January 11–18, 2001

mailbag

Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Royal Pain

(Re: Cover Story, Writing Contest Winners 2000, "Royalty," frankjmiles, Jan. 4)

I can only assume, having read the winning poem in the CP writing contest, that you either did not receive mine or gaily pocketed my entry fee without ever reading it. "Royalty" is not even interesting typing.

Save me from self-congratulatory, masturbatory, hyper-aware, auto-cleansing drivel, amen.

Chris O’Brien
West Grove

Read This

I’d like to thank Eleanor Brown for her enlightening essay, "Ticket to Read" (Slant, Jan. 4). Why, just the other day I was sitting on the #40 bus, idly gazing out the window with nothing better to do than notice the curious way a middle-aged man in a plaid overcoat and fedora cocked his head to one side. What a waste of precious time. Now I know I could have been reading, even reading Ms. Brown’s thought-provoking piece. Thoughts, after all, do need to be provoked more often than not, seldom occurring spontaneously and originally in the mind of the thinker. Of course, there are those rare individuals who can think about work or a personal problem or the Mideast peace process or the book they were reading the night before, even as they seem to be doing nothing more than staring off into space. But these, as I say, are the rare ones. Most people, left to their own devices, couldn’t generate a worthwhile thought if their lives depended on it.

Okay, okay, I’m kidding. Who is Eleanor Brown to presume she knows what’s going on in the minds of these people she feels so compelled to check up on? Why isn’t she reading, instead of wasting her time devising devious means of spying on her fellow passengers? She’s lucky they’re too absorbed in their own thoughts to notice her snooping or they might tell her to mind her own damn business. Many people who ride public transportation are in transit to or from some challenging part of their day and value the commute as a time to just clear their minds and relax, or think about what’s coming next. Some people even find it stimulating to both the mind and the senses to look out the window and notice the world.

I hope Ms. Brown’s fiction is not as pedantic and condescending as her harangue in your paper. Perhaps it might even contain an iota of honestly observed reality. Perhaps I’ll look for some of her work and read it between stops. Unless something more interesting catches my eye.

Andrew Bradley
Philadelphia

A Taste of Honey

(Re: Loose Canon, "Happy Honey Day," Bruce Schimmel, Jan. 4)

Finally, a simple antidote to hyperholidazation: Happy Honey Day. Of course most of us inframillionaires can only envy his insolent dismissal of caviar and champagne as not up to his honeybees’ standards. But when Bruce waxes wise, there will always be a buzz. So down with solstices and up with hives. (And even a little Yiddish lesson thrown in for free, to add class to swarmy suggestion.)

Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany