Letters

A final note, on IKEA: Whatever its considerable strengths, IKEA is not the avatar of Bauhaus Modernism Mr. Meyers would have us believe. Without getting into a debate over the precise nature of the Bauhaus ethic — I’ll just remind Mr. Meyers that the handcrafting of luxurious objects for the elite was an important part of the Bauhaus curriculum — IKEA fails most spectacularly in that an alarming number of its cheap and cheerful products derive rather obviously from well-known designs of the ’40s through ’60s. Whatever the Bauhaus stood for, it was not plagiarism.

—Sam Kaufman Sam Kaufman Gallery Los Angeles

A hundred posies in praise of Ron Meyers’ “Thoroughly Modern Living,” his thorough dissection of the vanity of contemporary style. This morning’s headlines are reporting that upward of 30 percent of Earth’s species will likely be extinct come 2010 as a result of global warming. As ol’ Japhy Ryder once said: “Register your absence with the Null and Void Trust Company.” In the face of such catastrophe, it truly is time for a rucksack revolution in America.

—John Crandell Paradise

AN “I” FOR AN AUSSIE

I congratulate Steven Mikulan for his fair and accurate report about my wife’s (Sue Smethurst) ordeal at LAX as a working journalist entering the U.S. from Australia [“Coffee, Tea or Handcuffs?,” December 19–25]. The good news is she now has an I-visa for foreign news media, and hopefully not only will there never be a repeat incident, but the two of us can again holiday in the States at the end of the year!

—Ralph Horowitz Melbourne, Australia

BOTH SIDES OF THE FENCE

Don’t know whether Mr. Howard Blume lived in L.A. in 1973, but I did. In the December 12–18 issue [“The Mayor Who Made L.A. Big”], he stated: “Sam Yorty . . . the race-baiting reactionary Republican.” Yorty’s campaign signs (he was a Democrat, if in name only) blared “Yorty, THE Democrat.”

—Roy Colegrove Northridge

GOOD FELLOW

L.A. Weekly film critic Ella Taylor was awarded a fellowship with the USC Annenberg Getty/Arts Journalism Program’s “New Perspectives for Mid-Career Arts & Culture Journalists, 2004.” The fellowship is an enrichment-and-training program for distinguished midcareer arts reporters and editors from print, broadcast and online journalism.