WKND FEEDBACK
More problems giving orders
Even supposedly stable shrinks like myself aren’t immune from the type of neurotic condition Paul Brownfield recently identified as Order Panic Disorder (“Neurotic, Table for One,” March 25). I am a recovering Order Panic Disorder sufferer myself.
Whether Brownfield realizes it or not, by writing this article he has already planted his ambivalent feet firmly on the road to recovery. He has participated in what Freud identified as one of the most creatively transforming, psychologically liberating and productive of defense mechanisms: sublimation.
My own sublimation “cure” involved creating an original song. I revealed in song what Brownfield revealed in prose when I wrote: “
Writing the song made me feel better but it didn’t ultimately resolve my Hobson’s choice dilemma. I was finally cured when I realized that I always like what my wife orders. Now, at least when I’m with her, I simply ask for one menu and say, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Bruce L. Thiessen
Bakersfield
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Consider it food for thought
In writing about Lars von Trier’s “Dogville” (“A Stranger’s Take on a Strange Land,” March 25), Sorina Diaconescu quoted Von Trier as saying, “If you are dying of hunger, then you want food more than peace.” She then added: “Spoken like a true Marxist.”
What is that supposed to mean? I’m no Marxist, but if I were dying of hunger I sure would rather have food than anything else.
Forrest G. Wood
Bakersfield
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It’s more than luck with Maher
Enjoyed Howard Leff’s peek at the male side of computer dating (“Most Humbling Moment? You’re in It,” March 18). I’d be interested in why being a fan of certain female singers becomes a warning signal to men. Is Celine Dion really the first step to crazy? She scares me too, but I don’t care if my friends like her. I’m also aware you guys are on guard for women with more than one cat and stuffed animals on their beds. A warning about women who refer to their cats as “my friends” -- that’s one step from a coven and the “Ya Ya Sisterhood.”
But you’re wrong about Bill Maher. As a female comic friend of Bill’s for 24 years, I can assure you that Bill always got pretty girls. You’re about the fifth guy to write or say on TV that, without a show, he’d never be so lucky. Sorry, but he had game.
Diane Nichols
Los Angeles