Stock's Sticks
Sirs:
Having come fresh from and pregnant with memories of the Ann Arbor May Festival, it was with no little satisfaction that upon reading your article on Frederick A. Stock [TIME, May 21] I realized that at last, after years of fruitless waiting, I had been present at the making of history—well, minor history.
In your columns you were careful to mention that ''Conductor Stock prides himself on his restraint. His men have never seen him lose his temper or break a baton." Until the Festival's fourth concert you may have been undisputed on this point, but at that performance, on Friday evening, May 11, the untainted record of the German bandmaster's son was spoiled. It was while Lucrczia Bori was singing Debussy's "Recitative and Aria of Lia," from L'Enfant Prodigitc, that Mr. Stock's hitherto intact baton went sailing in three pieces from his passionate grasp into the ranks of the scraping violinists, one fragment just barely missing a plunge down the low back of the diva's gown. Mr. Stock, unaccountably prepared for the emergency, picked up another stick from his desk and went on restrainedly as ever.
Next afternoon he broke two sticks. One, during the Beethoven Ninth, third movement, flew into the audience and was recovered after a mild scramble by a lady who put it in her handbag. The other splintered during the Strauss tone poem, Ein Heldenlebcn, the section labeled "The Hero's Battlefield." The butt-end of this was captured by Warren Mayo, president of U. of M.'s varsity glee club. Mayo took it to Stock's dressing room after the performance, and the master good-naturedly inscribed his initials upon it.
MILO S. RYAN Ann Arbor, Mich.
Compliments from Hell
Sirs:
Irate correspondent C. R. Myre, M. D. [who invited TIME'S editors to go to Hell where "there is no post office"] might be surprised some day to receive his warm compliments returned, from the editors of TIME, plainly postmarked HELL. In the unscorched letter the editor probably will enlighten Mr. Myre by telling him that there is a nice little postoffice in Hell, the name of a delightful village in Norway. Further, the doctor will perhaps read that this real Hell is not a hot spot, but well worth visiting.
T. W. SCHREIXER
Los Angeles, Calif.
An hour's train ride from Trondheim, Hell is a popular excursion spot for U. S. travelers who delight in sending home picture postcards of the railroad station (see cut). The Norwegian word for Hell is helvede. Hell means nothing.—ED.
Brown-Eyed Model
Sirs:
To many a reader of TIME, by far the most attractive item in the May 21 issue was an excellent photograph of the brown-eyed, attractive Lucky Strike girl which graced the back cover. In the minds of some such readers arose the question: "Did the Scot Tissue Towels ad on p. 53 employ the same model?"
JOHN SINN
Continuity Dept. The Crosley Radio Corporation Cincinnati, Ohio
Yes: Miss Babs Shanton of Manhattan's John Robert Powers model agency.—ED. Tennessee's Leas
Sirs: