Audio By Carbonatix
Daddy Is Right — You’re Ignorant and Uncool
Potty-mouth free weekly takes it on the chin: Today, when I was in my parents’ room, I found a copy of New Times, which read on the front page: “Bitch-Slapping Whitey” (June 5). Now, being eleven years old, I know what bitch means, but I do not use the word. My dad says people who use bad language are ignorant, so I would like to inform you that New Times is not setting a good example, and being a respected paper, you should. Plus you are being very ignorant.
A lot of New Times papers are on street corners or posted where people can see them, so you should be careful what you write on the cover. In fact I don’t think you should use words like that at all if you want to become better. Just because using words like that may seem cool, it’s not. It’s peer pressure that makes people use them.
Danielle Gregorie
Key Biscayne
Our Watery Grave
Who flushed South Florida down the toilet? Look in the mirror: We salute Steven Dudley’s articles on water quality in South Florida (“Ecological Politics” and “Beneath the Pink Underwear,” June 5). These articles point out the obvious: Water quality affects the quality of life in South Florida, and water quality is a commodity that residents and business compete for.
The real danger in allowing the sugar industry to continue polluting water is not immediate. It may take years for the system to completely break down, but when it does, residents will suffer. Sugar will move, probably to a “free Cuba,” and after the reefs, Florida Bay, and the Everglades are all destroyed by sewage-injection wells, rock mining, overdevelopment, and agri-business, commerce will be nowhere to be found.
Let’s all be clear about one thing: We all are to blame. Citizens elect officials with track records on the environment. We use water with little or no regard for how limited is the supply and how delicate is the system supplying water. It’s nice to have sugar barons to blame, for sure. They are truly the evil big-business polluter, political heavyweights with more than their share of influence. Yet to point the finger only at the big, easy target is to admit defeat by saying, “It’s not my fault. Big Sugar did it.”
Citizens must support boycotts, change overly consumptive living habits, become active in groups that support reasonable environmental policy, and take responsibility for the restoration and protection of the environment — especially water systems.
Wyatt Porter-Brown
South Florida Chapter
Surfrider Foundation
I Thought That I Would Never See
Something this dumb in a paper that is free: Only in the provincial and culturally stunted marshland that is Miami would Jen Karetnick’s vitriolic diatribes see the light of day, let alone the black-and-white of newsprint.
In “Inedible Poetry” (June 5) she publicizes a superfluous and self-aggrandizing limerick about her prowess as a reviewer. Was that little ditty by her friend Mr. Gerstein (did he really need a plug?) any less inane than the spoken-word poetry she defames in her column? Second, she complains about poor spelling on a café menu. Is that really a valid criticism given the fact that her own publication could hardly be looked upon as the proofreader’s paragon?
Another thing, could she please be so kind as to define the term “formal and academic poetry”? Those terms generally denote ill-conceived and pedantic verse. How can she, without the merest hint of irony, declare herself a poetry snob? Is she not aware that she is the food writer for the Miami New Times — the Miami New Times. Need I say more?
Perhaps she and her “doctor-husband” should limit their outings to the highly revered cultural institution of Starbucks. The menu, I’ve been assured by numerous white friends, is devoid of any typos. And here’s the kicker: She won’t be looked down upon for being the great white hope of iambic pentameter that we all know she is.
Tracy Olmstead
Miami Beach
Paid for by Marta for Mayor
Only a serious memory lapse could account for such a blunder: While reading Rebecca Wakefield’s article “Lehtinen for Mayor” (May 22), I realized she reported incorrect information about who the current mayoral front-runners are. She must have forgotten about school board member Marta Perez’s many significant accomplishments over the past five years.
Wakefield reported that two men were the current front-runners, yet the Miami Herald reported in April that a countywide poll conducted by FIU professor Dario Moreno showed Perez clearly in second place, with consistent support among Hispanics, African Americans, and Anglos. Wakefield then yawned at the current candidates whose hats are in the ring, even though Perez was the voice on the Miami-Dade County School Board who consistently fought the status quo for much-needed reform. Perez is responsible for the creation of an ethics commission, the office of the inspector general, and the ongoing review and evaluation of the entire school district. She is also, in large part, responsible for the firing of former Superintendent Roger Cuevas and the investigation of the teachers’ union leadership.
Marta Perez has demanded honesty, accountability of taxpayers’ money, and reform. I sincerely believe she will be a wonderful mayor of Miami-Dade County!
Christopher Wolfe
Miami
Paid for by Morales
for Mayor
Don’t dis or dismiss my main man: “Lehtinen for Mayor” was a very nice piece. My only concern or complaint is the downplaying of candidates such as Jimmy Morales. Commissioner Morales has always been an excellent public servant and a leader within his district. He’s one candidate who shouldn’t be written off so quickly.
Fernando Cordal
Miami
Joel to Alfredo: Wake Up!
And lay off the Valium, okay? I just finished Alfredo Triff’s thorough and deeply felt palpation on the local art scene (“Conceptual Drag,” May 22), and as always I came away delighted at his enthusiasm and boundless heart. He’s a rare bird. You can almost feel the ache of longing for the raveup long ago through the sinuous weave of his arguments, and hear the gnashing of his teeth. It’s an unusual talent in a writer to make language live so.
Not that I could discern his point.
I certainly sensed his affinity for the more spontaneous art moments of yesteryear, and a lofty displeasure with anything in the art world having to do with commerce. But to what, exactly, he was referring at any given moment in the article was a mystery. I would like to know, for instance, which commercial galleries do not “show art for the love of it.” Like them or leave them, you’d be hard-pressed to name dealers hereabouts who are simply money-grubbers, who do not care deeply about the artists they represent. Why else would they be doing business in Miami?
Exactly which curators “lack awareness”? Which ones do not understand “the distinction between the interests of museums they serve and their duty as purveyors of aesthetic and ethical lucidity”? Aside from the Lowe, he must be speaking of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Miami Art Museum. Bonnie Clearwater’s choice of Helen Frankenthaler at MoCA is not aesthetically lucid? What does it mean to be aesthetically lucid, anyway? It’s not ethical for her to show Trenton Doyle Hancock, whose scatological, bum-fucking fun seems to perfectly capture the flamboyant nowness that Alfredo savors?
As to the “slide” of the Miami art scene as evidenced by the present run of shows, let me recall the methods of Tom Peterson, a used-car salesman I used to watch on late-night television as a lad, who, at some point during his after-midnight hocus-pocus, would rap on the camera and shout at his audience dozing on the other side of the screen: “Wake up! Wake up!”
I wish I were that used-car salesman and I could shout at Alfredo. What powerful tranqs must he be on to overlook Jesse Bransford’s mural at Locust Projects, an anamorphic marvel that seems to snap into view as you scan it, and a tour de force for the Locusts. The vastly underreported Spanish Cultural Center has, at this moment, an entirely unprecedented exhibition of Cuban photographers from both the island and this notoriously cantankerous side of the straits — a solid and at moments incandescent show of some of the best contemporary photography being done anywhere. We have Sandra Ramos at Casas Riegner, a likewise rare occasion for similar reasons: Ramos lives and works in Havana. And for a man who prides himself on being down with the peeps, I’m surprised at how little we’ve heard from Alfredo about Diaspora Vibe’s graffiti, hip-hop, and low-rider youthfest.
The worst thing about all this easy outrage and woozy thinking is that it plays into the thoroughly debased discourse about art here in Miami, where the demagogic bile of a Marty Margulies can actually pass as public service, and where we have to listen endlessly to the masturbatory snivelings of certain crybaby artists who puke and mewl no matter how much is put on their plate. Insofar as Alfredo means to champion deserving local talent who languish without significant exposure, I couldn’t agree more. I can think of a number of local artists who deserve museum shows — right now. But I would certainly say as much if I were trying to say as much.
I suppose it’s a stretch to expect sparkling logic, velvety phrasing, and an exquisite sense of melodrama in a single warm body, though in the admirably loquacious Alfredo I always hope for more than just that ratcheted-up emotional turn, that precious, heat-bearing whatever.
Joel Weinstein
Miami
The Art of the Booze
Yesterday’s galleries, today’s saloons: I understand Alfredo Triff’s “Conceptual Drag” only too well. I’ve lived and breathed the Miami art “scene” for most of my life, being a native of 25 years, and I agree with most of his points. But there is one thing he didn’t address: maturity of patrons.
What we have here is nothing more than a group of people viewing art, collecting art, talking art, all with a concern for how it compares in glory with New York, Paris, Iraq, and so on. They don’t care. You really think that half the people at many events give a damn about art? No. They are there for the social occasion. But that shouldn’t matter to the artists. They should be pushing the envelope, though it’s harder to do that when people only show up if you’re sponsored by Bacardi or Heineken so they can get drunk. You didn’t notice?
Don’t worry, I was probably wasted next to you.
Juan Navarro
Hialeah