Letters

At that point, we left. When I got home, I left a message on some friends’ answering machine asking them to call and tell me who had won, and to thank them for coming to support me. Today I got the message that they, too, didn’t know who had won. They too had left early, embarrassed and pissed off — and they even had seats!

Which left me wondering what wasbeing honored last night. If it was theater, no wonder nobody goes. And if it was your paper, why was I invited?

—Cody Henderson
North Hollywood

STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS REPLIES: The Midnight Sun debacle is attributable to a last-minute communications breakdown, a circumstance which we regret and are taking steps to avoid in the future. As for Cody Henderson’s situation, 90 percent of awards-ceremony attendees consist of nominees and their guests. The extent of the interest in this year’s ceremony took us all by surprise, although I did contact Henderson — and explain the nature of the seating situation to him — well before he arrived with his family. Still, it was never our intention to disgruntle such an excellent playwright. For next year’s awards, we are looking for ways to better accommodate our nominees.

THE KEY TO RAPID WEIGHT GAIN

DEAR EDITOR:

Apropos of John Price’s letter in the May 4–10 Weekly: When I read Judith Lewis’ 28-pounds statistic [“Auto Immune,” April 20–26], I figured it had to be wrong for the same reason. But then when I thought about the chemical reaction, which must be something like 2C₈H₁₈+25O₂ produces 18H₂O+16CO₂, where two octane molecules combine with 25 oxygen molecules to produce 18 water molecules and 16 carbon-dioxide molecules, the statistic made sense.

Eight pounds of octane is about 32 moles of octane; 32 moles of octane produce 256 moles of carbon dioxide (note the ratio of the coefficients of octane and CO₂ is 1:8); 256 moles of carbon dioxide weighs about 11 kg or 25 pounds.

While it’s true that you can’t turn 8 pounds of gas into more than 8 pounds of anything, the writer forgot about the oxygen from the air which combines with the gas and results in the added weight.

—Jeff Bernstein
Venice

HEAD TO THE ASPHALT

DEAR EDITOR:

You should give Oliver Wang a raise for his exclusive on the death of rapper Fat Joe in his review of Run-DMC’s Crown Royal[Music Reviews, April 13–19]. I’m glad you have a hepcat like Oliver keeping his ear to the streets and keeping hip-hoppers in the know.

—Sir Kobe Bronson
Watts