Is Annalee a blight?!

I am the owner of the blog arnoldforgovernor.blogspot.com. Annalee Newitz recently attacked my blog in "Arnie online" (8/27/03). Her obvious lack of writing style and fact-checking astounds me. She is a disgrace to herself, a blight on the publication, and she dishonors her family.

Richard Petrow

Sebastapol

Labor and Newsom

In your Aug. 13 issue, Tali Woodward and Rachel Brahinsky stated, "What stands out the most is Newsom's lack of labor support" ("Newsom's Money Matrix"). For the record, Newsom, to date, has received the endorsement of 24 labor unions, not only more than any other candidate in the race, but more than all of the other candidates put together.

John Shanley

Newsom for Mayor

San Francisco

The first noir fest

While I'm thrilled the Grand Lake is hosting its first film noir festival, programmed by our new Oakland neighbor, the brilliant Elliot Lavine, I should point out that here at the Parkway Speakeasy Theater, on the same turf, we're running our fifth film noir fest just prior to theirs (Sept. 5-25) – in fact, the Grand Lake fest begins the day after ours ends, which I'm sure is just a happy coincidence. I've shown many of the films in their ambitious series before at our previous fests, but this year, luckily, we're only showing one of the same films (The Sniper). I regard their series as complementary, not competitive – in effect, it'll be one long Lake Merritt Film Noir Festival, "accidentally" but perfectly synced, a bonanza for East Bay classic film buffs, left in a lurch by the closings of the Fine Arts and the UC in Berkeley.

I do need to correct one erroneous claim: writer Eddie Mullen is not involved with their series, but he has cohosted our fests from the beginning, and will do so again this year.

Will "The Thrill" Viharo

Oakland

Nice Nicely

Rita Felciano's "New Wave?" (7/23/03) review of one of this year's Summerfest dance programs exemplifies the sorry state of dance criticism in this city. Felciano resigns herself to pointing out the obvious physical or structural details of a dance and deriding, in the case of Megan Nicely's Reveal, what she herself fails to grasp: that which lies beneath that which is revealed.

In terms of mood, choreography, movement quality, thematic substance, and overall production design, Nicely's piece was a radical cut above the other works on the program. Nicely's choreography had something to do with this, calling for a strong but loose limberness, a dynamic give-and-take in the evolving relationship between the dancers, and a tricky negotiation of control and abandon. But the most conspicuous aspect of the dancing was the way the performers seemed to let the movement flow through them rather than push themselves into it – the hallmark of world-class dance.

Rejecting clichés and the sophomoric route of literal simplemindedness, Nicely set a dark, taut, definite, yet sometimes disorienting, mood for her piece. But art is supposed to disorient and maybe even disturb. It should challenge our perceptions and compel us to see with new eyes. It should bring up more questions than it answers. Nicely accomplished all of this and more with her theatrical (almost filmic) artistry, which beyond the choreography involved a haunting soundtrack, dusky lighting, evocative costumes, and gauze panels that variously distorted and opened wide our field of vision as the stage lights shifted the shadows and the dancers moved in and out of focus.

Felciano concludes ever so wittily that Reveal "didn't reveal much." But she fails to consider, let alone dig beneath the surface of, just a few of the unmistakable questions the piece brings up: How does environment affect relationships between women? How can one's outward appearance be both liberating and restrictive? How does the body capture memory better than pictures or the pen? Felciano's review does a disservice to both Nicely and the entire Bay Area dance community.

Matthew Wilkinson

San Francisco

No sex at Kabuki

On behalf of the staff at Kabuki Springs and Spa, I would like to express our gratitude for being named Best of the Bay in the July 30 edition of the Bay Guardian.

While we are honored to be named the best of anything, we are neither a massage parlor nor do we belong in the category next to the best sex club, the best place to cruise, etc. Since the ownership of the spa changed in 1998, so did the focus of the facility. We try very actively to create an environment that is not sexually charged for any of our guests and to be a clean, safe place for all persons to bathe and relax. We consistently try to create a space for both men and women where sexual energy is not externalized and healing and sensuality are promoted.

I feel like we have a constant challenge here to educate people, and especially men, that nudity is not synonymous with sex.

Kathy Nelson

Spa director

Kabuki Springs and Spa

For the record