In Impromptus today, I mention Joan Baez, a blast from the past. Why has she come up now? She has recorded “We Shall Overcome,” with some Farsi lyrics — in honor and encouragement of the Iranians in the streets. I make some crack about how I’m glad to see she is now “on the right side of history” (tiresome and irksome phrase). What I should have mentioned — and did not, in part because these are “impromptus,” and I was rushing — is that she repented, to some degree, of her support for the Communists in Southeast Asia. (A few million corpses might do this to a person.) In repenting, she earned the wrath of Jane Fonda, among others, which is, of course, very much a feather in Joan’s cap.

A reader wrote to comment on all this. And he signed himself, “Harvard ’65 — sat on the stage of Sanders Theater for a 1964 Baez concert.”

“Memories, like the corners of my mind . . .” (Different singer, I know.)

P.S. Whether supporting genocidalists or supporting democracy protesters, Joan Baez has been one of the most beautiful women in our culture. (Jane, too, I’m afraid.)