Letters

Keith Anderson
Manhattan

Michael Matters

Never has Michael Musto transformed words into poetry more perfectly than in his June 29 column. The multi-layered, self-loathing realities he speaks of, while acknowledging the 1999 Gay Pride week festivities in New York City, mirror the alarming complacency around the issues of AIDS and gay bashing in the gay and lesbian communities today. Musto's column left me realizing how easy it is to coexist with so much pain and choose denial rather than confronting issues head-on, substituting the endless quest for bigger "tits" and the next party in place of demanding change.

Ariel Ramirez
Yonkers

Giddins Honored

Voice jazz critic Gary Giddins has won a Ralph Gleason Music Book Award for Visions of Jazz: the First Century. He also has received two 1999 Bell Atlantic Jazz Awards, one for Visions of Jazz and another for his columns in the Voice.

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