Dear Mr. Erard, I remember my first, too. It was my first quarter as a history graduate student, and I was grading for a class on the Dark Ages. It was a paper on the Black Death; the student in question began his introduction with an especially lucid and off-topic
No big deal, but a Brit would never say “…spend the night with Brown’s flutes.” It would be “Brown’s whistles.” Whistles and flutes = suits, but the short version is whistles. In rhyming slang, every rule has an exception, but generally it’s the first word that’s the
Dear editor, Nell Boeschenstein’s excellent article, “Out of the Brainland and Into the Heartland,” was very interesting and “down to earth” reporting on Mr. Jefferson and his Monticello. However, I wish to point out one glaring and distracting reference: that Thomas Jefferson fathered the Sally Hemings children. What proof
I’m a great fan of your Tournament and I follow it assiduously each year. This year you note that at least one National Book Award judge “flipped” a coin in his or her decision. Since I’m the unofficial historian of the National Book Awards, can you tell me
Let me start off by saying that I love your site and that I regularly share it with others, whenever possible. I’m particularly fond of the Non-Expert, which is why I found the “Love Sic” piece so troubling. If that was a real question, the person who wrote it
Most hideous car on the streets of America? Perhaps you are thinking of the car it replaced, the Dodge Neon. More correctly, the American car with proportions most resembling a London or Dublin cab. American car with enough room to fit an indie band’s Ludwig drums and Super Reverb.
Hi, guys, Just wanted to mention that Matthew Baldwin is freakin’ hilarious. Since I’m bored at work I had the pleasure of reading his Mindfuck Movies, laughing the whole way through and genuinely impressed with his style. This scared my co-workers, which made it doubly effective. Send my regards
To Pasha Malla, Fuck you so very much. You wrote the best description of love I have ever seen or could hope to imagine. You made me remember and to miss what it’s like to love somebody in the real world, and to see the miracle of them looking
Dear sir or madam, I have been regularly reading and enjoying TMN for several months now, and I was recently taken aback to see a headline reading “Latitude lacks in McCain’s anti-choice actions, even if his statements are muddled.” Surely the authors and editors realize that “anti-choice” is an
Hi, Kate, Perhaps, instead of swearing off your beloved soup, you could try making it yourself. Yes, it may take a bit more time than it takes you to microwave a ready-made one, but it’s simple—and you can control the salt content. Why deny yourself a pleasure when
Dear Editors, As an American currently living in Paris with my family, I was discouraged to read the broad, stereotypical claims made by Rosecrans Baldwin in “Paris I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.” While reading his piece, I had the distinct sense that that he was pigeonholing
Dear Morning News Readers Who Think it Was Unfair That I Judged Díaz vs. Lippman Because I Already Have Read and Liked Díaz, Are you batshit crazy? I mean that in the most evenhanded, levelheaded, unbiased way possible. If I loved an author’s first book, then I am less
Dear Mr. Warner, I just wanted to thank you for your candid and insightful commentary on the second-round Tournament of Books matchup between Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke and Vendela Vida’s Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name. I think Vida’s was the most critically overlooked novel
Dear Morning News editors, I quite happily read Elizabeth Kiem’s article on the elections in Russia last week. As I’ve been living in Russia this year, through both the parliamentary and presidential elections, my access to the news has been a combination of the Kremlin-backed television channels and
Dear Morning News folks, So Barack Obama fans Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner agree that in a prospective match-up between Hillary Clinton and John McCain, they might well vote for the Republican. Which raises the question: On what basis do they support Obama? Is it just because he’s the
Dear TMN, When we got the results of the Iowa caucus, I felt the things I was supposed to feel: excitement, vindication, enthusiasm, and fear. Fear of Mike Huckabee, primarily, but also fear that if the campaign a year ahead of us was to be between a black man from
Dear editors, Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t limited space for headlines the only reason newspapers use commas in place of “and’? If so, a question: Web sites aren’t subject to the same space restrictions, so why do you persist in using them in your daily
I’m a longtime reader of themorningnews.org and normally I find your news section to be very well chosen and insightful. I was surprised you posted a link to “The Dollar Nosedive: Why America’s Currency Is the World’s Problem.” This article is not news, it is one-sided
Dear TMN, I should, to begin with, admit that I am in the minority who feels that English, August deserved better than it got at Colin Meloy's hands. I will, rhetoric-fashion, tell you that I won't mention the arguably provincial privileging of parceled observations of What
Hi, Kate, While I agree there is some weakness “especially apparent in the final third of”Arthur and George, I think you have greatly underestimated and misunderstood an important element of the novel. I refer to your contention that: “It wouldn’t have been so dry had Sir Arthur’s
Dear friends at TMN, TMN is my homepage. I consider myself a fan of your work. Does that give me the liberty to be critical? Probably not, but you’re gracious enough to have a feedback link, so I’ll just bite the bullet and use it. For what it’
Dear TMN, What is up with that bullshit piece by James McManus? It’s one thing to point out the inconsistencies between a person’s not supporting stem-cell research and the fact that her father might have been helped by that very research. Point taken, although it’s also notable
Hi, Andrew, I enjoyed reading your “Top Ten Albums of 1980” (1979, too), and wanted to add a contender. I’m not flaming—but I remember some of those records and thought of the possibility that you didn’t consider this one: Prince’s “Dirty Mind.” If you’ve never
A friend of mine just sent me the article you published about the history of the Lincoln Correctional Facility on 110th Street and Central Park West. I was so thrilled and fascinated to read it. I went to the New Lincoln school for 15 years, graduating in 1975. My mother
Dear writers, I’m so enjoying your love and devotion to Star Jones. I hope your love for her is not ending. Now you posted something insightful regarding people with a vision disability. Do blind people dream in pictures? Thank you for caring and posing such an important question. But
Dear TMN, Francey Russell’s recitation of American Male archetypes as expressed through cinema is, as usual for The Morning News, outstanding; however, I am puzzled as to how Ms. Russell could omit from her survey one Clinton Eastwood Jr. Not only has Mr. Eastwood been, arguably, the pre-eminent American
I am writing in regards to your article of July 15, 1977, titled “Gender-Bending Grade-Schooler Attracts Notice,” which reported on my emergence as a leading androgynous figure in the fashion world. I would have written sooner and not allowed the record to stand uncorrected for almost 30 years, but at
Hi Folks, I’ve enjoyed reading your series on city parks and was very excited to see that Toronto had it’s own article. Being a Torontonian, I was looking forward to hearing about little known areas of this city that I hadn’t yet discovered. This expectation seemed reasonable
Dear TMN, Today’s “Not an Open Letter” by Elizabeth Kiem speaks for so many of us who understand how the world works in shades of gray. I was sad and disappointed to learn about Grass’s secret when I first read about it. It was the same knee-jerk response
Dear TMN, Kevin Guilfoile’s further exposure of a story about Bruce Springsteen [article was originally published in 2002-eds.] was certainly intriguing; “everyone knows that a man, shouting at Springsteen, partly inspired the new songs.” Everyone maybe, but not me. Previously I had believed that the inspiration for Springsteen’s
Dear TMN, I enjoyed Lauren Frey’s article on cell phones. I must admit that stuck in Cambridge, dealing with Harvard students and their ilk jabbing away while I am in the middle of another monotonous work day, does lead to me going Michael Douglas in Falling Down on them.
Dale Peck’s “judging” of McEwan’s and Smith’s novels shows that this self-proclaimed “most-hated man in publishing,” while lacking any critical acumen, possesses an unmatched ego. “Contemporary fiction’s nothing more than an enabler of certain bourgeois illusions” …”Social compact is spiritual and species suicide”…”literary novel…irrelevant
In “Doozy of a Decimal System,” published April 5, 2006, Anthony Doerr admits that his half-serious censure of library borrowing is “silly.” I’d like to argue that not only is it silly to suggest that libraries make it harder for writers to get published, it is also wrong. Libraries
After a youth spent in American public schools, I have tried to understand that there is no such thing as a “dumb” question. And yet over and over again, I am forced to confront that in every situation, there are in fact dumb questions. For example, the following, posed by
Dear Rosecrans and Andrew, This Wapshott article in the Telegraph, which you linked to in Wednesday’s Headlines, is spreading like wildfire, and I want to help you understand it because I see that you’ve (apparently) fallen for its very spurious premise. There is no evidence here or elsewhere
Upon reading Andrew Womack’s “life hacks” article, I was reminded of a piece of information shared with me by my mother: If you’re short on postage stamps (and don’t have any wildlife stamps), then reverse the addressee’s address with your own on the envelope. The letter
I recently “browsed across” your First Tournament of Books and was pleased with the winner. Did you ever contact him, or hear from him, about this grand honor he has won? Maybe you could print his reaction, something like the ubiquitous “You’ve just won the Super Bowl, what are
Dear Morning News, I happened to bump into your article on Xanadu and Michael Beck (“The Love That We Came To Know”), and it was a great read. It was even better to find out that Beck is alive and well, or at least, putting up with Xanadu fans. My
While the idea of the Tournament of Books is excellent, might I suggest an addition to the following years’ tournaments? Audience participation, of course. Your readers would, I am sure, be delighted to weigh in with their own pronouncements on the relative merits of the various books and vote. So
Dear The Morning News, I love you, and wish I wasn’t an impoverished student so I could give you money. Because I would. I especially love “The Education of Elisabeth Eckleman” (alliteration! yes!) and am sad that it isn’t already in novel form so I could stay up
Dear editors, To Danny Gregory’s question (Can watercolors change how you perceive a killer?), I answer yes. Gregory’s drawings will most likely allow most viewers to perceive these flawed human beings—who are the products of a very flawed country—as nothing more than callous idiots. Most Americans
In Cody Weiwandt’s article, in which he supplies the tough answers to Jadakiss’s hard questions, he gets a couple of things wrong. “A burner” refers to a firearm, not a joint. The jail sentence Jada protests is presumably for unlawful possession of a firearm. “Under a dime” means
I applaud Clay Risen on a most intelligent rebuttal to Charles Simic’s report of his trip through the South. I am sad to hear that Mr. Simic did not appreciate the graciousness of the docents in Jackson’s Mississippi Arts Pavilion. They welcome guests into the museum as if
Hey, fellas, This email concerns the published IQ test, “The Non-Expert: IQ,” by Andrew Womack. One of the questions in the test said: Imagine turning a handheld calculator upside-down, and using numbers to spell words on the display (where 1=I, 2=z, 3=E, 4=h, 5=s, 6=
Rosecrans, I think you are blowing the no-TV thing way out of proportion. I know plenty of people in New York who don’t own televisions—at least three in my office alone, and that’s not counting friends. When people ask me if I’ve seen the latest episode
I am a fan of the Non-Expert’s expertise, which has been useful to me on occasion, especially your answer to the “Women: What For?” question. My affection compels me to write when the Non-Expert is less than correct, which is rare. In the case of the conclusion to the
“A backwards plus upside-down freestyle stroke, for which many swimmers wear goggles. Why?” If it is all right, I would like to answer the question. I swam competitively from 1996-2001 and I enjoy telling people about the world’s most under-appreciated sport. (You can find out more at your local
Having just looked through the photo essay “Appetite,” I’m wondering if Geoff Badner would even RECOGNIZE a vegetable? Look, I’m not a ranting vegan hippie or anything, but seriously—green? Orange? Yellow? Geoff, do you realize how much of the food you ate in that essay is either
I regret to inform you that residents of Alabama go by the appellation “Alabamians,” not “Alabamans.” I thought this was pretty silly when I moved here, but ‘tis so. That should help solidify the blue southeast on your map. However, I have another quibble: listing Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania,
Mr. Murphy, After reading your article on felt-tip markers and the effects of huffing, I can only conclude you are obviously brain-damaged. No citizen, parent or otherwise caring person would write such a ridiculous missive about something as dangerous as huffing. The article is not funny; it is offensive and
The other day I snapped. I had received a forwarded email that began: ‘Facts About Social Security. Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, …’ I should have hit the ‘delete’ button right then. Any letter that [felt it needed to identify] FDR as a Democrat was either written for fools or extremely partisan,
In response to a minor controversy... At first it was difficult and overwhelming, then I realized it was one song, and free at that, so I just chose. The song I downloaded with your generous code is R.E.M.’s ‘First We Take Manhattan’ (LP version) off of the
Re. How to Walk in New York. Let me add a coda: If you are walking down a sidewalk and you see somebody not looking where s/he’s going, THEY have the right of way. They are busy people, and something much more important is happening elsewhere that is
Regarding your Headlines links: ‘Statue of Liberty could have already reopened, but Park Service uninterested, Statue Foundation busy with extra, unaccountable fundraising. And: The investigation begins.’ These stories were first reported in amNewYork Feb. 2 and in several follow-up stories. In the New York Times’s front-page stories on Sunday
This is in response to your distressed tale, Big Winner, by Andrew Womack. My brother and I, being extremely cheap and always looking for a new way to get something for free, hate Pepsi. But we love the iTunes deal. And thankfully, someone at Pepsi wasn’t thinking so clearly
I would like very much to see an article on the hospital auxiliary thrift store. We have some very interesting history there. It was founded in 1952. The original building is on the Shilo Museum property. This year alone the volunteers have put in over 3,500 hours of volunteer
Wow! I totally agree with what that no-name singer said about Liz Phair! I feel the same way! I was basically as good as Beck in the early ‘90s. Sure, I wish I’d written ‘Loser,’ but it’s not like I used distortion on my guitar or anything. And
Can you help me? I am 62 years old and very aware of my choice for fashion. My business allows me to dress casually daily. I will spend $125 to $185 for slacks and $125 for shirts. I wear a lot of knits and Gucci shoes. My problem is matching
I would recommend that you leave old news on the site on a link because many students have to do reports on things like that and it is very difficult to find anything worthwhile on any site. Your site would profit greatly should you do so. Ivyprincess Ivyprincess: We archive
