BERLIN CRISIS

Letters Page investigative journalists have spent the last two weeks conducting a full inquiry into the 28 nasty letters sent in reaction to Steve Hochman’s review of Berlin’s new LP, “Count Three and Pray,” which was highly critical of the band and singer Terri Nunn (Record Rack, Nov. 16). Our investigators noted the high incidence of looseleaf paper, a preponderance of Beverly Hills zip codes, teen-brained conformity of opinion, anti-Establishment rhetoric, multiple use of the same typewriter and the fact that 16 letters were stamped by the same postage meter (No. 6023271) and quickly deduced that Calendar had been victimized by a cynical, upper-middle class mail-in campaign. Apparently, it was instigated by members of the Beverly Hills High School football team, whose 1986 record of 8-2-1, it has been learned, was due mainly to a squishy soft schedule. A representative (but untranslated) sampling of the letters follows:

What? Terri Nunn is no Annie Lennox? Gee, and all I thought she needed was an orange crew-cut and a tracheotomy.

STEVE FISCHER

Beverly Hills