ALLEN WRENCHES

I find it difficult to be fooled by the apparently amicable facade of Paul G. Allen (“Excuse Me While I Buy the Sky,” by Leslie Helm, May 7). He invests half a billion dollars in a company that probably won’t launch any product in the immediate future and says he’s not in it for the money. And he simultaneously defends his personal stake in monopoly (Ticketmaster), making him an avaricious paradox. For a man who is so outspoken about his love of music, he certainly is doing his part to see that enjoying it in a public form remains economically unattainable.

And, just to express my instincts as a guitarist, what self-respecting Hendrix aficionado would put a locking whammy bar on a Stratocaster (see cover photo). Loren Paul Deck Pasadena

On behalf of 400 wonderful fourth- and fifth-graders, may I suggest a “vision” for Allen. He could inquire into the feasibility of helping these children build their “Cool-School,” a sort of “Disneyland for young learners” that would be the most philosophically and technologically advanced public elementary school in the known universe. Gerry Wallace, teacher Hemmerling Elementary School Banning