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.