Letters

Funny Business
Rory Root's Comic Relief is an excellent comic book shop (Best Comic Book Store, "The Best of San Francisco," June 26) -- heck, it's a world-class comic book shop -- but Rory hardly runs the best comic book shop in San Francisco ... Comic Relief is located in Berkeley. I call a technical foul.

Understand, it's not sour grapes, but when SF Weekly's awards are called "The Best of San Francisco," I'd like to see a San Francisco winner picked, unless all city-based locations suck. There are an easy three or four comic shops in the city that don't suck, and I'd be a fair bit less ... well, "insulted" is far too strong, so how about "chagrined" ... if you'd picked a city-based store as a winner. I'm not so arrogant to believe I'd automatically win, but at least let's be clear on the boundaries of the "competition," please.

Rory and I have been good friends and trusted "competitors" for the decade I've been selling funny books, and I really don't want anyone to think I'm trying to take away from his fine store -- quite the opposite in fact: The comic book industry is in a precarious position because there aren't enough stores that aspire to the level of excellence of Comic Relief in Berkeley, but I strongly feel the "Best of San Francisco" should be just that ... otherwise call yourselves "The Best of the Bay Area" (oh ... right).

Brian Hibbs, Proprietor
Comix Experience
San Francisco

Radio Days
Another SF Weekly faux pas. Your cheap shot at Alex Bennett (Best Reason Not to Listen to Alex Bennett's Morning Show on Live 105, "The Best of San Francisco") is a clear indication that you must be Howard Stern fans. Let's face it, Stern is half as intelligent and twice as obnoxious as Bennett. Alex is the one who should be syndicated.

Alex has been making me laugh and making me think since I first heard him in the early '80s. I now listen to him at work and during my commute. While his show does occasionally become juvenile, it is also thoughtful and incisive, which you can't say about the other morning radio fare.

And no, I'm not under 18. I'm at least 10 years older than the mid-20s brat who is trying to prove how sophisticated he is by writing that.

Christine Beatty
Tenderloin

The Age of Environmentalism
To say that Ellen McGarrahan's article on the Sierra Club's new president, Adam Werbach, is slanted would be an understatement ("Looking a Little Green," June 19). To prove her journalistic objectivity she explores both sides of a non-issue by posing the loaded question: Is Mr. Werbach a naive, image-driven piece of fluff ... or not?

Sure he's 23 and therefore less experienced than 50-year-old Robbie Cox, and apparently, he has an unconventional postmodern personal style as evidenced by what is now sure to become the infamous Barbie video. However, anyone who is astute enough to recognize that today's most pressing environmental issue is a lack of local political involvement is right on in my book. Besides, if a youth movement is providing the new lifeblood of the Sierra Club, then isn't it only fair that someone young head the club's body politic?

Clayton Tschudy
Potrero Hill

Picture Imperfect
I would like to correct the misrepresentation of my recent book, Ansel Adams and the American Landscape: A Biography (University of California Press, 1995), contained in "The Nature of Trust" (Bay View, June 19). While I appreciate James Sullivan's accurate reporting of my views concerning the policies of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, I would like to correct his description of the photographs in the book. Contrary to the assertion in the article, the book contains a wide variety of reproductions from a number of sources. They are by no means exclusively from Adams' Mural Project of 1941. Adams' work is represented by images from the 1930s through the 1960s.

The University of California Press and I both labored hard to find the strongest photographs available and to present them in fine duotone reproductions. I invite readers to view the book for themselves and to form their own conclusions.

Jonathan
Spaulding
Pasadena

Leery of Hippies
Jack Boulware's take on the Timothy Leary San Francisco memorial service was nice and kind ("Fucking Hippies," Slap Shots, June 19). It is good to see so-called Generation Xers fly in the face of their own reputation. What I didn't mention at the wake and was reminded of by the heading "Fucking Hippies" was how time has changed. Not only did people not take LSD in the old days, but the printing of the word "fuck" was subject to investigation by the FBI. Life is so much better now that it is impossible for young people to know what it was like when girls were sent home from public school for not wearing dresses and tobacco and alcohol were the standard "high."

By the way, my eyeglasses are not thick but they still are eyeglasses. Thank God Jack Boulware thinks the "FUCK" cheer is old-fashioned. Keep pushin' and remember, "It don't mean nothin'."

Country Joe McDonald
Berkeley