(4 of 4)
Sir: You had no right to cut the Monkees down the way you did [Nov. 11]. You make them sound like creeps. Nobody says you have to like the show. It was made for teenagers, not old fogies. Just because you're not so great, you don't have to take it out on our generation.
MARIAN BRUNO, AGE 12 Fort Wayne, Ind.
Sir: You were wrong when you said that none of the Monkees can sing. Davy Jones appeared in the Broadway musical Oliver! in 1964. He sang and acted superbly, and critics' praise led to a nomination for the coveted Tony Award as best supporting actor.
NINA SCOLNIK, AGE 14 Lewiston, Me.
Socks Alive
Sir: Unbelievably, time seems to have passed you by, dear magazine. The "new fad" of socklessness [Nov. 11] is as traditional as Shetland sweaters. It was waiting for me when I hit adolescence in West Hartford, Conn., and it was old hat well before my undergraduate years at Wesleyan University. It is interesting to note, however, that—for reasons best known to the grey-flannel-socked—there's little socklessness at the law school here. Make of that what you wish.
BARRY REDER Cornell Law School Ithaca, N.Y.
Sir: Socklessness, as every Englishman knows, is acceptable only when a chap has forgotten to put them on and when the ankle accessories are of uncompromising squareness, viz: battered tweed jacket, at least eight years old, with leather elbow patches; knee-bulging grey trousers with 20-in. bottoms and turnups; appalling open-necked "Hong Kong" beach shirt and oil-stained bumpers.-The non-wearer, criticized, should reply: "They are at the cleaners." Pseuds from a part of Cheshire tried to engineer a non-sock fad back in '62; it was a dismal failure. Tell that to Mylenski.
JOHN K. HINTON London
America First
Sir: About "Love in the Afternoon" [Nov. 11]: My husband, who is French, works in Paris on the Champs Elysees from 8:30 to 6:30, with a one-hour lunch period from 1 to 2 p.m. This is the same schedule for his friends, young businessmen and engineers. Their day, considerably longer than the U.S. 9-to-5 day, ends fighting Parisian traffic for an hour. No wonder "everyone is too tired," as Mile. Sagan put it. 1 would be interested to find out just who gets the 2-to-4 off in Paris. Who knows—maybe I'm the one in the dark. But I doubt it.
MME. JEAN-BERNARD MARTIGNONI Ville-d'Avray (Hauts de Seine) France
Sir: It is tristressing that Francoise Sagan is not sagacious enough to realize that much better than having a deux a quatre, or even a cinq a sept, the Americans (once again displaying ingenuity, practicality and vigor) have long been outdoing the French by at least two hours —with what the In circles traditionally refer to as "the nooner."
WILLIAM HARRIS Denver
*Meaning sneakers, in the colloquial.