Moment to Moment

I suggest that a “defining moment” (“Life Outside the Lines,” Oct. 3) should be revolutionary and not evolutionary, and should have an influence through the end of the millennium. Here are a few suggestions:

Art: The work of Piet Mondrian, which demonstrated that art didn’t have to be about anything. Abstraction was stuck at the Cubists until Mondrian exhibited totally abstract work.

Jazz: Dave Brubeck’s album “Take 5” freed composers from the classical time signatures and introduced 5/4 and 9/8.

TV: I yield to those who nominate “All in the Family.” But consider as runners-up the first season of “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” and its cast, or any season of “MASH.”

Radio: No radio program ever had the impact of Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds.”

Pop music: I suggest a triumvirate: The individual is Wolfman Jack, the program is “American Bandstand” and the song is “Rock Around the Clock.”

C. BRIAN O’GORMAN

Santa Barbara

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What we 20th century Americans have that is sorely missing in some parts of the world is a Will Rogers legacy: a performer who can lovingly chide entrenched political power.

Rogers was a philosopher-comedian who could fling open the doors of humanity between the power elite and mainstream America, and between mainstream America and people whom many perceived as outsiders.

GEORGE R. CARTTER

Atascadero

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Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” launched not only a rich musical antidote for serialism but, with Martha Graham’s collaboration, midwifed something we came to know as “modern dance.”

Why nothing of Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse at Hermosa Beach? If Parker and Gillespie made 1944 sparkle, it’s cooler West Coast reverbs from the likes of Shelly Manne, Shorty Rogers, Chet Baker, Art Pepper and Gerry Mulligan gave jazz definition to the West Coast.

WILLIAM THOMSON

Pasadena

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You merely list the impacts of television in terms of Uncle Miltie, “Gunsmoke,” CNN, Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination and the Nielsen box.

None of these items would have occurred without the invention of the first electronic image system by television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth.

LANCE DISKAN

Flagstaff, Ariz.

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What about color TV?

FLOYD PETERSON

North Hollywood

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When Chubby Checker introduced “The Twist” in the early ‘60s, he forever changed the way couples danced. Prior to “The Twist,” most couple dancing was a contact activity. After, most couple dancing (for good or bad) became non-contact.

AL DRUCKER

Los Osos

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Anyone who has spent even an afternoon studying film history ought to know that Sergei Eisenstein’s “Potemkin” changed forever the way stories for film (and, eventually, television) would be staged and edited.

The montage and the idea of telling a story through images were every bit as influential to the film industry as the summer blockbuster and CGI.

JENNIFER BAXTER

Manhattan Beach

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Surely something of the arts projects of the New Deal years deserved mention.

BARBARA and KEN TYE

Orange

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Although “Jurassic Park” (1993) solidified CGI in Hollywood filmmaking, the technique was pioneered in the original “Star Wars” trilogy of 1977, ’80 and ’83.

I think the original “Star Wars” series deserves a mention on your list.

JOHN W. DYKSTRA

Torrance

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The emergence of jazz-fusion could not possibly have had the impact a single individual had in 1991, namely Kurt Cobain, whose “Nevermind” affected an entire generation of rock musicians.

Overall, though, you did a good job of recognizing art as art, and that it often influences the populace, whether intended or not.

ANDREW WEHRMAN

San Diego