READERS BITE BACK

Letters

TIM SHEAFFER

Gail Force

I love it when you're bitchy. I love it when you're slick. But most of all I love to feast on Gail Sheehy's presidential profiles, the pieces that show you are truly a national magazine of importance. Nowhere else this campaign year do I see such monumental research—the pinpoint perspective, every single word brilliantly polished and turned.

CAROL HASSON San Diego, California

In her article on Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis [November!, Gail Sheehy engages in a kind of wide-eyed "isn't he just too good to be true?" tone—hardly the brand of hard-hitting journalism V.F. readers were expecting after her expose on Senator Hart [September], She refrained from probing Dukakis's character, which, in light of the recent John Sasso-Joe Biden videotape incident, is obviously of great interest to voters. Actually, Ms. Sheehy neglected some very basic elements of the Dukakis candidacy.

It is obvious that Governor Dukakis has borrowed his campaign theme from New York governor Mario Cuomo, the noncandidate of the Democratic Party. Social Utopianism and optimism were the calls Governor Cuomo made in his historic speech in San Francisco at the Democratic National Convention of 1984. The theme of sacrifice for country, too, is one that dates back to the preMcGovern era of the party. That theme translates into a bigger role for government, and it is what has doomed the Democratic Party for years. It would have been interesting to read what Governor Dukakis would do to the party as its presidential candidate, or its president.

What is clear about Michael Dukakis is that he wants to travel a road that this country has traveled and turned away from. A Dukakis nomination for president would be the McGovern candidacy relived.

SCOTT M. HOLLER AN Chicago, Illinois

I am a Massachusetts resident, so my respect and support are unfailingly with "the Duke." Thanks to Ms. Sheehy for bringing this honest, caring, and hardworking candidate into greater national focus.

KRISTIN TORSTENSEN South Hadley, Massachusetts

Unlike many people in the media, most voters resist jumping to conclusions. Iowa voters are particularly careful to judge. This is a factor in why there is no clear front-runner, and also why a campaign error will not mean doom for Dukakis in Iowa. The Sheehy article reminds us of a long, honorable, and impressive record. Many of us will weigh this heavily, despite a modest wave of media cynicism. Thank you, V.F., for a most revealing and timely profile.

KIMBERLY COOKE Iowa City, Iowa

Nielsen Rating

Congratulations to Dominick Dunne and Helmut Newton for the fine feature on Brigitte Nielsen [November], She's really got the look!

JOSEPH O'NEIL Gonzales, Louisiana

Brigitte Nielsen gives a whole new dimension to the concept of being imageridden. Can she find meaning now that she's divorced from her image? And how can we fathom the emotional paucity in the life of anyone over twelve who lists "meeting Sylvester Stallone" as an ambition? What's left for this frighteningly beautiful and catastrophically shallow woman?

ED HOFMANN McCall. Idaho

What is really upsetting to the American psyche about Ms. Nielsen is what she represents. In Sylvester Stallone's movie/life, Ms. Nielsen is the woman that Rocky left Adrian for: a bottle blonde with store-bought bazooms. 1 expected more from the man who created the original (and still wonderful) Rocky. WENDY M. MOORE Somerville, Massachusetts

Brigitte is every man's dream and every man's nightmare. JACK A. KIRSCHENBAUM Cocoa Beach, Florida

First Donna Rice exploits the Gary Hart affair by starting a new line of jeans called No Excuses. Then Jessica Hahn trades Jimmy Bakker into a lucrative Playboy spread. Now the ex-Mrs. Stallone, another Medusa out of nowhere, walks off with a cool $6 million settlement from Sly Stallone—after a claim on his emotional life lasting 548 days. Betrayed from within, feminism has surrendered its moral imperative. In the green currency of mass culture, feminism is a fashionable lie.

WILLIAM H. WISNER Seattle, Washington

With her Teutonic good looks, longerthan-long legs, and $6 million mercenary heart, Brigitte Nielsen would be an obvious candidate for the lead role in a third remake of The Blue Angel, first played by Marlene Dietrich and then by May Britt. Ms. Nielsen even bears a striking resemblance to the Swedishborn May Britt. However, it might be difficult to find a middle-aged male actor whose heart could survive the filming once Ms. Nielsen started to turn on the heat.

CLAYTON L. MAGRUDER Washington, D.C.

Tammy Ache

After reading Jesse Kombluth's report on Tammy "Lemon Sorbet for Jesus" Bakker [November], I can now rest comfortably knowing that Ms. Bakker and kin are indeed alive and well and living in the back hills of Tennessee, proving once again that there is nothing between New York and Los Angeles but five hours of first class and a lot of gin and tonics.

JONATHAN XAVIER Arcadia, California

My prayers go out for Jim and Tammy Bakker: "Dear God, please let them appear front and center in Playboy or Penthouse, getting naked for Jesus." Wouldn't that be heavenly?

SADA SCOTT GREY Joplin, Missouri

Don't Fawcett Obviously, Farrah Fawcett has a severe case of identity crisis [November]. You have your own style, Farrah; stick with it. Don't try to convince the public (or yourself) that you are someone else. People with real style and class don't need to discuss their ability to tell real diamonds from fakes.

JOAN LAZATIN Dallas, Texas

Band Aid

In an oversize caption to a photograph of Georg Solti in the November issue, Manuela Hoelterhoff writes: "But when he finally got a chance, he took one musical bastion after another: the Munich Opera, the Frankfurt Opera, London's Covent Garden, and finally Chicago, turning its logy [logy!!!] band [band!!!] into a world-class orchestra..."

There once was a great American orchestra which, immediately after the Second World War, found itself conductorless. So great was its renown and appeal that the man widely considered the greatest living conductor, Wilhelm Furtwangler, was approached to be its music director. However, when the Chicago cultural mafia drove him out of town over his alleged Nazi sympathies, the task of music director eventually fell to Fritz Reiner (ever heard of him?).

Maestro Reiner took charge of an already great orchestra, and under his baton the mighty Chicagoans proceeded to stun the world with a series of early hi-fi and stereo recordings, many of which remain unsurpassed in sheer beauty, dynamism, and musicality; all are still available. I suggest that Ms. Hoelterhoff listen to their 1954 recording of Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, recently re-released on CD for yet another generation of thrilled listeners, and then tell me that Maestro Reiner was leading a "logy band," or that the poor Chicago Symphony was merely waiting, Sleeping Beauty-like, for Georg Solti to wake it and transform it into a world-class symphony.

LARRY MELLMAN Los Angeles, California

Letters to the editor should be sent with the writer's name, address, and phone number to: The Editor, Vanity Fair,350 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10017. The letters chosen for publication may be edited for length and clarity.