City of Fountains

Just saw that the fountains in Kansas City will be turned on after all. (Ironically I saw this link via Tony, who had called for them to be shut down and paved over)

Anyway, it's good news as far as I'm concerned. Although I do think the city could be smart and save a bit of money by not running them through January, which is when we took this picture below...

Now that the city has stepped up and the fountain issue has been taken care of, Kansas City can retain its title as the City of Fountains, taking us one step closer to the hedonism and revelry the town enjoyed in its glory days.

(Image credits: Top photo of Swope Park by Jenn, middle photo of Historic Northeast fountain by Lukas, illustration of KC's glory days provided by Lucas Cranach the Elder)

A Dog's Life

Last week I posted a picture of a pow-wow for the hearing impaired that took place in Olathe way back in the day. Blogger Dave (curator of the mouth-watering www.kclunchspots.com) was kind enough to point me toward a few other scintillating snapshots from Johnson County's colorful past, which he took part in cataloguing and uploading to JoCohistory.org as part of his job. Thanks to Dave for this, and credit for these photos goes to JocoHistory.org. The magic in these photos, however, belongs to us all. Here's a few highlights to start out with:

Fairway mayor's wife in multicolored housecoat with dog

Women shooting pool outside in the yard

Man with Overland Park pennant (a personal favorite)

Raw meat, wine, and a giant cleaver

The all-time greatest series, however, has to be that of Buddy the Deaf Dog.


His name is listed as Buddy the Deaf Dog, though "Debonaire" might be a more fitting description.


Buddy tickles the ivories at this School for the Deaf event, playing a boogie-woogie for the enjoyment of the ladies. Much like Beethoven, a hearing disability was not about to stop Buddy from symphonic composition or impromptu jam-sessions.


He also fought fires.


Smoked cigarettes...


...and cigars (pictured here with owner Bob Parker)


Buddy was also quite the scribe, penning upwards of 20 personal letters and post-cards per day to his many friends and confidantes on Broadway, in Hollywood or back in the pound. Buddy employed an unusual sideways method of penmanship that nonetheless produced a technically marvelous cursive.

Unfortunately little or none of his writing has survived to the current century, even in the annals of JocoHistory.org. However, a search did turn up a joint holiday postcard mailed out by Buddy and his master, Mr. Parker.


With that presentation, Buddy, Bob and I would like to wish you a happy, snappy afternoon. To wish you anything less would be, well...something of a boner.

See you dogs later.

Red vs. Best Picture

R: So I went to see this absolutely awful film tonight with my wife. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I even saw it.

L: What was it?

R: It's called Slumdog Millionaire

L: The same Slumdog Millionaire that won Best Picture?

R: Yes. It is quite possibly the worst film that I have ever seen.

L: I knew you wouldn't like that movie. You automatically hate every rags-to-riches movie set in a foreign country and done by a Western director.

R: I hated that favela movie, too.

L: City of God? I know. You told me many times. But go ahead, I want to hear why you didn't like Slumdog.

R: The entire plot is this kid from the slums of Mumbai goes on a game show and knows the answer to every question because he spent his entire life chasing after some whore.

L: What's wrong with that?

R: That's terrible! Imagine if it was the exact same plot, only it took place in suburban Boston with Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney. You would hate it.

L: Okay, but what if Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney were in it, but it still took place in the slums of Mumbai?

R: (contemplates) So the film would be the exact same, except Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney would be acting out the lead roles, even during the childhood sequences, entirely without explanation...

R&L (in unison, more or less): Now that's a movie I would pay to see.

Our beautiful region

Just for fun/filler, here's a few archived photos of how heartwarming life can be here in the heartland.

This is from an archive of severe weather photos published online in the Star last week. I'm posting this mostly as a personal reminder to take shelter when the sirens go off instead of climbing out on the roof to try and spot the funnel clouds. T'ain't worth it.


Speaking of funnels, there's no where in town (that I'm aware of) with better funnel cakes than World O' Fun, which is currently for sale, by the way. This picture, also from an archived KC Star set, is a shot of the amusement park back when it had character. Although perhaps a little bit too much character in this viking's case. I'm not sure what he's got up his tunic sleeve, but that feigned innocent smile and phallic intimation in his height warning make me a little uncomfortable for that gal with the braids.


My friend Toby dug this up off jocohistory.net. This looks like the kind of photo someone might find in their grandparent's attic, causing them to question what kinds of bizarre rituals actually took place in JoCo in generations past. Plenty of more interesting shots where that came from.

If you've got any other bizarre images from the region or caption suggestions for any of these shots, feel free to send them my way and I'll post them here. It don't pay nothin' but it sure does look good on a resume.

Searching...

I have a bad habit of leaving piles of poetry all over the apartment, reams and reams of papers torn out from the typewriter only to be trod upon or carried out the window by the spring breeze, where they often alight on non-poetic things like fence posts and car windshields.

Recently one of these sheets of verse wound up in the hands of the apartment caretaker, a slight but strong-hearted Tunisian woman who knocked on my door once she picked up the paper and recognized my signature typeface. "Young sir, I knew that you had troubles, but nothing like this," she said, holding the paper toward me with a look of concern and sorrow.

Upon recognizing the particular piece she held in her hand, I smiled and shook my head. I had, in fact, carefully selected, arranged and typed out the following verses. But as you're sure to see, this was no ordinary poem...

"?"

Who do you think you are
Who do i vote for
Who do i look like
Who do you love
Who does she think she is
Who done it
Who do you want to be

What could be better
What could happen to the target cells in an animal that lack receptors for local regulators
What could cause dizziness
What could happen in 2012
What could cause a missed period
What could cause a false positive pregnancy test
What could he be thinking
What could cause blood in stool
What could you buy with 700 billion

When will i die
When will the world end
When will i get married
When will we know who is president
When will i see you again
When will i be loved
When will twilight be on dvd

Where the wild things are
Where the hell is matt
Where the red fern grows
Where the heart is
Where the sidewalk ends
Where the buffalo roam
Where the light is
Where the truth lies
Where the streets have no name

Why do cats purr
Why do men have nipples
Why do dogs eat grass
Why do leaves change color
Why do men cheat
Why do we dream
Why do we yawn
Why do people smoke
Why do dogs eat poop
Why do fools fall in love

How to tie a tie
How to kiss
How to get pregnant
How to make money
How to lose weight
How to draw
How to make a website
How to cook a turkey
How to write a resume
How to lose friends and alienate people

Where is the love lyrics
Where is dubai
Where is chuck norris
Where is my mind
Where is the g spot
Where is waldo
Where is my polling place
Where is my stimulus check
Where is the love

- LW/Google, 2009

As you might have already guessed, the lines above are not the product of my teeming brain, but rather the questions and concerns of millions of people as typed into a Google search window. All I did was type in the first two words and wait until those questions popped up as part of the "auto-complete" or "auto-fill" function, which attempts to finish your question based on what countless people have already run searches for. What you see above is almost exactly what came up in the search fields when I compiled this last month, though I'm sure it would be slightly different now.

So the questions in this piece are not those of one man, but rather all men -- although the results are admittedly skewed toward English speakers with Internet access and a marked neurosis about pregnancy issues.

I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek about this, as usual, but I actually really do like this formula for generating short works of literary ephemera. I think it would be really fun to come up with a short video or animation where a different voice reads each line. It's like interviewing someone, except you're getting to their most secret concerns without even knowing who they are.

If nothing else, I hope the chorus of questions above serves as an antidote to the loneliness and secrecy that so often accompany an individual person's google search. As my dear friend Scott Frances said in response to this piece:

Thanks for your inspirational message. I really related to this poem, especially the following parts:
How to kiss
How to get pregnant
Where is the g spot

When I read your explanation, I was so happy to know that other people were also googling the above lines. It made me feel like I'm not alone in this world.

And that, my friends, is all a blogger/poet/search engine can really hope to achieve.

An Italian in Detroit

This is a joke that my grandfather faxed to us quite a few years ago. It's best if you read (or even shout) it out loud. Especially the last line.

German lesson #17

I haven't posted anything in or about the German language lately. Unfortunately I haven't done much speaking, reading or writing in German at all recently until I helped translate the packaging on the Micro Korg vocoder that Nathan bought last week (fun new vocab word: Schwanenhalsmicrofon. Literally "swan-neck microphone"). This got me inspired to go back to my multi-volume set of Goethe, which I plan to quote from extensively on this site over the next few months.

In the meantime, something more modern and succinct...

A few years ago, my friend Till was sitting next to a mysterious looking guy on the S-bahn in Berlin. From what I remember him telling me, the guy was of Asian descent, had long hair drawn into a pony tail, and was totally focused on writing a text message on his phone for several stops. Eventually the guy looked up, handed Till the phone and asked if he would proofread the message for him.

As it turns out, the guy's German was impeccable. The message, however, was a bit unorthodox. It read:

Vielen Dank für deine Hilfe. Ich habe die Medikamente bekommen. Ich habe bei einer Schlägerei und Schiesserei noch zweimal meine Nase gebrochen!

Which means, in English:

Many thanks for your help. I have received the medications. I have broken my nose two more times during a beat-down and a shootout!

The interesting words here -- and the subjects of today's German lesson -- are "Schlägerei" and "Schiesserei." Schlägerei comes from the verb "schlagen" (to strike) and the suffix "erei," which generally has a negative connotation, is an allomorph meaning something like "around" in this case. So literally it's something like "punch-around," which to me conjures up a pretty funny image, much like the one above taken from a Spiegel.de article about a post-soccer game brawl. "Schiesserei" is the same thing, only with guns (schiessen = shoot).

So with these new vocabulary words under your belt, and this dubious explanation of their meaning, you're all set for your big trip to German-speaking lands. Thanks to Till and the mysterious Asian-German warrior for providing the context for today's lesson.

Six years and counting

Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you put in place. How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the U.S. military?

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, and took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? If you take down the central government of Iraq you can easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.


Iraq War anniversary quiz time: Can anyone tell me who made these statements and when?

Snapshot of the Week

Taken last week in downtown Williamsburg, Kansas. Once I have more info on where junk can be donated to build this playground, I'll be sure to share.

Jenn took this photo. If you didn't see the sequence of our tour of the dark inside of the arch, you can see that here.

City of ?????????

How many times have you driven by one of the city fountains in the summer months and smiled at the sight of a bunch of kids playing in or around them?

That might be a sight of the past if the city continues with its latest plan to save money.

If you haven't heard, the Kansas City Parks Board does not plan to turn on any of the city's 48 fountains this year. At all. I don't know exactly why this bothers me so much. Maybe it's because I'm a water sign. Or because the image of children frolicking in empty fountain beds instead of streams of water is a mite depressing. Or perhaps it's because Kansas City bills itself as the CITY OF FOUNTAINS.

I know the budget is tight and you don't want to cut important things like police or trash pickup. But surely it can pony up the $160,000 necessary to keep the fountains running for at least a few months of the year.

Sure, keeping the fountains off in 2009 might seem like a good way to ride out the current economic crisis. But if you don't turn them on this year, it will be even more difficult to do so in the future. The repair bill for fixing fountains that have been left dry for lengthy periods of time would likely be much higher than 160K. What seems like a harmless and necessary cutback now could be a death sentence for many of these fountains in the long run. Which is pathetic, considering this is the so-called "city of fountains." (Or did I mention that already?)

I've heard some people say that this is a great opportunity for private citizens or businesses with deep pockets to step in and save the day. But what then? Will they be relied on to keep the fountains going indefinitely? And how long before we'd start to see things like "Sprint/Nextel Women's Friendship Fountain!" in glitzy signs above the fountains themselves?

Going without fountains for one year is certainly not the most tragic thing in the world. After all, there are plenty of countries where people can't even find or afford clean drinking water, much less decorative displays of the stuff. But while we're spending millions of dollars funding stadium renovations and exclusive entertainment districts, why not make enough of that money available to keep alive something that people of all ages, races and social classes can enjoy?

Kansas City was founded and designed by people who had a vision of how to turn an uninspiring trading settlement into a viable, attractive community. If they hadn't, who knows what this place would look like. Operating fountains is a small civic amenity, but a significant one when it comes to the allure and vitality of this place. And for those whose parents can't afford to get them a country club membership, they're one of the only places around to cool off on a hot summer day.

I'd encourage people to voice their displeasure with this plan, and I'd encourage the city to find some way around this particular cut in the budget. Because fountains are fun for everyone. And "City Too Cheap/Broke To Turn On Its Fountains" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

A St. Patrick's Day letter of unknown origin that has been in my family archives for some time

I believe the man who wrote this letter was the cousin of my great-uncle. I am not sure. All I know is that all of these things really happened.

How To Smoke Smarties

I have a long history with Smarties. My mom used to keep a jar of them on top of the refrigerator, which I often hit up on the sly. I liked Smarties so much that I couldn't help but go back for "just one more" several times a day (while supplies lasted, which wasn't long considering I had several younger brothers who also had a taste for the sweet stuff). This was around the same time we first had a D.A.R.E. officer come to our class and teach us about the dangers of substance abuse and addiction, which I became convinced I had developed with "America's favorite candy wafer roll."

Nowadays I look back on that misplaced fear with amusement. To the growned-up me, Smarties are synonymous with childhood innocence. At least until I saw this video a kid did of "how to smoke Smarties," which I should probably find horrifying but actually think is kind of cute...


And lest you think that I'm contributing to or celebrating the delinquency of young people, take it from the kid himself: "It doesn't kill you, it doesn't hurt at all. It's just...smoking Smarties."

(video reblogged from Bottom Line Communications, illustration taken from smarties.com)

Film Music

I'm going to be posting some more songs on the lukebox this weekend, but for now here's a track from my favorite obscure group of the moment, Family Fodder. The group was led by a lady named Media Fodder and her three brothers, Tod, Rod and God. I'm not sure if those are their real names. I remember the song above back when it came out in 1981 and I was the tender age of zero. Those were different times.

Hope you have a nice weekend and see you next week.

Stewart vs. Cramer

Good analysis of the Jon Stewart vs. CNBC segement from Will Bunch...

The First Amendment doesn't say anything about not being funny, or not being passionate. I don't know about you, if you actually watched the piece, but I feel like I learned something important -- confirming the cheerleading nature of the nation's most-watched source for business news, even in a moment of oncoming disaster -- but I also busted my gut laughing as I did. And there's nothing wrong with that, informing and entertaining at the same time -- isn't that what newspapers are charging people 75 cents for?.

What battered newsrooms can learn from Stewart's CNBC takedown (full article plus link to video)

Tonight should be interesting.

Tallgrass roads

Following Jimbo into the Thousand Acre Pasture (I think) at Silkville Ranch in Williamsburg, Kansas last Sunday. I would have felt bad about plowing over this native prairie grass until I found out it was all going to be burned in a few weeks anyway. So the cycle can repeat itself. There are a lot more varieties of native Kansas grasses than I would have guessed.

We'll post some more pictures from this set soon.

"It is what it is"

If you've been in the country anytime in the the past five years or so, you've probably heard the phrase "it is what it is." People use it constantly. On one hand it's one of those meaningless verbal shrugs that serves to wrap up a conversation, along the lines of "I hear ya" or "what are you gonna do?" On the other, it actually does mean something. Perhaps that the subject in question must be taken at face value, or that it must be dealt with without harboring any illusions about it what it might be but isn't. Urban Dictionary has no less than 16 definitions. Or, to quote from this assessment of the phrase on flak magazine, " 'It is what it is' can also be an agent of insinuation, a coy refusal to spell out something that the speaker clearly thinks goes without saying." This brief analysis of the phrase led me to make a few diagrams which I reduced to the mini concrete poem above. I don't expect it to win any awards, but it was a helpful exercise in exorcising that seemingly ubiquitous phrase from my head for at least a few minutes. Nothing groundbreaking, but you know what they say...

Right now, in the office...

Award-winning cartoonist Stephan Pastis is in John's office holding a red-streaked kleenex to his nose. There's been a lot of yelling and commotion going on for the better part of an hour.

I would be worried, but the fact that Stephan just borrowed a red felt-tip pen from me a few minutes ago puts my mind at ease...somewhat.

Wait...it looks like someone's filming the whole thing, too. Apparently they're making a promo for the 12th "Pearls Before Swine" collection.

Update: Stephan just stuck his head out (still covered in "bloody" tissue) and told me to carry on like I don't have any idea what's going on. Which shouldn't be too hard considering I don't, really.

Uh-oh...the shouting is escalating. The office door is open and the argument is moving this way. I'd better get going before it's too late...

(re-blogged from the syndicate editor's blog. Just wanted to give you a first-hand account of what goes on at my work if I stay late enough)

Broken Windows

If you enjoyed the Costco post but were left wanting even more hard-hitting journalism, here's a classic article that actually addresses some serious aspects of urban life. This essay by George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson from the March 1982 Atlantic Monthly uses a single broken window as a metaphor for why people should care about their neighborhoods. If you find it interesting, there are some links to other articles by them on the Atlantic sidebar.

I'd also recommend checking out this book by William Julius Wilson, written in 1996 but no less relevant today (nice lil summary on this college student's site). As he said then, "The problems we see today are going to be a hell of a lot worse in 10 years if we're not willing to face up to them. These kids are just not going to be absorbed into the economy, so what are they going to be doing? Well, we know. They're going to be making life pretty miserable for a lot of people."

And yes, that picture was taken in my old apartment after someone broke the window to the back bedroom, which was thankfully never used as such.

Cum 2 Costco

While driving out to the ranch yesterday I noticed that the parking lot of the Costco in Lenexa was completely full. It definitely looked like the place to be on a suburban Sunday afternoon. Having never been inside a Costco, I could only speculate as to what kinds of magical bulk item sales were taking place. Fortunately, I was able to draw on the research of Big Baby T, whose recent adventures at a Seattle Costco will likely be up for several journalism and blogger awards when 2009 draws to a close. Aside from a couple of parenthetical comments, all cellphone pics and captions here have been provided by Tara.


this person fOUND so many grRRRRRRReat dealz and stuff that it wouldnt even fit in a cart! good thing costco provides these for your shopping ease


need to use the internet? why relax at a coffee shop or your local library when U CAN CUM TO COSTCO AND LAPTOP ALL DAY ALL THE TIME 247272424/27 IN TRISTAN RECLINER RECLINERZ SO COMFORTABLE OMGOMG LOOSE WAIGHT NOW AND GET YOUR DEGREE AT THE SAME TIME ALL AT
COOOOOOOOOSTCO


Inviting u to try this delicious sample... Srsl it is so good only 5.39$$$$$$$$ (so tasty you'll need a surgeon's mask)


This. Is. Real.
(for some hilarious commentary on the "Costket," see this clip of Kansas City's Chris Porter on Last Comic Standing...Costco bit starts at about 2:37)


for all of your toilet paper needs cum to costco asap


cute lil baby
unfortunately, my cell phone camera could not capture the outstanding photoshop job on this package of super couches(?)


i cum to costco for lunch every day 2 get my beef hot dawg

Thanks again Big Baby for the wonderful tour.
See you at Costco. (Or Not-sco.)

oh my greenness

The new issue of Urban Times is out in newsstands now around the Plaza, Westport and downtown. There are some good stories and photos, among them a feature about the rebuilding of Greensburg, Kansas, which was hit by a tornado a few years back. Jenn and I collaborated for a story about where to go outdoors in the area, which is a useful piece if you'd ever like to find any of the spots where we take some of the nature pictures that have been posted here and at jennybros.com over the years. You can find our piece at the end of the PDF found under the Arts & Entertainment tab on the sidebar of the Urban Times site.

This is the second piece we've done for the magazine, which is a neat publication considering the staff is made up of local writers, photogs and designers who all have different day jobs and backgrounds. Aside from the publisher's decision to endorse Wayne Cauthen as the man of the year in the last issue, the mag generally focuses less on politics and more on spotlighting downtown businesses, community initiatives and urban development, which I find refreshing even if I'm not exactly the downtown revival's biggest cheerleader.

Speaking of "going green," I think I might go get some chinese food. To compensate for that sentence making no sense, I'll sign off with one of my favorite photographic illustrations of how to go green.

Inspired by meeting someone who will be turning 30 on the day the world is supposed to end

The traveler girl gets a tattoo on her neck of 2012
and by sunrise on December 22 of that year
the Apocalypse
still has not happened

The tattoo, however, will remain
She has only 9 days left
to do something worthy of this skin-art
commemoration
as the rest of her life has been spent
anticipating the paradigm shift

So what should she do?

28

My boy Matt, a blogger and professional church sign designer, posted a nice track in honor of my becoming the latest member of the 28 club.

It's nice to be respectable, saintly, sweet and fair. But I don't want to finish up alone in a rocking chair.

More on numbers, superstition and the apocalypse in my next post.

Waking up at the wheel

Sorry it's been so silent around here, folks. It's just that up until now it's been so cold. I go outside for a smoke and by the time I come back my fingers are all frozen. Easy solution: stop smoking, right? Well lest the American Cancer Society join the long list of public institutions lobbying to get this blog permanently shut down, let me just add that I do not endorse smoking. It's just that a cig here and there with a glass of Broadbent 5-year Malmsey (only 20 bucks at Gomers) can be rejuvenating on a cold, late night.

Another thing is that I was re-reading the Bacchae (please hold your knock-knock jokes about Euripides until the end of the performance) and I couldn't help but notice Teiresias's chastisement of impudent young Pentheus:

But you are glib; your phrases come rolling out
smoothly on the tongue, as though your words were wise
instead of foolish. The man whose glibness flows
from his conceit of speech declares the thing he is:
a worthless and stupid citizen.

Before you think I'm just beating up on myself here, I'm talking about the collective droning and blather of the online masses to which we all contribute in one form or another almost daily. So many words, so little substance. Maybe that's another reason I still enjoy newspapers. They're tangible. You can draw faces on the text and photos when they piss you off.

With blogging, it's tough to find the right middle ground between being uncomfortably forthcoming and totally guarded. Personal blogs are like newspapers about one person, which is why I love them and also why I loathe them. No sooner have I shaken my fist at someone else's site for being sloppy or uninteresting than I go back to my own computer/flight console and write about what I'm having for dinner (braised clams in parsley broth, AGAIN) or something I overheard at the grocery store ("Sir, please stop assaulting the other customers with our delicious biscotti samples").

Plenty of times in the past few years I've thought I should apply my writing energies elsewhere. Newspapers (still) are more reputable, magazines are more attractive, and hand-written scrolls of poetry do more to impress the woolgathering housewives in my sonnet-writing workshop. But when it comes to free, instantaneous, and easy-to-distribute publishing, blogging can't be beat.

I've read that blogs are going out of fashion and giving way to more micro-bloggy, networky things like Twitter and Facebook, but I think that just makes me like blogs even more. I used to lament that the word "blog" sounded awful, like a booger, fecal log or a case of the pukes, but compared to "twitter tweets," the word "blog" contains a venerable ugliness that I feel comfortable with. The blogosphere is like the neighborhood bar where everyone gets sloppy and runs their mouths even though nobody remembers anything the next day. Probably healthier to avoid, but staying home isn't any fun either.

So I plan to keep blogging, even if this first post in a while is nothing but a blog post about how I plan to keep blogging. In the coming weeks you'll be seeing a lot of the same stuff I've always posted here, including shaggy-dog stories, transcriptions of fever dreams, fake headlines, mini-travelogues, photo adventures, haiku, music and food links, and perhaps even some more original art.

One thing I'll probably try to do is decouple this blog from any specific sense of place. I know that maintaining an illusion is a writer's primary task, but trying to present Kansas City as a perennially exciting place to spend your twenties is more than even I can bear. After living in KCMO for over three years, I find myself cycling through the same tired observations and storylines. Somebody gets shot. Another favorite cafe, venue or guitar store closes down. The tax guy dressed up as the statue of liberty puts down his signs and sits down at the intersection for a cigarette. The beat goes on.

I'm sure I'll still mention local happenings and will continue to place-drop as much as possible, but from now on I'm going to make very little effort to be factual, relevant, hip, grammatically correct or in any way tied to reality. If you're going to blog, you might as well take advantage of the fact that there are no rules and nobody cares.

On that note, feel free to chime in if you have any suggestions for content you'd like to see more of. And have a good day.

Thanks for reading and come back soon.

LDHW