I am Asian-American, not white, so I have no hidden agenda here — just giving my two cents’ worth.
HERE TO THERE
DEAR EDITOR:
Jerilyn Lopez Mendoza, in the Weekly roundtable “A Vision for the City” (cover story, March 9–15], is inaccurate when she laments that there is no public-information campaign about how to use L.A. County’s municipal transit lines and Metrolink interact with MTA service. In fact, one has been available since last summer and can be obtained for free from any MTA Customer Center or by calling MTA Customer Relations at (213) 922-6235. Ms. Mendoza does transit advocacy a disservice by making accusations without having her facts straight.
—Dana Gabbard
Executive Secretary
Southern California Transit Advocates
Los Angeles
MAKE THAT “THE MOST INDIANS”
DEAR EDITOR:
I have just read John Ross’ account of the Zapatista trip to Mexico City [“War Against Oblivion,” March 16–22]. While it was interesting and well-intentioned, I could not help but notice a grave and telling error. It is repulsively ignorant to call Mexico City the most Indian city in the Americas. Obviously, Mr. Ross has not visited Guatemala City or La Paz. I can assure him, having visited Mexico City on numerous occasions and having been born in Guatemala City, that Mexico City cannot compare to the wondrous spectacle that is Guatemala City. I know that Guatemala is a small country, but, hombre, don’t be as blind to Mexico’s “south” as Americans are to Mexico. Verguenza!
—David Gonzalez M.
Washington, D.C.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Actually, Mr. Ross was speaking of the size of Mexico City’s Native American population, not passing aesthetic judgment. Thanks anyway for the travel tips.
LATE (AND STILL GREAT)
STRAVINSKY
DEAR EDITOR:
In Alan Rich’s “Divine Madness” column [A Lot of Night Music, March 16–22], he calls Igor Stravinsky’s Movements “short but awful,” characterizes the work as one of the “tatters that survive from Stravinsky’s pathetic last years” and likens Stravinsky to a “senile Picasso.” This is absurd, and just plain mean-spirited. It’s also ironic that he would praise the neoclassical Capriccio, a lightweight performance vehicle for the touring Stravinsky, while deriding Movements. If his tastes run to facile bonbons — which Movements is decidedly not — or if he doesn’t understand a work, why not simply say so?
If late Stravinsky works such as Movements, Requiem Canticles, Abraham and Isaac and the Orchestral Variations are tatters, Rich can keep his whole cloth — and paint a happyface on it while he’s at it.
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