While I was gratified to see an article about the Punk, Not Rock concert series in Arlington (“The Pastiche Is Prologue,” 9/3), I found its tone a little heavy, and I’d like to offer a different viewpoint. This is why I like Punk, Not Rock: I can wear comfortable clothes to a free event that features incredible music (most of which I wouldn’t hear otherwise) written by people of historical and/or local note, and played by some of the D.C. area’s best instrumentalists. The beer is pretty good, too, and it’s very social.

I think Virginia Vitzthum attempted to find a sophisticated exegesis in all this, and that’s a bit of a bummer. Maybe I’m completely alone on this count, but I’m not in search of a “pomo promised land,” and I don’t know what metaphysical or metacultural theory has to do with Punk, Not Rock. I do know that the attendance doubled from the first salon to the second—as Vitzthum pointed out—and I would bet that it’s less because of any collective cultural identity crisis than because PNR is both fun and very edifying. That one fact, I think, is headline news.

Since I didn’t really glean that from the article, I thought I would write in.

Shepherd Park