“Face it,” challenges Eleganzophobe John Leavy of Astoria, New York, “people who’ll say they like Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska must lie about other things too.

“I’ll give you an example of why I hold your profession in contempt,” he writes, betraying a shocking misperception of Eleganza as rock, rather than social, criticism. He goes on to note that in his New York Times review of the videotape Asia In Asia, Stephen Holden first wrongly identified the group’s singer as John Wetton (rather than the unmistakably tubbier Greg Lake), and then described the song “Don’t Cry” as one of the concert’s high points—even though the group never played it!

“You probably detest ‘corporate rock,”’ The Leav quite correctly presumes, “and don’t see the harm in what Holden did. You figure, ‘People who like Asia will ignore him. They always do.’ But in that case, why should readers listen to Holden when he raves about Elvis Costello, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and all the other usual critics’ favorites? How do I know he really listened to R.E.M.’s latest record?”