Letters

—Kay Brown
East Los Angeles

Discordance About Disney Hall

Thanks for Greg Goldin’s and Jonathan Gold’s articles on “Experiencing Disney Hall” [October 31–November 6]. I gave up on the L.A. Phil years ago when the Disney Hall was first announced because to me the Phil was consciously turning its back on L.A.’s rich history rather than incorporating it into the city’s cultural future. I look at the amount of money finally spent on Disney Hall (thanks to all the delays, attitude and cost overruns), and then look at the historic buildings on Broadway, in particular the Los Angeles Theater, and think about what could have been done with that same money — don’t get me started. In the end, Disney Hall is another example that this is and has always been about what is best for the rich, white subscriber bases who are scared shitless to venture off Bunker Hill, not what is best for the city as a whole.

I’m writing because I just got off the phone with a friend who teaches at L.A. Trade Tech downtown. She has spoken with four separate students, all of them Latino, each of whom had managed to get a cheap-seat ticket to Disney Hall during its opening week. Each one of them was looking forward to the experience — a first for a couple of them. And each of them was harassed at the door about his/her attendance and ticket. I wanted to tell my friend to let it go, it was just an unfortunate byproduct of the overhyped, over-the-top publicity of opening week. But I couldn’t do it, because that’s not what is going on, is it?

—Jeff Heglin
Los Angeles

You, Sir, Are No Jean Genet

Regarding Sam Slovick’s “The Geography of Hustling” [November 14–20]: What were you thinking? Sees himself reincarnated as Jean Genet or Iceberg Slim, does he? He couldn’t hold their underwear. Sorry, no Pulitzer for him. You should have farmed him out to The New York Times or the Washington Post. Isn’t that their thing? His self-centered pseudo-raw realism swathed in traces of fiction really was a downer. The message: Go out, live the wild life (even get to meet some movers and shakers), find and rescue your real self, then become a famous/published writer like me. Yeah, right. I found his glorification and romanticizing of tragedy nauseating. He even trots out those old misinformed saws about “making more money” ($100,000 a year) than hard-working middle-class people (a police officer). Such illogic possibly appeals to middle school juveniles, but they don’t read the Weekly.

So I would appreciate a little more editorial introspection when green-lighting such narcissistic ego-tripping. In this day and age there are a lot more inspiring personal stories that need exposure. Amy Motevalli and her students certainly was one of those this year, and I only heard and read about it in the Weekly.

—F. Daniel Gray
Los Angeles

Article by Sam Slovick is fabulous.

—Dion
Los Angeles