LETTERS
lETTERS
Mild rebuke
Why do you continue to allow the letters page of The List to be used as a forum for Bennie‘s virulent attacks on your other correspondents? His latest attack, the one on Barry Dubber, is totally outrageous, and is certainly not even remotely clever or funny.
Mr Bennie please take note — this is one ‘bowlhead‘ who will give as good as he gets, and who knows who John Ruskin is/was — the founder of Ruskin College, Cambridge, if] am not mistaken, yes? And unlike Bennie I did not look it up in a book.
It is about time the ‘men in grey suits’ came to visit Mr Bennie and told him that he had overstayed his welcome.
Steven Watts
Stirling.
Mr Bennie must own a grey suit himself, as he has kindly decided that his letter next issue will be his last — unless, of course, public demand is so strong that he must return. Re Ruskin, close but no cigar: Ruskin College is in Oxford. if I am not mistaken, yes? You really should have looked it up in a book.
Bowlhead blues
A is for ALMS, which I always assumed were dried fruit or low denomination coins; but according to Chambers they‘re ‘Reliefgiven
THE LIST T-SHIR
l
Tune in next issue for David Bennie‘s last letter to The List. Will we ever see his like again? With any luck, no. The best letter next issue will win a Jose Cuervo tequila T-shirt. Write to The List, The Old Athenaeum Theatre, 179 Buchanan Street, Glasgow Gl 2JZ, or 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 lTE.
out of pity to the poor‘. Like the remuneration I receive for these letters— all the weevil biscuits I can eat. Dear Mr Watts, how I vote is my business (and no. that doesn‘t mean I necessarily vote Tory). but I can confirm I don‘t vote Labour (Ron ‘Bowlhead‘ Brown is my MP).
In his critique of Twin Peaks. Jamie Andrews made a commendable attempt to write in front-of-mag gobbledygook. just failing to overuse terms like dominant themes and motifs. generic
. _‘ I To obtain 3‘3}... *
h I -Vl’” ::,',o,"v“ I
’ ' List T-shirt, send a cheque
or postal order for £6.50 (inc P&P)
made out to The List Ltd
to THE LIST T-SHIRT OFFER, The List.
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.
Name ................................................................................ .. Address .............................................................................. ..
Size: Extra Large/Large/Medium (delete where applicable).
100 The List 7 - 20 December 1990
Printed by Scottish County Press, Sherwood Industrial Estate, Bonnyrigg. Midlothian. Tel: 031 663 2404.
hybridisation and double-coding. I‘m afraid I understood what you were talking about. Jamie; but hey— The List Amstrad inserts such buzz-words arbitrarily if the authors
: forget.
Ciao. Toni and Tina — are you still working for the Red Brigades or have you joined Benetton? Is Aldo still kidnapping mopeds and chickens, or has he left the (‘arabinierei’ Sorry. F. Bell. but my collected letters will not be coming out in a book compilation — Vanity Press ofCornwall is the last in a long line of rejections.
My doc says unless I get a transfer out of the letters ghetto into green and pleasant freelance land. I'm not long for this magazine. It‘s so overcrowded back here my views on racial purity have to sleep in the bath. I think I‘ll take my ideas for an ‘Up And Down Leith Walk‘ column and the Encyclopaedia Bennietanica to the Sunday Murray. Would Jay Connolly (aged 5) be interested in taking over from me in the New Year? I could train him up as an apprentice bile-maker. I can't take much more — bowlheads are coming in the goddamn windows. . .
David M. Bennie IIaddington Place Edinburgh.
Peaks And Troughs
Reading Jamie Andrews‘ reply to my letter the same thought springs to mind as when I consider David Lynch himself: just what is his problem with women?
In Andrew's case. as in Lynch‘s. there is a blindness to the existence of power relations between the sexes in our culture. So while he claims that both men and women are presented as grotesques in the works of Lynch. his analysis cannot account for the different meanings attached to each.
Andrews‘ citing ofstatistics on male, male violence do nothing to explain the omnipresence of images of the pursuit and destruction of women by men in our writing. cinema and television and the
fl
' relation between these images and
male violence towards women in our
society. His contention that the
‘young, beautiful murder victim‘ is
‘unusual‘ rings false: these images
are everywhere. as is male violence.
and I believe we should ask what
i they tell us about the men who
produce them. And if Andrews is so
3 concerned about ‘crypto-sexism'. he
should ask himselfwhy he finds the
murder ofa beautiful young woman
so much more shocking than that of
i an ugly young woman. or an ugly old
woman or an ugly old man. For him
to attempt to pass this off as some
sort ofcompassion is quite repellent. Laura Palmer is the perfect vehicle
for Lynch‘s banal fantasies because
; she represents two deeply-rooted
2 male stereotypes ofthe female: she is
the Madonna being revealed to us as
the Whore. So I would take issue
with Andrcws‘ claim that Lynch
? ‘makes no points either way about
sexism in our society" for by
inference his works clearly do. To
Andrews it is sufficient that Lynch
‘ uncovers ‘hidden desires‘ in both
: sexes. But when the alleged desire of
a woman is to be raped (Lula in Wild
rll Heart). can't he see that this is
perfectly in line with so many male
fantasies of female sexuality? Despite Andrews' paranoiac
assertion. I don‘t want media which
‘champion‘ my moral values. but I do
want women to have the freedom
that heterosexual men have always
had to represent and define their
i own sexualities and their own
; desires. hidden or not.
Iain Barbour
Royal Terrace
(ilasgow
__ ,3. ~ 2 \ - n‘.‘ \‘ T You win the prize for this issue '3 best
letter - a Jose C eurvo T-shirt to wear
. I; as you watch next week's instalment of
Twin Peaks. Room to let
I would just like to distance myself from the views ofSteven Watts (see also last issue 's letters) and apologise on behalfof those of us in Central Region who buy The List mainly for David M. Bennie‘s ‘smug. self- satisfied outpourings‘. The letters page is the best thing in The List. but without Mr Bennie‘s bile and prompting. it would be the \ pm. For myself. I would like to see List
Letters longer. They are very cleverly written. A minor point— it's not fair that because I clip out Bennie‘s contributions and keep them. I am forced to spoil the competitions coupon on the other side ofthe page.
Are there no plans to print Bennie T-shirts for Christmas? I‘m glad though that I don't live inside his head 24 hours a day.
Louise Roberts Wallace Street Stirling.