28 September 2006

Blue Collar Gorillas

This is a glimpse of life at Blue Collar Press, where Jennifer and many other area artist/musicians earn their daily wage. They do neat shirts, posters, and assorted music merch design and distro, and even made me some complimentary buttons to promote this humble little site. As evidenced by this photo stream, they also employ gorillas.

26 September 2006

Kinser feature from the UDK, 1/23/03

At Ryan and Kelly's wedding this summer, several of you recalled this article I wrote for the University Daily Kansan about Ryan's unusual feat of drinking an entire 44oz cup of Vanilla Flavor Shot. I didn't have a copy, so this had to be tracked down from the Resource Center at KU's William Allen White School of Journalism, of which I am a proud graduate. I think that many of you will enjoy seeing this article again, for two important reasons:

1) It really happened
2) It's Ryan Kinser

And please don't strain your eyes trying to read it above. Get the large version. Thanks to Mark at the J-School for digging this up, Jenn for photocopying it, our friends for reminding me about it, and Ryan for being Ryan.

25 September 2006

Trip to the Wetlands















Clyde Ahote's Haikus from the Wilderness

The Baker Wetlands
on the first Sunday of fall
where tallgrass stands tall

A chorus of kaws
the white noise of the blackbirds
circling the tree

Cattail cotton haze
a girl throws a crabapple
into the green sludge

The sunflowers turn
a faded shade of amber
in late afternoon

Jennifer Brothers
considers a sunflower
with her camera

the young man marches
into the marshes wearing
ecogaloshes

Wetlands boundary
follow the raccoon's footprints
to Wakarusa

What then should we do
when we finally make it
to the outside world?

the click-clack of feet
following the red wood road
there's no place like home



Click here for more of Natalya's photos of wildflowers.

21 September 2006

original artworks


This corresponds to an earlier piece on this very site about bidding farewell to an adobe Igloo in a Lawrence, Kansas backyard. The piece ends with the narrator likening himself to a miniature llama/birthday cake decoration that has been moved to a windowsill and given a cidada cowboy as a rider/companion (actually, the hat itself is artistic license). The piece was drawn in summer, but has not yet been publically reproduced until today. Unlike its companion essay, "Goodbye Gloo," the spirit of this piece is believed to be more than pathos. The rendering of a smile on the llama suggests a willingness on part of the artist to move on; to put a happy face on future travels. Upon the piece's unveiling at the Nowhere gallery on 19th and Alaska Streets, one reviewer called it "The song of the open road played by a cicada's kazoo while seated upon the pastel-toned saddle blanket of a miniature llama. Endearingly not-believable."

This piece was made with the usual medley of oil pastels and outdated stamps of a monkey wishing us happy new year.


Most of my drawings could be regarded as "outsider art," in that their expressionistic qualitiy clearly outweighs any real craft. And from time to time, they get made fun of. But validation from the art world is at hand. This drawing was a runner-up in the band Minus Story's "No Rest for Ghosts" art contest. The drawing is part of a 2001 series of oil pastel portraits originally entitled "Rejected Muppets." The series was later incorporated by Jonathan Nagel into his performance at the 2004 Farmer's Ball, to mixed reviews. Someday the series may be displayed here, but only if the curators of fate deem it so, and only if there is an interest on part of the critics and art fans in my reading public (provided such a public exists).

18 September 2006

belated 9/11 tribute to a 9/11 tribute

I first discovered the Twin Towers of Rosedale entirely by accident. It was a hot July day in 2004, when I was working for the City of Westwood (which for those who don't know is really just a small neighborhood outside of Kansas City proper).

I had been driving around in a city truck killing time until lunch, and when I got a bit carried away singing along to Janis Joplin on the radio, I swerved a bit and an empty wheelbarrow flew out from the truck bed onto 47th street right by the Apple Market. Fortunately, I loaded the thing back in the truck before traffic was impeded, but I was a bit embarassed and decided to make myself scarce for a while.

Once that adrenaline wore off and I drifted back into my usual sleep-deprived psychosis, I drove north into the more unkempt neighborhood of Rosedale, a place no Westwood employee is supposed to visit while on the clock, if ever. I drove a few blocks into the god-fearing, barbecue-loving neighborhood where I lived until I was four, but which I still don't have mapped out too well. I turned a few times and then a few more and all of a sudden there it was: a 10-foot-tall replica of the World Trade Center, planted in a flower bed in someone's front lawn.

I couldn't believe my eyes. I marveled at it for a minute, noticing the somewhat crudely-made plaque at the bottom that listed the events of 9/11 in brief along with the total number of people killed. "Never Forget," it read at the top.

I returned to the maintenence shack a bit bewildered, and when I told my co-workers about the discovery they seemed amused but skeptical. I wondered if they believed me, as I was honestly not sure I'd really seen those towers myself.

When I did try to drive back and find the towers later that week, I didn't see them anywhere. Maybe they really had been an illusion, a hallucinatory result of not sleeping more than a few hours each night. I had almost given up my search when, at the corner of 44th and Fisher, I saw them. The Twin Towers of Rosedale were real after all.

I drove back by a bunch of times that year, always to point out the monument to friends. We all thought the towers were pretty funny, but I think we all silently wondered about the artist's motivation. Even if he were just a kook who got a bit carried away with patriotism and yard art, 9/11 must have affected him rather deeply to inspire such a large, unconvential tribute. I may have laughed at the man's monument, but I did respect where it was coming from.

I was also kind of afraid of the whole thing, which is why the photo Jennifer took of David and I is so blurry. We didn't want to hang around and scare the owner into thinking Bin Laden and his V.I.L.E. henchmen were trespassing on his property, so we didn't have time to take a proper flash photo. Sure enough, the last thing I heard about that block of Fisher Street was that a dead body had been found in someone's back yard. Probably unrelated, but you never know.

Today, the KC twin towers are a thing of memory, just like the real-life buildings that they were modeled after. Gone, but not forgotten. Rosedale -- like much of working-class America -- will not forget.

12 September 2006

Will Oldham comes to Lawrence


Will plays some songs


Will turns into a cat


the hipsters are baffled by the transformation

The above photos are from Will Oldham's free in-store at the Love Garden in Lawrence. They painted a nice little backdrop for him and I was fortunate enough to have a place near the front. A lot of people crammed in to see him play, but everyone was silent as could be during the set, aside from one guy who passed out cold and fell down back by the recent arrivals section. Also entertaining was the way one of the Love Garden house cats crawled up on stage and stared at Mr. Oldham while he played, which he seamlessly incorporated into the lyrics of his songs.

The highlight for me was when he took requests. I called (but not too loudly) for "Blockbuster," meaning his song from the "Hope" EP, "Werther's Last Blues to Blockbuster." A few people yelled out other stuff, but Will just started strumming for a minute and stared off in concentration, as if trying to remember the chords. Everyone quieted down again, and sure enough, he played the number I asked for. I was very excited, and grabbed Jennifer's ankle from where I was sitting Indian-style on the floor. There were quite a few times I had stayed up all night in Germany playing guitar with Wade, either at our places or on the Rhine, and that song never got skipped. Pretty neat to hear the man himself play it by special request.

05 September 2006

Haikus and photos, 8/25 - 9/3

Some Haikus and pics to chronicle the last two weeks or so. All the photos in Missouri (the bulk of the lot) taken by Jennifer; Kansas snapshots snapped by me. Missouri locations include old Frau Meierhoff's stained glass factory and loft in the City Market, and various Joplin landmarks like Arde's Villa, a restaurant which was built on the site of a deserted public swimming pool. The links will lead you to albums from Jennifer's flickr site. Worth checking out.

Kansan locales include Maggie's Farm in North Lawrence, Kansas State University, and a scenic overlook of the Kanzaa Prairie just outside Manhattan.


warehouse of treasures
the golden areolas
of the statuettes


highway underpass
where cyclists fear to pedal
playground of the trolls


3,000 years late
for my meeting with mneme
muse of memory


hedges and lilies
of redding's mill missouri
petrified cherubs


fake classic frescoes
where children once went swimming
a lifeless blue hose


hamburger hi-way
the road to obesity
is paved with milkshakes


the capri motel
sleep off decades' worth of kitsch
with our special rates


oh goodness greenness
behold the kanzaa prairie
you lone sunflower


BWB
traveler from New Jersey
surveys his old state


Professor Wetzel
reports the latest findings
from the microscope


a window closes
on the giant shuttlecock
just a reflection


I played the mouth harp
in the order of kaos
organic space jams


magic birthing hut
amadeus was born here
on saturday night


the science of bugs
is not to be confused with
the study of words


gondola travels
under the venetian bridge
ripples of stained glass


the devil's blue dress
is hung up in the closet
bye bye, debutante


take a final hit
from the dark bowl of perry
embers of summer

Python Personality

python personality: luke wetzel
In the process of clearing out the family basement, my mom found this profile I made as a second grader at Westwood View Elementary School (mascot: Pythons). For any of you who may have clicked onto this page without knowing who I am, or any of you who know me but maybe never realized what ambitious travel plans I once had, this page should clear things up a bit. For a larger version, click here.

03 September 2006

frauen, die schreiben...

My friend Ayla maintains a lovely and frequently updated Web log about life in Hamburg and wherever else she travels. The other day, it was on the top 20 list of Wordpress's best blogs of the day. I'm not sure what that means, but it's certainly well-deserved. As a tribute, I'd like to hit you all with this verse encouragement to check out her site, .11freundeundich.

A light in Ayla's Attic, September 2006


What does Ayla keep in her attic?
What thoughts will achieve such loftiness?
What memos will she send forth
from her personal blog-acropolis?

A poem, a slideshow, an artfully cropped photo
Points of interest on an idea's journey
from germ to sublimation
word-experimentations
undertaken by this fate-bound band of first-generation bloggers

The German tagline translates to:
"women who write are dangerous"
But I don't feel threatened
Only inspired to keep describing
the whos whats hows and whens
without stopping too long to question why