Letters

Clear as a Bellwether
The "YOU Decide" issue (Oct. 30) was the most complete, yet concise, overview of our complicated ballot published in San Francisco. All the other daily and weekly publications pushed their personal agendas -- you laid out the facts in plain English without any bias.

I'm really quite politically aware -- president of the Planning Association for the Richmond (the largest neighborhood association in San Francisco), a member of the Citizens Open Space and Recreation Advisory Committee, and foreperson of the Civil Grand Jury. For citizens who are less involved in the political process, this ballot is a minefield.

Thanks, for a difficult task -- well done.
Ron Miguel
Potrero Hill

Cale Straight
Wow, I've really got to hand it to Michael Batty. His is the first concert review I've ever read where the music was criticized because not enough of the audience was smoking pot (maybe that's because they were a bit more mature than your average rock crowd). His review of John Cale's show at the Fillmore ("Drowning in Pop," Music, Oct. 23) makes me wonder what he was smoking.

Cale is 53 years old, he's not 20 anymore. He was great with the Velvet Underground, and he's great now, but he's different. He's always changing and evolving, which is why some people find it hard to get a handle on him. Maybe Batty's review would be different if he paid more attention to the music, and less time trying to determine the drummer's gender.

By calling Cale "one of rock's elder weirdos," he is proclaiming his ignorance of the man far and wide. He may have been weird 20 years ago (actually, he definitely was), but his more recent material is among the most honest and straightforward music I've heard. I've heard people criticize him for being too normal.

David Sament
Lower Haight

Devil Into Details
Regarding the Oct. 2 "Unspun" article "Equus or Excess?": I doubt the horses in the Benetton ad have been "styled" as the writer suggests. The stallion's mane may just be shiny and wavy. Mane texture varies, just like human hair. As for the mare's eyes, they may or may not have been enhanced. Some horses naturally have dark eyelids or circles around their eyes. The stallion (in horse terms he is not black nor brown, but "bay") looks the way stallions do when they fuck. It is hard work and in a difficult position.

My question is not if the ad is tacky, but why would Oliviero Toscani (who supposedly breeds appaloosas on his farm in Tuscany) want to breed those two horses? The mare has bad conformation and the stallion is not an appaloosa.

Devil Doll
Alameda

Naked Distortion
"Night Crawler" (Oct. 2) missed the most revealing moment of the Exotica Extravaganza.

When dancer and performance artist Jade Blue Eclipse danced fully nude, a Trocadero employee rushed onto the stage and stopped her cold. "Artistic freedom? What's that?"

Ironically, this censorship of nudity took place at a benefit for fully nude dancers. Of the many supposed liberals watching, only one protested.

Tortuga Bi Liberty
Berkeley