A big welcome to Michael Phillips to the Magazine and the Midwest. Phillips had the advantage of having one of America’s exceptional voices as a subject: Who can go wrong when Arthur Miller [“Moving On,” Oct. 27] is the topic?
Phillips achieved much more than not going wrong, however. He beautifully weaved astute impressions from a photograph, observations from his personal meeting with Miller, others’ descriptions of Miller along with some actual words from Miller’s various characters.
The article was equally accessible and interesting to those familiar or unfamiliar with Miller’s work. Paraphrasing Miller, everything in the article had a function. That is truly an appropriate tribute to Miller.
Cynthia J. Long
Schaumburg
Thank-you note
Just finished your story and flashed back to a New York NBC Radio studio in the 1950s. Across from me sits Arthur Miller.
He says softly, “Thank you, I know you had to fight to get me here,” and the interview began.
He thanked me. He did not have to do that–to say anything at all–but he did.
Your story made me think again how and why I admired this man so much.
Sidney Smith Gordon
Chicago
Bearing witness
Thanks for your fine collaboration with Arthur Miller. It might interest you to know that in private correspondence with Miller in 1948 or ’49, when I was drama critic for the weekly Chicago Star, Miller confided that his goal/responsibility was to bear witness to his times. I think he succeeded admirably.
P.S. As part of life’s ongoing fascination, I marvel at Miller being honored by the Tribune, which would have just as well shot him 50 years ago for his political views. [Miller in October received the first Chicago Tribune Prize for Literary Achievement]. You may be sure the funny noise you hear in your Tribune cubicles is Col. Robert R. McCormick continually flip-flopping in his coffin.
Mike Hecht / Deerfield
A steer’s life
It’s amazing that people are still complaining about your picture of the dead deer on the Oct. 6 cover [“Laying Waste”].
It’s a fair bet that at least some of them are meat eaters. For those that are, they either are not thinking things through, or they don’t mind suffering and gore as long as they have someone else do it for them and they don’t have to be reminded of it.
Which life would you rather have: to be born free with the possibility of being shot, or to be bred for the sole purpose of being slaughtered, and live most of your short life in the crowded stinking slop of a feed lot? Perhaps these people should crusade for the millions of steers in the feed lots, instead of the thousands of deer running wild in Wisconsin.
Incidentally, I am not a hunter, and I do eat “feed lot” meat.
George Zurbuchen
Palos Park
Words to savor
Just had to write to tell you how much I enjoy Leah Eskin’s writing! “Sum of the Parts” is the one page that I read slowly to savor the thoughts and to enjoy the vocabulary.
Jeanne Vaver / Sheridan, Ill.
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