Category: Letter

I had no problem keeping warm in my air-conditioned office as I read Kirsten Major’s article, “Sun So Hot I Froze to Death” [August]. In fact, I was burning up with rage, as I became nauseous at the idea of using a personal space heater in order to keep warm in an air-conditioned office. While reading Vanity Fair the author must have missed the widespread alarm raised by contemporary scientists, proclaiming that we are causing irreparable damage to our home, planet Earth. Such behavior perhaps is emblematic of her patriotic American attitude, which on a national scale wastes a quarter of the world’s energy yet ignores the Kyoto Protocol. Why carpool or use public transportation when you can drive a large SUV alone? Why ask the building’s management to turn up the thermostat when you can just plug in a heater and waste away? Well, it’s nice to have your own freedom and why not just ignore the fact that electricity is vastly inefficient at heating and sixty-two percent of it is generated by coal. Unfortunately, Ms. Major won’t be the only one going to hell; our sick lungs and children, who won’t enjoy a moderate global climate, will have to burn in hell for her fashionable attire as well.

I had to laugh at your article, “The Dog’s Lover” [July]. You see, I, too, have a similar problem with my male Yorkie. His toy, a poor stuffed animal, is now missing an ear, eye, and portions of his head, which I have had to stuff and sew numerous times. I made the mistake of bringing it out when we had company—yes, he certainly provided the entertainment. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a replacement, but my Yorkie has occasionally made do with a stuffed porcupine (ouch!).

The summer is fading. The moon is easing down to sleep in the trees, even as the stars step back into the dark country of heaven. They look like a small cluster of island villages in the North Sea, seen from an airplane at night.
A fox, interloper here in the middle of a city overrun by the swelling chorus of cicadas singing summer’s requiem, does its solitary, long-legged Mardi Gras dance down an empty street.
These are, I suppose, precious days in the middle of a man’s life. If you’re going to find yourself at the crossroads it’s nice to have such pleasant diversions while you mull your options, nice to still have options, to still sense the road forking off in so many directions wherever you happen to find yourself.
Take your time, the night says, it’s yours, even if there’s less of it now than there was yesterday, than there was last September. Take your sweet fucking time.
It’s hard to imagine, on an evening like this, that there’s a single thing out there to be afraid of, or that all your failures add up to anything but a series of minor follies. It’s all frankly hard to imagine, this life, this world, the world stretching to the horizon in the darkness and out into space beyond even the most distant stars.

Got Me a Movie, I Want You to Know: The Best Songs About Movies and the People Who Make Movies

A bee got into my bonnet the other day, and I started thinking about my favorite songs about the movie industry. Not songs from movies—those are a different beast altogether. No, I want songs that celebrate or lament Hollywood, tributes to the stars or reminiscences of some actor’s tragic demise. In no particular order:

Debaser, The Pixies. A tribute to Buñuel.

Take, Take, Take and The Union Forever, The White Stripes. The first, about an obsession with Rita Hayworth; the second, about an obsession with Citizen Kane.

Lon Chaney, Chickasaw Mudd Puppies. Great song that you’ll never find—these guys (a guitarist and a guy in a big rocking chair, singing and keeping the beat with his boots) are long gone. All about the Man of a Thousand Faces. Nearly indecipherable lyrics, most of which are references to his many films.
The Right Profile, The Clash, and Monty Got a Raw Deal, R.E.M. A pair of songs about the tragic life of Montgomery Clift.

Act Naturally, Buck Owens (and later sung by Ringo on Help!). “They’re gonna put me in the movies…”

David Duchovny, Bree Sharp. She’s probably regretting not going with Gillian Anderson on this one.

King of the Mountain, Southern Culture on the Skids. Fab song about a backwoods pornographer.

Martin Scorsese, King Missile.

Twelve hours before the U.S. government issued a terror alert for its citizens in India, I stopped by the Fatima Burqa Collection shop in Mumbai (officially known as Bombay until 1996). Located on Ebrahim Rahmatulla Road, a teeming shopping street in a crowded downtown Muslim district, the diminutive outlet is distinguished from its neighbors by the stately, headless mannequins draped in black silk in the entryway. Standing next to one of them, I peered inside. Peering back at me, behind the counter, was a thin, middle-aged man with a hennaed beard, wearing a skullcap. I adjusted my Twins cap, but I couldn’t fool him—or myself.

“They probably thought you were the police,” laughed Rohit Shah, a friend who is president of the Bombay Metal Exchange. It was a few days later, and we were driving past the Victorian splendor of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station. Since terrorists bombed Mumbai’s commuter trains on July 11, killing at least 183 people, the terminus has been considered a major terror target, and security has supposedly been tightened. But from the backseat, I saw only beggars standing in the doorways. “There is nothing that anyone can do,” Rohit said. “In Bombay, we are in God’s hands.”

Lately, God has been rough on Mumbai. If it isn’t terrorism, it’s an unusually powerful monsoon. I had come to Mumbai to report on India’s burgeoning recycling industries and rode into town during a downpour fierce enough to wash out roads and create car-sized craters in highways. My plan was to spend two days touring recycling facilities located in the city of Surat, north of Mumbai, but upon my arrival my contact—let’s call him Mr. S—informed me that his driver was terrified of the rains. Surat, home to two-and-a-half million people, was ninety percent underwater as a result of mismanagement of dam reservoirs during the monsoon.

The next afternoon, as consolation, Mr. S’s driver arrived at the Hilton with instructions to ferry me to Mr. S’s country club. I had been watching the rain from my room all day, and I was anxious to go. But my enthusiasm soon waned; traffic was totally gridlocked due to washed-out roads. During long, dead stops in the middle of downtown, I watched from fogged windows as Mumbaikars—some in saris, some in business suits, and some in rags—waded barefoot through water that ranged from ankle- to knee-deep.

Three hours and twenty miles later, the car pulled up to the gate of the club. Waiting for me were Mr. S and his friend, Mr. E, a manufacturer of brass ballpoint-pen tips. We retired to the empty, wood-paneled bar for drinks and lamb from the tandoor. My seat faced a glass wall that looked onto a pool overflowing with rain. “For the last three years, the monsoon has been very bad,” said Mr. S. “Unusually bad.” When I suggested that global warming might be the cause, he erupted into a high-pitched giggle. “Something must be wrong,” he replied, and ordered another round.

Two days later, I was still stuck at the Hilton, awaiting word as to whether I could visit recycling facilities in nearby Sylvassa. As I lay in bed, CNBC reported that the U.S. Consulate in Delhi was advising U.S. citizens in India to maintain a low profile. Apparently, “individuals associated with al-Qaeda” were planning to bomb hotels, markets, and tourist sites, and special police units were being assigned to vulnerable and sensitive areas in Mumbai. One such site, it was noted, was the Air India headquarters next to my hotel. I walked out to the street, where I found the Air India building flanked by two traffic cops armed with bamboo walking sticks. Four other traffic cops sat, unarmed, on the stairs of the building, chatting amiably. Not exactly reassured by this show of force, I sought comfort by taking a twenty-minute walk up the street to the Gateway of India, Mumbai’s most popular tourist site. Aside from an admittedly larger regiment of traffic police standing guard, one of whom even sported a pistol, there was little indication that any serious effort was being made to halt potential attacks, despite the fact that more than fifty people were killed by a car bomb here in 2003.

I called Rohit. He asked if I was keeping a low profile. When I admitted that I had, out of curiosity, just visited two likely terror targets, he chuckled. “In Mumbai, after the train bombings, the trains were running again in six hours. In London, after the bus bombings, the city was shut down for days.” He paused, and I waited for the moral to this story. “Anyway, Mumbai people are strong because they place their fate in God’s hands. You’ll see.” Actually, I had seen enough. Back at the Hilton, I noticed that the tall, fierce-looking Sikh guards who stood by the door were now augmented by two slight men in pale blue uniforms emblazoned with patches that said “Monitron.” Neither was armed. As I paused to pick up a FedEx package at the front desk, I noticed the pretty young concierge who had helped me change my departure flight from Mumbai. “Monitrons,” I said, nodding at the new security presence. She smiled politely in response. “Are you enjoying your day, sir?” she asked.

Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Peter Hutchinson [“The Only Other Job I’d Like,” August] is an enigma. He speaks like a progressive, but is hellbent on sabotaging the election for neocon Tim Pawlenty.
The issues are clear. If you support regressive taxation, gutted public education, discrimination against gays, denial of women’s rights, punitive transportation policies, environmental degradation, corporate hegemony, xenophobia, then you’re a Republican and Pawlenty supporter.
You can either vote for Pawlenty outright, or waste your vote on Hutchinson. Either way, Pawlenty gets your vote. Independent candidate Ralph Nader sabotaged the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections; ditto Hutchinson. Like Nader, Hutchinson’s campaign will be financed by Republicans.
While Hutchinson’s major positions match the DFL’s, he claims a cloak of independence. Sadly, he is consumed by his own ego, and is an unwitting Republican dupe.

Dave and Cathy Burrows, of Green Bay, Wisconsin (frequent Twin Cities visitors), did a three-week tour by a Norwegian nature cruise company that featured Argentina, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Islands, Orkney Islands, and finally (as shown here), the Antarctica Peninsula. The Gentoo penguins, normally comical, weren’t doing much as they stood in the active snowstorm in late February, the height of Antarctica’s summer. Despite the “Exposed!” cover, the Burrowses were not inspired to “go natural” in Antarctica, but they did jump into some hot springs.

A friend and I saw your article about Lois Mansberger in The Rake [“Tomb of the Unknown Domestic,” June]. It struck us both to the core. As we talked about Lois more and more, we decided we needed to make a pilgrimage to her grave. We invited two other women friends we knew would want to honor Lois because she was a woman, a nurse, and a veteran. The long quote from the pope galled us. The four of us are professional women from the late fifties to late seventies—two retired and two still working.