Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Tiptoe through the mailbag with glee

Scott Dickensheets

Friday, March 20, 1998 | 9:34 a.m.

CHECKING THE mailbag these days is like reaching into a bag of scorpions. Yowch! But that's the price you pay for having an interactive, reader-friendly column like this one.

And speaking of friendly readers, here's Marilyn O. Jones: "Poor Scott Dickensheets," she writes. Uh oh -- I don't think she's referring to my financial status. Rather, she's a partisan of the Las Vegas Art Museum, one of several who disliked my critique of LVAM's Bob Guccione exhibit. In a letter she headlines "Scotty the Impaler," Jones diagnoses the source of my pique. "Sounds like he's been sucking on too many sour grapes." Yowch!

Let's not force Marilyn to do this alone. Vivian Woods, come on down! "I have been wanting to write regarding someone at the SUN who writes derogatory things about the Las Vegas Art Museum," she types. "No facts -- just his own warped opinion. Does he have credentials as an art critic?" she wonders. Alas, no, just my own warped opinion and "Scotty the Impaler" on my business cards.

Whether my wrongheadedness arises from tart fruit or an appalling lack of credentials, Jones and Woods are united on one point: LVAM has volunteers. Good, capable ones. Jones: "Volunteers have provided thousands of hours of hard work ..." Woods: "Hundreds of volunteers have worked very hard ..."

Point taken. My column said nothing about the volunteers, whose commitment I don't doubt. But, when I was there, anyway, the museum wasn't exhibiting volunteers, just dull Guccione paintings.

And good intentions aren't the same as good art, nor do they compensate for bad art. How should one judge an art museum if not by the art in the museum? It does no good to pretend that poor art is suddenly suitable because it's displayed in a likable institution.

This attitude isn't limited to LVAM. At every strata of the arts community you can find an assumption of clubbiness -- we're all in this together! -- and a corresponding tetchy-squealiness when someone dissents. And dissension is taken personally. Someone's vanity is wounded. Until the arts can take it on the chin, Las Vegas will remain in a cultural adolescence.

Whew! Is it hot in here or is it just me?

One caller said my column made her friend want to visit the museum. "Everyone there will be in a tizzy, and those people look really funny when they're in a tizzy." An e-mailer, noting Guccione's despair at not being taken seriously, writes, "Van Gogh had the same lament and cut off his ear. Maybe Guccione should cut off his ..." Double yowch!

Not all my correspondence regarded the museum. Someone named VGC, a "reluctantly admiring reader," was moved by my column on dream interpretation to ask, "Have you ever taken niacin? It helps you remember your dreams." At last! Maybe now I'll remember what happens after the zebras stampede through my house. VGC suggests 250 mg an hour before bed, although sometimes he takes 500. "But that may be a bit too vivid for you." And few things are more pathetic than a lifestyle columnist who can't handle his niacin. Look out! He's crazy on vitamins again!

VGC's letter also poses a philosophical riddle I can't stop grappling with: Is it better to have a reluctantly admiring reader or a reluctantly reading admirer? I sense another long, dark tizzy of the soul this evening. Quick, some niacin!