It’s quite simple — you write a letter, we’ll probably print it, and the best one wins a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila and a .
titfer to keep the sun out your eyes. So get scribbling.
Holding the baby
No doubt the P0pe would have afforded The Baby of Macon a more favourable review than the critics have of late. These are probably the same critics who embrace Reservoir Dogs, Bad Lieutenant. Man Bites Dog et al. These are films filled with much more explicit violence of every description (with a more questionable purpose) than that in The Baby of Macon. 1 should state as well that the aforementioned films contain only a fraction of the ideas and themes Peter Greenaway presents us with.
1 would ask people (not critics!) to disregard those close-minded. hypocritical Charlatans whose ideas and motives should be questioned as much as they criticise. Instead 1 offer this advice; if you're afraid of new ideas and points of view then don’t see the
The Baby of Macon. If you never
question what you read, what you‘re
brought up and conditioned to believe in, then don’t see The Baby of Macon.
But if you want to see a challenging
piece of cinema that provokes the
senses. stimulates the mind and rewards those who are willing to think and learn, then 1 know of a film to see.
Don Atchison
Redford Gardens
Edinburgh
l l I i l I
Can anybody tell me why the BBC 2 continuity announcer did not, at 11.14pm on 7 October, say, ‘we're sorry the Lost Soul Band won’t be on The Late Show tonight, they’ll be on on Monday instead?’ And why, on Monday 11 October, didn't he or she say ‘sorry, they’re not on tonight either?’ Then 1 could have got to bed earlier, wouldn‘t have been so tired, and would have been happier in my life.
1 dare say that if their rescheduled appearance on 4 November is also
3 cancelled, the BBC won't think to warn us beforehand, I’ll stay up to watch, be
: extremely disappointed and annoyed, tired and cranky next day; my patients
(I'm an occupational therapist and, no,
1 don’t weave baskets) will suffer. The
BBC will therefore be responsible for another decrease in the quality of NHS care.
Kirsten Hey
Addison House
Canterbury
Perhaps it didn 't register in darkest
Kent, but one of Scotland 's greatest light entertainers Andy Stewart died recently, and The Late Show responded to the tragedy in the way that only television can — with a hastily cobbled- together tribute programme. thus the rescheduling of the poor Lost Souls.
Euro sceptrc
Eric Milligan must be commended for furthering British Democracy with his comments in your last issue (213). The
’ decision to limit speakers, at the
Europe and the new World Order lectures to only those who will speak for the British state is ample evidence
i willingness to supress any view not E their own.
It wouldn't of course have anything to do with a forthcoming Euro election and a recent poll showing more pe0ple
g in the Lothians thought Winnie Ewing i was their representative in Strasbourg
than could even name Milligan's man. ‘No man has the right to fix the
boundary to the march of a Nation‘, it
says on a statue in O'Connell Street but
2 then that European city was represented : inside Holyrood Palace last December ; when 25,000 Scots marched outside.
NEXT ISSUE OUT THURSDAY 4 NOVEMBER
LEJTEB§
There is a ‘little Scotlander‘ argument and it is put most eloquently by the Convener of Lothian Region when he puts his trust in the Tory government to represent us in Brussels. The same Government that was parading its vitriolic Europhobia in Blackpool recently. And the same Government which will shortly abolish Lothian Region.
Stewart Gibb Clarendon Crescent Linlithgow
JOSE
é"
0
It 's a fair point that nationalism, in all its good and bad aspects, is a potent force in Europe today and the lecture series is wrong to ignore it. There 's a bottle of tequila waiting for you in our Edinburgh office.
Talent spotting
Music coverage in The List, while substantial, largely ignores the smaller, local bands who comprise the nuts and bolts of Edinburgh’s and Glasgow's scene.
While you fill pages with throwaway
a snippets on bands who often don‘t need
any more publicity, there are local musicians who would murder for even the smallest feature — Woodside Now( and The Snippets come to mind in
' Edinburgh.
Surely as a local events mag you have
I a responsibility to help local talent start
off along the road to sccess, not just
; jump on the bandwagon when the
nationals get interested. How about a
! that the Labour and Tory panics Share a regular column devoted to smaller : 3 bands, with interviews and demo
reviews? it‘s a small thing which would make a big difference. Dougal McLean
1 West Princes Street
' Glasgow
The List has always had and will
continue to have a strong commitment to promoting emerging local talent —
bands. performers, artists, filmmakers
and writers. This was a major reason we launched the magazine way back in '85. But The List is also an events
a guide and we have to balance the
coverage in each issue to find space for the visiting big name acts, mainstream fjlms etc.
Battered lives
Did no one at The List notice the irony of running the two film features together in the last issue (212)? Both the films, Hard Boiled and What's Love Got to Do With It?, dealt with violence but in very different ways.
Can something really be both ‘excessively violent' (my dictionary says violent means ‘too much') and a work of art, featuring the ‘ballet of the bullet‘, as was suggested in the John Woo feature. My guess is it simply appealed to the immature, little boy in your reviewer.
Meanwhile the Tina Turner biopic takes domestic assault as its central theme; male violence against women. In this post-modem age it is unfashionable to suggest the possibility of a link between screen and actual violence but surely the extreme and graphically-depicted killings of a John Woo movie must go some way to lessening the impact of watching ‘mundane‘ domestic violence.
Is it not reasonable to suppose that such a dulling of the outrage against violence on screen can filter through into real lives and contribute, admittedly in a small way, to the acceptability of men beating women? J Mackay Calder Street Glasgow
Post Script
Address your letters to The list Letters at:
14 High Street
Edinburgh EH1 lTE
OI’
Old Athenaeum Theatre
179 Buchanan Street
Glasgow Gl 2JZ
Ol‘
Fax them to: 031 557 8500
We will not print your full address or phone number but you must include them. Deadline is the Friday before publication. Keep them pithy. as overlong letters may be cut. The best letter next issue will win a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila and a natty baseball cap.
ll'i/t/ l’u/ms: 'l'hc futuristic American 'l‘V series beams tl()\\'ll to BBCZ. (‘y'lici'punlx goes small—screen with Angie Dickinson and .lim Belushi.
Steve Conga/i: ('hzu'atctcr council} hits catchphrase [)il)'tll1'l with the Bug '0 Shite king.
illt'tm/m/is: l‘t'it/ lung‘s film made Hull :11 the .'\1‘Cllc\.
PLUS: Dzivitl 'l‘hcu‘lis (lcl‘t ). 'l'ci'cncc 'l'i‘cut l)‘;\rh_\'. Paul Weller and Hit) yours ol’ Motlct'n ;\l‘l. l’hcu'l '
ORDER YOUR COPY NOW!
92 The List 22 October—4 November 1993
Printed by Scottish County Press. Sherwood Industrial Estate, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian. Tel: 031 663 2404.