Calendar Feedback: A Talking Heads-inspired love story and Vegas’ latest spectacle

Once in a lifetime, indeed

I very much enjoyed the article about the 40th anniversary of “Stop Making Sense.” [“Talking Heads, as the years go by,” Sept. 24]. Talking Heads was a band very close to my heart. I was able to tag along with some friends to attend a free Talking Heads show on Janss Steps at UCLA in 1978. The only song I knew at the time was “Take Me to the River.”

In 1985, I attended a Christmas Party. At a pre-party gathering, we watched “Stop Making Sense.” Later, a woman wearing an oversized pantsuit caught my eye, and I referred to her as the “Big Suit Woman” throughout the evening. I finally found the courage to speak to her. The stars must have been aligned that night because we started dating and earlier this year celebrated our 34th anniversary. And it all started with watching “Stop Making Sense” and David Byrne’s Big Suit. She still owns the Big Suit.

Carlos Cordova
Los Osos, Calif.

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Vegas has its eye on you

The Vegas Sphere article was large and showy, just like the brand new Sphere itself [“In Vegas, a giant eye for the surreal,” Sept 24]. The article was full of fun facts but did not appear to really provide the reason why this monster building was built.

As history has shown, every new item in Vegas was put there to entice people to travel to Sin City and let loose with their hard-earned money. The once-strong lure of gambling to this wild venue has seen better days, making way for more money being spent on dining, shopping and entertainment. And with almost every state having their own gambling casinos, Vegas is devising better and more entertaining ways to attract people to their city. Vegas should enjoy this new item now as a similar edifice will soon be built in East London.

Bill Spitalnick
Newport Beach

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Architect’s Capitol idea

Special thanks to your writer, Pamela Chelin, for her perfectly wonderful Calendar cover story on Capitol Records building architect, Louis Naidorf [“The inside story,” Sept. 21]. Part history, part biography, her piece illuminates both the character and the gift of the master — a man whose ingenuity has brightened our shared landscape and whose personal journey is both inspiring and poignant. How fortunate we are that Naidorf persevered to achieve his dream and to keep his ethical ideals, so we all might benefit.

Nancy Sinclair Jacobsen
Los Angeles

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Women of a certain age and loving it

Happy birthday to 60-year-old and fabulous Mary McNamara and kudos for the brilliant analysis of the change in cultural attitudes toward women of this age group [“60 isn’t the new 40 and that’s fine by me,” Sept. 25].

My grandmother was officially “old” when I was a baby despite being 50, but my children’s grandmothers are considered totally cool in their 80s now. As I approach 60, I am comforted to know that the brilliant McNamara also feels like she hasn’t fully mastered adulting and doesn’t care. As for not knowing how to fold fitted sheets, thanks for the tip on keeping them in the pillowcase. I just roll them into a blob, but now I know where to put them.

Lisa Kaas Boyle
Pacific Palisades

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I loved Mary McNamara’s article on 60 not being the new 40. These days women 60 and over are doing fun as well as amazing things.

Recently, five friends and I boarded a ship in London and sailed across the Atlantic to Canada and the eastern coast of the U.S. We are all women in our mid to late 70s who enjoy travel and are in reasonably good health. Several times a day random people would approach us and ask how we came to travel together. Others would mention that it looked as if we were having such a good time, laughing and joking and how fun that was to watch. The whole ship knew who we were and most thought what we were doing was quite unusual. We, of course, loved the attention and often explained that we have all known each other for many years and that some of us had attended college together. In turn, we got to know some interesting people who certainly added to the enjoyment of the trip.

Women can have fun and adventures at any age.

Judy Ames
Valley Village

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Art against injustice

Kudos to Pablo Helguera for his eloquent tribute to the late Colombian artist Fernando Botero, one of the most widely recognized painters and sculptors of the late 20th century and early 21st century [“Fernando Botero made meaningful art,” Sept. 19].

I would like to add to Helguera’s thorough assessment of Botero’s meaningful art an aspect of his artistic legacy that is often only mentioned in passing. In my view, none of us should ever forget Botero’s powerful artistic response to the brutality of American soldiers against the Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq war.

Through his 2007 series of paintings, Botero taught us, and especially those of my generation, that there are times when we must combine our chosen craft, discipline, field or vocation with an ethical and well-informed political critique of a universally recognized human injustice, all in order to give dignity to those suffering the injustices, regardless of where these individuals might be in the world.

This is a teaching lesson not just for all artists (no matter their medium) but for anybody else invested in society’s humanity and well-being.

Alejandro Lugo
Park Forest, Ill.