Readers Respond to the July/August 2025 Issue
Your feedback on Cajun cooking, Hemingway’s Pamplona and good ol’ Charlie Brown
Art Informing Life
“Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz (“Life, in a Nutshell,” July/August 2025) had the courage cartoonists drawing animals didn’t need. His introduction of Franklin, a Black character added after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, may have cost him a few readers, but it helped heal a centuries-old fracture that still needs work. Schulz was heroic as well as empathetic. —David Weinstock | Fairfax, California
Loud Silence
“A Shared Fate” (July/August 2025) is a stark reminder that humans need to continue to improve our environmental stewardship. On my morning walks, I am often haunted by the quiet stillness. The clouds of insects I remember as a child are gone. The scattered wildflowers in the roadside ditches rarely have bees buzzing around them. Yet in the air I often notice the scent of pesticides applied to the manicured lawns. We need to find new ways to achieve a balance between nature and aesthetics. —Michael Aaron Gallagher | Syracuse
A Moment in Pamplona
“Exploring Hemingway’s Pamplona” (July/August 2025) called to mind my visit along with two friends to the San Fermín festival in July 1959. One friend participated in the running of the bulls, arriving in the arena unscathed. I took eight-millimeter movies and was also able to capture several frames of Hemingway himself, who was a few feet from us as we sat at a table outside a restaurant in the plaza. I greatly enjoyed the article, which revived memories of an exciting time. —John M. Stevenson | Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Most of the feature articles in Smithsonian invoke in me a sense of “wish I were there,” but “Exploring Hemingway’s Pamplona” invoked the opposite of that. The whole piece was intent on glorifying the worst of humanity, from drunkenness, bloodlust and crowd-think excess to the torture of animals under the cloak of so-called tradition. I would pay a lot of money to avoid being anywhere near Pamplona during those nine days of hell. —Charles H. Vane | Albuquerque
Redfish Royalty
Paul and Kay Prudhomme opened K-Paul’s in July 1979, the day after I arrived in New Orleans from Nebraska (“The Redfish Blues,” July/August 2025). Working a block from the French Quarter, I often trekked to K-Paul’s for lunch. Paul and Kay were the kindest and most generous folks, who served as judges for local cooking competitions, donated to local charitable efforts and treated their staff members well. —Brian Waid | Seattle
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This article is a selection from the September/October 2025 issue of Smithsonian magazine