Rather than post one of those confessional essays about why I’m quitting Facebook (which would probably only last a short while), I chopped up my notes and turned them into the poem above. I don’t have any grand points to make about society or modern communication, but I wanted to somehow give voice to the general social media anxiety I’ve been feeling lately.
Last night I slept for almost 11 hours, albeit with frequent interruption. At one point, I’m not sure when, the baby fussed. At 5 in the morning, we woke up to a rattling at the bathroom window. Jenny got up to check it out and saw a cardinal had become trapped in the bamboo. Eventually it flapped its way free, but by that point we were both awake. Jenny told me a new baby name idea. I told her the exact coordinates of my dream at the moment I’d been woken up by the bird. We were all sitting around a table, I think at Harry’s in Westport, and I was beatboxing the 8-bit underworld theme music from Super Mario Bros 3. In my dream I was impressed with my abilities, and I’m pretty sure those around me were, too. But in the non-light of day it all seemed a little ridiculous. We went back to bed for a bit, and before it was light I heard the three owls. They’ve been hanging around our backyards for weeks now. When one hoots, the others follow, and a circular dialogue ensues that’s soothing to lie and listen to. Still only half-awake this morning, I imagined they were the Strigiformation of past, future and present. Wise, but not judgmental. Only attentive, soft, poetic.
triptych of recent travels through new york, the sand dunes and larned, kansas
With so many people checking out my old Zambezi Zinger post all of a sudden, I thought I’d link to another exploration of a bygone (yet still extant) Kansas City icon: the former Great Ape House at the Kansas City Zoo. Read the full piece here.
“What does interest me about Kansas City International Airport is its atmosphere — or lack thereof. With some level of renovation almost a certainty, I resolved to explore the airport’s vibe and personality before any big changes took place. The best way to do this, I decided, would be to try something few sane individuals have ever attempted. I wanted to go to the airport — not to catch a flight or pick someone up — but simply to hang out.”
Read all about my adventures at KCI over at Kawsmouth.
Welcome, traveler
When it comes to sheer originality of correspondence, I have to hand it to my daughter, Ruby, who composed this letter the week she turned one year old. The marker was added by her mother, but the message itself is all hers. How she managed to summon those characters on my typewriter, I have no idea, but I’m impressed at the sophistication of the typography, the economy of language, the poetic repetition of the “c” key, the little star toward the end. Normally I would consider posting my child’s work slightly exploitative, but it was written on my machine, after all, and in lieu of a post of my own, I thought this might be more fun to read instead.
I have a real problem with segways. On the downtown sidewalks outside my office, public safety officers and security personnel are always zipping around on them like a paramilitary force, doing ridiculous figure eights in the park as they rendezvous with each other and talk into their walkie-talkies. The other day one of them almost ran into me as I turned to step into my building. I shot him a look that said, “why don’t you go ride that thing off a bridge?” and I think he got the message even if he didn’t heed it. I can’t blame him for that, though — those things cost more than a used car. Several times in the parking garage I’ve seen a segway plugged into the wall and have had to talk myself out of stealing it. I’d probably get fired over it, but sometimes you have to make a statement. I made a joke about segways on twitter which said the proper spelling of the device is to transpose the “w” and the “g.” That prompted dozens of response tweets from LGBT groups, most of which said that, although they usually don’t condone that kind of humor, in this case it was totally worth it. I made another joke comparing segways to fat girls, but that did not go over so well. I blame my lack of sensitivity on a bad case of PTSD (post-traumatic segway disorder) brought on by all those close brushes with calamity caused by wreckless segway pilots. Then again, who knows what the future holds. Perhaps in my old age I will form a gang of Hell’s Angels rejects called the Segway Saints, which will tool around picking up litter and robbing ATMs. Maybe I’ll get a segway for Christmas and/or my birthday and will be delighted. But that’s unlikely. In the meantime, I’m hoping the Kansas City Segway corps gets redeployed elsewhere. I can just imagine President Obama or Secretary Kerry’s next speech on Syria announcing that “there won’t be any boots on the ground, but there will be segways.”
On Wednesday over lunch I decided to walk east, a direction I almost never go, and for good reason — there’s pretty much nothing there. Once you get past city hall, the federal courthouse, and all the government buildings, you’ve got little else besides a highway, a few old churches, the Greyhound Station, and a bunch of industrial lots and increasingly bedraggled pedestrians. On the eastern edge of downtown, though, at 9th and McGee, is one of the city’s most interesting buildings, the former Pickwick Hotel and Union Bus Depot. The building is in pretty decent shape, except the clock has been stuck at 4:25 for as long as I can remember, reminiscent of Walter Benjamin’s descriptions of time coming to a stop, a critical moment for the historical materialist “in which he himself is writing history.” My friend Nathan does a great job of describing Benjamin’s notions of history in his meticulously researched and thematically soundtracked podcast. In fact, it was Nathan who first told me about this unique Kansas City landmark, which I’m sure factored into his own writing and understanding of time, philosophy and the city. All I could think of while watching birds fly in and out of the broken clock face where the 7 used to be, is how surreal and gothic the former Pickwick Hotel looked even at noon on a bright summer weekday. With all plans to renovate it cast aside and no visible designation as a historical monument, the frozen clock tower stands as an intermediary between the commerce and bustle of downtown and the mostly vacant stage set of its eastern hinterlands. Its stately yet suspended-in-time presence manages to effortlessly embody a future that awaits its surroundings, and which awaits us all.
I wrote several blog posts in 2011 about Woodside Village, a building project in my community, and this last piece is my attempt to move on from the issue and wish everyone the best. Read more below the fold. Or better yet go sneak into a swimming pool and take a cool arty picture like this one I shot at Woodside last night.
Received this SMS from Botschaftler last week:
Bitte beachten Sie auf das folgende Dispatch aus Bonn. Der infamous late-night Lokal und Konsulat unserer Organisation, “Blow Up”, macht künftig dicht, bzw., zieht um in eine gr?ere und bestimmt völlig beschissene Lokation, was deutlich auf das Ende unserer heiligen Tradition, nämlich “Explodieren,” hinweist.
Adam, thanks for the message and hope you drank at least one Kölsch and one Pils each for each of us. With those little .2 pours and a 5 a.m. curtain call, noch eins never hurt anybody.
Photo by Jennifer Wetzel, summer 2011
James and Laura and Gage built this. I just came over to inspect and feel dwarfed by the massive size of this thing. It fell apart only about 20 minutes later.
Because it’s been so long since I web-logged anything personal, and because this was such a memorable year, here’s a little pictorial of 2012 from Jennifer and me.
Yesterday I was excited to see an article in the Kansas City Star about the closing of Westwood’s legendary Apple Market grocery store, which I’ve been going to since it was called United Super back in the early ’80s. City officials have informed us that the store will be closing soon to make way for a new Walmart Neighborhood Market, but no one I’ve talked to seems to know the exact details.
The column, written by Ink photo director Jennifer Hack, had some nice descriptions of the grocery store’s atmosphere, with its wobbly shopping carts and depressed cashiers. The high notes in Mariah Carey’s “Dream Lover” were barely audible over the loud hum of the prehistoric fluorescent lights is just a great line.
But in true Ink style, the article contained absolutely zero reporting, quotes or facts about the store’s closing, instead detouring into an eight-paragraph (!) soliloquy about the courage it takes to wear a bikini in public. That’s unfortunate, because there are a lot of interesting human interest stories at play in the closing of this notably outmoded grocery store.
If Hack had taken the time to ask the cashiers why they look so depressed, she might have learned that some of them are single mothers who have recently learned they won’t be able to transfer to the business taking its place. She might have also mentioned that the new store will be a Walmart, which was reported by the Business Journal back in early May but strangely absent from this piece. What will these cashiers do next?
She could have talked to the store’s long-time owners, who were known for giving discounts to shoppers buying food for their church and school functions. Walmart will undoubtedly be a cleaner and more modern facility, but it’s hard to imagine it having the same handmade signs, off-brands and personal quirks that made Apple Market what it was. Will having a corporate owned store instead of a locally owned business affect the community at all, or will anyone even notice? Would be interesting to hear what Apple Market owner Alan Wiest has to say after running the place for 30 years.
The author could have looked into the history of the place and discovered that in 2003, Apple Market was the site of Westwood’s only murder, when store clerk Ray Ninemire was gunned down one Friday morning by a man reportedly dressed as Abraham Lincoln. Ninemire, who spent hours drawing signs with folksy slogans like “Park it, Margaret, let’s Apple Market!,” was shot after coming to the aid of a female clerk. A large case file sits on the shelves of the Westwood police department, but the killer was never found. Are they still looking for him, or is the case officially closed?
In my opinion, this kind of stuff would have been much more interesting than Ms. Hack’s lengthy confession that she’s traded in her two-piece for a tankini. But this is the Kansas City Star in the age of Ink, when columns read more like Facebook posts than news stories, and any real reporting is apparently discouraged.
Ms. Hack seems like a nice, thoughtful person, and I wish her the best with her new column even if it seems like she’s just trying to be the new Jenee so far. She might like shopping at Apple Market because nobody there knew her name. But to get a real story, there’s still no substitute for actually talking to people.
When is this heat wave gonna end? I’ve been indoors so much I finally decided to put up a blog post. There’s always plenty I could write about here, but I have been making more of an effort to catch up with people individually. The way we share information about our lives has changed so rapidly since I started blogging, and I’ve found it’s best to take a step back to assess what’s worth sharing and what lessons and events are best experienced more quietly.
Big news first: Jennifer and I successfully reproduced, and our daughter Ruby Celeste is 12 weeks old today. Figuring out how to be a parent has been lots of fun so far, and we’ve enjoyed introducing her to friends and family.
In our free time we also launched a literary website called Kawsmouth, which I encourage you to visit. The idea sprang from my longtime wish to create a print journal, but we decided to start by publishing online in order to build up a readership and a body of content. So far we’ve been really impressed with people’s contributions, and we’re already looking forward to the next few monthly additions. If you have any questions just write us at kawsmouth (at) gmail.
Speaking of writing, Robert Josiah Bingaman was kind enough to invite me to take part in “The Frontier,” Charlotte Street Foundation’s 15th anniversary multimedia exhibit at the Paragraph Gallery that just ended yesterday. My contribution was a mimeograph-resembling letter of sorts addressing the creative experience in Kansas City from both an insider and outsider’s perspective. It’s online, but I think it reads better in print, so let me know if you’d like a copy.
The image above is a zoom-in of a mangelexemplar I printed just before the show’s opening night. I almost like this one better than the more legible version, because the double exposure creates a level of obfuscation that I’m slightly more comfortable with.
I’m still working as an assistant editor at Universal Uclick, where I edit comics, text columns and puzzles and serve as a liaison between the creators and client newspapers. The main site we post content to is called GoComics.com, and while it’s free to check out, you can read the site ad-free and get an amazing variety of comics emailed to you each day for just $11.88 a year.
The picture at the very top was taken this week in Westwood, Kansas. We didn’t want to start any fires so we settled for some mammoth smoke cylinders to celebrate our independence, creating a misty, sylvan atmosphere similar to this Revolutionary War scene painted by Wyeth, which we saw this week at the Nelson.
The Wimbledon final has just resumed from a rain delay, so that does it for this installment. I feel super lucky to be living here and am enjoying watching my friends and family get older and start to take on new challenge and responsibilities, from the grandiose to the quotidian. Thanks for staying in touch, and hope to see you soon.
sincerely,
LDHW
Dear ______ ,
One of the things I like the most about Easter is that it’s a floating holiday, a movable feast following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
Last year we followed the Paschal full moon through the Jemaa el-Fnaa, Marrakesh’s main square and one of the most lively, head-spinning places I’ve ever been. The square is home to all kinds of sensory stimulation, as described in the liner notes to this particularly sublime Sublime Frequencies release:
By day it serves as a venue where magicians, fortune tellers, herbalists, acrobats, monkey handlers, snake charmers, dentists, astrologers, numerologists, and sorcerers create intriguing displays of bewitching spectacle. By night, the square transforms into a symphony of mystical brotherhoods and night musicians…
We didn’t have near enough time to properly explore Morocco or join any mystical brotherhoods, but the walk to our Riad in the video above encapsulates the suspended mania and fleeting quiet moments that made up our week there, which preceded travels in Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany before moving back here last May.
This April, I’m joining Jennifer on a different kind of journey. As I may or may not have already told you (we’ve been trying to do so in person as much as possible), we’re expecting our first kid in just two weeks. Jenn has been feeling well and we are both excited.
Friends have asked me how expecting a child has changed my perspective, and the obvious answer is that I haven’t experienced anything yet. But on a small level, I do feel somehow reinvested in the species, as if re-attuned to the values and qualities of childhood, such as curiosity, openness and an appreciation for life.
(Of course, the spring weather plays a part in that as well.)
One of the biggest reasons we feel confident that we’ll be able to do a decent job parenting is the support, warmth and wisdom passed on to us by our family, friends and colleagues. For that we are extremely grateful.
The next two weeks will be interesting. We’ll be sure to keep in touch, and I look forward to seeing or hearing more from you soon.
sincerely,
LDHW
Roanoke, Karnes, Saxony
Analog blogging. In this case transcribing the non-linear memoirs of a mythical Kansas/Citian relative.
This painting by Francis Picabia was one of my favorites from a recent visit to the Chicago Art Institute. The Queen of Sheba tracings over the Mediterranean landscape look like the cover of a Poets of Rhythm album, or a lost soul-jazz LP.
I also liked “Farm in Duivendrecht,” this 1916 painting by Piet Mondrian.
The painting’s caption says Mondrian (who went on to paint those modern square-and-lines compositions) was inspired by the flat topography of his native Holland. Which all of us here can relate to. To conclude the trio, here’s an image Jenn shot only seven kilometers from that farm, almost a hundred years later.
Hope you can make it out.
Late October looking for somewhere to throw disc in Volkspark Rehberge, where I’d heard there was a course but couldn’t find anything. Eventually I found two practice holes about 100m apart from each other. It made a good course in itself if you didn’t mind throwing back and forth. At one point I ventured toward the corner of the park and launched the disc from a mound in which some kind of plaque was planted, a trio of old men on a nearby bench staring as if to say “was zum Teufel macht er da?” Our subsequent walk up the ridge followed a path to a beautiful fountain — a monument to the founders of Volkspark Rehberge.
Beyond that there was a slope that — had it been part of a course — would have surely been considered among the most beautiful fairways in European disc golf. Sadly, there was no pin in sight.
But with a green like that, who needs an actual basket?
After hijacking my own blog with some civic discussions and brief peeks into how money controls even the smallest governmental bodies here in America, I wanted to get back to my roots and look at a few photographs Jennifer took on a recent trip to Boston and Providence.
Statue in downtown Boston. In the first one it looks like the lady is crying out in pain at the bird pooping in her eye socket, or maybe even tilting her head back in an orgiastic gasp of pleasure. The next one looks like Statue’s been caught reveling in the streams of bird shit and has gotten all defensive about the intrusion of privacy. But after a moment I realized it’s probably two different statues, because how could a statue lower its head, change its expression and maybe even switch its gender?
Bikers in Boston Common. Yesterday I saw a biker on 43rd in Kansas City near Brainblow Blvd. almost get run off the road by an aggressive lane-switching car. Shit like that makes me want to start a biker vigilante campaign — follow people like that driver home and, I don’t know, talk to them about safe driving + sharing the road. It’s a slow process but I think the more bikers you see on the road the more drivers will learn to live with it and even think about taking part themselves. In the meantime, honk if you’re an asshole.
A nice image from our hurricane party at the Hollenbecks’ in Providence, Rhode Island, the night Irene blew through town in its weakened but still blustery state. Providence was spared damage beyond a lot of downed limbs and power lines, but our power went out at 9 that morning and for a while sitting in bed listening to the gusts of wind looking out the window at the bending trees and swinging power lines there was a brief sense of oh man here it comes. The night before I sat at the computer and listened to this song and earlier that day Brian and his friends in the Fox Point Rounders finished their bluegrass set in a flurry with a rousing rendition of “Goodnight Irene” while people scattered from the farmer’s market to avoid the sudden downpour. We drank a lot of dark ‘n’ stormies over the weekend, which is dark rum and Gosling’s ginger beer garnished with lime. And we lit a lot of candles. As a wise hurricane survivor once said: You never know how many candles you have until a hurricane hits and you start looking in closets and drawers and find out you have a lot candles.
The rest of the photos Jenn took in Boston and Providence are here. Stop back next week for more fresh material here on the modern day lucubrations.
An appalling lack of sidewalks in this little city. Nowhere to walk but front yards or the middle of the street. The BBQ joint has a line out the door but isn’t open on Sunday. From the forested corners of the park, a chorus of cheers from the late evening pack of disc golfers. Someone has drilled a hole in one. I’m too faded to drive, which is why I’m on foot. The plywood firecracker shacks have been taken down and put into storage. Elsewhere kids lounge in the heavily vignetted decadence of fake Polaroid sunsets. Here, the workweek is just one long, boring flash mob. The construction crew lowers the cornerstone to the brand new CVS, a nice enough location they probably won’t have to lock the condoms up. A beautiful mural is painted on the wall of a parking lot that no one ever parks in. The word “ROSEDALE” and some animals and plants and people and the Memorial Arch opening up to a rainbow utopia. Beauty, as envisioned and painted by children. Next door the neighbors fight the nightly battle of the basses: rap vs. Latin. When one guy refuses to turn down his subs, the other one turns on his own car alarm and blocks his neighbor’s car in — handling the situation like an adult. On Tuesday night the lightning storm blew out the transformer. It sizzled for a minute until it exploded blue and prettier than anything I saw on Fourth of July. On Fisher there’s a little place for sale on a big lot, but it’s more like you’d be buying a really nice big tree that comes with a crappy house. Mid July and the Mimosa trees are in full bloom, pink silk feathers carpeting the little sloped lawns on Minnie. Vacation Bible School is over and the empty church bus is parked across from McDonalds. The man in a tank top and matted hair staggers by the Jiffy Lube shaking his head vigorously and talking to himself. He doesn’t look crazy as much as preoccupied. The lack of sidewalks doesn’t seem to bother him.
Once people find out you’re from Kansas, they always want to know if you’ve ever seen a tornado. Thankfully, I never have. But after the May 22 tornado that tore through Joplin, I’ve definitely seen the damage it can do.
After photographing the damage in the days following the tornado, Jennifer put together this slide show depicting the damage the storm did to her hometown. I typed up a few of my own first and second-hand impressions of the aftermath below.
In the six weeks since the tornado, the debris is getting cleared and the city is doing some rezoning before the rebuilding begins in earnest. There are already leaves growing on the twisted remains of the trees, which looks unusual but is nonetheless a small reminder that life goes on.
Thank you to everyone who has dedicated their time, labor and resources to helping the people in Joplin. I know they greatly appreciate it.
* * *
On 1-44, the giant brown sign to George Washington Carver is turned upside-down. Coming up the crest of the hill you see a giant American flag lowered to half-mast, a torn strand of its fabric blowing as if in slow motion.
* * *
Aaron and Pam were at a movie when the announcement sounded to leave the theater and take shelter. They were driving by the high school when the telephone polls and trees around them started falling, which I imagine looking like the approach of The Nothing from the “Neverending Story” or the Smoke Monster from “Lost.” As the storm began to devour the landscape in front of them, Doll threw the car into reverse, weaving around debris and crashed cars until they got out and ran for shelter.
* * *
It doesn’t matter how much you’ve seen on TV or in photos — nothing can prepare you for your first visit to the disaster area. After only a couple of blocks you feel like you’ve entered an impossibly vast and detailed disaster film set. The trees that are left are macabre sculptures, mattress linings and car parts impaled on their bark-stripped upper branches. Where you used to be able to see only a few blocks you can now see several miles. Dan and I drove through in his truck at dusk, just before curfew. Most everyone had gone home, wherever that might be now, but one man stood in the middle of his lot staring off to the south. Dan offered me a beer from the back seat and said why don’t you grab one for me, too. I don’t think anyone is going to mind.
* * *
At night a wall of police cars and armored vehicles blocks off entry to the disaster area. We began to refer to the once perfectly normal patch of neighborhoods as the “demilitarized zone,” or — in the fashion of Tarkovsky’s “Stalker,” just “The Zone.” To get downtown from the south, you have to drive all the way around the zone on either side. Not that you would want to go through the disaster area at night anyway. Too dark, too spooky, too tragic, too soon.
* * *
Aaron and Casey nailed a 40-foot American flag to the front of what remained of the house — a crafty way to discourage looting and be patriotic at the same time. A man walking by with his wife stopped and pulled out his phone. “What are you doing?” the woman asked her husband. “Just taking a picture of some real Americans,” he said.
* * *
The week before the storm I called Cool Guitars on 26th to see if they still had that Regal guitar in stock, a resonator guitar that used to belong to the owner. They said they had several Regals in stock, so I set aside a good chunk of my first paycheck toward purchasing one. After the storm we drove by and saw their sign but no trace of the store itself. I have no idea what happened to all those guitars.
* * *
A sampling of messages painted on houses:
“Down but not out”
“You loot, we shoot”
“It’s not a parade!”
“Stay classy, Joplin”
“Put down your camera, lend a hand”
“F5? FU!”
* * *
Driving down Main Street wondering where Main Street went.
* * *
In a video I’ve seen reposted several times, a group of amateur storm chasers drive parallel to the storm’s path from miles away, marveling at the “monster tornado” moving over the city. I’ve got it all on film, one guy keeps repeating; the camera’s impartial recording a proxy for what he can’t believe he’s seeing with his own eyes. The fascination takes a dark turn when they drive back into town on South Main only to find everything around it destroyed. “This is ridiculous,” one of them says, sounding scared. One thing to watch a funnel dancing from a distance, another to look a tornado in the face.
* * *
Joplin High School is destroyed, but the sign on the corner of the lot has been turned into an inspirational shrine. An “H” and an “E” have been added to either side of the only remaining letters in the city’s name, the “OP.” The “HOPE high school” sign is presided over by life-sized wooden sculptures of eagles — a tribute to the school’s community and mascot.
* * *
Jenn’s family salvaged everything they could from her Grandma’s house by the end of the first week, but the grandkids decided to go out Saturday morning to try and find her wooden statue of the laughing Buddha. Don’t worry, Dan said, it’s one of the first things I grabbed. But even with Buddha saved and cleaned, we still craved a totem of recovery, of salvage-tion. After seeing the decapitated Papasan statue on a shelf, we dug through the debris to try and find his head. Miraculously, Jessica found it after only a few minutes. It’s in good shape except for the missing beard. But that can be glued back on again.
lucas wetzel 