To the editors:



Re “The Trouble with Fame,” comment, Oct. 11:

I cannot describe how sorry I feel for Brian J. Rosenberg. Poor Brian is faced every day with swarms of “‘I-love-Boston’-sweatshirt-wearing, stupidly-grinning visitors from Podunk,” he writes. He is forced to step around them while they snap pictures of John Harvard. Once in a while, he is even reduced to interacting with these people!

But hang on a minute. Brian, you’re a smart Harvard man. Did it not occur to you that there might be a few tourists roaming a place like Harvard Yard? Can you really be all that surprised that “Bob, Sue, and the kids” want their picture taken at a place so iconic? In fact, isn’t that why you chose to attend Harvard in the first place? Chances are that you, too, will capitalize on the Harvard name for some time after graduation. If you wanted to study in a place where you wouldn’t be bothered by outsiders, where no one would ever willingly choose to visit your campus, maybe you should have gone to Yale. Oh, and Brian, the next time you’re driving through Podunk and your car breaks down, I’d recommend watching what you say about those “stupidly-grinning visitors.” Many of them own shotguns.



JULIE B. GOLDMAN ’05

New York

October 12, 2005