Picks and Pans
Best of B.S.: I remain mystified as to the process by which you arrive at your choices for “Best of Kansas City” (October 6). It doesn’t appear to be by reader input so much as by editorial whim. One wonders if personal relationships have an influence on the results.
It also appears you folks don’t get out much, because the best CD store is Need More Discs over in Shawnee. If your editors go there, I’m sure they would agree. Why don’t you expand your horizons a bit? Cheers.
Barry Bertram
Kansas City, Missouri
Fit to be Thai-ed: I agree with some of your picks in your latest edition. Kin Lin’s Chinese is probably some of the best I’ve had here or overseas. But your choice for Thai food? Please.
No offense to Arun Thai, because it’s a spectacularly beautiful restaurant, but their food doesn’t even taste like Thai. Most of the Thai restaurants in the KC metro area aren’t even passable as such. If you want true Thai taste, go to Bangkok Pavilion in Overland Park. It ain’t Thai unless it brings tears to your eyes, but more than that, Thai food is a burst of flavors unlike any other world cuisine.
Jewell St. Clair
Kansas City Missouri
Editor’s note: We stand by our choice of Arun Thai Place for several reasons, including the sad fact that the venerable Bangkok Pavilion at 7249 West 97th Street in Overland Park, arguably the oldest Thai-only restaurant in the city, was struck by lightning last summer and the building no longer stands. In other news, we’ve discovered that, contrary to information contained in our “Best Power Lunch” award to the Capital Grille, Mayor Kay Barnes doesn’t have, nor has she ever had, a wine locker there. Which disappoints us but doesn’t change the Capital Grille’s monumental power-lunching status.
Show and Tell
Mouthing off: Regarding Nadia Pflaum’s “Speak No Evil” (September 29): What a shame that a community with so much potential has such a fucked-up view of the role each of us plays in this society. Yes, our government lies, some of our politicians are doing dirty work and their colleagues aren’t coming forward, but why should we use these people for examples of how to be?
The true slave mentality is giving tacit approval for the murders of other black people. We are no better than the Germans who stood by during the Holocaust, or the Southern whites who watched their neighbor Klansmen rape, torture and murder black citizens of their towns.
Bridgette Henry
Kansas City, Missouri
Speak easy: I must preface my remarks by telling you that I am a Christian conservative and a regular Pitch reader. I disagree with most of what I read in the Pitch but am determined not to close my mind to the way others think and perceive our world. That being said, you probably do not want to read what I think of your article.
I loved it. It is so right-on. I found it informative, well-constructed and well-researched and its conclusions logical and defendable. It was not a hateful diatribe or sappy drivel. You taught me about a culture and struck at the heart of what has made America work this past 229 years. Yes, we have police, but it is the policeman (woman) in each of us who makes a free society work. Anything less and the culture falls prey to vigilante justice or no justice at all, which is chaos.
Thank you for your thoughtful, informative article.
Gregg Motley
Overland Park
Web Tracker
Whitman sampler: I just wanted to pass along some feedback on how well your Web site works. I picked up a copy of the new Pitch around 10 a.m. on my way to work at the Belger Arts Center. As I got here, the phone was ringing. It was some guy in Portland, Oregon, who had seen an article by Ray T. Barker about our current exhibition dealing with Walt Whitman and the 150th Anniversary of Leaves of Grass (Night & Day, October 6). He said he actually saw it the day before I did, and I’m four blocks away from your office.
Thanks for the coverage.
Mo Dickens, Gallery Assistant
Belger Arts Center
Kansas City, Missouri
Short Circuit
I, robot: Thank you for including my show at MoMO in your capsule reviews. I’m extremely pleased that Greetings From Robot City piqued your interest enough to earn a capsule.
I’m a bit confused about the Jane Austen reference in regards to my name and bemused by the apparent confusion of commercial appeal. After all, this is a show at MoMO Studio. I’ve been showing work for 20 years, and this is the first time someone has called my work commercial. I don’t know whether to celebrate or be mad.
The cityscape aspect of the show, which is about repetition of form, is something that robots as artists do very well. There is no reference to NYC, Oakland, Chicago, KC, Los Angeles or any specific city in the show, visually or otherwise. Specifics were avoided as much as possible. It seems from the short write-up that you didn’t see the entire back of the show, where the content changes dramatically.
Again, thanks for the space and consideration.
Eliot K Daughtry
Oakland, California
Shrimp Crocktail
St. Elmo’s fired: I read Charles Ferruzza’s recent comments about his shrimp cocktail at St. Elmo’s in Indy (My Big Fat Mouth, September 22). I was in Indy last July and told I must eat at St. Elmo’s and experience their shrimp cocktail. I did! Boy, was I disappointed.
The shrimp cocktail had five scrawny shrimp with extremely hot shrimp cocktail sauce that you and I could make with lots of horseradish! And, yes, it was way too expensive for what you got. I split a steak (who can eat that much?) and was not impressed with the steak, either.
You get better shrimp cocktail at Bar Natasha and better steaks at the Main Street Inn in Grandview than at St. Elmo’s (in my opinion, of course). Keep up your good reviews of eateries here in KC. I enjoy them.
Name withheld by request
Night Cap
Shaken and stirred: Thanks for Jen Chen’s Night Ranger column. I lived in KC in the mid-’80s as a young teacher, fresh out of college. I live in Emporia now but make it back in to the city once a month for National Guard duty. I get the Pitch in my e-mail, and I always enjoy Chen’s flirty, sarcastic, alcohol- and sex-oriented column.
Keep up the good work.
Name withheld by request
Glove Love
Jackson’s hole: Regarding Critical Fatwa (September 29): What the heck are you talking about? Your article makes no sense. Remember, 14 TIMES — NOT GUILTY. Get over it.
With everything that is going on in the world today, why are you wasting your time writing anything about Michael Jackson? Time to move on, my friend — 14 TIMES NOT GUILTY. Time to move on.
P.S. If you insist on writing about Michael Jackson, I suggest you write a piece about District Attorney Thomas Sneedon. Why in the world did he proceed with a case that never existed? I read the transcripts on a daily basis and felt the district attorney was in way over his head. He served over 100 search warrants and still could not come up with a logical case. His legacy will forever be his embarrassing loss in the case against Michael Jackson.
Wanda Thompson
Staten Island, New York
Jazz Hands
Struck a chord: Just wanted to let you know I really enjoyed Jason Harper’s “Play On” article (Wayward Son, September 15). I’ve been following the Pitch for a while now, as I enjoy keeping up on music news in several parts of the country.
I am also a producer and engineer for the public radio show Riverwalk Jazz, which showcases music from the “golden” era of jazz (’20s-’40s). We have covered the KC and Midwestern scene heavily from that time period and have also battled with a way to keep people interested in what has otherwise been labeled “Shakey’s Pizza Parlor” music!
I also happen to be 27 and have been working for Riverwalk for four years. So thanks for the KC update and the great view of jazz from our “younger” perspective. It is amazing when you go back and check out the stuff from the ’30s — it would have been an amazing time to be alive!
Benji Nichols
Petaluma, California
