Letters

Port Mag Quarter 2010.indd 2 “In single-sex schools, girls stop being the audience and become the players.”

Myra & David Sadker, American University

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8/10/2010 3:36:58 PM Do you prefer red sox chop suey…

Gary Libby and I were discussing your remarkably well-researched article “American Chop Suey” [September 2010] and the probability that Portland’s Empire restaurant is the site for Edward Hopper’s 1920s masterpiece. I have always been an avid Hopper fan and thought I knew his local works pretty thoroughly, and Gary has become the most knowledgeable historian on Chinese Americans and [Chinese] restaurants in Maine, yet we would never have guessed the Empire as Hopper’s Chop Suey setting. Amazing and well done. Not just a wild guess, but a very reasonably argued thesis on your part, and even without a document [“I painted here”], I certainly think you got it right. Congratulations. William David Barry, Portland

…or yankees chop suey?

Hopper’s Chop Suey [September 2010] depicting a restaurant in Portland? I’m not convinced… The painting itself and the two small photos of the restaurants in Portland and New York City (Columbus Circle) make the latter much more likely. The painting shows the “Y” in “Suey” above the height of the window sill–like the New York photo. The Portland photo shows [it] well below the bottom of the window. From the height of the painter’s eye, it would be impossible to see the “Y” at all. The painting also shows that the bottom of the sign extends below the “Y”–as in the New York photo, but not Portland. The painting and the New York photo both show a vertical ladder; there’s none in the Portland photo. The muchdescribed “distinctive bay window”…is clearly shown in the Portland photo and claimed to be in the painting. But where? The painting shows a set of windows to the right of the table that are in the same plane, with a straight window sill at the bottom. The New York photo shows sets of three windows–all in the same plane. The painting shows no windows set at an angle, and none of the lattice work shown in the side panes in the Portland photo. Peter Ballou, South Freeport

postcarD from the eDge

In your July/August [2010] issue, a local performer [Ben Row, “Shakespeare Mashup”] stated there were no theaters in Portland doing “edgy” work or with good roles for young people outside the usual stuff. I beg to differ. James Herrera, Company Member, Mad Horse Theatre Company, Portland