Letters

Comments (0) Thursday, Dec 5 1996

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Meira, the Joyful Dancer
via Internet

In Screed, Peter Gilstrap wrote, "I ask her why so many women would want to put on expensive, revealing outfits and rapidly move their flesh."

Well, I've got a reason. We live in a society where being a woman means being an asexual office worker; a self-sacrificing, nurturing housewife; an idiotic but cute bimbo; or some impossible combination of all three. Middle Eastern dance (a.k.a. belly dancing) is just about being a woman. (Of course, this means different things to different people, but there's a fertile earthiness in even the glitziest cabaret dancing, and a glamorous beauty to tribal-style and Renaissance Faire dancing.)

Thanks for one of the better articles about our art I've seen in a mainstream publication.

P.S. Belly-dance costumes only need be as expensive and revealing as the dancer wants. Many dancers cut costs by making some or all of their costumes. My favorite costume is a slinky evening dress that covers my tummy, and the skimpiest cabaret costumes cover far more than the bathing suits you see on the beaches in California.

Jennifer Jackson
via Internet

Pulp Friction
New Times' writers are the addle-minded products of excessive television viewing and immersion in the prejudices of popular culture. Will they ever penetrate through the blather of their own phony liberal imperatives? The unexamined life is not worth living, and the literary products of such a life are not worth committing even to pulp. Please move the movie listings and personal ads closer to the front of the paper so that New Times' readers will be less tempted to [stet] the rabblesome sloth its "stories" might invoke as they page toward their real interests. Please, New Times: More car-stereo ads and less of the predictable, sanctimonious, hypocritical horseshit you call journalism.

Bill LaBrie
via Internet