Salon | Letters to the editor

_______________AUTHOR-FREE WRITING BY BENJAMIN MARCUS (12/12/97)

I just wanted to say that I agree in large measure with Mr. Marcus' evaluation of the recent "interactive fiction" venture on the Microsoft Network, in which I participated.
I have two quibbles.
1.) He fails to state clearly how truly dreadful the resultant "novel" really is.
2.) He is too charitable in his pondering the question: "Why would writers let a mob of Internet customers manipulate them like puppets?" Writers do need jollies and unquestionably enjoy attention. The timeless appeal of money, however, ought not to be overlooked.
-- Michael Chabon

_______________GANGSTA ATHLETES, ANXIOUS WHITES BY GARY KAMIYA (12/10/97)

Amen re: the aggressive black urban gangsta street culture. I don't think that is what Hubert Humphrey and Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall had in mind -- and it is certainly not what I had in mind while helping to carry the civil rights torch in battles over the past several decades.
The aggressive black urban gangsta street culture is a dysfunctional, sociopathological phenomenon "up with which I will not put," to paraphrase Churchill, and that goes whether the trash talking street culture comes from white trash, black trash, Hispanic trash or green, gooey Martian trash. Enough is enough.
A final report of a White House conference by black folks on black issues during the Nixon years said, in contempt of Nixon's policies and behavior, that "business is business and bullshit is bullshit." The same can be said about aggressive black urban gangsta street culture ... in sports or anywhere. And to say so is not racist: It is merely honest. So if Cochran, Brown and the Golden State Warriors can't take the heat, they can get the hell outta the kitchen.

-- Thom Prentice
SALON | Dec. 16, 1997

R E C E N T L Y+| THE BULLY ON THE BLOCK BY ROS DAVIDSON

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_______________AUTHOR-FREE WRITING BY BENJAMIN MARCUS (12/12/97)
	I just wanted to say that I agree in large measure with Mr. Marcus' evaluation of the recent "interactive fiction" venture on the Microsoft Network, in which I participated. I have two quibbles. 1.) He fails to state clearly how truly dreadful the resultant "novel" really is. 2.) He is too charitable in his pondering the question: "Why would writers let a mob of Internet customers manipulate them like puppets?" Writers do need jollies and unquestionably enjoy attention. The timeless appeal of money, however, ought not to be overlooked. -- Michael Chabon
_______________GANGSTA ATHLETES, ANXIOUS WHITES BY GARY KAMIYA (12/10/97)
	Amen re: the aggressive black urban gangsta street culture. I don't think that is what Hubert Humphrey and Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall had in mind -- and it is certainly not what I had in mind while helping to carry the civil rights torch in battles over the past several decades. The aggressive black urban gangsta street culture is a dysfunctional, sociopathological phenomenon "up with which I will not put," to paraphrase Churchill, and that goes whether the trash talking street culture comes from white trash, black trash, Hispanic trash or green, gooey Martian trash. Enough is enough. A final report of a White House conference by black folks on black issues during the Nixon years said, in contempt of Nixon's policies and behavior, that "business is business and bullshit is bullshit." The same can be said about aggressive black urban gangsta street culture ... in sports or anywhere. And to say so is not racist: It is merely honest. So if Cochran, Brown and the Golden State Warriors can't take the heat, they can get the hell outta the kitchen. -- Thom Prentice SALON \| Dec. 16, 1997