Hello, tortoise

A story of magical animals and staying up late

PART 1
The other night, I heard the squall of the stray tabby cat that hangs out around my back staircase. That is nothing new, but this time I heard something different in the cat's voice that caused me to step out back and see what was the matter.

To my surprise, a multicolored tortoise was perched on the back deck, with the orange kitty circling it cautiously. The tortoise's shell was giving off lights of many colors, which I assumed was just the reflection from the flashlight I always carry with me in the late evening hours.

Being a kind and hospitable soul, I held the door open slightly, allowing the tortoise to make its way inside. My visiting friend Andrew Giessel, a Harvard man, came to get a closer view of the specimen, and we took turns examining it and turning it around gently in the palm of our hands.

It was a fascinating creature!

PART 2
While making what he assumed would be one-sided small talk with the animal, which did not appear to be native to Jackson County, Missouri, Giessel discovered that the shimmering lights on the tortoise's shell were arranging to form messages. Astounding! The tortoise told us her name was Cassiopeia, and that she could see 30 minutes into the future.

Then I realized: of course! This was the magical tortoise from "Neverending Story" author Michael Ende's classic book, Momo. Unlike Cassandra, the similarly named ancient Grecian times who was doomed to see the future but never be believed, Cassiopeia the Tortoise's suggestions were always heeded by Momo in her quest to save the hour-lilies from the nefarious Men in Grey.

PART 3
The three of us stayed up until early in the morning, talking about all kinds of things. We talked about Camillo Golgi's discovery that staining nervous cells with silver ions can allow humans to see neurons, a fascinating process called the "black reaction" that scientests don't fully understand even today. We talked about balancing creative endeavors with full-time employment, and the importance of bringing good ideas to life rather than letting them stagnate and disappear in the back catalogs of the brain. We talked about Jose Gonzales, and how strange it is that a Scandinavian musician would have such a Mexican-sounding last name.

In fact, Giessel and I got so carried away in our conversation that we didn't even notice our friend had disappeared until we heard mysteriously melodic tones from inside the apartment. Turns out the tortoise was a wicked hand with the Fender Rhodes, and an especially big fan of Ramsey Lewis. Who knew!

AFTERMATH:

We listened to the tortoise play tunes on the softly amplified piano, drinking several of the fine microbrews I keep in the icebox for such occasions. At one point, during an especially soulful number, I asked Cassiopiea "What's the secret, tortoise?" Instantly, the words "More Haste, Less Speed" appeared on its shell. We took this as an endorsement of its tasteful but not show-offy playing style, as a variation of the old Chelonian "slow and steady" mantra, and as a suggestion that "it's not the fastest way from point A to point B that you should take, it's the best way."

We sat on the floor and listened until the songs and lights from the tortoise drew us into a sleeplike trance. When we awoke, we realized that Cassiopiea was but an inanimate garden ornament I had purchased the day before at Midwest Surplus in North Lawrence for $7.99, and that this wishful account was really just another delusional blog post sleepwritten at the late hour of 3:26 AM.

The book, however, is real, and much more imaginative and spiritually rewarding than just about any story out there. Those more interested in Momo can check out the Wikipedia article about her, and even read the entire text in English on this Russian site, although buying a used copy of the book and sharing it with others is much more fun.

bush pilot, was hast du getan?

By now, many of you have probably seen the grainy video footage of German Chancellor Angela Merkel quickly rebuffing George Bush's awkward attempt to give her a neck massage at a global summit. If you haven't, there are YouTube vids aplenty depicting this embarassing scene.

The maneuver has been jokingly referred to as a "sex attack" in the blogosphere, but few folks have actually delved deep enough to learn the real reasons Bush did what he did. Fortunately, and with a little help from the foreign press, I think I may have figured it out.

The answer, oddly enough, can be found in an amazing video report done by German news network NDR some time ago. I'm not generally a fan of circulating Bush-related humor, for the simple fact that there is so much of it and it's all rather depressing once you stop laughing and realize he is our elected leader. However, the "Bush Pilot" feature is a cut above the rest.

My theory is that the "Bush Pilot" (also known as Johannes Schlüter) has been pent up in the "Kopfpit" for much too long now, and couldn't resist showing some physical affection for the female leader of his home nation. To see the NDR clip about the Bush Pilot with English subtitles, klicken sie bitte mal hier.

haikus and pictures, July 1-6

Monument, Colorado

Cop ahead, go slow
the road to the trailer park
rife with alfalfa

Denver

Yesterday's okays
from paper politicians
who have lost their hands

Horseshoe Tavern, Hays, KS

cycle, leather, gun
and my dog in the basket
what more could I want?

Vine Street, Hays

Al's Chickenette
where a salad consists of
iceberg and crackers

Colorado Springs

giraffe in brown pants
why's he wear red suspenders?
to keep his pants up

Circle 8 Motel

the soda motto
that will be carved on my grave
"drink Coke, play again"

Cripple Creek valley

Driving my white bus
over the mountains and through
the schoolgrounds of sludge

Cripple Creek heights

strip-mined mountainsides
like a Tower of Babble
that's built in reverse

the old mine

lightbeams piercing through
the holes in my blacksmith's shack
now it's not so black

Golden Gate Canyon State Park

1828
The home of Anders Tallman
forgotten valley

music business

G.B.'s record store
Jacob Baum bought music here
when he was a child

Joplin, France

giant Jennybros
girlzilla in a striped dress
in la tour eiffel

follow-ups

I'll start with the good news first. Jennifer's photo of some guy looking out a window in an ivy-covered parking garage was the runner-up in the Urban Photo Safari Contest, which 25 photographers or teams took part in. There are a lot of good photos on the contestant site that provide a neat view of Kansas City landmarks.

In sad news, I received word today that the brown bear named JJ1, or "Bruno" as he has been referred to by the European press, has been killed. Politicians and animal lovers alike were upset by the outcome. According to Yahoo! News, Tony Scherer, the mayor of Schliersee, the Bavarian town near Spitzingsee lake, where Bruno was killed, disagreed with the actions.

"The death penalty has been abolished," Scherer said. "This bear didn't do anything bad — for me it is absolutely unnecessary for him to have been shot."

I first wrote about Bruno on this site several weeks ago, excitedly suggesting that JJ1's adventures would make great fodder for a song, screenplay or poem. However, I can't say I didn't anticipate a tragic end to the saga. As usual, society and squeamish sheep farmers are to blame. However, I also hold the media partially responsible. The media's chosen nickname of "Bruno" invokes the unpleasant traits of brutality, belligerence, as well as the name of Popeye's nemesis. Bruno also suffers an unfortunate association with another tragic German figure, Bruno S. Bruno S. starred in the Werner Herzog films "Stroszek" and "The Mystery of Kaspar Von Hauser," both of which follow the life of a societal fringe character. Bruno S. suffers an untimely death in both films, in a similar way that Bruno the bear perishes in the cruellest motion picture of all: life.

At least one of the readers of this site have written in to express their dismay over the shooting. "Bruno, we hardly knew ye!" writes Jeffrey A. of Waldo. "Why, God, why?" To those of you in mourning, I understand your frustration. My only hope is that Bruno's mother will appear and begin terrorizing the intolerant Tyrolians, much like Grendel's mom attacked the Geats in Beowulf. Another classic work of literature, Gasoline Alley, appears to anticipate such an event as well, as evidenced by their comic this Saturday.

Unfortunately, nothing can bring Bruno back now, not even laughter. I hope to pay my respects to him in Munich once his remains are put on display in the museum of Nature and Man.

In final blog follow-up notes, almost half of the class of 1992 (not really) have emerged to leave comments about their 14-year-old yearbook photo. Perhaps a reunion photo is in order, if such a document can be unearthed.

Thank you for your faithful attention to this site, which suffers an identity crisis with almost each and every post. A new name and additional editors will likely be in place before July. As always:

kansas city through jenn's lense

The photography of Jennifer Lynne Brothers is one of the main reasons I persist with this site. Two weeks ago, I acted as her chauffeur in order to explore the town and take photos for the Urban Photo Safari. Here are a few of the shots.



Truxtaposition

We went to the State Street Bank to find the entrance to the old Subway tunnel, but it's blocked off now. This is from the upper levels of the garage overlooking the SoHo lofts

Never et here before. It's on 35th & Prospect.

From an old plane hangar in an industrial park along 31st St. Looks like they are throwing this wingless wonder out with the garbage.

We drove by this place because there were giant decorative umbrellas outside that looked like mythical Marioland toadstools. What we found was a rundown building with a man peering at us warily from the doorway. A couple of gentlemen walked up and the man told them they were closed. (Closed for what?) A couple of ladies came out and sat on the porch. It didn't look like they had any teeth. I think they thought we were narcs, but all we were trying to do was have a photo safari. Silly narcississies.


Jennifer has more photos on her site, and the rest of her entry to this contest can be seen on the photo safari contestant page. There were quite a few good shots taken at the event, and all in all it's an interesting way to get an idea of how rundown but colorful the town can be. Also, here are three neat shots from last winter that Jenn took of the artspace near my apartment and the building where I work.

the lunar townhomes that never were (reprise)

(as usual, click on pictures and text to make them legible)

"How would you like to play ping-pong on the moon?" is the question I always ask myself when I look at this illustration I cut out from an old National Geographic a few years ago. I can't remember the date of publication for this picture, drawn by science fiction artist Davis Metzler, but I'm pretty sure it ran sometime between Neil Armstrong's 1969 landing and Apollo 17 in 1972, which was the last time any human has set foot on the moon.

Though people during the early Apollo missions might have assumed moon homes were the logical next step, it would take a pretty giant leap of the imagination to picture something like this happening anytime in our lifetimes, especially since no one has been there in 34 years. So what happened to dampen our enthusiasm for colonizing the moon, besides a couple of space shuttle crashes?

In her 2003 book, "Rocket Dreams: How the Space Age Shaped Our Vision of a World Beyond," journalist Marina Benjamin takes a philosophical approach to why the moon landings didn't lead to permanent bases like this one.

"Homesickness prevailed over the imperative to press outward and upward," Benjamin writes. "Images of our lush fragile globe beamed back from afar made cooling, protective converts of the most forward-thinking rationalists, and before long many of these had swaddled themselves in environmentalism. Exploration was out and conservation was in ... Within less than a decade of landing on the Moon, all our outward-bound aspirations had more or less turned in on themselves."

Or to quote Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin from their song Rocket Man, "it's lonely out in space."

Like a kid who goes too far out of his head on drugs and gets homesick for an innocent, normative state, the astronauts in the Apollo missions expressed a longing to return to earth even before they left. The lunar missions also mirror psychedelic experiences in that people who try psychedelic drugs usually only do so for a couple of year time period before they decide it's time to move on. Maybe the people involved in the space program felt they had done as much lunar exploration as they needed to. I have no doubt that humans will make contact with the moon again someday, but it might be by a later civilization, or at least a different nation state than the ones in power now.

In the arts, however, the moon remains as inspring as ever. What's not to be inspired by? It's bright, round, changes shape each day and takes on different qualities each month which are known to many native peoples by many different names. The moon exerts a commanding influence on the waves we surf and the women we love. It's also the subject of a lot of poetry, both excellent and abysmal.

Fortunately, you don't have to be John Donne to write about the moon's influence effectively. In fact, it is often the most simple lunar observations that remain memorable. One evening in the Rheinland, when four of us decided to go on our own little space adventure in the hills of the Kottenforst, Wade decided he wasn't feeling well and broke away from the group to enjoy a more urban sojourn. While walking around the city listening to his discman, he paid special attention to the moon, which kept threatening to disappear for good behind wisps of passing clouds. "Come on, moon!" he kept shouting. "You're the only friend I have left!"

It was actually while visiting Wade in Madison, Wisconsin under the glare of the Tim Burton moon that I first postulated my theory of Lunar Poetic Inversion. The theory suggests that because earth-bound humans look to the moon to receive and inspire our most poetic thoughts, any words actually spoken on its surface (should we get the chance to visit) would logically be the most authentic, poetic sentiments we are capable of expressing, however trite or plain-faced they may sound on other surfaces (i.e. "earth is beautiful", "I miss my wife", "if only I had a taco"). I abandoned the theory of Lunar Poetic Inversion once I realized that it doesn't make any sense, but I still think it's a pretty thought.

To sum it up, no matter what scientific or artistic accomlishments it inspires, instilling those of us on earth with a sense of childlike wonder will always be the moon's true legacy. That, and a delectable, pre-packaged pastry known as the banana moon pie.

Class of 1992 (not really)

While I'm posting children's drawings, I might as well post this fake grade school yearbook page I drew and gave copies of to my real classmates in the spring of 1992. I was thinking of it the other day, and while shuffling boxes around tonight, it popped up.

All characters are originals, except for a few like Arnold, Daniel, Paul and Zordack, who are clearly celebrity-influenced. Shirley, in the upper right corner, was our bus driver. Ms. Jackson has nothing to do with the Outkast song, predating it by several years. Xavier X looks like a tooth. More up-to-date artwork coming soon!

New Art Acquisition: Robo-Knight

While attending Liz's popple show this weekend, I picked up the most recent addition to my medley of original works of art -- a colored pencil and magic marker drawing entitled "Robo-Knight." "Robo-Knight" is the work of Atticus von Holten, who I believe is 8 years old. His work was featured last month in the Kids' Corner wing of the Olive Gallery, where myself and other Lawrence art collector glitterati snatched up his illustrations for the alarmingly low sum of $2 each.

The chivalric nature of the subject matter, the knight's triumphant posture and the fusion of space- and middle-ages mark young Atticus as an artist after my own heart. I'm reproducing it here to boast of my acquisition, naturally, but more importantly to announce the emergence of this exciting new illustrator.

Jay Jay One's Courageous Quest

While copy-editing Universal Press Syndicate's "EarthWeek" feature, an ecological week-in-review that lists the recent earthquakes, floods, volcanos and a couple of animal-interest stories, I learned about one bear's epic and controversial Bavarian adventure.

"JJI" is a two-meter tall brown bear who crossed over from Austria into Germany, where he has been terrorizing sheep, crushing beehives and basically just doing fun, stereotypical bear shit. Authorities later figured out "JJ" had journeyed all the way from Italy, where he was part of a project to reintroduce brown bears to the Italian Alps.

Though the situation is probably amusing to most folks, some Bavarian sheep-owners were pretty pissed, prompting Bavarian authorities to take action. According to the Los Angeles Times:

Bavarian Environment Minister Werner Schnappauf initially declared that the bear was welcome in the province but changed his mind after consulting experts. He said Monday that the animal might have to be killed or at least caged for good.

"The bear has turned into a problem bear," Schnappauf told reporters. "The animal has to be taken out of circulation."

Naturally, I think JJ should remain in heavy circulation (specifically 200 kilograms), and so do a lot of animal rights groups. For the time being, the bear has retreated back into Austria, where the government and people are a bit bear-friendlier. We'll have to see what happens. In the meantime, I also can't help wondering about the motivation behind his journeys (which is probably a result of my seeing "Over the Hedge" the night before). Maybe he just decided, "Italy is great and all, but this whole "reintroduction to the wild" thing is a joke, so I'm just going to lope my way on up to Bavaria, where the sheep are fat, the beehives are sumptious, the alp horns echo through the valleys and the living is altogether easy." I received a text message yesterday from Andrew Giessel that said "It is the courage of the creative person, as much as the art, which stokes my interest." I think you can apply that to JJ as well.

Regardless of whether he's making a statement or just following his animal instincs, this is certainly great material for a song, poem or screenplay. If any of you would like to write one, I'll be happy to post it here on this most visible and viable of Web sites. To read more about JJ, check out this story from the LA Times.

Operation Popple People

Liz Gardner's living space has been taken over by giant popples. A colorful ensemble of the muppet-esque creatures crowds her Kansas City apartment, and the mixed-media artist has even taken to signing off her phone messages as "Liz Popple."

If popples pervade Liz's life, it is hardly an accident. The custom-made creatures -—ranging from a pod-shaped infant to a round, furry figure the size of a small parade float —- are the artist's variation on the children's toys from the 1980s. Liz's Popples go on parade on June 3 as part of her Olive Gallery Show entitled "Operation Popple People," which will also include her recent mixed-media works.

Since she received her first popple at the age of 5, Liz has designed popples that correspond to specific stages in her life. A popple representing grade school is inlaid with one of her early writing assignments and a screen-printed pattern of children holding hands, while a middle school popple's arms are folded self-consciously across its chest. A high school popple, decorated with a bra and jewelry, suggests a budding femininity, and a college-era popple boasts a colorful hodgepodge of textiles, language, maps and images from science books.

The popples reflect the artist's advances in craftsmanship as well as age. The most recent creation, constructed by sewing eight different panels of fabric together to form a giant white ball with a Snoopy-shaped head and a blue felt lining, appears minimalist compared to her earlier creations, but is actually more sophisticated in design.

"It's me now," Liz says of her newest creation. "I'm learning you don't have to be as busy with imagery and color. Before it was more happy accidents, but now it's more planned."

Like much of her artwork, Liz's popple project deals with comfort issues, self-exploration and the aging process. "I like that there's an inside and an outside level to them," she says. "You're able to see the isolation of the self as well as the environment it's shaped by."

The upcoming show will not be her first at the Olive, nor her first series of artwork to draw on biographical elements. A 2003 exhibit of Liz’s work, "Tweaking the Right Brain," grew from a fascination with the brain she developed as a child after doctors ran tests to make sure she was free of brain disorders. The artwork -- an example of which includes a drawing of a diver poised to dive into a swirling sea of thread pasted on a painted canvas -- examines the relationships between randomnesss and logic and the way the two manage to balance each other out.

The material Liz uses in her art often serves as a muse in itself. A new series of quilt-resembling pieces stitches together fabrics, magazine photos and other materials with colorful, zig-zagging thread. She has also completed collages with sheet music (she is a classically-trained violinist), sculptures using only hair and wire, and designs based on anatomical slides and microchips.

A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, Liz graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Textiles in 2003. In 2002, she was awarded the Dorris Fair Carey Scholarship for excellence in textile design. Her work has been featured in solo gallery shows in Lawrence and Kansas City, and has been included in group shows as far away as Florence, Italy, where she studied painting in 2004. Her work has also been commissioned for paintings and used for set design in musical performance.

In 2005, she founded Liz Gardner Designs to market her line of pillows, linens and custom home furnishings. Though she classifies her designs as either non-functional (artistic) or functional (home decoration), all of her work employs the spontaneity, diverse materials and fine craftsmanship used to create her fine art.

To see examples of her pillows, popples and other fine art, check out www.lizgardner.com.

Photos taken by Tara Sloan

Doing lines in the Land of Nod

My daily fun-facts calendar states today that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" during a six-day cocaine binge.

"That an invalid in my husband's condition of health should have been able to perform the manual labour alone of putting 60,000 words on paper in six days, seems almost incredible," said his astonished wife, Fanny.

I'm not sure if this makes me have more respect for the book or the drug. I just know this wasn't the kind of thing I learned about at the writer's museum in Edinburgh, which is dedicated to Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott as well as the "Treasure Island" author. The museum takes a historical but child-friendly approach, dedicating itself more to the passion of writing than the process.

RLS wasn't just an invalid as an adult, either. In the museum, there was a free watercolored booklet available that told the story of RLS's fever-ridden childhood, how he looked forward each evening to the arrival of the lamplighter, or "Leerie" in Scottland. The booklet is actually quite charming, but reveals itself in the last few pages to be a Christian parable, placed there by some Irish ministry group. Though this doesn't necessarily invalidate the story, I much prefer the unpurposed imaginations of RLS's "A Child's Garden of Verses."

I was going to include a verse-weed from my own weird kid's garden of verse, but I'd rather list these series of quotes from the great Scottish author, who lived from 1850-1894

• For God's sake, give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself.
• To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity.
• All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.
• There is no progress whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change.
• Wine is bottled poetry.
• Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.
• There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.
• Absences are a good influence in love and keep it bright and delicate.
• The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
• Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
• To forget oneself is to be happy.
• Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.
• To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying "Amen" to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive.
• Marriage: A friendship recognized by the police
• The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.
• Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
• Youth is wholly experimental

Spring and All Aboard the Tit-Tanic

In the parking lot behind my lead-poisoned apartment sits a boat called the Tit-Tanic. I have no idea who this brave vessel belongs to, but one night Fletcher and I hatched a plan to take it all the way to Lake Titicaca. Provided the boat is still there on Oct. 31 (when my lease ends), we plan to sail by way of Brush Creek/Kansas River/The Ocean all the way to Titicaca, which at 12,536 feet is the highest elevated lake in the world. This is appropriate, seeing as how you'd have to be pretty high to even dream doing such a thing!

In honor of the lake and the mysterious flagship of 43rd Street, I give you Poem X of William Carlos Williams' "Spring and All." If the connections between modern poetry, Bolivia, and an abandoned motorboat seem tenuous, allow me to suggest that they are in fact, tenacious -- perhaps even titicaucus.

The Eyeglasses

The universality of things
draws me toward the candy
with melon flowers that open

about the edge of refuse
proclaiming without accent
the quality of the farmer's

shoulders and his daughter's
accidental skin, so sweet
with clover and the small

yellow cinquefoil in the
parched places. It is
this that engages the favorable

distortion of eyeglasses
that see everything and remain
related to mathematics--

in the most practical frame of
brown celluloid made to
represent tortoiseshell--

A letter from the man who
wants to start a new magazine
made of linen

and he owns a typewriter--
July 1, 1922
All this is for eyeglasses

to discover. But
they lie there with the gold
earpieces folded down

tranquilly Titicaca

WCW, 1923

america's warmaking center

Today we all played on the Atomic Cannon, a big gun capable of firing an 11-inch projectile over 20 miles. The idea was that the cannons would be able to hurl nuclear shells far enough not to kill the people firing them. This 42,500 lb monster was built in 1955 and deactivated in 1963. According to the sign, there are only three such cannons left in existence.

In the valley stands Fort Riley, the old calvary outpost and current army base boldly referred to on the nearby water tower as "America's Warmaking Center." Just down the road is the Dreamland Motel, whose infamous former tentants include Oklahoma City bomber Timothy MacVeigh. Neighboring Junction City is the so-called "wicked little town" where Hedwig shared a trailer with Sgt. Luther Robinson, groomed Tommy Gnosis for stardom, and sewed the musical seeds for the fictional fab-rock act, The Angry Inch.

After our play-session with the decommissioned artillery, we drove to the dedication ceremony for the Wetzel Log Cabin, which has been newly relocated and restored. This historical structure was the site of the first Lutheran church service in Kansas way back in 1861, and the home of my great-great-great-great-grandfather, C.F. Wetzel. A bunch of nice folks were on hand to celebrate with hymns and lemonade. There was even a horse-drawn wagon, for history's sake!

Before driving back East, we pulled off 1-70 to eat at Cracker Barrel. The cornbread wasn't great, but the okra was delicious. My grandma had packed a cooler, so after dinner we stood in the parking lot and drank Molson Golden from styrofoam cups. Brother Peter opened a package from Sam Stepp, who sent him a boomerang and Shrek towel all the way from Australia. People eyed us a bit funny, but we didn't even have to use our AK (atomic kannon). Today was a good day.

Letter to the editor: Proposed Lego theme park an affront to gravity, taste

An article in the Kansas City Star last month stated that some 400 acres in South Johnson County are being considered as the site for what would be the fifth Legoland Amusement Park in the entire world. The front-page piece, framed by a cutesily scanned-in Lego block border, posed the headlining question: Block-buster idea for JoCo?

My response: Preposterous! Are the powers-that-be in Johnson County so intoxicated by the potential commercial and tax benefits of a Legoland that they don't realize a rollercoaster made of Legos isn't safe?

I don't care that it’s a $200 million proposal, or that they’ve already succeeded in using 1.5 million Lego blocks to replicate Mt. Rushmore. A life-sized Legocoaster will violate the laws of physics and almost certainly result in destruction. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen before.

As a child growing up in Johnson County, I witnessed just how suddenly Lego civilizations can be laid to waste. Entire feudal structures, cosmic fleet voyagers, an armada of sea-faring buccaneers -- time and time again my little plastic friends met their doom at the hands of my toddler siblings. If Legolands are subject to disaster on the whim of a three-year-old, I'd hate to see how a Lego theme park stacks up against gravity, not to mention aggressive speeds.

Also, the proposed use of state funds to finance the project is a slap in the face to Jackson Countians, who recently took on a new tax hike to save Truman Sports Complex. Yes, Kansas City, Kan. benefited from the aid of STAR bonds to fund the 1-70 Speedway, but let's be honest -- your average Wyandotte Countian would give his life for that race track.

To be fair, Johnson County has seen its share of recent developmental success stories. "Town Center" is considered a unique marvel of the "New Suburbanism" architectural movement, and the transformation of the now defunct Mission Center Mall into a "Zona Rosa South" is bound to be a smash-hit. And who could deny the beauty of the Overland Park Convention Center? But a JoCo Legoland -- even one featuring the rampant shopportunities of I-70 Speedway's Village West -- would be a project of Gatsbian ostentation, one likely to result in a similarly tragic outcome. And if for some reason it does succeed, what would be next, a Lego tower of babble?

Then again, maybe Johnson County needs such a tragedy to mend its apparent break with reality. With state and county legislators devoting so much attention to deciding how evolution and sex education should be taught in our schools, a Lego rollercoaster crash might help South Kansas Citians regain their focus on the more important issues of underage drinking and day-to-day survival.

As a lifetime Lego enthusiast and a staunch supporter of both Denmark and Kansas City, I do believe that the Lego spirit is one of progress and construction. I even think a JoCo Legoland might be fun. But with such an alarming lack of practicality and humility invested in the theme park's potential energy, the kinetic energy needed to power such a park work would be sorely lacking. In the end, I don't care that "Lego" translates to "play well." Not even the Wizard of Oz can make this misguided wish come true.

sincerely,

Indignancy Drew

the fury of the nile, hell hath no washtowel for

This firefighter rescue simulation took place yesterday at the Worlds of Fun thrill-ride, "The Fury of the Nile." I came up with the title line during the 2002 typewriting experiments held at Ben's house on Mississippi St.

backward, tears

In celebration of the month of May, I'm including this translation of "I'm so wild about your strawberry mouth," a ballad by Francois Villon which I first heard read by the late German actor/eccentric Klaus Kinsky. For at least part of his life, Kinksy was obsessed with Villon, a 15th-century French poet, outlaw and vagabond who wrote this poem about his ex-girlfriend, Isebeau. I couldn't find an English version, but I had a CD and transcription of Kinski reading it in German, so I took the liberty of translating it tonight. The line breaks and forms of address (i.e. repetition of "you") are modeled after Kinski's reading, which is full of ecstatic shouts, quavering pauses and reverent whispers. I wish I had the means to include it here. I also recorded a 12-minute electric guitar anthem last month borrowing from this poem's title, imagery and energy, but I'll leave that off the Internet for now.

The above illustration was inspired by a line of Paul Celan's that means "a tear rolls back in its eye." I had it in my head for a while without remembering where it came from, and I decided to draw it to look like weepy faces going through the last stage of an automatic car wash, the part where heat fans lift the moisture up the windshield.

For now, here's Villon's ballad, one of my first efforts to interpret/translate a classic.

You
You
I'm so wild about your strawberry mouth
I've torn my lungs from shouting
after your white body,
you woman.
In the clover, May built a bed,
there bloomed a sweet passing-of-time
with your love the long night.
I long to be there in the deep valley.
Your night prayer and your star-husband.

In deep strawberry valley, in black hair
I slept several summers there
but never slept enough all the same
come,
come here
I know a lovely game
in the deep valley, in mussel-earth
oh, you
you
I'm so wild about your strawberry mouth

The gray world brings joy no more
I gave my sweetest summers there
and it has also brought you no happiness;
not really, only your red mouth
has been spared
for me, for me
for me kept so deep in your hair
I searched the long nights
in winter valley, in ashen earth
I'm so wild about your strawberry mouth

In winter valley, in black strawberry cabbage,
the snowfall built a nest there
and did not ask where love was.
I had ridden that red beast so deep
when I slept with you
Oh, if only the winter were through
and the meadows green again!
oh you,
you
I'm so wild about your strawberry mouth

-Francois Villon

Like a Daydream

I heard Ride's "Nowhere" this month and knew right away I'd found my missing link to Blur's "Leisure" and Galaxie 500 and Sloan and all these great shoegazer/stoner groups, but then I ordered this EP and realized the true treasures of the group were their first two 4-song EPs, "Ride" and "Play," both from 1990. This CD of all eight songs really lifts you off the ground with noise, melody and artful bombast. Youthful indescretion finds its perfectly complimentary guitar noise. If the muddled beauty of "Close My Eyes" doesn't get you, I don't know what will. The opening lyrics: Last night I had such a good time/but there's a price to pay/ A night full of kicks, now the sun's in my eyes/And I feel so weary today... Listen, believe, smile.

this can apply to life as well

click to make readable -- image and text reprtinted from "The Star Wars Question & Answer Book About Computers" by Fred D'Ignazio, Random House, 1983, pilfered from the library at the now-nonexistent Roesland Elementary. More lessons from video cocktail tables to come.

the sad fate of mossby pomegranete

Though surfing the Web can be a time-and-soul-draining experience, www.archive.org is a sure thrill for online curiosity seekers, video clip collectors and fans of cultural ephemera. The site compiles a bunch of articles, software, recordings and multimedia for anyone to look through. The most extensive and fascinating collection of videos can be found in the Prelinger Archives, founded by Rick Prelinger in 1982. Dave Coates told me about this site while showing me a bunch of strange, strange clips therein.

Among the videos Dave played for me were instructional videos for police on how to deal with belligerent or mentally handicapped citizens, some kind of filmstrip from the '50s for kids about removing living organs from pets, and the crown jewel of the Internet Archives, "One Got Fat."

"One Got Fat" is ostensibly a 14-minute filmstrip about bicycle safety (Interlude Films, 1963, Dale Jennings, writer/director). It features 10 bike riders facing various safety obstacles on their way to a park nine blocks away. Which sounds tame enough. Except that the cyclists are monkeys, and all but one are led by their own carelessness head-on into steamrollers, manholes and other dangers. The death masks of the monkey cyclists are pretty severe, and it's hard to believe they showed this to kids (a dozen or so comments on the archive.org site are from people who remember being freaked out by the film in grade school). As Dave put it, it's interesting to see something from an era before irony, when the accepted way to try and get kids to behave was to scare the hell out of them.

Don't be mistaken, though. "One Got Fat" is great fun. The monkeys each meet their grisly fates in ridiculous ways and their names are as colorful as their costumes. Names include: Rooty Toot Jasperson, Slim Jim McGutney, Filbert Bagel, Stanislaw Higginbottum, Tinkerbelle McDillingfitty and my personal favorite, Mossby Pomegranete (e-mail mossby@gmail.com). I think it would be great if they each had their own trading cards, complete with photos, stats and safety information. The film also boasts a delightful fanfare, stirring narration from Edward Everett Horton and some bizarro cinematography.

You can find "One Got Fat" by going to archive.org, finding the "moving pictures" menu and locating the Prelinger Archives, where several viewing options and more information are available. Or, you can see it here on google video. Ride safe and love it.

4/20 Photo Flashback

This picture is an outtake of a series taken on April 20, 2003. Josh had an idea to take a bunch of Polaroids of Jennifer, himself and I wearing her wigs and standing together in traditional familial poses. We were a happy family, I have to admit.

larry versus the microburst

Kansans' heads are filled with tornado stories from an early age, be they from movies, news reports or poet-hobos who wander the streets telling folks about the night they rode a twister across county lines and in and out of reality. Rarely, however, are we lucky (or unlucky) enough to actually witness such an event.

March 12 was one of those big days for folks in Lawrence. At around 8 in the morning, some crazy winds bent a bunch of signs, messed up some buildings and felled trees all over town. One of my friends saw the swirling winds directly above him and claimed it was one of the most intense things he'd ever experienced. Another was on the toilet at the time and felt his entire house shake, presumably from the tornado. Most folks either took shelter or slept through it.

I had planned to stay up all night and drive from Kansas City to Lawrence that morning, but all that coffee at Chubby's at 6 a.m. just put me to sleep. I didn't drive up until after the KU vs. Texas Big 12 Championship basketball game, a resounding victory for the 'Hawks. Brother James and I drove up K-10, marvelling at the way the giant green highway signs were curled back. The signs looked so awkward bent up like that, as if some giant had messed with them for his own amusement.

Fortunately, Jennifer and Brother David got up early to take some photos of the chaos. Although I was a late arriver on the scene, I did record a few observations.

The streets were full of debris and broken trees, including several I used to duck around and under on walks to campus.

Downtown, the U.S. Bank revolving door was bashed in, awnings were ripped out and two steeples were toppled from an old brick church, making it once again look like some giant with a perverse sense of symmetry had acted in violent disdain against our beloved college town. The sirens had stopped working earlier, so when there was another tornado warning that afternoon, police officers drove around with megaphones and megaphoned for everyone to take shelter. Most people ignored them.

On Ninth Street, the sign at Jensen's liquor store had been blown out, but the line to buy booze was almost out the door. People were stocking up like it was the last day anyone would be selling liquor ever. The clerks had the new Roelofs album playing overhead, adding nicely to the apocalyptic effect.

On Mississippi street, David's bike had been thrown into the middle of the yard along with the porch fence it was locked to. We sipped beers and drank in the weirdness around back where the porch was more intact. The wooden owl on the outside staircase looked pretty ominous in the stormy twilight, as did the branches overhead. Across the street at the stadium, the hammer/discus cage had been pitifully beat in. There was greenish haze all over town, the result of everything having been stirred up at once. "It was like we were living in a zombie movie," someone said later.

By evening, people had grown a bit bolder in celebrating the weather and KU victory. Fireworks and shouts rang out from Oread apartment complexes. People gathered on lawns to drink and barbecue by the light of tiki torches. It was Lawrence at its finest, and I don't mean that in a "banding together to help one another" way, though I'm sure some of that went on. It was more of a "classes are canceled, my DVD player won't work and it's not like I'll be paying for the damage to my apartment, so let's go outside and be weird" vibe.

After dark, South Park was pitch black and blocked off, its darkness both foreboding and appealing, as if the park had suddenly become a boundless haven for revelers and murderers. The streetlamps around the playground and bandstand were all knocked out, and it looked like what it would have been like had the Ents lost their battle with Isengaard.

We drove West on Sixth Street to get some food and watch the news from Kaspar's (or whatever it's called now). On the way we passed by the rocket in Centennial Park, which might have been the strangest thing I had seen all day. Even in broad daylight, the structure looks like a curious remnant from and/or tribute to the cold war. But in the midst of all the damage, fireworks and lingering flashes of lightning, the fake warhead took on a brand new absurdity. It was as if to say, "Should the communists or tornadoists decide to return to Lawrence, Lawrence will be ready."

the marshmallows of sorrow

This is a post for Good Friday, known as "Karfreitag" in the country in which this photo was taken. Jennifer took this shot last March during our tour of the Rheinland. As far as church holidays go, I always liked Good Friday, its solemn processions, the dirge/hymns sung at a snail's tempo about garden meditations and sleepy, unreliable friends. There's a pathos and romance to it that the rest of the church calendar lacks, and I think this photo does a good job of capturing it.

The location is Bad Godesberg, Germany, Villenviertel neighborhood, March 2005. The building behind the gate is the once-proud sanitorium/studentenwohnheim of Rheinallee 37-43, built in 1894, turned into student apartments in 1972 and shut down just months after I moved out in summer 2002. The "passion" in this case is Rheinallee's demise and subsequent renovation into luxury apartments. God only knows how the project has turned out, having long since abandoned its red brick walls and lush courtyard to partial demolition and deforestation, respectively.

Such is the fate of old buildings. Their original structures are altered and repurposed, but the spirits of their inhabitants dilly-dally on the premises. When I went by last year to view the ruins of Rheinallee, I swear I could hear my friends and I through the window in the second-floor balcony, laughing, listening to music and pouring wine into tea glasses, waiting for a nachtbus that would never come.

hootinanity

My new Deering "Goodtime" banjo is the most aptly-named instrument I have ever known. I bought it a few weeks ago at Mountain Music Shoppe in Shawnee and every time I pick it up I have a hard time putting it back down. With my new five string, a few blues harps and a bit of inspiration from folks like Sonny Terry and Two Dollar Shoe, I've dabbled quite a bit in Americana lately.

This past Friday night, we had us a hootenanny. It went down in a kitchen on tennessee street with Zach, Ben and I yelling and me playing harp, someone playing spoons and a storm blowing in. When I told my friend Nick about it the next day he said it sounded like it was "the hootenaniest hootenanny to ever hoot a nanny."

It amazed me, the way Nick made that line up on the spot and delivered it like it was nothing. I did some thinking later and decided that hootenanny would make a great separable prefix verb in German, namely, Nannyhooten.

For example, "Wir haben eine Nanny gehootet."

sample dialogue:

Lars: Klara, Heute Abend hooten wir eine Nanny. Hast du Lust, mitzuhooten?

Klara: Ja, ich habe Lust, aber leider kann ich nicht so gut nannyhooten :(

Lars: Quatsch! Das kann Jeder! Deshalb machen Hootenannys so viel Spass!

Or something like that. That won't be of much interest to you if you don't speak German, but if you don't, maybe it will help encourage you to learn. Maybe.

I will leave you now with a photo of a man called Apple-Core Jack. He is so named because he was carved from an apple core, and the name Jack seems to fit. I salvaged him from my grandfather's house shortly before the bulldozers took it down.

A Hundred Million Years Ago, in 1987

Record Review: Once Upon A Dinosaur
Artist: Jane Murphy et al

As a dedicated crate digger, I know how rare it is to find an album that is musically impressive, educational and heartwarming enough to make you smile. But when I recently came across a record with cover art depicting triceratops going down a slide and a dimetrodon holding colored balloons, I knew I had found something special.

The album, "Once Upon A Dinosaur," is children's songwriter Jane Murphy's musical attempt to open children's hearts and minds to those most fascinating of ancient creatures, the dinosaurs. Originally released on vinyl and cassette in 1987 and now available on compact disc on Amazon.com, "Once Upon A Dinosaur" explores what life as a dinosaur was all about as well as asking what our lives would be like if dinosaurs were still around today.

The album kicks off with a rocker, namely, The Fossil Rock. The Fossil Rock follows the story of some scientists who chip, chip away until they uncover bones so big, they could only belong to a dinosaur. The song itself is fairly repetitive, but a key change and some soulful saxophone make this opening number engaging as well as educational.

The album's strongest song is the next tune, "We Want To Learn About Dinosaurs." Regardless of whether listeners approach the album with a sense of ironic amusment or genuine childlike wonder, they'll be taken aback by this ballad's emotional impact. With sweeping harp arpeggios and a plaintive piano finale, the instrumentation in "We Want To Learn About Dinosaurs" is powerful on its own, but the children's chorus featured on the song is what pushes the album into truly heart-rending territory.

The rest of the album follows through on its promise to teach us about dinosaurs. In just 37 minutes, many different dinosaurs are discussed, with songs switching perspectives as well as topics. Some song tell a story from the third person, such as the fifties doo-wop number, "Ankylosaurus and Paleocincus," which chronicles the unlikely friendship between two dinos with spiky shells. Others resort to the first-person to better explore a character, as in "The Stegosaurus" or "Big Bad Al," the latter of which is a daunting depiction of Tyrannosaurus' smaller ancestor, the Allosaurus. "The Brachiosaurus' Song" is a ballad about what it's like to weigh as much as 20 elephants. Although Brachiosaurus lived millions of years ago, it's hard not to interpret some of the lyrics to "The Brachiosaurus' Song" as a dig at modern American obesity and ignorance, especially the line: "I may be huge, but I'm not clever at all/because my brain's just the size of a ping-pong ball." Interesting.

As socially relevant as these songs may be, the album truly shines when the vocalists address the dinosaurs and dinosaur lovers directly, such as on the closing number, "Where Have They Gone?" The song begins with a lone male vocalist listing off the names of the dinosaurs alphabetically, a lonely echo enveloping his voice as it travels up and down the scale. Soon after, the children join in, their voices gradually steering the song's mood from one of melancholy abandonment to solemn curiosity. Like a kid's choir singing to the baby Jesus at a holiday pageant, the children's voices in "Once Upon A Dinosaur" have a timeless resonance, as if the dinosaurs they are addressing are as near to their hearts as they are distant on the geological timeline.

Still, I did have a bone to pick with "Once Upon A Dinosaur." The album's utopian depiction of dino/human co-existence will appeal to those who have always resented scientists saying dinosaurs couldn't have lived with us (which is another way of saying we couldn't have lived with them). However, "Once Upon A Dinosaur" assumes in several cases that if dinosaurs were alive today, they would serve mostly as pets.

In "My Pet Tyrannosaurus," a witch's hex turns the family dog into a T-Rex. This tale of a girl taking her T-Rex to school and attempting to keep it out of the family fridge is amusing--as is mom's proclamation that "this house just isn't big enough for a tyrant lizard"--but the part about T-Rex enjoying being "tickled on the nose and washed down with the garden hose" is highly unlikely, not to mention a slight to T-Rex's tough-guy reputation. The mention of a "dinosaur zoo" elsewhere in the album is also alarming in spite of its naivete. These well-intentioned sentiments are forgiveable considering "Once Upon A Dinosaur" is an album made for and by children, but the assumptions of dinodomesticity smack of the same hubris that eventually led to Jurassic Park's demise.

Fortunately, the beats and instrumentation on the album are every bit as diverse as the lyrics and subject matter. There's some honky-tonk, some (reptile) rap and some synth-bass and synth-percussion that would be right at home on an album by the Flying Lizards, another group whose records I found at the sale.

Thematically, the album's premise that dinosaurs never go out of style rings true, and the fact that "Once Opon A Dinosaur" sounds very 1987 is ultimately irrelevant. In the end, it's just a big, educational dance party, as the song "Dinosaur Dance" makes abundantly clear. As the song's chorus contends, "Whether up on two feet, or down on all fours/it's fun to dance like the dinosaurs." How very, very true.