The Best & Brightest-And All the Rest
Yours is the most relevant publication of my generation.
Tuesday?hours. Wednesday, still more hours. Thursday, I look forward to more hours. Just fascinated with?and love reading?this "Best of."
Where do I start? I've got to tell you that, like many readers I suppose, I couldn't care less about where to go for shoe polish or the best bed. To me, so much of that is beside the point. But it's the great enjoyment of reading the essays, the brilliant writing you feature ("Best Argument for Staying in the City")?the smart prose, the devastating one-liners ("Back in the 1300s when Satan had a real artist to front for him instead of Marilyn Manson..." ["Best Museum Staff"])?that make me mutter out loud things like, "This is the most fucking awesome thing I've ever read."
And I know what accounts for your paper's success (and if you had no sales, I'd count your paper a success). It's that no matter with what baggage a writer approaches his craft, at NYPress, more than at any other publication, he is encouraged to leave it at the door. The writer is unfettered by the need to play the right angle, fit in to the publication's "style." Just heave it all off, boy?and write!
Ron G., Manhattan
Joe Zouba, Brooklyn
After all, a writer's or artist's name is his identity, the essence of his reputation. Attack him all you want; disagree with him, even make fun of him. But don't make up quotes and attribute them to him; don't send fraudulent letters and sign his name. That's stealing his identity, and it's as serious an offense, as far as I'm concerned, as plagiarizing his writing, vandalizing his artwork or forging his name on a check.
My own name is precious to me?which is why I'm withholding it from this letter.
In the end, considering the expense, I suppose that Rall will not actually carry through with his lawsuit. Still, I hope he does?and I hope he wins big.
Name Withheld, Manhattan
As for police scrutiny, any white guy painting a giant gate one color, then adding a few needed lines to spell a name at the last minute, is definitely "getting over."
What about the subway bombers out there? Trains are still being painted?it's just the MTA's dirty little secret. Trains are cleaned in the layups and yards before they are put into service, but video and photo footage exist, and are highly distributed. If anyone should be given more credit where it's due, Revs has been bombing the subway tunnel interiors with large roller letters and elaborate poetry that can only be read in the tunnel or if a train stops in the tunnel.
Of course, there is only one king respected for his history and rule of the land: Cope2 kd from the Bronx. This hardcore graffiti king is for real. He doesn't have to be up outside the NYPress offices to be king to many writers around the world.
Omar Padial, the Bronx
Take it easy.
Lizzie Simon, Manhattan
Frank Turk, Pittsburgh
Joe Rodrigue, New Haven
(By the way, count me on the positive side of the Jim Knipfel poll. I was reading Jim back when he was writing for Dan Rottenberg at the Philadelphia Welcomat. Back then, I thought he sucked. We had one brief meeting at the opening of the Borders bookstore at 18th and Walnut Sts. Well, he sucks less now, and I like reading his column. He probably doesn't remember me at all. Good for him.)
Anyway, I wanted to offer just a few criticisms, and please take them with the understanding that I'm a Loyal Reader. I have no real axes to grind. I don't seek to write for anybody, nor do I think anybody will be interested in what I have to say. I'm a Russell Kirk/Albert Jay Nock conservative, and I know my time has passed. So, with that in mind:
1) Please, please get Mark Steyn to write a regular column for you guys. He needs a regular weekly American outlet, and you're the ones to give it to him. Steyn is a brilliant cultural critic, politically and artistically savvy, and the only thing keeping him from an American breakthrough is a regular place to write?not monthly, not quarterly, but weekly. Dump Cockburn if you have to; Steyn is the real goods. (And I say this without knowing Steyn at all, but having read him in the London Spectator, The American Spectator and elsewhere for years.)
2) So you hate Cynthia Cotts. Fine. Let's get somebody in NYPress who can show her what to do and how it's done. Sniping at her won't alleviate the very real lack of a good New York City press critic. Rotating columnists won't do the trick; you need somebody there who can call people on the carpet regularly, so that readers won't have to skip a week or two to see something biting and accurate. This would lead to continuity and a reason to pick up the paper: to see what your bitch-slappy media critic has to offer that week.
3) There's a real need for a publication on the order of the London Spectator, as long as we're on the subject. The Weekly Standard, which should meet this need, fails fairly badly. The Standard caters to a quasi-hysterical neocon voice, which wouldn't serve writers like Paul Johnson and Theodore Dalrymple, or cranky drunks like the late lamented Jeffrey Bernard. (I'm a cranky drunk myself, so I know.) There are American writers like Johnson, Dalrymple and Bernard; you're halfway there with yourself and Jim Knipfel. Experiment with a 32-page glossy, and print covers by the fine stable of illustrators you have now. They're every inch the equivalent of the caricaturists for the Spectator. And, by cutting out the whoremart in the last 20 pages or so of the Classifieds, you'd take a fake moral high ground that would put the Voice to shame.
Anyway, I've gone on too long. Again, my best wishes to the fine group of writers and artists who put together the Best of Manhattan issue (especially the artist who did the overwrap?absolutely first-rate). I look forward to continuing to read NYPress.
George Hunka, Manhattan
What sometimes curdles my craw is the glib posturing as thought, as in the recent Buchanan banging. Was MUGGER off the wall? In fact, no. Often he is not. He doesn't have malathion for brains, unlike our ambitious Exterminator Man. As befits a Bush man, he notes Buchanan being soft-on-Adolf, arguably anti-Semitic, fetus-preoccupied, gay-unfriendly, immigrant-challenged and probably Aryan-oriented. Though not an empty suit, and able to puncture the corporate competition, Buchanan at bottom is another maverick who can't possibly win. A regular (empty? half empty?) suit will do the winning, thank you. Subtext: The corporate state doesn't need, or even want, brains in the White House. It needs only a photogenic accomplice. And will get it. Pre-paid.
Okay. Not so bad. That is, until MUGGER inserts another of those little "accessories," this one made on Wall Street. Buchanan, you see, is "anti-free trade." Here MUGGER reveals again his penchant for lobbyist mantra and Libertarian cliche in matters of profound consequence. It's a slick way of saying that issues like sovereignty, national independence, etc., could only matter to an Idaho beanhead. This is beyond spin, though not beyond NAFTA, GATT and the other corporate bulldozers coming. Are you against Canadian oil companies overturning U.S. anti-pollution laws? You don't want pesticides in your Mexican fruit deemed too dangerous by U.S. law? You object to multinationals making laws to prohibit vitamins unless patented and superexpensive? You don't want their irradiated or genetically modified "franken-food" without its being labeled? In brief, you do not want their laws overriding your laws? Well, pardner, do you know what that makes you? Listen up, now. It makes you "anti-free trade." Ask MUGGER.
And so for the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower himself warned against: You're not convinced that taxpayers should finance a planetary bully machine to guarantee corporate welfare while advising and arming genocidal but "friendly" reptiles everywhere? Hey, Bub, know what? You are a fudge-headed "isolationist." See MUGGER.
And so we ask of these little "accessories" in the weekly boudoir: What in fact are they? Real sense? Yuppie yap? Or just some MUGGERisms?
Dan Cameron Rodill, Manhattan
Go Pat, go! To the Reform Party, and win the presidency!
George Williams, Baltimore
2) It is not a fiction that animals can be protected from abuse, and their slavery can by abolished, by kind, noble animal rights activists and environmental soldiers.
3) Animals are very conscious of needing freedom, which is an inalienable birthright of all earthlings, and that's constantly being violated by humans' cruelty and greed.
4) We do care for humanity, and most of us are actively engaged in human rights work. But animals are the lowest of the exploited.
5) Animals do care for, and are conscious of, other species?us included.
6) Schulman would do a great service if he'd leave other beings alone and instead vigorously criticize the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan and other cancers of the human species who have no respect for either humans or animals.
7) Schulman justifies abortion clinic bombers' actions by saying they "preserve life." Is that why they harassed and murdered many innocent doctors? Animal rights people never harm humans or animals.
His article's title applies best to those ignoramuses who express compassion for, and ask for pardon for, rapists and murderers.
If your paper is on the side of fairness, you'll print this letter.
Adela Pisarevsky, Manhattan
As for the commuter tax, I can't answer you on the water and sewage fees, or the trash vs. the sales tax spent by commuters. As for eating lunch in the city, I know that when I do, I only spend between three and five dollars. Moreover, I often bring my own lunch. I am sure that it's not terribly uncommon for commuters to bag-lunch in the city on a regular basis. Considering those numbers commuters do not contribute as much in sales tax as the commuter tax. As for crime and police protection, yes: commuters and residents alike need to be protected from other commuters. Commuters are involved in all kinds of crime, embezzlement, gun-running, drug-selling and drug-purchasing, drug use, assault and battery (after a good night of drinking), possibly even murder and robbery. Simply stated, not all commuters are law abiding at all times, while the vast majority of New York City residents are law abiding the vast majority of the time.
Yet the most significant damage the city and its residents receive from commuters is pollution. If significantly more of them lived in the city, myself included, the city and its surrounding suburbs would benefit tremendously.
Since you did not understand my questions, let me make it simpler for you. Do you consider me and my children white or black, based upon the information I gave you? This question raises some interesting implications regarding racism and reproduction, of which a serious political pundit like yourself should become more aware. As for minorities flocking to the U.S., the Union of South Africa had the highest rate of intra-African immigration during the Apartheid era of any African nation. All that says is that people will withstand attacks upon their dignity to improve their own and their children's economic opportunities. As for which is safer for blacks, New York City, Alabama or Sierra Leone: I would venture to say, strictly upon anecdotal information on violence, that Alabama is the safest and Sierra Leone the most unsafe. Sierra Leone finishes a distant third as a result of the civil war. As for where blacks would be better off, overall, I would venture to say New York City, because of the strength of its economy and the less virulent racism of the region, with Sierra Leone finishing a distant third because of the civil war. Sierra Leone might be a close third if the factions could settle the dispute over who shall control diamond mining in that nation for the next 20 years.
Current racism, which is probably lower than it has been at any time in our history, combined with the long-term social impact of past racism, still ranks as the largest problem for blacks worldwide. The economic and social impacts of these factors create many of the conditions that make it virtually impossible for blacks to thrive, even among themselves. It will take more than 20 to 30 years of some reasonable attempts at common decency to overcome the legacy of racism, nationally and worldwide. The fact is, except for Latin America, that generally the more recent the European colonial dominance of a nation, the lower its economic development. European colonial dominance was justified and fed by racism.
The Soviet Union also failed, not because of the Soviets' racial insistence on egalitarianism, but on their radical insistence on top-down control of society in the name of egalitarianism. The leaders were all too willing, for an extensive period of time, to turn a blind eye to elitist and corrupt practices at the expense of egalitarianism, in exchange for this control.
Speaking of impoverishment and oppression, the world is completely dominated by capitalism, with the wealthiest nations of the world practicing the kind of bleeding-heart liberal policies I advocate, and the poorest nations practicing libertarian economics. These nations are experiencing some of the grossest impoverishment and oppression in their history. So what is your coherent rationale for impoverishing and oppressing people in the name of capitalism? The majority of people are too stupid and lazy to deserve to live decently?
Andrew L. Spence, Suffern, NY