Show and Tell

Paragraph break: Regarding Mike Springet’s August 11 letter in response to Gina Kaufmann’s July 28 SeeSaw about our exhibit, What’s the Matter with Kansas?: I’d like to correct Mr. Springet’s derailed logic. He refers to the eclectic, complex and critically hailed work in the show as “painfully boring” — I’m sorry he missed it. It’s also curious that Springet complains that “the whole show was contradicting its theme,” since that was precisely the point of the exhibit — to critically reverse Thomas Frank’s negative depiction of the contradictions inherent to Kansas culture. I outlined this to excess in the catalog that accompanied the show.

Mr. Springet’s primary complaint, that showing only KCAI alums in an “important show like this is selfish, close-minded and just a huge fuck-up,” is equally misguided.

I am committed to exporting the most contemporary, intelligent and challenging art from Kansas City, regardless of academic affiliation. This effort is hardly motivated by profit, and certainly not KCAI bias since I am not an alum, but more simply by curatorial sincerity and a dozen artists working their asses off to make something big happen. Tellingly, the payoff is more opportunity — four solo shows, two job offers, two curatorial offers. That’s the only lesson I can impart here — if you do good, hard work in the art world, opportunities follow.

It’s unfortunate Mr. Springet has converted his poor prospects in a remarkably accessible art community into delusional jealousy. But if he wants to make a stab at curating What’s the Matter with Hesse? for Paragraph, I’ll welcome him to that.

Hesse McGraw

Director, Paragraph

Kansas City, Missouri

On Connie Morris

A body of evidence: Thank you so much for Justin Kendall’s article on Connie Morris (“Unnatural Selection,” August 18). It is not so easy to feel sorry for such an arrogant, deceitful person who claims to be a Christian, but I do. I believe the abuse and drugs in her past have affected her mental capabilities.

I hope the people in her district recognize that she is not mentally competent to make important decisions on behalf of Kansas taxpayers.

Liz Craig

Roeland Park

Pickers and sinners: Thank you for the informative article on Connie Morris. I was a bit disconcerted to learn she was from Olive Hill, Kentucky, since each of my paternal grandparents had a sibling who married and settled near Olive Hill. I didn’t recognize any names in the article, so I still have hope Morris is not one of the relatives.

My late father told me a story about his cousin Emma near Olive Hill. Cousin Emma was a really good bluegrass and country banjo picker until she “got saved” in an area revival meeting. Then she put her banjo away for the rest of her life because the preacher told her the devil was in the banjo. When my grandmother, also a religious woman but one who appreciated God’s gifts of pleasure, heard about the situation, she said, “It sounds to me like the devil’s really in that preacher.”

Grandma’s been dead almost 50 years, but it seems to me she still speaks truth about self-righteous hypocrites from Olive Hill.

Jeffrey Padgett

Kansas City, Missouri

Her Turn

Seeing red: I am writing you to express my outrage with Bryan Noonan’s “When Moody Ruled” (August 4).

Not once in the nine months that I’ve lived on 33rd and College have I experienced any type of gang-related behaviors from the young men in the neighborhood. My neighbors are outraged that you are saying our children are gang members; just as you wrote, “Like many kids in the neighborhood, Dominique wore red and spent his afternoons hanging out on Third Wall corners.” You neglected to include the fact that Dominique had liked the color red since he was able to recognize his primary colors (around the age of 4). You did not mention that Dominique had a plan for his life (he wanted to be in Golden Gloves). You used my son to give your story more significance because without him, all you had was Cheri Clark and the story of her nephew and sons, all of which happened in a time before the incidents that have been occurring recently. That was not enough to make your story newsworthy.

Your story turned my son from the VICTIM that he is into a gangbanger. Dominique was never a gangbanger, nor was he affiliated with any gangs.

I feel you owe my son’s memory and my family a public apology. You owe my neighbors a public apology just as you write a very public piece calling their children gang members. These are children you’re writing about, not grown men — children. They are easily turned around when they feel as if no one cares or that people are out to hurt them or accuse them of being something that they are not. I am deeply saddened by your take on this story; I am saddened by the realization that you — someone who can reach so many people who could make a difference in these young men’s lives — have chosen to further people’s negative opinions of inner city youth.

Charlese Henderson

Kansas City, Missouri

Stick Up

The offal truth: Aha! Charles Ferruzza revealed his true elitist nature when he attacked the Haggis-on-Stick at the Scottish booth at the Ethnic Enrichment Festival (“Haggis Heaven,” August 11). Claiming erroneously that this product is made the traditional way (which it is not — there are no innards in it), Ferruzza assails the poor classes of all cultures, who used the entire animal when cooking. Often, the poor would only receive the bits that Ferruzza’s privileged ancestors couldn’t stomach.

In the future, he should stay isolated in his glamorous Pitch tower office and avoid any event with the word “ethnic” associated with it.

David McBrayer

Scotsfare Haggis Pups

Kansas City, Missouri

Charles Ferruzza responds: No need to get so gaseous, Mr. McBrayer. I wrote that haggis-on-a-stick was a “brand-new twist on the Scottish delicacy” before defining haggis itself as “a traditional sausage made from sheep’s stomach lining stuffed with minced heart, liver and other tasty organs, as well as onion, suet and oatmeal.”