YOGA FOR ALL

We at Portland Yoga Studio are grateful for Amrita [Bruce]’s article, “Class Warfare, Yoga-Style.” (See http://www.portlandphoenix.com/archive/features/01/06/29/tji/mind.html)

The issue of offering yoga to those who cannot afford it means a lot to us. That is why as Co-Directors, Francis and I have been teaching yoga, gratis, — now in our 5th year, — every week, at the Cumberland County Jail.

As Amrita correctly said, “Options do exist . . . for financially strapped students.” We have always found a way, including “Pay what you can,” for those who accept our invitation to call and “negotiate.”

No one is getting rich from the fees collected at Portland Yoga Studio. For several of those who teach at Portland Yoga Studio, teaching yoga is their sole livelihood. They have a right to make their living on yoga.

The ongoing training in and out of state that all of us have to pay for is providing the community of Portland and southern Maine with high quality instruction. In fact Portland Yoga Studio seems to be becoming (someone called our studio) “graduate school” for many people who come to share what we continue to learn.

May the blessings of yoga spread far and wide for all people, poor and rich alike.

Elaine & Francis McGillicuddy

Co-Directors

Portland Yoga Studio

OLD GUARD REJOINDER

Regarding your “Va-Gay-tionland” article (July 29, page 8), I must object to the passage: “so-called artists’ colonies, a euphemistic term for ‘gay ghetto’ that has endured for at least a century.” Ogunquit has been a vital artists’ colony for at least a century, and has never been (or had) a gay ghetto; even as some gay people were part of what was authentically an artists’ colony; even as some of the artists were gay (though by no means all of them). Annoyingly, some gay spokesmen are unacquainted with art of history of honest representation. What “old photo books” are those with pictures that show “everyone was wearing a dress” at “what they called ‘artists’ balls’ ”? The gay men I knew back then had too much imagination and too much pride to settle for anything so banal as throwing on a gown and a wig to attend costume parties, which were genuinely artists’ balls (benefit the scholarship fund of the Ogunquit School or Painting and Sculpture).

I became part of that artists’ colony in 1948, and had been a guest in the gay ghetto (in other venues, including New York City) since 1945; so I know what I’m talking about. There are few of us left who experienced those times and can speak on behalf of the real thing. (I’m not gay, but I have gone on record as wishing I were, in a PPH story decades ago.) I am very touchy about bogus history because it’s insulting to the iconic figures of the past, and bad for our own souls.

Please y’all, don’t characterize artists as closet gays, or art as a beard (homosexuality camouflage). And please don’t insinuate that my town was (or is) homophobic; though the day might come if there’s too much push to destroy the community’s traditional diversity and turn Ogunquit into an al fresco version of the baths.

Again, I know what I’m talking about because I’ve seen the changes in the town and in my little residential neighborhood: increasingly there’s steady community between public parking lots (one of which is reached via the street I line on) for gay male pick-up in cars. I wouldn’t care what those trollops do, except that I am bothered by the noise and fumes of constant traffic and I no longer enjoy parking in that lot to watch the shorebirds feeding in the river, because there’s always some dimwit scavenger circling my car, or trailing me home. My hair is short, I don’t wear make-up, I dress unisex, so some of these single-minded city yokels can’t tell I’m not a man. Or they’re verklempt by exhaustion (or frustration) from putting in 15-hour days trying (and, to all appearance, failing) to get laid. No wonder Ogunquit is affordable. These types don’t even need to be patrons of the businesses that lured them here, when they can cruise public property, including toilets.

Isabel Lewando

Ogunquit

COULD BE. . .

In the feature about Portland activists this week (see http://www.portlandphoenix.com/archive/features/01 /06/29/feat_protest.html), your author wonders why people in their 30s and 40s seem to be absent from the gathering he attends. He suggests that people belonging to this age group are at the bar across the street. Is it also possible that they could be at home with their children, perhaps?

Danielle D. Madore

Portland

WHERE'RE THE GIRLS AT?

This might be late in coming, but I just wanted to take a moment to comment on Tony Giampetruzzi’s article about Ogunquit, Maine.

First of all, as a fellow journalist and a fomer writer for in newsweekly, I have to say the article read like more of a brochure for Ogunquit than a story I would find in one of the Phoenix papers. It contained many shameless plugs — one especially and notoriously noticeable one for The Carriage Trade Inn. To mention in passing that Giampetruzzi occasionally writes for the paper owned by Robinson (who also owns the Carriage Trade) is a gross oversight. Giampetruzzi writes at a minimum three stories a week for in newsweekly (last week he wrote nine) and I would imagine derives a good portion of his income from the paper. He also serves as the paper’s web designer and is in close contact with Robinson on a regular basis. As his piece reflects, he has evidently become Robinson’s PR machine as well. Can you say conflict of interest?

Secondly, to say that Oqunquit is gay and lesbian is also incredibly wrong. On a recent visit there, I spied maybe 8 lesbians at best, and I was looking hard. There is not a night club for women, no women-only inn, and no lesbian-owned business, that I could recall. I challenge Mr. Giampetruzzi to name one for me. The article itself quoted no women at all, which reflects the make up of Ogunquit, or Giampetruzzi’s bias. Aside from the beautiful beach and the cool weather, I find no other reason to take my lesbian dollars to Ogunquit. They will be going to Provincetown, where lesbians are visible.

As for Mr. Giampetruzzi, I hope the next time he writes a piece concerning gay businesses for the Phoenix, you examine his connections a little bit further. No journalist who takes his oath seriously would have gone within ten feet of that story.

Adrian Brune

Boston, Massachusetts

APOLOGY

Our June 1 cover story on former State Senator Chellie Pingree and a June 22 letter in response to the piece were illustrated with a clipping of a photograph of Pingree and congressmen Tom Allen and John Baldacci from the April 25 Portland Press Herald. While our intention was to illustrate references to the photo made in the story, we respect the Press Herald’s copyright and apologize for any perceived misuse of the Press Herald staff photographer’s work.

—Sam Pfeifle, Managing Editor

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