Letters to the Editor: 08.28.97

False Impression

Briarwood, N.J.

August 18, 1997

Dear Helen,

Joe LeSueur's letter of Aug.14, though doubtless of biographic value, projects such a distorted view of James Schuyler's poetry that I feel the need to protest. Joe's taste in these matters is usually keen, if circumscribed at times by an unconscious gay bias, but to characterize Schuyler's poems as "glorious" gives a false impression of their very limited impact and worth. At best, in their sly manipulation of the language and its silences, they qualify as diverting incidental music, hardly the stuff of "glorious" symphonies - or revolutions.

None of this is intended to detract from the genuine kindness of Joe (who is always thus) and his friends, but to continue the kindness after Schuyler's death does tend to warp literary history. Richard Howard, for instance, in a gushing review of the same poet's "Diary" for The New York Times Book Review, cited John Ashbery to the effect that Schuyler's verse is somehow indispensable to us, to our poets, and our poetry.

Do I smell a musical in the Sag Harbor winds?

EDWARD BUTSCHER

Little Line Drawings

Marble Hill, Ga.

August 11, 1997

Dear Mrs. Rattray and Staff:

Your paper has deservedly won many awards for various forms of superiority, but I don't see one for just plain, simple "class." So, I want to present one to you, and your paper, for distinctiveness and taste far beyond what I observe in any other form of communication, written or televised.

I refer specifically to the little line drawing headers you have established for various departments which you report. Are these new? Or am I just unobservant? I never recall anyone else identifying, and appreciating them in your letters to the editor (an example of such a delightful header is shown at the top of this page).

The best, I think, are the headers for the villages: "Montauk" . . . "Amagansett" (my favorite because I grew up there) . . . "Sag Harbor" (a delightful perspective of this little waterfront town, the only one in East Hampton) . . . and, of course, "East Hampton." Each line drawing distills the essence of a separate community - not easy to do in five square inches! Each of these villages has a distinctive character, which is really the most attractive aspect of the Hamptons. God bless the Ladies Village Improvement Society for not "improving" but for retaining this character!

Quite simply and humbly, without a lot of words and blather, a modest and unknown artist/observer/lover has "absorbed" or "soaked in" these villages and then has had the joy of representing them in these perfect and honest little line drawings.

Even the tiny stamps shown in the header to the letters to the editor department reflect the talents of this artist - for I call it a talent far beyond what is ordinarily portrayed as art. In these headers, he or she "sings" about each village, without words, every week in your newspaper. It's not Guild Hall, nor an art gallery exhibition, nor lionization of the famous artists of the Hamptons. It's a very modest contribution that appears each week, and which reaches, and pleases, I hope, all of your readers who care to be sensitive to such delightful vignettes. I think this is an important achievement, and a welcome relief - no pomp, no ego, no photo montages of the aristocracy, just simple, honest, and truly meaningful heartfelt "stories" that can be understood by everyone.

Other favorites headers of mine: "Books," with an antiquarian author at one bookend and a potato at the other (a very humorous and sensitive observation). Also "Outdoors" - the artist must have gone to one of the wild spots overlooking Gardiner's Bay, and looked out, from the edge of the bluff, at the water. Notice the tree on the right, twisted and bent from the winter winds.

"On the Water" is another simple and meaningful observation. The little sharpie, with a bare-chested rower at the oars, is just right for your new weekly gallery of folk art. A "Cigarette" roaring by with 800 horsepower pushing it would be repulsive - is repulsive. Ostentation is not this artist's bag.

"News of the Schools" . . . "Events" . . . and "Better Living" headers are at the bottom of my list, but even so, they are still examples of humor and observation which I doubt appear in any other weekly, or daily publication, anywhere. (In the "Events" drawing, notice the confident forward pose and the open mouth of the politician. Beautiful!)

Will you ever identify this artist, and interview her, or him? I hope so.

Congratulations to the artist for these little works, and my thanks for the pleasure which they give me. I'll look for them each week. And congratulations and thanks also to you, for having the depth and creative assurance to take the bold step of including these drawings in your paper.

Sincerely,

BILL PAYNE