OLD MAN RIVER

LETTERS

Pete Seeger and John Lennon, when we need them; pluck and nerves at the Brill Building; Snob story; Beck the scrivener; another loss from Flight 11; and more

In these times, when heroes are needed more than ever, I was delighted to Find Annie Leibovitz’s photograph of one of my all-time heroes, Pete Seeger [“The Music Portfolio,” November]. Pete Seeger was my very First musical influence, and he has been a constant source of inspiration for me and my family. My six-year-old daughter has been listening to him since she was born. How I wonder what he must be thinking right now. What I would give to hear his voice, a few strums on his banjo, and a few words of encouragement, guidance, and inspiration.

ELIZABETH BELSER Los Angeles, California

BE STILL, MY BREAKING HEART: September 11 [“Special Edition: One Week in September,” November] and John Lennon [“Conversations with Lennon,” by Lisa Robinson, November] in the same month. Thank you for reinforcing, with such photographic and written eloquence, my longheld notion that my beloved city of New York’s greatness lies not just in its architecture but also in the structure of its people. They stand taller and with greater resolve than any skyscraper ever built.

RI REDMILE-GORDON London, England

READING LISA ROBINSON’S fresh collection of intimate interviews with John Lennon, I realized, once again, how special this man was. He spoke of baking bread and raising babies, peace and love, things real and enduring. Emotionally accessible, eternally seeking, always sincere, he was what we don’t have anymore: an icon without artifice, the god next door. Twenty-one years after his death, his words still ring true.

Those of us who loved John reveled in the happiness he found on Central Park West, happiness so poignantly illustrated in these interviews. Bullets may kill people, and bullets disguised as airplanes may attempt to destroy cities, but true greatness never dies. God bless working-class heroes and those they inspire. Long live John Lennon. Long live New York City.

LAURA CHARELIAN North Hollywood, California

I WAS WARMLY satisfied by Anton Corbijn’s photograph of Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry. My first great love introduced me to Eno with Ambient 1: Music for Airports, a much-needed album to calm a highstrung young woman. No effort, no analysis, was needed, just a wood fire, a sleeping bag, and hands clasped. My second great—and most passionate—love turned me on to Ferry and Roxy Music. And I do mean turned me on. We waltzed, we floated, we pinned notes to each other’s pillows. “Avalon” still lives in my car.

MARY MARGARET GILLESPIE Raleigh, North Carolina

THAT MAGIC MOMENT

DAVID KAMP’S ARTICLE about the Brill Building is the most honest, accurate, and powerful ever written on that subject [“The Hit Factory,” November], As a former Brill Building composer (1964-69) and later an Oscar winner, I remember the cutthroat competition vividly. Jack Keller once said of attaining chart positions, “You have to be 10; 11 is death.” Cynthia Weil’s story about keeping surveillance on Gerry Goffin and Carole King to make sure they didn’t sneak off to write during ski weekends sums up the mind-set perfectly.

Co-writer A1 Kasha and I would have killed for the records we finally got—with Ronnie Dove, the Peppermint Rainbow, the Glories, Jay and the Americans. Chart fever was at its height. Going to 30, for example, and losing the bullet (the phrase still makes me shudder!) on Billboard wiped away every shred of selfesteem we had gained from a previous hit. Not only Don Kirshner but every publisher held a whip, and we were the siblings who had to measure up or we felt we’d be has-beens by 22.

JOEL HIRSCHHORN Agoura Hills, California

A ROCK SNOB MAKES SOME NOISE

THERE’S NOTHING a Rock Snob likes more than correcting another Rock Snob. So it is with great smugness and self-righteousness that I report the entry for “Vocoder” in “The Rock Snob’s Dictionary, Volume 2” [by Steven Daly, David Kamp, and Bob Mack, November] contains an error. Peter Frampton did not sing into a Vocoder on his hit album Frampton Comes Alive. Rather, it was a Heil Talk Box, a device that intercepts the sound from a guitarist’s amplifier (a Marshall stack perhaps?) and reroutes it via a plastic tube to the musician’s mouth. The musician then manipulates the sound back into a regular vocal microphone for that distinctly Framptonian result. Another famous Talk Box example: the beginning guitar riff on Bon Jovi’s anthemic “Livin’ on a Prayer,” which sounds like a robot singing, “Ooba oo-ba oo-ba oo-ba.” I sense at least three new entries for Volume 3.

MATTHEW CARLIN Brooklyn, New York

THE TALENTED MR. HANSEN

RE: “COVER POWER,”by Beck Hansen [November], I don’t know if he had a ghostwriter or just an amazing editor, but if Beck actually wrote this article, he is a fabulous writer as well as a musician! Each sentence was beautifully composed, and the descriptions were fantastic. I would give him a 10 for every entry.

DEBBIE WALL Walnut Creek, California

I ENJOYED BECK’S comments on his favorite album covers. What delighted me most, however, was learning that he “was amazed when [Roxy Music’s Country Life] came out.” As he was four years old at the time, Beck’s reputation for precocity is well deserved indeed.

VICKI WHITE Chicago, Illinois

THIS WAS NEW YORK

DAVID HALBERSTAM’S “Who We Are” [“Special Edition: One Week in September,” November] is eloquent, touching, and expresses exactly what millions of Americans are feeling. I treasure it so much that, although I usually pass my copies of V.F. along to my daughter, this one I have asked her to return. My thanks and gratitude for a little gem that should be required reading in all our schools.

CATHERINE McDOWELL Cedar Crest, New Mexico

I VERY MUCH APPRECIATED your special issue. However, I was surprised that there was no particular recognition of the thousands of relief workers from the Salvation Army and the Red Cross. They provided an amazing amount of support for everyone at the scene, ranging from counseling several thousand people to washing the feet of tired firefighters—not to mention the 1,500,000 Salvation Army meals served since September 11 in New rk City alone.

JIM FITZPATRICK Scottsdale, Arizona

I HAVE BEEN a flight attendant with United Airlines for 29 years. Your six-page dedication to us brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for recognizing our loss.

SHARON SAYWARD Herndon, Virginia

YOUR EDITORIAL CHOICES have been, for the most part, dead on. So why on earth, during this critical juncture in history, did you choose to devote 376 pages to the self-promoting music industry and a measly 54 pages to “One Week in September”? Toni Morrison’s exquisite eulogy was on the last page of the painfully thin Special Edition. It should have been on the cover of the main edition.

REGINA CLEVELAND Lyons, Colorado

PRETTY REMARKABLE,V.F., to pull off, without seeming trite, simultaneous issues showing the resilience and bravery of New Yorkers against the murderous brutality of terrorists and giving us an inconsequential but thoroughly entertaining story about the children of rock stars [“Born to Be Wild,” by Evgenia Peretz, November],

WARRENE WILLIAMS Asheville, North Carolina

ME AND MR. DUNNE

I WAS MOVED to discover that Dominick Dunne’s friend Berry Berenson was a passenger on Flight 11 [“Mourning in New York,” November], My sister, Jessica, was also a passenger on this tragic flight as she traveled on her first business trip. She had recently graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was proudly employed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Our family will miss her dearly.

I’ve often thought that I'd keep my subscription to Vanity Fair even if the issues contained nothing else between their covers but a piece written by Mr. Dunne. In this time of disconnect, I was touched as Mr. Dunne memorialized his friend Ms. Berenson. In a small—but significant—way, I felt connected to someone I have admired.

KATHERINE BROWER Burnsville, Minnesota

CORRECTION: In “Scent of a Winner” [Fanfair, December], Marvin Hamlisch was misidentified. He is the composer of Broadway’s Sweet Smell of Success.

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