Bubblicious
This is rich. You pay Henry Blodget, the poster boy for overhyped stocks, to write about real-estate values in New York City [“That Sinking Feeling,” May 23]. And you allow him to warn people that the situation resembles the tech bubble before it burst. Blodget is the famous Merrill Lynch research analyst who called various companies “pieces of shit” and then cooed to the public that they were a great buy. After causing his clients to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, this guy should be writing from an apartment on Rikers Island.
—John Scheuer, Manhattan
Opening Gambit
What a beautifully written portrayal of the Mott Hall chess team [“Mr. Times and His Knights of the Square Table,” by Mark Jacobson, May 23]. I hope the rendering of intellectual pursuit as sporting event will attract more kids to this wholesome lifestyle. I can’t help but think that in ten years, the team members will again be in the news—as innovators and standouts in the arts and sciences.
—Malerie Yolen-Cohen, Stamford, Conn.
The Lesbian Continuum
Amy Sohn’s “Red Wine and Cigarettes” [“Mating,” May 23] was dead-on. I met my best “girlfriend,” Josephine, in Greece. We had a whirlwind “romance”—shopping, dinners, late-night drinking. When she left, I wondered whether she would call me when we returned to New York. She did. Apparently, I’m irresistible. If only men would catch on!
—Tracey Doolin, Manhattan
Red-Hot Yoga
I read with interest “An Illicit Yoga Love Story” [“Intelligencer,” by Abigail Pogrebin, May 23]. My career as a yoga instructor began with Rodney Yee’s videos in my living room; later I had the profound opportunity of meeting him. He has a presence that is attractive not only to a beautiful student but to an entire roomful of people. He has the uncanny ability to make one feel as though she is the center of his attention. I wish them happiness.
—Christina Febbroriello, East Granby, Conn.
Snyde Comments
I was deeply unsettled by Phoebe Eaton’s article on Leslie Crocker Snyder’s race against Robert Morgenthau [“The Sixtysomething Upstart,” May 16]. It was heavy on innuendo and ageism, light on objectivity and substance. Morgenthau is an internationally renowned prosecutor and public servant. He has done an extraordinary job over three decades earning New Yorkers’ confidence. He deserves the same measure of fairness and respect that he and his office attempt to provide the public.
—Jill Comins, Manhattan
Honey, I Shrunk Myself
What a great article [“My Life As a Thin Person,” by Jennifer Senior, May 16]. I’m a flight attendant, and I picked up the magazine from a passenger. I’m also a post-gastric-bypass patient and have lost 330 pounds in two years. As a male patient, I can say that we too are affected by the dramatic changes that occur when one goes from being morbidly obese to thin. I’d like to thank those women who told their stories.
—Glenn Blind, Covington, Ky.
How pathetic that a corpulent woman with a Renoir-esque body must yearn to be a bony partner in bed rather than a comforting cushion. The French poet and novelist Théophile Gautier said it perfectly, in Mademoiselle de Maupin, when, in describing his ideal woman, he wrote, “I dislike to encounter a corner where I expect a circumference.” Nineteenth-century European writers and artists would be mystified by the allure that models on the cover of Vogue have for the modern American.
—Les Dreyer, Manhattan
Curtain Call
for years, John Simon’s sharp, erudite prose has been the main draw of your publication. While others have cravenly slathered praise on the trendy, nonsensical, and self-indulgent in theater, he has often stood alone to proclaim that the emperor is indeed buck naked. I suggest you put “ousting John Simon” in the highbrow/despicable quadrant of your “Approval Matrix.”
—Rochelle Breyer, Brooklyn
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