Letters, we get letters -- 2

First of all, Typepad, which used to be so user-friendly that a four-year-old child could use it, recently upgraded itself so that one needs to be a rather tech-savvy four-year-old child to put posts together. Until Zeppo runs out and gets me a tech-savvy four-year-old child, there may be more than the usual design and layout confusion hear at The View from Here. 

Department of shout out acknowledgments: In her Iron Tongue of Midnight weblog, the East Bay's Lisa Hirsch finds a kindred spirit working in my review of A Flowering Tree.  And classical weblog king Alex Ross tosses his two cents into the Muti/CSO fountain here at The Rest Is Noise. Merci bien!

We don't run comments here on The View from Here for all kinds of reasons, but we do accept, and even invite, them. Here's a second batch: 

John Power wrote on May 5 to propose that Los Angeles scored the hotter property in snaring Gustavo Dudamel as music director compared to the more established Riccardo Muti signed by Chicago.  I say we'll still see plenty of Gustavito and let him ripen in the SoCal sun for a few years anyway.

Isabella wrote on May 7 all the way from Athens (Greece) to say that Riccardo Muti also has a home in Pantelleria, a small volcanic island belonging to Italy that is the southernmost European spot on the map (left).  I pointed out to her that the Mutis regard this as the project of Signora Muti, Christina.

^{John Wellborn Root (welcome back from the dead, John!  And we still love yr Rookery building!) wrote on May 20 to endorse our reflections on Teddy Kennedy at the moment of his being stricken with serious illness: "}Edward M. Kennedy has been the rock centering the advance of the progressive agenda across five successive decades." John also builds on the role EMK has played within the U.S. Senate itself.

Chicago painter Leon Krejci also voted for Teddy, on May 21, and cites comparisons with Edwin O'Connor's 1956 political novel, The Last Hurrah, and its Boston-ish Irish Catholic hero, Frank Skeffington.

^{Young Cleveland-based pianist Zsolt Bognar also wrote today to say that he liked our take. Through back channels, though, Holden Redbone gave a big anti-Kennedy-family thumbs-down.}

(Interestingly, and also through back channels today, Chicagoans Steve Robinson, Geoff Posner, and Timothy Stewart-Winter all wanted it known that they were born in Brookline!)

Thanks! And keep them coming!