Today, I open my Impromptus with a very tricky question: What should a democratic government do to get hostages back from abroad? It’s easy to say what ought to be done, and not done — until you are the “decider.” The one, for example, sitting behind the big desk in the Oval Office.

In this column, I go on to discuss the new Golda Meir movie and sundry other matters. See what you think: here.

Mail? Yes.

In a column last Friday, I noted the passing of Richard Davis, a “gifted bassist who crossed genres,” as the heading of the obit in the New York Times said. Davis started playing the bass at 15. Once, in an interview, he explained, “The bass was always in the background and I was a shy kid. So I thought maybe I’d like to be in the background.”

I wrote, “One of the most interesting questions you can ask an instrumentalist is, ‘How did you choose your instrument? Or did it choose you?’”

A reader writes,

Hello, Jay,

I am blessed with four musical daughters. Three of them sing beautifully. One of those three could sing opera, but has chosen other work for now. One also dances ballet. One actually prefers playing the oboe.

My youngest, however, is rather like Richard Davis in that she prefers being in the background. She is, of course, a bassist. She also plays the tuba. When she first picked out each instrument for her elementary-school band and strings program, she said that she just really liked the deep booming sounds. But I think the ability to participate while working in the background and at the fringes of things is what really appeals to her.

She is now in high school, and, as it is a small school, she is the only tuba player and often the only bassist. I do think she and her instruments chose each other.

Fascinating.

Some time ago, I did sort of a survey of readers, asking them what books had a big influence on their worldview. I followed up with a piece, here. Below is a note I received a few days ago:

I was quite pleased to see All the King’s Men in there. Read that for a literature course in 1973 because I had read a biography of Huey Long. I was blown away. The novel had an idea — well, it has many ideas — that changed me. Life is not found; it is created. So every time I hear someone say, “I need to find myself,” I scream (silently), “No! You need to make yourself.” One simple notion. But amazingly powerful. No other secular book affected me so deeply.

In a column last Wednesday, I went on a little rant about e-bikes — not so much the bikes themselves as the people who ride them. In New York, they are often a menace. They speed about heedlessly. I have seen many close calls, and there have, of course, been collisions, even fatalities.

A reader writes,

. . . As for e-bikes — yes. I am a pedal-biker myself, mainly on trails and whatnot, and it bugs me no end to see perfectly capable people whizzing about on e-bikes in the first place. And, as a biker, I am well aware of how many bikers want to be treated like brothers on the road, except when they don’t feel like stopping, yielding, etc.

Let me stress how fast these e-bike riders go in New York City. I mean, they go at terrifying speeds. Much faster than the cars.

Which reminds me of a story. Harold C. Schonberg was the chief music critic of the New York Times. Toward the end of his life, his eyesight was very poor. One day, a friend visited, and Schonberg told him, “I have just had my driver’s license renewed.” The friend said (something like), “Harold!” Schonberg shrugged and responded, “How fast can you go in Manhattan anyway?”