Michelle Obama and the Aqua

Designs all seem to flow together

I loved the design of the tower in Chicago [“Riding a New Wave,” Jan. 17] and the similar design of the dress worn by Michelle Obama [on the cover of the Image section the same day]. I found them an interesting likeness -- flowing and fluid.

Marni Washington

Santa Monica

The reality of British TV

Great article on British TV. [“British TV: From Good to Pointedly Average,” by Mary McNamara, Jan. 17].

I am indeed a fan of British telly. I am currently hooked on “Ideal” and “The IT Crowd.” Thankfully, I have IFC (Independent Film Channel) because if I had to rely on our public television I would be sorely lacking in entertainment. I love that the Brits don’t base the image of their characters on what the latest starving model on a magazine cover looks like but rather for their talent and ability to convey the character they are portraying. They also are not as buggy about language, they are authentic.

In America, we whitewash everything to the point it becomes banal, fake and boring. Everyone has to look the same, no one can be old, or fat or wrinkled even if the part they are playing is someone old and fat and wrinkled. It proves over and over that Americans hate to recognize their roots as Europeans so they have fabricated an identity based on the ideals of some Americans as to what we should look like.

I blame Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Howard Stern for the emaciated look in America, and filmmakers like Judd Apatow for keeping the American male a little boy. Thank heavens for some of our icons like Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton for remaining authentic, but it’s too late for everything else, we’re already fake, fake, fake.

Posted by: JaneJoad

From the website

‘Soldier’ librettist is notable too

David Ng writes about the forthcoming Long Beach Opera production of Robert Kurka’s opera “The Good Soldier Schweik,” [“A Soldier’s Story With a Sarcastic Bite,” Jan. 17] but barely touches on the librettist, Lewis Allan.

This opera may indeed be Allan’s crowning work, but he is also known for words and music to the well-known anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit” and for the progressive-patriotic lyrics to Earl Robinson’s song “The House I Live In,” sung memorably for many years by Frank Sina- tra.

Lewis Allan was his pen name. His real-life name was Abel Meeropol. He and his wife, Anne, were the couple who adopted Robert and Michael, the two sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, after their 1953 execution.

As a committed left-winger, it’s telling that he should have poured his considerable talent into this libretto, a compelling, comedic protest against militarism and war. Already in the mid-1950s he could discern that phenomenon President Eisenhower would identify as the “military-industrial complex,” a country whose wealth and position in the world depended on imposing our military might anywhere and everywhere it could.

Was he right?

Eric A. Gordon

Los Angeles

Chronicling the wait for ‘Narnia’

Regarding 2010 sneak peaks, [“The Year in Movies,” Jan. 17]: I can’t wait for “Narnia 3: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” I have the first two. I can’t wait.

Posted by: Satr Gilbert

From 24 Frames Blog