Bis in the ER

To Alan Bisbort: I've been meaning to write for months now to say how much I enjoy reading your column every week. You have such a great way of distilling all the rhetoric around us into a cogent point accessible to any reasonable person of any political leaning. I just read the column about your son [and gaps in the family's health insurance—see The World This Week, August 20, 2009], and it nudged me finally to write. So not only do I want to say how much I enjoy your work, but as the father of a very wiggly eight-year-old boy, I also want to wish your son a speedy recovery. There is nothing worse than seeing your child in pain. We've escaped such a serious trip to the ER—I have no idea how. My son should wear a helmet just to watch TV.

Ed Weisman
Florence

Juicegate at Look Park

I loved the piece on LookStock in the Advocate {August 20, 2009]. My kids and I had been looking forward to last night's show as a last hurrah before school started. We packed our usual picnic dinner and headed in at 3:30 to snag a prime blanket spot. After a hefty wait in line, I couldn't believe what I saw—Look Park Management confiscating every drop of liquid looking to enter the show. I was stunned. At first, I assumed they'd banned the usuals, maybe alcohol or bottles and cans. But nope: they wanted everything. Nothing liquid could be brought in. Not water, not lemonade. Nothing—on an 85 degree night. They confiscated juice boxes from children! When they demanded my daughter dump the thermos of lemonade we made for the night, I told them to go to hell and asked to speak to management. The only answer I could get was "Look Park Policy." Yeah. I can figure out the policy. $3 a bottle? $4 a bottle? Was it Look Park's cut of the vendor's take or the promoter's?

We left, missing Transperformance for the first time in I don't know how many years. I took my kids to the playground; we ate our dinner and drank our contraband on a bench, listened from there a while, and just went home. How fucking pitiful at a performance celebrating the spirit of Woodstock, to not allow a child as much as a glass of lemonade unless we shelled out to Look Park for it! Even Six Flags New England lets guests bring water. I could see it at a Tom Jones concert where people coughed up $100 a seat. But at a local benefit and a performance known to be a family-friendly, kids dancing at the stage, good-feeling fest? Even more frigging sad to me to see the lines of people perfectly happy to go along with it. I only wish I'd taken a picture of the pile of juice boxes and water bottles taken from guests and their kids. What a lovely image to remember Look Park by.

Anyway, I hope the show rocked. I'm glad the Council sold it out. I just wish it hadn't sold out its spirit at the same time.

Ellen DeBruyn
Southampton