Salon | Letters to the editor

_______________ UNEASY RIDER BY SARAH VOWELL (06/15/98)

I love your site, but I hate Sarah Vowell. Please get rid of this columnist, or at least stop giving her so much screen space. I've tried to accept her writing as thoughtless, dull, reactionary or even as satire, but all efforts fail as she continues to aggravate me to no end.
In her latest gaffe, a bashing of "The Truman Show," she states: "I was sitting there, in the dark, appalled. I'm around 30 years old, too, and I do not know a single person -- not one -- who's never moved away from the town where he or she was born." One word: Duh!
Now I know, everyone has opinions, and she's entitled to hers, but in this article she goes on to make similar statements and generally miss the point time after time. At best, she is building up straw men to make her point. At worst, she is an ignoramus who cannot comprehend the notion of suspension of disbelief. I know she's not reviewing the film here, but she should at least make sound references. Now of course I won't do anything rash like not visit the site -- but I will certainly avoid her articles like an online virus.
-- Eric Moser
I'd just like to know where it is that Sarah Vowell lives that she's never met anyone who hasn't moved -- New York?
I've even met people who haven't even traveled from their immediate surroundings -- only a town or two distant. It's hardly a mind-blowing assumption, especially when your entire world is geared toward keeping you in one place.
-- Glenn Peters
Portland, Ore.
_______________ ULYSSES IN NET-TOWN BY KARLIN LILLINGTON (06/16/98)

The slavish Joyce scholars and dreary "postmodernist" theorizers are out in force at this time of year, trying to credit the man with the invention of everything. In this instance, Joyce is said to be the creator of hypertext, and the usual litany of "postmodernist" French charlatans is recited.
That Joyce did remarkable and unprecedented things with the form of the novel -- and with the English language -- is not in doubt. However, there is no hypertextual sense to any of his work compared with that of the true practitioners of this art. The major novelists who can take the credit for this development are Flann O'Brien and Vladimir Nabokov (a devoted admirer of Joyce). In works like O'Brien's "At Swim-Two-Birds," the narrative ascends and descends levels of Hoffstadteresque text and meta-text. In "The Third Policeman," the concurrent texts of the body of the book and the tongue-in-cheek faux-academic footnotes are "hyperlinked" by cross-reference. In Nabokov's "Pale Fire," this is carried still further with the book consisting of introduction, poem and footnotes all heavily interlinked, referenced and referential. "Pale Fire" is a true hypertext novel; the same cannot be said for "Ulysses" or "Finnegan's Wake."
In typical academic fashion, a layer of dreary, elitist, "postmodern" quackery is devised and pontificated about by invoking the names of pompous charlatans like Baudrillard. Any invention or creativity must be assigned to the fashionable Europhilic emigré Joyce, or the French poseurs. Heaven forfend that any credit may accrue to the boozy, acerbic, sharp-tongued and cheap-suited O'Brien!
A doctorate in clouded thinking and exclusionary jargon is not needed to read and enjoy works like those of Joyce and Nabokov -- it is only the academics with their wordy periodicals and aloof conferences who would have us think so, like the monks of old who kept books chained up and out of reach of the common people.
-- Ben Walsh
Dublin
_______________ MONICA VS. MAUREEN BY CAROL LLOYD (06/18/98)

"Aren't there better things to get riled up about?" Salon asks rhetorically at the close of this who-cares cat-fight chronicle. Yes, yes, yes.
Why on earth you consider this pissing match worthy of notice thoroughly escapes me. Monica Lewinsky, "first intern"? First nonentity is more like it. The did-he-or-didn't-he thing has gobbled up quite enough of the addled American public's minuscule attention span already, methinks; clearly, aside from lingering prurient interest in the smutty details, Americans don't really give a damn about who their chief executive bangs. The verdict is in: Character doesn't matter.
This being the case, why provide Monica the Useless with a scintilla of additional attention? I for one read Salon for better things. Suck-gate has passed its sell-by date, and I'd like to see Miss One-Talent return forever to the torpid little pool of anonymous mediocrity she sprang from. And, um, by giving space in your excellent magazine to anything related to her, you're not helping.
C'mon, pay attention to the stuff that matters. It's what you're good at.
-- David B. Livingstone
Farmington Hills, Mich.

_______________ DRUG CRAZY REVIEWED BY PHILIP NOBILE (06/10/98)

It's about time somebody exposed the lies, dissembling and propaganda behind the drug war for the insanity it really is. Mike Gray reveals that drug prohibition is the cause of our "drug problems," not the cure. It's long past time to end our delirious crusade against drugs. Gray proves that with "Drug Crazy." It's a great book!
-- Redford Givens
San Francisco
SALON | June 23, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| MONICA VS. MAUREEN BY CAROL LLOYD

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_______________ UNEASY RIDER BY SARAH VOWELL (06/15/98)
	I love your site, but I hate Sarah Vowell. Please get rid of this columnist, or at least stop giving her so much screen space. I've tried to accept her writing as thoughtless, dull, reactionary or even as satire, but all efforts fail as she continues to aggravate me to no end. In her latest gaffe, a bashing of "The Truman Show," she states: "I was sitting there, in the dark, appalled. I'm around 30 years old, too, and I do not know a single person -- not one -- who's never moved away from the town where he or she was born." One word: Duh! Now I know, everyone has opinions, and she's entitled to hers, but in this article she goes on to make similar statements and generally miss the point time after time. At best, she is building up straw men to make her point. At worst, she is an ignoramus who cannot comprehend the notion of suspension of disbelief. I know she's not reviewing the film here, but she should at least make sound references. Now of course I won't do anything rash like not visit the site -- but I will certainly avoid her articles like an online virus. -- Eric Moser I'd just like to know where it is that Sarah Vowell lives that she's never met anyone who hasn't moved -- New York? I've even met people who haven't even traveled from their immediate surroundings -- only a town or two distant. It's hardly a mind-blowing assumption, especially when your entire world is geared toward keeping you in one place. -- Glenn Peters Portland, Ore.
_______________ ULYSSES IN NET-TOWN BY KARLIN LILLINGTON (06/16/98)
	The slavish Joyce scholars and dreary "postmodernist" theorizers are out in force at this time of year, trying to credit the man with the invention of everything. In this instance, Joyce is said to be the creator of hypertext, and the usual litany of "postmodernist" French charlatans is recited. That Joyce did remarkable and unprecedented things with the form of the novel -- and with the English language -- is not in doubt. However, there is no hypertextual sense to any of his work compared with that of the true practitioners of this art. The major novelists who can take the credit for this development are Flann O'Brien and Vladimir Nabokov (a devoted admirer of Joyce). In works like O'Brien's "At Swim-Two-Birds," the narrative ascends and descends levels of Hoffstadteresque text and meta-text. In "The Third Policeman," the concurrent texts of the body of the book and the tongue-in-cheek faux-academic footnotes are "hyperlinked" by cross-reference. In Nabokov's "Pale Fire," this is carried still further with the book consisting of introduction, poem and footnotes all heavily interlinked, referenced and referential. "Pale Fire" is a true hypertext novel; the same cannot be said for "Ulysses" or "Finnegan's Wake." In typical academic fashion, a layer of dreary, elitist, "postmodern" quackery is devised and pontificated about by invoking the names of pompous charlatans like Baudrillard. Any invention or creativity must be assigned to the fashionable Europhilic emigré Joyce, or the French poseurs. Heaven forfend that any credit may accrue to the boozy, acerbic, sharp-tongued and cheap-suited O'Brien! A doctorate in clouded thinking and exclusionary jargon is not needed to read and enjoy works like those of Joyce and Nabokov -- it is only the academics with their wordy periodicals and aloof conferences who would have us think so, like the monks of old who kept books chained up and out of reach of the common people. -- Ben Walsh Dublin
_______________ MONICA VS. MAUREEN BY CAROL LLOYD (06/18/98)
	"Aren't there better things to get riled up about?" Salon asks rhetorically at the close of this who-cares cat-fight chronicle. Yes, yes, yes. Why on earth you consider this pissing match worthy of notice thoroughly escapes me. Monica Lewinsky, "first intern"? First nonentity is more like it. The did-he-or-didn't-he thing has gobbled up quite enough of the addled American public's minuscule attention span already, methinks; clearly, aside from lingering prurient interest in the smutty details, Americans don't really give a damn about who their chief executive bangs. The verdict is in: Character doesn't matter. This being the case, why provide Monica the Useless with a scintilla of additional attention? I for one read Salon for better things. Suck-gate has passed its sell-by date, and I'd like to see Miss One-Talent return forever to the torpid little pool of anonymous mediocrity she sprang from. And, um, by giving space in your excellent magazine to anything related to her, you're not helping. C'mon, pay attention to the stuff that matters. It's what you're good at. -- David B. Livingstone Farmington Hills, Mich.
_______________ DRUG CRAZY REVIEWED BY PHILIP NOBILE (06/10/98)
	It's about time somebody exposed the lies, dissembling and propaganda behind the drug war for the insanity it really is. Mike Gray reveals that drug prohibition is the cause of our "drug problems," not the cure. It's long past time to end our delirious crusade against drugs. Gray proves that with "Drug Crazy." It's a great book! -- Redford Givens San Francisco SALON \| June 23, 1998