In a recent post, I said, “I have made my peace (sort of) with never reading it, or finishing it.” What was the “it”? Bleak House, the masterpiece by Dickens. I asked readers whether they felt the same about certain works. They sent some darn interesting responses — which I have put in a column, here.
So, that column is full of reader mail. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have more, here and now.
Responding to a post on Sunday, a reader writes,
Thank you for keeping the issue of the Kremlin’s terrorism before us. I have a Russian friend who has Ukrainian relatives. Her husband has been forced into the Russian army and may have to fight against his wife’s relatives.
Responding to a little diatribe in this post, a reader writes,
Jay, I’m 100 percent with you on making college sports amateur again. . . . At my alma mater, there are still a fairly large number of what I would call “student-athletes.” Our starting QB is a mechanical-engineering student. Back when I was in school (late ’70s), I knew several student-athletes (Division II days), and I don’t really know how they did both. I tutored a few.
And don’t get me started on certain high schools, which have gotten almost as bad as the colleges.
Yes. There is nothing disrespectable about amateur sports — or amateur theater or amateur music or anything else. (Well, maybe not amateur brain surgery . . .)
In this Impromptus column, I had an item about “owning the insult.” Many words, which started out as insults, were “owned” by the people they were aimed at: “Christian,” “Tory,” “Impressionist” — many more.
A reader writes,
As a young teenager, growing up in a working-class suburb of Boston in the mid 1950s, I was taunted, harassed, and, yes, physically attacked for being “queer.” I’m about to turn 83 and I now own the insult. I can’t explain it, but it is liberating.
A post of mine, concerning a music podcast, spoke of the theremin — that instrument invented by Leon Theremin in the 1920s. A reader writes,
Jay,
Many people think the original Star Trek theme uses a theremin, but it is actually a wordless soprano vocal, mixed with organ and flute and orchestra. I would venture to say the best-known use of the theremin is in the theme to the British TV series Midsomer Murders. The thereminist is the late Celia Sheen. You can watch her play it on YouTube.
Here.
Another reader writes,
My favorite use of the theremin is in the Led Zeppelin movie The Song Remains the Same. Towards the end, the band finally launches into “Whole Lotta Love” and after the second stanza Jimmy Page starts fiddling with the theremin, and the whole scene made an impression on 16-year-old male me.
Finally, a note from Maestro Charles Peltz:
Mr. Nordlinger,
. . . couldn’t resist sharing with you that I am the conductor on this recording. The thereminist is Lydia Kavina, the granddaughter of Leon Theremin’s first cousin. She studied the theremin with Leon starting at age nine.
She is a truly lovely person and to work with her is an extraordinary experience. As a musician, you can imagine the challenge of matching pitch with an instrument whose gradations of microtones are measured in fractions of an inch and whose player has no contact with the hardware/instrument itself. I remember a unison A flat that took minutes to settle.
Thank you so much, one and all.