REMATERIALIZED GIRL

Letters

As a loyal Madonna fan I was thrilled to see your March cover story, "Madonna and Child" [by Ingrid Sischy], The pictures by Mario Testino are gorgeous. Lourdes is the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. But what do you expect when her mom is Madonna?

TARA BRADLEY Sacramento, California

THE FIRST TIME I HEARD Madonna sing I was cruising suburban Hartford, Connecticut, in a two-tone Chevy Caprice. The year was 1984 and the song was "Holiday."

I continue to admire Madonna for her fierce determination and ability to grow as an artist and woman. As a new mother myself, I was touched by Mario Testino's beautiful photos of Ms. Ciccone and baby Lourdes.

RACHAEL HUBER Malvern, Pennsylvania

IT IS STRANGE to me that everyone seems to be just waking up to the fact that Madonna has a soul. The woman prays before performances, went to church growing up, and now the media acknowledge a deep side to her? Certainly she has adopted aesthetics from secular pop culture, but to those fans who give their hearts to her, the power of her music and persona can be truly transformative and intensely spiritual.

BENJAMIN MORSE

New York, New York

LIKE MADONNA, I come from an Italian family in the Midwest. I asked her once if her mother had ever told her to go sweep the driveway the way mine did. She told me her mother was dead. I had hired her for a club appearance and she signed a poster for my mother. "To Nelda," she wrote, "What a wonderful mother." I had it framed and sent it to my mom, who loved it. Well, New York chewed me up and spit me out. I found myself back at home in the Midwest—middle-aged, broke, broken, and very displaced. When I pulled up to my parents' house, there was my mother, who handed me a broom and said, "Go sweep the driveway."

TONY PASQUALE Ashtabula, Ohio

I LOVED MARIO TESTINO'S tribute to Madonna and child. His eye focused on the soft side of an icon as implacable as the word itself. Photography was invented to capture light; here Testino turns light into a gentle kind of marble, and marble into a gentle kind of light. These pictures are miraculous. This is a beautifully real Material Girl.

ANNA MURIGLAN New York, New York

MADONNA SHIELDED LOURDES from the media for 16 months, but as soon as her new album is about to be released, she allows pictures of her. Madonna, shame on you. Where do you and other celebrities draw the line?

You've just lost a fan, babe.

EVANGELINE HARTVIK Baldwin, New York

MADONNA GREW UP without a mother and now her daughter is growing up without a father. Yes, Carlos is ever present in Lola's life, but it's not the same as having him in the home. The sad thing is that too many young women think that if Madonna does it it's O.K. And Madonna may be able financially to raise a child alone, but not many young women are.

SHELLEY CHARLESWORTH San Diego, California

O.K., MADONNA HAD a baby. Just like millions of women do every year. So I guess, in the same way we attribute artistic meaning to her music, we'll now buy that her motherhood experience is more profound than everyone else's. Please. She's a pop artist who managed to stay in the public eye by leveraging scandal and sex. It's been fun watching.

JENNIFER LeMAY Chicago, Illinois

MADONNA HAS TRULY MATURED from young pop singer to sophisticated artist. She is going to be a damned good parent to Lourdes.

ANDRE MICHAEL VILLEGAS Buffalo Grove, Illinois

MADONNA, OVER THE PAST 11 years or so, whenever I was feeling bad or depressed I would listen to "Open Your Heart" and Shazam!—like magic your voice and the background beat of the drums would lift my spirits to the sky. Don't ever, ever feel alone, because I know in my heart that there are hundreds of thousands in the world who have had the same experience.

In your interview you say, "I'm trying to take care of my daughter." Do you realize that you never used the word "trying" in conjunction with any other efforts? You should be saying, "I'm making plans for Lola. I'm doing things to ensure that she knows Mama loves her above all else, so that she knows that she is more important to me than money or fame, or even a career. I'm trying to do interviews, records, videos, photo shoots, and read scripts for movies, but the little person comes first. Sorry, world."

KENNETH COUNCE III Lompoc, California

MADONNA IS A GENUINE survivor of the Hollywood gauntlet. It was enjoyable to read what previously a fan could only assume through her lyrics.

CLAUDIA MAESTRE San Diego, California

The Cherry-Blossom Slam

I COMMUTE DAILY through Washington, D.C., and I am all too familiar with the capital's bizarre backdrop of deteriorating buildings. Just when I thought I couldn't feel any more sorrow and loathing for the way the capital city is run, I read Christopher Hitchens's "District of Contempt" [March]. For years the city has been blinded by the charisma of Mayor Marion Barry (who seems to revel in his Afrocentrism only when it's convenient) and numbed to the abuse and corruption that surround his administration. As Hitchens says, nobody cares. Soon it will be time for another mayoral election, and we shall see again the zombification of an entire city. To think the powerful people in the District want home rule. They can't manage what rule they do have.

LAURA EZZELL Bowie, Maryland

I WORK IN DOWNTOWN Washington and have driven through business and residential streets, witnessing scenes such as groups of children making their way through broken glass and paper-bag drunks lounging or even passed out at eight A.M. Sometimes parents are guiding them through the obstacle course, and that always makes it a little better. I applaud the content of Hitchens's article. The absurdities need to be gathered and reiterated often, because each new one is so crazy it makes you forget the last.

HARISE POLAND Greenbelt, Maryland

YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY out of the empire, but you can't take the empire out of the boy. This may explain why Christopher Hitchens mentions only in belated passing a few of those non-natives who play a role in D.C.'s plight. Missing from his article, for example, is the fact that city judges and prosecutors are federal appointees, federally controlled commissions exert major influence over local planning, and Congress has had total lineitem control on every particular in Marion Barry's budget. The city is prohibited from levying a commuter tax, and Congress fails to compensate fairly for services rendered and land taken off the tax rolls. About two-thirds of those city employees Hitchens complains about actually live in the suburbs and pay no D.C. tax. Further, Barry's misguided economic policies are largely the creation of white regional business interests under the guidance of The Washington Post, and the most integrated meetings in town are those when Barry's aides sit down with campaign contributors. (On the other hand, in the last election ordinary voters in this two-thirds black town almost replaced Barry with a white Republican woman.)

We have another problem: a smug and misinformed political, media, legal, and business elite happy to exploit and sneer at the city but otherwise indifferent to local matters. This is not new; the Barrys of American urban history have always relied in no small part upon the civic indolence of those who think badmouthing city hall is the moral equivalent of actually doing something about it.

SAM SMITH Editor, The Progressive Review Washington, D.C.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS might consider developing his piece on Washington, D.C., into a novel—after all, even a genius like Franz Kafka couldn't create a place like this. Imagine The Castle set in modern D.C.

MICHAEL F. SMITH Wilmington, Delaware

THOSE CITIZENS of Washington, D.C., for whom Barry and his administration show contempt are the same ones who voted him into office with full knowledge of his past. The good people of the capital came by their contempt the old-fashioned way: they earned it.

MICHAEL DEE Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

HITCHENS IS RIGHT about Washington. No wonder my trip to Manhattan last year seemed like a fairy-tale getaway.

KATHY DOWNES Washington, D.C.

IT WAS HARD for me to read Christopher Hitchens's criticism of Mother Teresa a few months back ["Princess Di, Mother T., and Me," December]. I admire them both. Though he'd probably hate to be told this, there's a way in which Hitchens is a dogooder himself. His article about Washington, D.C., was the kind of truth-telling which would have done Jeremiah proud.

I just hope he never gets mad at me.

JAN SIDEBOTHAM Washington, D.C.

HITCHENS HAS the most delightful way of cutting through all the blarney and getting right to the heart of things.

K. RUTH CORCORAN Arlington, Virginia

THE COMPARISON of the conditions in Washington to those in Cairo and Kinshasa is very unfair to the latter two cities. I have been to both, and always felt much safer there than when I lived in D.C.

B. T. DE ALBERGARIA Palm Beach, Florida

YES, WASHINGTON'S plight makes a nice platform for political grandstanding, but one need only drive around the city to notice that the once crumbling avenues and circles are being restored to their former elegance and grandeur. This is not the awful rat-infested and TB-ridden slum it is made out to be. Yes, Mr. Hitchens, not everything works here, but people do care. Talk to your neighbors and stop whining!

CHRISTOPHER M. LABAS Washington, D.C.

All About Edith

I CAN'T BELIEVE you did an in-depth (albeit wonderful) feature on Edith Head ["Anything for Oscar," by Amy Fine Collins, March] without mentioning one of the great catchphrases of hip Hollywood in the 70s. It was everywhere, but I found it on a T-shirt given to me by my girlfriend at the time (who was studying costume design): EDITH HEAD GIVES GREAT COSTUME.

TONY LAWRENCE Los Angeles, California

AMY FINE COLLINS refers to a dress Elizabeth Taylor wore in A Place in the Sun as "probably the single most influential costume Edith ever devised, a strapless, bouffant coming-out dress comprising yards of layered tulle." Collins goes on to quote Herb Steinberg, former head of advertising and publicity at Paramount: "We made tie-ins for Miss Taylor's outfits. We sold them throughout the country. . . . There was not a girl who graduated from high school that year who didn't wear that dress."

My sister, Phyllis Jaskol, graduated from Beverly Hills High School that year, and she wore that dress. Not a copy, but the original. As a favor to my father, Sam Frey, who was with Paramount at the time, Edith Head lent him the dress. It was something to see, and so was my sister wearing it.

JEFFREY FREY New York, New York

I OBJECT to the quote attributed to me (concerning the costuming for The Sting) by a source who was a nonprincipal.

ANDREA WEAVER Hollywood, California

Call of the Wildenstein

I LAUGHED OUT LOUD at the Wildensteins' antics ["Bitter Spoils," by Suzanna Andrews, March]. Aaron Spelling could not have created such a contemptible couple. The sad part of it is they have involved their two children in this mess.

RODY O'ROURKE Ocean City, New Jersey

ALEC WILDENSTEIN used to visit me in my office at the family'sgallery, where I worked in 1959-60. He would show me his treasured pocket watch, the visible workings of which were a man and a woman making perpetual love. Ah, lamour!

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I was fascinated by George Rush's interview with Jocelyue Wildenstein [Jocely tie's Revenge." March], bat it lacked compassion. What has she done that is so wrong, other than find her husband in an extramarital tryst?

Surely there is something else to her excessive cosmetic surgery than a vain, insatiable desire for eternal youth. Is it not more likely to be a protective guise, a stubborn show of independence, a desperate cry for attention.... or love, eve id I don't believe Ms. Wildenstein would have created such a bizarre, catlike visage had she been fortunate enough to enjoy a lasting, loving relationship. When I look at her defiant, glaring, sphinxlike eyes, I see sadness and pain — not revenge.

QUENTIN EUTTRELL London, England

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NAN KRULEWITCH SOCOLOW Cayman Brae, British West Indies

IN LOOKING AT your photograph of Jocelyne Wildenstein surrounded by her five delicate little dogs surrealistically decked out in butch black leather, it was hard not to be reminded of something making its grand entrance on The X-Files. Could that be Mulder and Scully lurking behind the ornate door?

RACHELLE REYNER New Brunswick, New Jersey

Designing Man

THANK YOU for the wonderful article on Tom Ford ["The Ford That Drives Gucci," by Michael Shnayerson, March], a fine example of the great American success story. He has brought so much to the House of Gucci and the world of fashion: classic style, edge, exquisite taste, a can't-take-your-eyes-off sense of daring, sparks, fun, defined sexual identity peppered with just a hint of ambiguity, and an inescapable smoldering sensuality. And his designs aren't too shabby, either.

DANIEL T. GRAMKEE Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

CORRECTIONS: Regarding "Bitter Spoils," in our March issue: though Thomas Bolan has an office within Putney, Twombly, Hall & Hirson, and his phone is answered with that firm's name by its receptionist, he is a client, not a member, of the law firm.

In the article entitled "King of the Hill" (March), Bryce Harlow's affiliation was incorrectly given. He worked for Procter &. Gamble as its director of governmental relations.

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