Zevon’s gift

I weep as I write this, having just read your coverage of Warren Zevon’s coda, “The Wind” (“One Last Take,” by Geoff Boucher, Aug. 17). It seems so fitting, so true to his body of work, how love, friendship and wry artistic expression endure beyond the fragility of flesh and blood. What a gift of life Zevon gives us in the face of his own death.

Eric Herman

Fullerton

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With all sympathy and respect to Warren Zevon, not one mention was made of his terminal cancer’s cause. Cigarettes, maybe? Is there some embarrassment in revealing his prior smoking habit? Seems that the other great artists who smoked then choked, like Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Zappa and George Harrison, haven’t yet taught a lesson to those who still think it’s a cool habit. Warren, if you want to leave a lasting impression, please do a public service announcement, like the late Yul Brynner did, and warn of the folly that follows those who continue to hammer another “nail” in their coffin.

Robert Leslie Dean

Los Angeles