Some Reader Feedback

I know (from high tech "Googlish" research) that people are reading these blogs, but readers do not seem to be posting comments.

However, readers have been sending interesting comments and feedback to my columns to my email address (pennerst@hotmail.com). So I thought it would be interesting to post some of them here:

My recent column making fun of "Ten Easy Ways..." lists brought this feedback:

great article - that's (my husband's) pet peeve - he can't stand anything with that "5 easy ways to..." bullshit. Now if Oprah asked you to come on her show with the list.... would you create one? I'd do whatever she wanted for the publicity. She is an odd duck, yes?"

And a man wrote:

"very interesting that you should take on those "10 Ways'" list-makers in your latest column. It immediately made me think of a New Yorker article I read many years ago by Garrison Keillor. I remember that it was titled "The People vs. Jim,'"and it was Keillor's transcript of the trial of "Jim," who had made up so many of those lists in city magazines and other secondary outlets.

I remember that in it, Jim said he had come up with his last few lists because someone had threatened to put him in a list of "Ten People Who Used to Be Hot but Aren't Anymore." And the prosecutor, summing up, said: "Do you have any idea of the damage you've done, Jim? You've made people more stupid. Some of your readers can't even read paragraphs anymore unless they've got numbers in front of them." Jim responded: "How many? A lot?"

I promise to post other reader feedback on this blog!