Did you read the first letter of each paragraph? That's why the letter took a couple of days to write.

OM effing G. Thank you for that.

Yup. I had the exact same reaction. He planned for Ernie to hear it. The tape was at the exact right spot and the business with the batteries was pretty transparent.

Yeah, it's particularly amusing because, as I've said, I am myself a lefty violinist. We're about as much a part of the population as you'd expect. Maybe slightly higher, since some people think we have an advantage, with more facility in our fingering hand.

How many of them are classical violinists? I am willing to bet you have never seen anyone playing in an orchestra or soloing with one playing with the bow in the left hand. As a violinist myself, I have seen exactly one in my career of 30 years.

Have you ever seen a violinist in a classical orchestra play with their bow in their left hand? I have seen one, who had had a terrible accident as a child. There are left-handed violinists. I am one. I, like virtually every other violinist, play with my bow in my right hand. There are also left-handed typists,…

Wow, that is inspiring and beautiful. But it also proves my point. She wasn't just some clueless Hollywood type's idea of a rebel. No one plays backwards without a good reason.

Well, I do know one, as I said above. He had a horrible injury to the fingertips of his left hand. My own grandfather, a fiddler, also played left-handed for the same reason. So that's 2 out of the many hundreds I've known. I graduated from a music conservatory and have played in many orchestras. I've gone to…

You know, I get that, and I'm totally trying not to be pedantic. But when I look at that picture up there, I see about 50 musician extras, every single one of whom has to have been horrified by the fact that this actress hadn't had even a 2-minute lesson on which hand holds the bow before someone pointed a camera at…

I know hundreds, if not thousands, of violinists. One of them suffered a horrible accident in which he lost several fingertips on his left hand when he was young. He is the only one I have ever met who holds his bow in his left hand. He always sits in the back, since his playing is extremely distracting, poor guy. …

Wait a minute. I can't bring myself to watch this, because I'm an orchestral violinist, and I find horrible faking (which I understand is everywhere in this show) just too hard to overlook, but could someone who is watching it please tell me: is the fact that she is the only violin soloist in the entire world who…

I saw a performance of summer stock "A Little Night Music" in which the cello faking was so outstanding I went all fan-girl on Henrik. Turns out he had taken the part so seriously he had actually studied cello so his faking would be good. Integrity is a beautiful and rare thing.

Orchestral violinist here. I have played 1812 many many MANY times. It is page after page after page of fast notes in weird keys with lots of changes on a dime and tricky entrances. I memorize almost effortlessly, and I wouldn't be able to memorize that without a lot of work, and I'd resent every minute of it. …

I had a slightly different take on the prayer meeting than some others here, maybe because I bring my own baggage, but I thought Grace's discomfort with her chums was a reaction to their smug triumphalism.

Yup. For me it was "To Rome with Love." On my death bed, I'll be regretting that I didn't walk out of that when I had the chance. It was the laziest piece of "writing" I have ever encountered. His way of conveying Ellen Page's sexiness was to have her keep asserting to anyone within earshot, "I'm a very sexual…