LETTERS

There's grit here, too
Enjoyed your article about Eileen Myles-from the “Zappa-cover” (I got wedding invites set up like that once, only the, er, “dual” version) to the well-written interview. She appears to be a unique resource, and I admire her efforts to leave what she found in better shape-go get those bureaucrats!

Having been a part-time Manhattanite in the Pleistocene of my youth, I can see the attraction of living in a scrabbling, creatively alive, roaring, gritty City at the Center of the Universe and being the momentary center of attention, for however long, or short. It's a rush. But, in spite of the number of unused black clothes in my wardrobe, I like it here mo' bettah. I suspect she does, too.

It's the silken air and water as much as the shiny parts, I would say. It does have a soporific influence. So the people don't hit the streets burning Bush effigies like the good old days; after all, this place is not like most of America. People work hard here. Work hard, drive in early, home late to support the family and make that mortgage nut.

And it's changed quite a bit; witness this fine potboiler of a periodical that wouldn't have lasted a millisecond 50 years ago. I suspect the ultra hip beats wouldn't waste their time checking out those cutting-edge folk from 1910, decades before them-why should we? I don't know about you, but the demographic here is never going to be 50-something single-lesbian countercultural lit types. It's happening, evolving now, I think, into something new. Maybe she could, finally, if she wants, be a part. It's never going to be at the university. But somewhere else. I don't know where.

But if she wants edgy, how about “Welcome to San Diego, Now Go Home,” though I suggest she can find something better to get her teeth into. Learn some Spanish. Take more trips into Tijuana. Cruise the border. Cruise a work camp in the brush (one with its own iglesia). Talk to the next generation of Americans grinding it out here, at dire risk sometimes, in restaurants, banging nails and digging trenches, cleaning the halls at UCSD, supporting la familia, here and away.

Now, it's not easy to find, but I would say that it's “edgy.” She might also try to show up when a carrier comes home-ever done that? Yeah, they're soldiers, but they're not evil people, though their leaders may be. They're honest people. There's a lot going on on those docks. In all kinds of flavors. Sorry about her dog.

Don Vaughn,
Midtown

Get out more, Eileen
Your Jan. 24 cover story about Eileen Myles, yet another neurotic, displaced avant-garde New York artist who snubs her nose at (her opinion, not mine) San Diego's lack of “a true literary or arts scene of any kind,” is emblematic of an attitude that is tiresome and of no value.

Her critical and elitist tone just shows she needs to get out more-or go home. Ms. Myles really does seem out of touch or clueless about what this place does have to offer. Has she ventured to any Sushi Performance and Visual Arts event, attended one of the exciting and diverse events at Voz Alta or just stopped by Twiggs and seen the mix of brave souls who share the emotions with the over- caffeinated? Recently, a poetry workshop and reading was held at the new Expressive Arts Institute at NTC. If she misses the kind of vibrant, cohesive and electric poetry/spoken-word scene that thrives in New York, this would have been a good place to start working to create one. The gap left by Quincy Troupe's “Artists on the Cutting Edge” series is ready to be filled.

No, San Diego doesn't have the intensity, choices and diversity of NYC. That's a no-brainer. And we're OK with that! Being a native New Yorker myself, I enjoy the balance that a vibrant arts and cultural community provides in conjunction with a “spacious, green backyard where on a warm fall afternoon while the California sun sets into the palm trees.” Try finding that in Alphabet City.

Toni Robin,
Pacific Beach

Size matters
CityBeat seems dead set on defaming the very city upon which it depends upon for both readership and advertising revenue. You seem obsessed with the idea that San Diego lacks an art scene as sophisticated as that of New York City or even Los Angeles. Comparing San Diego to cities three to eight times its size is ludicrous. Size does count, but this does not deter you from banging the same cynical drum.

The latest indictment is served up in Emma Silvers' fawning portrayal of an obscure New York poet languishing in the provinces [“Cover Story,” Jan. 24]. While Silvers and her subject prattle on about San Diego being full of sun-drenched rubes incapable of appreciating the finer arts, which I assume includes Myles' ravings about her sterile sex life, the article is a better indication of the provincial attitude of your staff than of the city's population. Your publication's inability to appreciate what San Diego has, instead of what it does not have, demonstrates an appalling unsophisticated lack of understanding of cultural development.

I do give Myles some credit for pointing out, even though she does it in a backhanded fashion, that any artistic or literary movement must “accept” the area in which it develops. Maybe that's why San Diego has failed, in some people's estimation, to develop an “arts community.” With so many of those who consider themselves artists or supporters of the arts rejecting the community at large, how is any organic creative activity going to develop? This arrogant dismissal of the city's ability to foster an arts scene is bound to create isolation and rejection from the community.

If your publication really cares about the arts, continue as you have to provide coverage of area artists and spare us the negative diatribes of out-of-towners with no vested interest in developing a local arts scene.

Dan Epperly,
University Heights

Poem for a poet
Re: Your Jan. 24 cover profile of Eileen Myles.

From the stodgy old bard,

To the avant-garde-

The problem is hunny,

You sold out for money.

You'd rather pine and whine at USCD,

Than commune and converse in old NYC.

Bill Varney,
Mira Mesa

The education of Eileen
CityBeat is to be congratulated for publishing Emma Silvers' interview with Eileen Myles. Ms. Silvers expertly develops her themes, arriving with subtlety at Ms. Myles own central self-evaluation: “... you almost don't know who you are until you feel alone.”

Isn't that what being an artist is all about? Standing up to the loneliness where “differentness” exiles you? Maybe all that past NY avant-garde partying is really a form of adolescent frat bash, etc. And San Diego has simply brought Myles face to face with herself. Adversity in the form of conflict at UCSD probably helped.

Time deserves some credit, too. Indigenous peoples maintain the principle that it takes 50 years to grow a woman. Eileen Myles may be closer to home than she thinks.

Joan Lindgren,
University Heights

Learn the language
If Eileen Myles wants grit and graffiti (as well as a vibrant arts scene) she needs to get off her toilet-learn Spanish, if necessary-and catch a southbound trolley. Conspicuously missing from Emma Silver's piece [“Cover Story,” Jan. 24] is mention of South San Diego, the border and Tijuana.

While there, Myles can discuss our “shiny, happy city.” Closer to home, she can contemplate-instead of a 25-year-old photograph of herself (sorry, but the artsy effort at ironic self absorption is hackneyed)-San Diego's inherent tension in the “abrupt miniature gorge that doesn't quite look naturally formed” in her own backyard. She'll find the requisite metaphors in and among the rocks.

This is California (in case Myles and Silvers haven't noticed) and traditions-literary, cultural, historical-are not measured against New York City. Perhaps Myles can be forgiven as she has only been here a few years (it takes longer to understand this place) and she was preoccupied with Rosie (who did get this place).

But what's with California journalist Silvers? Note that the “Art & Culture” section of CityBeat for this same week featured an article on birding the outer reaches of San Diego County. Now, a snickering Myles and Silvers may see this as a “You see what I mean?” example of our arts wasteland, but of course it's in these wilder places where the grist and backdrop for California art and culture is found. And it's not only lyricism that these places evoke. They are under siege, and the endangered and dwindling wild needs poets to give voice to its silent struggle.

And a last bit of unsolicited advice for Myles: Think of San Diego as another country, a unique and diverse borderland (USA/Mexico, landscape/seascape, civilian/military, urban/wild)-an unusual place where gays wear American-flag T-shirts. Instead of whining, use this exotic perspective as an opportunity for growth (from the article, I think that there may be movement in this direction). If she learns the new language, and if she still doesn't connect with this bigger and more open place, Myles can always move back to her familiar, insular and smothering village-NYC.

Fred Belinsky,
Hillcrest

City shell game
Carl “Endtimer” Luna appears to believe that allowing the city to collapse is good for us, because it will punish the City Council [“Guest Opinion,” Jan. 31].

Here is the reality, Carl: The city reorganization is already damaging our Park and Recreation Department by sending most of the staff to other city departments. It's taken us years to build a competent and effective parks-and-rec team that can effectively work with volunteers to start repairing the natural lands in our open space areas.

The mayor's chief operating officer, Ronne Froman, says that this reorganization will make delivery of services more “efficient,” but isn't this just a sneaky way to reduce park services using a shell game? Once the former parks-and-rec staff are folded into General Services, it will be easier to roll them on to the pothole-filling roster-filling potholes in La Jolla and Scripps Ranch.

Does Luna seriously think services will be preferentially reduced in the more affluent neighborhoods, rather than North Park and City Heights? As a professor of political science, can he cite any precedents?

Carrie Schneider,
South Park

Freedom reigns
Dear, Mr. Sunshine [Lawrence Carr], regarding your recent letter to the editor [Jan. 24] suffusing economics with your mere intellect:

It's a perfect reminder to me, with regard to my perspective as a homeless man here in San Diego, why things in this fine city are frequently ass-backwards. That is, in contrast to your views, I subscribe to Jefferson's and Lincoln's notions that our society was founded on principles of freedom. Not principles of economics. That, owing to Adam Smith's theories, our free society is meant to constrain the marketplace-not the other way around.

Greg Sullivan,
Middletown