Use of the word klingle never goes unremarked

Re: “Connecticut, D.C.” (Hoods & Services, 6/20)—There is Rock Creek Park and Rock Creek Park and the Zoo—there is no Klingle Valley. That is a made-up name for land that is part of Rock Creek Park owned and controlled by the National Park Service. If you want a history lesson, there was a proposal to purchase land for Klingle Valley Park, which started out at 32 acres. It was not funded, as Congress would not pay for it. Then the proposal was for 26 acres, maybe they would like that better, not funded, no park. And last the attempt was to purchase 16 acres of land, and again Congress said no money for that parcel of land. Rock Creek Park purchased the land with D.C. tax money and owns it to this day.

Roberta Carroll
North Cleveland Park

Go-Go’s problem: not its name

The back-and-forth about what is go-go and what isn’t, summed up with “webzine” Take Me out to Go-Go editor Kevin “Kato” Hammond’s remark, “If you ask anybody what go-go is, everyone will probably give you a different answer,” is absurdly hypocritical (Show & Tell, “The G-Word,” 6/6). If the term lacks meaning, why would the “webzine” have “go-go” in its title? Even if we do have to adapt Potter Stewart’s enduring bon mot to say, “Go-go may be hard to define, but we know it when we hear it,” we can’t responsibly pretend go-go is only go-go when nobody’s looking.

Almost every university has music appreciation classes that teach students how to distinguish various forms of music, e.g., jazz versus ragtime, classical versus baroque, etc, such that they know it when they hear it. To pretend go-go music exists but can’t be defined should be seen as mere masquerade obfuscating the bad reputation the genre has acquired.

Rather than obfuscating, responsible practitioners of the genre should be working overtime to clean it up.

Dino Drudi
Michigan Park

Aaron Leitko’s Problems: Snark, chimichanga references

A note to Aaron Leitko: I sure hope writing music reviews is your passion in life and that your parents are proud of you. Seems odd that you could guess how the parents of the members of the Black Angels feel about their career choices (City Lights, 6/25). They seem to be following their passions; they write all their own music not to mention running their band like a business. They are college graduates, some with advanced degrees. Many have other interests outside of music (Christian Bland is an artist and graphic designer and creates all of the band’s artwork, posters, T-shirts, and album covers). Not to mention they all seem like grounded, down-to-earth, lovely people when I’ve met them after their shows. I don’t think any of these talented people have to worry about making the chimichangas. Perhaps your creative talents could be put to better use by researching the band and writing interesting facts about them!

Tiana Brazzale
Arlington Heights, Ill.

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