he was born partly because, when I read "Operating Instructions" 13 years ago, it gave me the courage to face the prospect of being a single mother. Over the years, Anne Lamott has offered me some ongoing lessons about parenting that help a lot more than didactic childrearing manuals. I'm glad not to face these struggles alone.
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Just curious
[Read the article: Spare the quarter-inch plumbing supply line, spoil the child]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is "judicial spanking" when you hire a judge to do it for you? Or did the writer mean "judicious spanking," which is somewhat oxymoronic.
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Boo and Perry Smith
[Read the article: Mockingbird sings]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Two points:
First, the artistic sensibilities in the two books are wildy different. Lee and Capote may have influenced each other but I doubt they could write for one another.
Second, Boo and Perry Smith can be compared in that Perry Smith embodies the damaged monster that the children fear in Boo. Smith, like Boo, possesses an appealing vulnerability. Boo is a hero, Smith, a villain. But they seem born out of similar circumstances.
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Water in the Desert
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After reading the following, I had to wonder if Chereau knows Edith Wharton who, to my mind, never ages and, in these degraded times, still speaks fundamental truths about the human tribe
"There is a danger in the costume drama, the period film," Chéreau tells me over a cup of green tea at his hotel in New York's SoHo neighborhood. "It is the danger that you can say, 'It doesn't interest me, it doesn't touch me, they are so far away. That is a tribe -- you know? -- with unusual laws and unusual rules, that has nothing to do with our own now.'
But, it was exciting to read these capsule reviews and contemplate that, beyond the hinterlands, there is something more to watch this summer than Superman retreads and Pirate movies. This weekend I'm firing up the Prius and heading for the big city.