Hello. My name is Antonio Ferrelli and I am a volunteer on "Missing."

I'm writing to correct three things ["'Missing' Sensitivity: Washington, D.C., offers a very crude commemoration of 9/11," by Garance Franke-Ruta, March 20, 2002]. One is the cut and pasting of answers Louis Nevaer gave into one sentence that distorts what was said. Another is to explain my role in securing permission on the fliers. Last is how the exhibition was displayed.

1. I was present on one occasion when Garance Franke-Ruta interviewed Louis Nevaer. I recall his answers as being these: "We framed the fliers to protect them." "At some point they'll be on view in New York, and when that happens, the focus will be the condolence books. About two are being filled in every venue, so I expect to have more than 60 condolence books to put on view, which will be the first time New Yorkers will be able to read the messages from across the country." "I think the first-ever exhibition was 'Here is New York' on Prince Street in SoHo. Their first exhibition outside New York was in Chicago."

When Franke-Ruta strings them together out of context, it comes across weird: "As long as the photocopied posters remain on display on the streets of the city and within its transportation hubs, it's far too soon to pluck at New Yorkers' wounded skin and show them "framed like this for the first time...in SoHo," as Nevaer said he hopes to do." Not right at all.

2. It's my job to make sure that we have approval for every flier on view. I have written or called or e-mailed people to locate who created every flier. Sometimes it was family. Other times it was a friend. Some companies posted fliers on their own. Every flier on view (except where there is no contact information or last name) has been authorized by the author or the subject's family. (Sometimes people got together to do fliers for their friends and there are multiple creators.) There are about two dozen fliers where relatives have brought in fliers made by other relatives, saying it was OK. So I don't know why Franke-Ruta lied. She didn't speak to me. And I think she might have been confused with an explanation like, "Not every family was contacted because not every family created the fliers."

3. The exhibition was set up by David Stainback, who was educated at the Corcoran School of Art and trained at the Corcoran Museum. "Missing" was exhibited as it would have been had it been hanging in any museum or gallery.

All I can say is that many people were moved by the Washington exhibition. There were delegations from the Canadian and Japanese embassies, for example. And we were extended invitations, particularly by the ethnic media. When "Missing" opens this week in Buffalo, Senator Chuck Schumer will join the city's mayor at the opening. And we were notified that the president of Costa Rica will be present when the American ambassador opens the show there this fall.

I don't know what prompted this evil article, but I can only feel sorry for a writer who is so sloppy or so untalented that she feels compelled to seize on this as an opportunity to advance a virtually nonexistent writing career by doing this.

-- Antonio Ferrelli

Garance Franke-Ruta Responds:

I'm saddened, though not surprised, that Antonio Ferrelli responded to my story with the same level of sensitivity and attention to detail that Louis Nevaer brought to the "Missing" exhibit.

Ferrelli may well have overheard one of my phone interviews with Nevaer; however, the quotes in my story that he assails are derived from a March 8, 2002, in-person interview and not from my multiple follow-up phone interviews. Nevaer was indeed referring to his own show when he told me that "people in New York will be able to see them framed like this for the first time." Indeed, there's no way he could have been speaking of "Here is New York: A Democracy of Photographs," because that show explicitly advertises itself on its Web site as "History Unframed." And exhibition co-organizer Charles Traub says that his team made the decision to leave those photos unframed on purpose. "We wanted to hang things in as simple a way as possible," he told me. "It kept things from being a fetishized object." When I asked Nevaer where he hoped to show the missing posters, he said, "somewhere in SoHo -- Prince or West Broadway or one of the museums." Perhaps he was thinking of "Here is New York," which opened on Prince Street, when he made this comment. But he was not talking about it.

As for the question of permissions, I wish Nevaer had suggested that I speak with Ferrelli, but he did not mention him or suggest putting me in touch with him. Had Nevaer referred me to him, I would have happily included his comments in my story instead of Nevaer's. As it was, Nevaer told me "We contacted everybody. From some families we haven't heard back from." When I asked him how many he'd heard from, he said: "About 180 of 200 on display in D.C." He never mentioned, during the course of our multiple interviews, seeking or securing permission from friends or employers who had created fliers. I do not know why Nevaer neglected to mention Ferrelli or the facts he brings to light.

As for David Stainback, the Artists' Museum states on its Web site that "The goal of the Artists' Museum is to provide…an alternative space for experienced professionals who are interested in organizing their own exhibit. Distinct from the concept behind cooperative galleries as well as from more traditional galleries, the Artists' Museum…allows exhibitors to retain freedom of expression through creative and marketing control. The artists make the important decisions such as when they would prefer to show, how to exhibit their work, whether to have a solo or group show, and which body of work they would like to exhibit." In short, Nevaer and the other "Missing" organizers bore responsibility for organizing the exhibit -- and not Stainback, though he kindly donated space to them.

"Missing" was billed, in the materials Nevaer handed to me, as "a tribute to the people of Washington." I don't doubt that individuals from the Canadian and Japanese embassies were moved. But the question I was looking at was how the exhibit looked to and felt for a person from Washington. And like many Washingtonians, I saw the Missing posters in situ in New York last summer and fall. The posters on display in "Missing" were, now as then, upsetting and sad enough on their own. Combining them with the cheap white wine and little pretzels and music and happy-hour crowds standard at any Washington opening yoked these violent fragments together with a normal Friday evening to create a cognitively dissonant and disconcerting experience. It made the posters seem forlorn and forgotten by the attendees -- who came primarily to look at the unrelated paintings on display -- rather than cherished and remembered. I thought the posters deserved better.

-- Garance Franke-Ruta

In Defense of Bush's Buffness

Hey, lay off Bush's upper-body strength ["Tapped: The Middle East needs fences; therapeutic cloning needs progressive support; Bush needs upper body strength; and more," April 1, 2002"]. Five bench presses of your own body weight is not exactly Olympic level but it's respectable, and for a 50-year-old man (or whatever his age is) it's really very good. I'm 42 and am slightly slower than Bush as a runner at the moment (though not for long, I hope), and I hope I could do as well as he can with the weights.

Bush's athleticism is the only thing about him that I really admire.

-- Donald Johnson