Dilla had Donuts, Wetzel had Pretzels

If you've come here lately, you might have started to get the feeling that this site was a vacant storefront. Well, it's not entirely far from the truth, as this photo can tell you. As you've probably already read in the community papers, I'd been using a Wetzel's Pretzels franchise location in a run-down Missouri mall to sell scraps of haiku poetry and old blog posts, but as anyone in this dubious industry knows, it's sometimes best to keep a move on. So I apologies for the lack of fresh, salted or cinnamon-coated content, but I assure you there will be more in the future. 27 was a good year, and I plan to enjoy the final fortnight or so, but for 28 I think I'll have to ramp it up a notch. So be sure to check back by early March to see which directions things take.

In the meantime I'm heading to St. Louis with Jenny to stay at the Hilton on the Mississippi. I plan to swim, hit up the city museum, and perhaps visit an old mill or sculpture park along the way.



See you soon.

them books is wrong

Fort Case

According to the inscription at the statue at Case Point:

When Lewis and Clark stopped at this spot on September 15, 1806, atop a high bluff with a sweeping view of the Missouri River Valley, they noted that the site offered a "commanding situation for a fort."

The sign notes that although the site overlooking the mouth of the Kansas River seemed like an ideal spot for a fort, no fort was ever built here.



Last week, however, I found evidence to the contrary. Sure, it's nothing too formidable from a military standpoint, but the careful arrangement of sticks and plastic shows a lot of ingenuity went into the making of this structure.



So, you see, there is a fort at Case Point after all. And yes, I did have ethical qualms about sharing this online, but considering it's on public land that's viewable from the highway, and in light of its historical significance, I opted to go ahead and post it.

Another fun fact about Lewis and Clark's journey through this area. It was near this place that Clark saw a dazzling sight -- an immense flock of Carolina parakeets. This was the first documented sighting of these now extinct birds west of the Mississippi.

Must have been pretty.