In Impromptus today, I begin with Ulysses S. Grant — who has been named General of the Armies. The other two with that rank are George Washington and John J. Pershing. I continue with various issues — political, social — ending with Giuseppe Verdi. See what you think, here.
Let’s have some mail, in response to yesterday’s Impromptus. One of the items in that column went like this:
Here is a headline that says something about our system: “The presidential campaigns have made over 200 visits but speak to just a fraction of American voters.” (Article here.) Sometimes, I am tempted to envy Pennsylvanians . . .
A reader from Pennsylvania writes,
Hello, Jay,
. . . I can assure you that from Labor Day till Election Day is a burden: mailbox stuffed with junk, the mild but real fear of a canvasser knocking on your door, the vote-floggers among your friends on social media, the constant political ads during football games. The next three weeks are only going to get worse.
Yesterday, I wrote, “If Bill Buckley and Alex Jones share the descriptor ‘conservative,’ the word is meaningless.” A reader responds,
The abuse of the word “conservative” irks me no end and I like to tell people who abuse it that what they are seeing now, in our politics, is hardly conservative. Bill Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan were conservatives. That leaves them speechless. The first two, they’ve likely never heard of, and Reagan — well, most of them don’t really know him. Of course, if I told them, they’d probably say, “OK, boomer.”
I wrote about the theme music of Room 222, by Jerry Goldsmith. Room 222 was a TV show that aired from 1969 to 1974. The music, a friend of mine had remarked, is “redolent of the era.”
A professor of art history writes,
Delighted at your mention of the catchy theme of Room 222. Its unusual 7/8 time signature is worth pointing out. I think a lot of the music’s energy comes from that offbeat rhythm, which gives it a kind of soft shimmying sway — unlike the nervous agitation of Mission Impossible with its Take Five signature. (I envy your meeting Lalo Schifrin.)
Schifrin is the composer of that theme, for Mission Impossible. He came on a National Review cruise once.
Another reader writes,
When I looked at that clip showing the opening of Room 222, what struck me most was the dress of the students then compared with now. In the clip, the girls all wear skirts or dresses and the boys have nice shirts, a few without collars but not T-shirts. In general, they are neatly dressed. I sometimes do carpooling for my granddaughter who is a freshman in high school, and it is dismaying to see the dress. The term “slovenly” is barely adequate to describe what I see.
I went to high school when Room 222 was being made, and it was my classmates who fought to ease the dress code. I think we were wrong.
In my column, I had reason to discuss Justin Tucker, a placekicker for the Baltimore Ravens. A reader writes,
Hi, Jay!
Too bad about the Tigers (my husband is from Detroit, so I’m a Tiger fan by marriage).
We live in Baltimore, support the classical-music station, have been symphony season-ticket holders since we came here, and are obviously familiar with Justin Tucker. Did you know he was trained as an opera singer? Here is a relatively recent article from The Sporting News.
Mirabile dictu (as Bill Buckley would say).
Finally, I tipped my hat to Greg Landry, a quarterback for the Detroit Lions, who has just passed away. (After Detroit, he went on to play for the Colts.) A reader sends me a clip — of Landry scoring a touchdown after the other team blocked a field-goal attempt. It should really be seen, rather than described: here.
Thank you to one and all readers and correspondents.