Fast Company: What's that Arch-Looking Thing Down There?

No matter what the subject, "letters to the editor" usually manifest one of the most unattractive communications forms known to language-capable animals -- the quibble.

So Jack Flack enjoyed watching the leaders of three arts organizations get loud, proud and downright... uh, artful in smacking Fast Company for dissing their city as "too normal for its own good."

"The notion that the St. Louis area--which has produced countless icons such as Chuck Berry, Miles Davis, T.S. Eliot, Sheryl Crow, and Yogi Berra, among others--is choking on Midwestern blandness is belied by so much evidence to the contrary that we issue a challenge: We invite your editors and hipsters of all varieties to take a firsthand look at this city. If they're not impressed by our cultural ferment--and by the quality and profusion of the arts and the way they permeate life in this city--we'll eat a baloney sandwich for them, on white bread, of course, with mayonnaise. Then maybe we'll wash it down with a nice glass of milk and some apple pie with vanilla ice cream. While they're here, we hope they'll note our economic turnaround, including a nationally lauded $4 billion--plus center-city revitalization."

Despite grouping an ordinary pop start with Chuck Berry and Miles Davis (who is actually from East St. Louis, the long-struggling stepchild across the river), the letter is far more effective than most rebuttals for two reasons.

1. It doesn't just rely on content to make its point, as the gleefully obnoxious tone itself does more to shatter the blandness accusations than almost any facts or data could.

2. The letter closes by questioning the authority of the magazine to judge "fast" cities by chastising FC crew as coastal elitists too lazy to stop by to update their stereotypes.

"Be brave. Dare to experience at close range what you've been flying over. We promise that confronting outworn stereotypes will be weird and wonderful."