Letters

Peeling an Eye for Alison
Is there any possibility of printing a picture of Alison Cook in an upcoming issue? I'm dying to put a face with the name I love to hate.

What does Ms. Cook have against places where non-eclectic white folks can go and have a good time? Ms. Cook's "review" of the Confederate House ["A History Lesson," December 8] sounds as if it were written by someone who doesn't belong and is very angry at those who do.

I believe Ms. Cook should review food, stay the hell out of the social commentary business and find a place of her own where she can hang out. I'm sure there is a coffee house or two that would love to have her.

Before you label me as just another small-minded conservative, please be advised that I am a schlep with a college degree working at a conservation group for chump change.

Luke Giles
Houston

Hard Labor in the Art World
Any sentence against Joe Russo ["The Trial of Joe Russo," by Alison Cook, December 1] should include combining hard labor and community service through dismantling the atrocious Virtuoso sculpture in the Lyric Center plaza, breaking it into bits and selling the parts to benefit fleeced investors.

Victims would gain some compensation, and the city would be rid of one of the worst blights perpetrated upon it in the name of self-aggrandizing commercial development.

Rachel Dvoretzky, Paul Orkiszweski
Houston

Remembering Papa
I think the article on my father, Sig Byrd ["The Lost Houston of Sig Byrd," by David Theis, November 10] was done very well. I liked the idea of Papa in a sense becoming those he wrote about. I used to tell Mama when we had serious conversations that Papa was in many ways like a tragic figure in a Shakespeare play. I was told that Papa died in his bed, though you mentioned that Father Moss found him on the carpet ... which, by the way, was a fine Oriental rug that he meticulously kept us kids off when we were young and he always applied a generous supply of mothballs under the rug. In fact, the house always smelled like mothballs. The carpet was in very good condition. I did not save it, but rather did hold on to quite a few of Papa's articles. The last writings of Sig Byrd changed from year to year, but the manuscript that I have was entitled Go Home with the Armadillo. In later bitterness he changed the title to become To Write These Wrongs.

Thanks for sending me the copies of your Houston Press. I got a kick out of the "want ads" in the back. We don't have such a paper in Omaha. It is a rather tame city, except for a few parts of town, compared to Houston today, or the Houston of old.

Note the letterhead. [Editor's note: the letter was written on stationery from the old, daily Houston Press.] I always loved the smell of the loading docks at the Press and the Chronicle. The smell of fresh newspapers will always bring back lots of memories.

Stephen F. Byrd
Omaha, Nebraska