. . . And Now a Word About a Word

Sir: Your excellent article, ". . . And Now a Word about Commercials" [July 12], suffers from one serious omission. It does not mention a device known to the fraternity of electricians as the "blab-off." This consists of an electric cord of any length, with an on-off switch at one end, the other attached to the speaker in the set. With it you can turn off the sound as you wish, while the picture continues. Any electrician will install this thing for a trifling fee. The viewer then need not pay to the sponsor the "heavy tribute" of listening to commercials "in exchange for often dubious pleasure."

ERNEST BRENNECKE Manhattan

Sir: Mr. Kennedy's deductions are the most truthful, amusing and amazing I've learned in the longest time. At many points, I actually laughed aloud. Bravo!

PEGGY BOMBA Brooklyn

Sir: Gerald Scarfe's TV commercial sculpture was excellent. However, Scarfe failed to capture the major aspect of TV commercials. Emerging from the center of the TV set there should have been one colossal-sized hand--palm up.

BARRY A. ERLICH Los Angeles

Sir: We teen-agers have been gravely affronted by Claire Barnett's prideful claim of "tuning them (television commercials) out for so many years." Why does she think we do our homework in front of the television set? Ensconced in our sanctuary before the tube, we enjoy eight minutes of continuous work, easily giving attention to both TV and texts. The only interruptions we suffer are during the commercials, when we automatically drop the books and "tune in." It's the simplest thing in the world to study while the forces of good and evil meet in climactic clash deciding the fate of civilization, but it's a sheer impossibility to maintain even an iota of concentration when a beautiful girl huskily tells you to "take it all off!"

JAMES E. HUDDLESTON JR. Philadelphia

Bench Warmers

Sir: I read with aversion the sanctimonious protestations of the present leaders of the Grand Old Party who raise cries of "cronyism" over L.B.J.'s nominees to the Supreme Court [July 5]. The tedious process and soul-searching which L.B.J. went through in making his choices was apparent by your article. He has selected qualified men of the judiciary with obvious credentials, whose records are an open book.

Compare this with the thought and consideration surrounding the last appointment of a Chief Justice. Mr. Eisenhower makes the shameful admission that when he chose Earl Warren to the third highest office in the land, "I wasn't close to him when I appointed him . . . didn't really know him. But I liked his family, and I had been told he had been a good Governor" [June 28].

JERRY MILLER Beverly Hills

Sir: As the final forum of legal questions in the country, the Supreme Court's decisions should command public respect as being impartial and fair. If the Court were to rule on questions intimately involving President Johnson--such as the legality of the Viet Nam War--the impartiality of Justices Fortas and Thornberry might well be questioned. Herein lies the threat of cronyism to the Supreme Court; it can erode public confidence in its decisions, however fairly they were reached.

ROBERT NORDVALL Frostburg, Md.

Sir: As a practicing attorney, I enjoyed your cover feature on Justice Abe Fortas. But as a wine maker, I wonder about your statement that Justice Fortas distills his own mead on occasion. Mead is produced by fermentation rather than distillation of honey. Distillation would produce a honey brandy, not mead, and is contrary to federal law, which subjects the violator to confiscation of his equipment and a maximum penalty of ten years and $10,000 upon conviction.

WILLIAM E. HARRIS Fort Wayne, Ind.

Wonderful Pierre

Sir: My enthusiastic thanks to you for introducing to me the "Man of Tomorrow," Canada's Pierre Elliott Trudeau [July 5]. What charm, what flair, what intelligence, what capacity for uniting opposites! How wonderful it would be if he could replace our tired-out, repetitious candidates for President, and unite Canada with the U.S. under his dynamic and enthusiastic leadership with the slogan "One America." Vive Trudeau!

MARGUERITE SEKOTS Goldthwaite, Texas

Sir: The infatuation with Trudeaumania is only the latest evidence of a great lunge toward relaxation by our other-directed new American middle class. As parents they do not wish to rule. As youth they refuse to be governed. In politics they prefer the risque rumbles of revolution to the quiet toil of reform. What they ask most of government is not that it govern, but that it attempt to amuse.

VERNARD FOLEY Albany, Calif.

Yours & Mine

Sir: After having vacillated for two or three weeks on whether to publicly air my views on more sensible gun-control laws, I am compelled to write by the utterly senseless, yet totally irrevocable murder of my kid sister--a young lady of 24 [July 12]. Her crime was to be in the vicinity of a demented man who chose to carry a deadly weapon--a privilege some say is guaranteed by the Constitution. Stricter penalties for gun violations would not deter such an individual, for he was willing to die while continuing to fire. The assassins of two Kennedys and Dr. King also considered the consequences worth the opportunity to pull a trigger. Registration of all firearms with restrictions for those deemed unfit, restriction of ammunition sales only to those so registered, elimination of mail-order sales, and severe restrictions on handguns (does a sportsman hunt with a .45?) will not save everyone's little sister, but they may save yours. It's too late for mine.

DALE C. KISTLER, M.D. Kingston, Pa.

On the Ballot

Sir: The New York Daily News's opposition to President Johnson's proposed lowering of the voting age [July 5] appears to be rather one-sided. One of its opposing cartoons, which you published, has two protesting hippies supposedly representing the entire 18-21 year old populace of the U.S. I, along with thousands of other responsible young people who hold permanent jobs, are in the Armed Forces, or attend college, do not appreciate being represented as members of a long-haired, pot-smoking, protesting minority. If lowering the voting age to 18 gives the vote to such a minority, a minority which the press itself is greatly responsible for, having given it an unnecessary amount of publicity, let it be written off as a necessary evil.

If this country is so ready and willing to put its young people in uniform, it should be just as ready and willing to put them in a voting booth.

BRUCE SPERBER Reading, Pa.

Sir: The more practical idealism and intellect of the majority of the 18-21 bracket might possibly act as a much needed balance to the whim, superficiality and economic egotism of the present American voting public, a great many of whom are misinformed or, indeed, ignorant. Why not publish a cartoon of a mass of "adult" voters at a political picnic, gurgling free beer and goggling their devotion to an ambitious and ambiguous demagogue?

SUSAN CHADWICK (18) Houston

Soul From Straight City

Sir: When your Soul listing [June 28] arrived, I was reading, coincidentally, William Goodhart's play Generation, which contains what will always be my favorite Straight City definition of Soul:

The Soul of Man,

Despite his pride,

Is rather odd,

A toy balloon

Blown up by God,

Or, strictly speaking,

The air inside,

And that is leaking.

KAY FLAHERTY Manhattan Beach, Calif.

Sir: Oh, cumon, now! Rock 'n' roll was not originally a "copulative verb." The term was used quite commonly among seafaring men in the 17th century, and referred to an ancient sea chanty with numerous verses and the repeating chorus:

One more day, me buckoos!

One more day.

Oh, rock and roll me over,

One more day!

It was a going-home song and described the rocking and rolling of the old sailing ships at sea.

A. MAZANCK Glens Falls, N.Y.

Don't Panic

Sir: Now all the people who read about Barbara Triano [July 5] and see a glucose bottle run dry will panic. Venous pressure is higher than air pressure and air will not enter a vein unless it is forced in. The only thing that happens when a glucose bottle runs dry is that some of the glucose remains in the tubing. I offer this correction so that we won't have to give treatment for hysteria along with our glucose infusions.

HAZEL FISHER, R.N. Decatur, Ill.

Conspicuous Absence

Sir: Regarding "The Rich--Back to the Ould Sod" [June 28] perhaps the most conspicuous Mellon by his absence from the family's rendezvous was Larimer W. Mellon Jr., who, as a physician, dedicated, built and for the past twelve years has run the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles, Haiti along with his wife Gwen. Larry Mellon's forte has been in giving all of his monies away to a hospital cen ter dedicated to the care of over 300,000 patients in a rural setting who otherwise would be without this resource. He is my nominee for the Nobel Prize for Peace in the Western Hemisphere.

A. CURRIE MAIMON, M.D. Rockford, 111.

Next Question

Sir: Re "Black Questions for Whitey" [July 12]: Sociologist Dove, despite his color, is not as soul as he thinks he is. "C.C." may have stood for Country Circuit when the late Chuck Willis rendered his emasculated version of the famous blues, but Ma Rainey sang it as Easy [not C.C.] Rider Blues much earlier. Old blues singers applied the term easy rider to the guitar, which, because of its shoulder strap, "rode easy." Eventually, because of the instrument's feminine shape, easy rider came to mean a woman of easy virtue or a man who prospered by her entrepreneurial activities. There is more to culture, Mr. Dove, than that which revolves 45 times per minute.

WILLIAM W. SAVAGE JR. Norman, Okla.

Mod Monk

Sir: Being a modern young Benedictine monk, I would say that Walter Holmes's "minimedievals" [July 5] look a lot better than our "maximedievals." I also believe that Monsignor Joseph Snee's remark was unjust and that he should examine his own morals and not those of women who wear the latest mod garb.

THOMAS TRUELSON, O.S.B. Glastonbury Monastery Hingham, Mass.

Back to Bach

Sir: Your report of the Munich Bach Festival [July 5] mentions two ways of playing Bach: 1) the rigid, as-written style; 2) the free, "swinging" style used by Karl Richter, Landowska and others.

Actually, the efforts of these people to "swing" is doomed to failure because they have continued to use the modern keyboard fingering. As a result, they can produce only the same da da da da rigidity that has led 90% of the public to detest Bach. The real baroque fingering style of Bach was reputed to sound like a conversation. Anyone can restore the "speaking-swinging" style to Bach by singing it with the old flute tonguing: did'll did'll, or even the scat syllables: da ba da ba of the Swingle Singers.

SOL BABITZ Early Music Laboratory Los Angeles

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