Readers' love-hate relationship with Rick Griffith

"Man of Letters," Joel Warner, January 6

Amid the stinking pile of Jerry Springer-esque stories this paper tends to lean on to bring in the advertising dollars (among my personal favorites: Crack whore turns angel turns back to crack whore, but now with a heart o' gold; or the overplayed scene of bad-boy gangster kills entire family of innocent bystanders, but the city of Denver should feel bad for him because his mommy and daddy didn't love him enough), it was a refreshing pause to read the feature on designer/letterpress printer Rick Griffith.

Huzzah to you for rubber-stamping a story about a productive member of society for a change.

Kudos to your fine feature-writing staff for having the opportunity to write about someone worthy of reading about. And further kudos for always being able to sew a silk purse out of a bedbug-infested, flophouse mattress of a story with the deft click-clack of the laptop keyboard.

And congratulations above all else to Mr. Griffith. Beyond his obvious design talents, I find Rick to be always dapper, quick with engaging rapport, a good tipper and an all-around good egg.

Thank you for in advance for more stories like these.

Spencer R. Madison Denver

If there's an arrogant, strutting male within smelling distance of the Westword offices, they'll find a way to feature him between the covers. How long did we have to wade through Jason Sheehan's cock-of-the-walk preening? Basically until someone else believed he was all that.

The latest is the narcissistic Rick Griffith, who never met a person he couldn't project his vision of himself onto. That former students tell us they felt empowered by him just says how successful he was at making them think he was stroking them, not himself. It was the latter, folks; he doesn't even know you're alive.

The sadness some of us feel is that he's paid to be a teacher, when he's really just self-aggrandizing. But, hey, the crappy education you're getting in the art department at the University of Colorado Denver is probably leavened by a little entertainment now and again.

Noanodyne

Posted at westword.com

"Top Ramen," Laura Shunk, January 6

On behalf of our little town of Niwot, thank you for covering one of our hidden gems. I live here, but I didn't even know about Sachi Sushi's ramen. I am in love with their chirashi. Thanks for the tip, and come back and see us soon!

Heather Morgan Niwot

I have only had the sushi offerings at Sachi Sushi, and personally I find them much better than at Sushi Tora and at half the price. They also offer Osaka-style pressed sushi. This place has a lot to offer besides ramen, which I am looking forward to trying. Thank you for shining a light.

Laura Saffioti

Boulder

"Mind Games," Juliet Wittman, January 13

Juliet Wittman's review of Next to Normal should have begun with SPOILER ALERT.  I won't elaborate, but she must have gone into the play knowing the entire dramatic arc, because the development and the big surprise in the second act she treats as a foregone conclusion. For me and, I suspect, most of the audience, the second act was not only revelatory, but also highly cathartic. The audible sniffles and the standing ovation of the audience the night I saw the production would seem to bear that out.  Hope shoots its tendrils organically from the despair of trauma and confusion, making Next to Normal ultimately a dramatic — and a musical — triumph.

Jimi Bernath

Englewood