Located at last!—A person who actually likes my singing. Responding to my Derb Radio rendering of the “I’m so ronery” song from Team America, a wonderfully insightful, intelligent, and perceptive reader writes thus:

“Dear Mr. Derbyshire—I enjoy your singing on Derb Radio. My mother is quite musical; I inherited her ear, but not her voice. I’m a ‘tone monger’ when I listen to singing or instruments. The tone is the thing for me. Your tone in my opinion: warm, honest, ruddy, and there’s a persistence of sass in your voice that makes me optimistic about humans even as you yourself may have qualities worthy of a nickname like, say, The Doomsday Machine.

“I’m too dumb to figure out if Europe has committed or will commit suicide. Every time I think about it my brain hurts and I stop. But there’s something about the way you sing that reminds me of the persistence of our spirits. It makes me think there’s a chance the cloak of Liberalism will prove to be an ill fit for bodies and minds on a journey where the Life-water is scarce, the end always seems more distant than the horizon, and the evil is real.”

[Derb] I’m off to see some real singers tonight — Don Pasquale at the Met — including the lovely Anna Netrebko, whom I last saw at the Petroushka Ball in Feb. I shall be looking for some tips on portamento etc.