COURTESY WIKIPEDIA
Last week The Onion published a news item, “Museum Proudly Exhibits Picasso Shitty Enough To Be In Kansas City,” which offered what you might expect from such a piece of satire (e.g. “Art experts agreed with Simmons that the sketch would probably impress the people of Kansas City”), hitting all the right marks in a way that clearly had nothing to do with Kansas City or its Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The joke could have been set anywhere in America, besides New York, Chicago, Boston or California.
Yesterday, however, Steve Paul, editorial page editor of The Kansas City Star, answered back in a column that took the whole thing delightfully personally. “Did The Onion not know that the Nelson-Atkins possesses one of the world’s greatest works by Caravaggio?” Mr. Paul sputtered.
Enjoy. And be sure to visit the Nelson-Atkins when you’re in the region, because it really is a fine museum.