What it feels like to get hit by a dodgeball

Some of you may have noticed that I've been walking funny lately. It's not just that I'm trying out new gaits (or strides, saunters, swaggers). It's just that I've just been drilled by dodgeballs too many times at close range and it's starting to effect both my posture and my brain cells. I can barely count to 14 without getting confused and the other day when someone was talking about helping a photo client with thumbnails I thought she was talking about the nails on her actual thumbs. No complaints, though. I feel more alive than I have in weeks, and if I have to pay for it with my health, than so be it. Speaking of health-impairments, anyone who wants to risk damaging their hearing in the most delightful way possible should come down to the West Bottoms art fair thing at 6 to hear Ree-Yees and friends. Here's a flier with details that you might even be able to read.

World Championships in Kansas City next week

Beginning this weekend, disc-golfers and disc-golf enthusiasts will be taking over Kansas City's parks and wide-open spaces. Kansas City is the host of the 2009 Disc Golf World Championships, which will be played out on 11 different area disc golf courses. Quite a few folks have been working hard to make improvements to each course, including new tee pads, new signs (the one above is not new, btw) and landscaping. Naturally, each course is set up at the most challenging pin placements possible. Expectations and excitement for the event are pretty high, and PDGA sponsors believe there is a good chance this will be the disc golf tournament with 1000 players.

For more information, click here. For more photos of Waterworks, one of the Championship courses, click the photo of the dude sleeping on the upper-deck bench...

Fifth Fridays wrap-up

One advantage of our exile from Yurtopia was that we made it back in time for Fifth Fridays, which is a good thing considering the event was being held at my house.

Fifth Fridays is something I started to bring a few friends together in the hopes that all the assembled creativity would lead to some kind of artistic cross-pollination, inspiration and all-around good times. In the rush to try and figure out what cities or countries we'd like to move to next, it's easy to lose sight of all the talent and creativity that surrounds us here in Kansas City. Fifth Fridays was designed to be a reminder not to lose sight of that.

I'd have to say it was a success. Though the thing was necessarily limited in size, there were quite a few quality materials on display. Among them:

- lots of bottles of home-brewed beer, courtesy of Willie
- photographs of fireworks and a leaping, barefoot man, courtesy of Camille Nolan
- fragrances designed by cat voice specialist Jill McKeever
- some soon-to-be published prose by Craig Davis
- an anonymous poem lauding the beauty of an art girl seen walking by a crosswalk, as well as a surprisingly sincere verse tribute to ODB
- the latest issue of Jessica's Spirit Self magazine
- a first-person story about a young man who was raised by Jayhawks
- Jennybros photos and stipple drawings
- a drawing of a guy riding brontosauruses on Pluto that Dave drew on site
- an excellent hand-written chapbook entitled "On the Passing of Materials" by Colin Torre
- some found black and white images of old houses and an old laughing lady
- several short films by Audra Brandt, who also brought a home-stitched baby onesie
- original musical recordings by Ghosty, Jonathan Nagel and the debut of Toby Terrence's new track, "Explanations Tight."
- a sad, lonesome country tune submitted by some drunken cowboy in Friedrichshain
- several frighteningly cute three-eyed puppets made by Brenda
- some baklava I bought at the Habashi House


All in all, it was a delicious and stimulating evening (as you can see from Liz's expression) and I hope to do it again some time, perhaps at a larger and more public venue. Although Fifth Fridays only occur sporadically, their infrequency only adds to the event's uniqueness and mystery.

Tonight, of course, there are plenty of First Friday activities taking place in the Crossroads. It's a beautiful night for it and I'm sure there will be a lot of people. Tomorrow's West 18th Street Fashion Show should be even more exciting. Unfortunately my place in the fashion world has been somewhat compromised ever since somebody pointed out that I was wearing my shirt inside out, so I'm not sure I'll be allowed to attend. Still, I'll always have last week's event to look back on. Well you know what they say. If you can't find your place in the art world, make the art world come to you.


A few more images to follow. See you soon.

Breaking update: Fredy redy to pay 4 doll

Right now, this photo by Mike Ransdell is at the top of KansasCity.com, accompanied by the caption:

At a Mission garage sale this month, Fredy Pacheco of Kansas City, Kan., had his dollar out and was ready to pay for this toy doll.

Although this snapshot is supposed to illustrate some story about garage sales, I'm really hoping some enterprising rapper (perhaps even Fredy himself) decides to use this photo for their album cover. It's just that good.

Taking Mission Mall by Force/Taking Mission Mall By Strategy

This is a picture of U.S. artillery units Shaggy One and Shaggy Dos leading our historic charge in the epic and one-sided battle of Mission Mall. Not a battle you will read about in the history books, but historic nonetheless.

Okay, no one is going to be fooled by this image pairing. Dos and I did not lead any such charge. Not that we haven't commandeered high-range cannons through the suburbs on multiple occasions in the past, it's just that publicly posting pictures of this kind of thing can get you in serious trouble.

This second photo is part of a set we took a few year ago while driving by the half-destroyed Mission Mall, which nothing is left of now but a giant expanse of dirt and chain-link fences. Last I heard the planned development had fallen through and there was talk of building some kind of giant aquarium. It's funny to look at the place now and remember all the purposes that mall served for us while it was still intact. My brothers and I had art displayed in the district art fair. We bought our school clothes there each year. I got my first phone at a Mission Mall kiosk, my first CD (Van Halen) at the Musicland, bought dress shoes for my grandfather's funeral at the Dilliards and had my first school dance dinner at Coyote Grill.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't shaking the fence and crying when they started tearing the place down. But it is strange how even the most generic of shopping centers can wind up playing a role in your life. Lame as the mall might have been, it was a hell of a lot more interesting than the huge expanse of dirt and gravel they replaced it with. Hopefully it will work out well for the fish.

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)

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.

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.

At the CVS on Main

Today at the downtown CVS I was about to tell the guy "no, I don't have a CVS card" when a lady behind me raced up to volunteer to swipe hers for me. I told her it was no big deal, figuring there probably weren't a lot of savings in my $10 purchase of Dunkin Sticks, cough drops, Sweet Tart Hearts and disposable razors. But she insisted. "We're all each others' keeper, it says so in the bible," she said. "With this economy the way it is, we could all be living together next week."

So we swiped her card and I got a coupon about a mile long that ostensibly will save me four and a half bucks next time I visit CVS.

Downtown yesterday

I was coming out of the city market yesterday after buying a bratwurst a pepsi and some cookies full of figs and crushed walnuts and in front of us were two cops on horseback. This guy with dreads had come out to one of the patios for a smoke and right when we went outside we heard him yell "Oh man those some HORSES, dog! Those some HORSES!" The cops reigned in their steeds and talked to the guy for a bit, who said every weekend in the summer he goes to ride and hang out with the 25 horses he has on a farm in Oklahoma. Just before that I'd seen two female police offers on horseback right at my place of employment at 12 and Walnut. I guess that's one thing downtown KC has going for it -- we still have law enforcement on horseback.

Kansas City Skylines

Part of a recent photoseries

Dining out downtown -- or -- Aiding and abetting the soda addictions of those too young to speak

Next door to my new downtown place of employment, there's a Kentucky Fried Chicken/Pizza Hut Express. Although the novelty and enjoyment are quickly wearing off, I've been going there about once or twice a week.

I never eat the fried chicken, just the pizza, and the breadsticks, drink and personal pan (well, box) are a pretty good deal for six bucks. Adding to the allure is the proprietor, a middle-aged Indian guy who calls everyone "buddy" or "sweetheart" depending on their gender (I'll let you figure out who gets called what). Though it sounds a trifle awkward in his thick accent, the heartfelt delivery more than makes up for it.

So the other day I was in there filling up my soda when I saw this little kid in a coat and stocking cap holding his soda cup and looking at me expectantly. I figured he wanted a refill, so I decided to help.

"Which one do you want?" I asked.

"Masfhfhfah" he said.

"Which one?"

"Dsssffffffma" he said, standing up on the toes of his Velcro sneakers and pointing up to the Dr. Pepper.

So the kid couldn't really talk, even though he looked like he was at least 3. No problem, I thought. Just fill up his Dr. Pepper. But as soon as I held the cup under the thing, he reached up and held down the lever (being just tall enough to reach it) and didn't let go until the fizz had crowned in a nice bubble just a split second away from overflowing.

I put the lid on for him and stuck in a straw, since he seemed to have lost his original one. I carefully handed him the full soda, which he almost immediately dropped. Once he got a better hold of it, he tilted the cup so he could get a drink -- never mind that the lid was firmly in place. In addition to not knowing how to talk, he also did not appear to know how to use a straw.

That's also when I realized that he was carrying a white styrofoam cup that definitely wasn't from the Kentucky Fried/Pizza Hut. For all I know, he had picked it up off the ground and carried it in to me to fill up for him while his mom took her sweet time deciding which chicken bowl to order.

Fortunately the mom reappeared, showed him how to use the straw, and told the kid to say "thank you" to me. "Mffaaffwa," he said, not taking his mouth off the cup. As the two of them walked off, I exchanged glances with the guy who runs the place and shrugged as if to apologize for using his soft drink fountain to fill up the contraband soda cups of itinerant, inarticulate children.

The man smiled and waved it off. "It's no big deal, buddy," he said.

And that's the end of my story.

Gunshots

I normally like to blog about happy things, the cheerful sights and events in my city and beyond. I was actually just writing some lighthearted piece about the neighborhood when I heard what happened last Saturday just down the block from me.

The story and news video clip is here, but to sum it up, a 19-year-old student at Kansas City Art Institute was shot 8 times after refusing to buy drugs from some guy who confronted him on the street. The student had been walking home from work at the time, down the same sidewalks I walk or ride by several times a week.

While trying to find out some more information about this, I came across the blog of one of the nearby residents that heard the shots and screams and ran out to help the victim. The dude (I recognized him as one of the guys who builds and rides around on those freakishly huge bikes) gives a pretty harrowing account (link no longer live) of the sensory intake surrounding the event.

It's easy to be cynical about crime in the city, to either ignore it or invent some justification about why it must have happened. And I know innocent people get messed with every day in this town. But this happened down the street to one of the kids I see walking by all the time. Just imagining that dude getting shot so many times and being tended to by a fellow student while bleeding half to death is pretty distressing.

I suppose I could follow fellow twenty-something trends and buy up in Waldo, Brookside or across state line, but I live here because it's a liveable balance between crack zombies and dog-walking suburban drones. The art students, however, are sort of limited in that most of them need to live near campus. It's a strange contrast, really -- you've got this idyllic little pocket of Kansas City with KCAI, Southmoreland Park, the Nelson, and the Plaza just to the west, but stray north a block or two and all of a sudden you've crossed into a zone where someone might shoot you 8 times because you don't want to buy drugs.

You've also got to wonder what goes through a shooter's mind when they decide to do something like that. In a few seconds you can end or seriously mess up someone's entire life as well as bring a lot of grief to their family and friends. Thankfully the kid didn't die in this case (if he had, I suspect it would have been a much bigger story), but he sustained some pretty heavy injuries and lost an eye.

Most message board posters on stories like this will either a) blame the victim for being out so late at night b) advocate gun control and/or carrying concealed weapons -or- c) turn it into a racial issue, point fingers and cite the downfall of society as we know it.

The (sad) thing is, these kinds of things happen all over town. I doubt people in other neighborhoods feel any less upset by a shooting down their own street than I feel about one in mine. You have to wonder why it is -- beyond socioeconomic and racial factors -- that one neighborhood gets stuck with the stigma of being a bad neighborhood while another gets a reputation for security. I'm not talking Leawood vs. KCMO, either, I'm talking block-to-block, Hyde Park to Ivanhoe, any juncture of space that could be labeled a community.

For people my age, the word "community" generally conjures up associations of meetings, signs, volunteer work, boring luncheons and tea parties and other things we feel there will always be plenty of other and/or older folks to take part in. But community as a concept is actually a lot more basic and integral. To build and be part of a community, people have to look out for each other.

I can't say I do much, but I try and do what I can to be a good citizen. I've given people rides home before in the rain (yes, strangers, and of different ages and races). I'll hand out the odd bit of change, food, beer, etc. if someone asks nicely. I even bought a soda for a kid at the QuikTrip the other day when he realized he didn't have any money (not a monumental deed, but I doubt he'll be shooting at me anytime soon at least).

I'm not about to suggest that we all wear name tags, but we could certainly stand to be a bit friendlier or at least more respectful to one another. If we viewed each other as fellow citizens and not anonymous adversaries in some high-stakes urban drama/video game, this kind of thing will be less likely to happen.

In the meantime, I'll just spell it out simply for those of you trolling through local blogs while polishing your firearms:

Stop. Shooting. Art. Kids.

Please.

Tuesdays at the Tivoli

The Janus Film Series for Spring 2008 has been announced and starts tomorrow. Each movie is only $3, free for UMKC students.

stories

Here's three quick slices of life from the past week. If you read through to the end, you'll find a nice little Valentines photo/postcard waiting for you.

Ursinister Sights at Brainblow Blvd.

A surreal last night while driving home: the gas station at 43rd and Brainblow Blvd, which shut down 3 years ago and has been boarded up since, reopened last week as a gift store selling nothing but stuffed white teddy-bears of all sizes and carnations by the dozen. It's creepy to sit there at the stoplight with all 2,000 of those bears staring at you, and I could tell that the motorist behind me was a bit weirded out as well. In a couple of days, these bears will probably be shipped back to an amusement park warehouse where they will hibernate for another year. I can't say I'll miss them.

"At Least He Wasn't Wearing Blackface"

I sang karaoke over the weekend for the first time in years. I couldn't find a suitable tune among the pop hits and ballads of the last century, so I opted instead for the old classic, "I've Been Workin' On The Railroad." My friends later told me that it went over fine and that everyone had clapped along, but from my vantage point the general reaction was very WTF? ("wasn't that fantastic?", in case you were wondering) To keep the tune interesting, karaokemeister Brodie manipulated the sound, looping the vocal into a whooshing soundswirl that gave the "Fee Fi Fiddley Eye Oh" breakdown a very trippy quality. So I didn't get booed off the stage or anything, but it might be a while before I show my face at McCoys again. Unless I go hear Paul deejay tomorrow night.

side notee: The whole thing was eerily similar to Monday's "Questionable Content." Yet another case of life imitating Web comics.

Cries In The Night

The other night at about 12:30 I stepped onto the back fire escape for a refreshing blast of cold air. I lit a cigarette and stared out into the fog, where the red lights of KU Med Center flickered like two dozen blinking beacons on a helicopter lighthouse. Everything was quiet. At least at first.

After a few moments I began to hear a faint shrieking sound. I dismissed it initially, not wishing to acknowledge a domestic spat unless it grew impossible to ignore. Pretty soon, though, the screaming got louder, originating from somewhere in the apartments a few buildings away. Just when I had resigned myself to dialing the authorities, someone turned the volume way up and I could hear not only the screams but the blast of an A chord on an electric guitar -- a jangly, cheap stratocaster by the sound of it. The screaming quickly distinguished itself as just another garage rocker caterwauling his way through the night, and before long a harmonica joined in the prerecorded fracas. I laughed and turned to head back inside, relieved to discover that what I was hearing was not a beat-down after all -- just an unexpected and much-needed blast of rock and roll on a cold February night.

Happy Valentines Day, from me and Clinton Lake.

your pal,

lkswtzl

Bilder

This is the star that hangs above my crumbling balcony. I'm not sure where we found it. Maybe it fell from the sky.


I think that this "see no evil/hear no evil/speak no evil" monkey totem pole, currently the pedestal for my burrito tail cactus (an ideal plant because it requires next to no water), should be expanded or renamed to include a "blog no evil" category. Though that would disrupt the magic number, you could also just rename the other two to something like "fwd no evil" or "comment no evil." Part of my decision to greatly reduce online activity in 2008 stems from a disgust with the user comments I see when I read the newspaper -- or other blogs -- online. Whether it's racist blame-games, vitriol over local sports teams or embarrassingly poor spelling and grammar, comments on the local Internets do not generally engender goodwill among neighbors.


This was the slab of ice we used to escape a frozen Flush Creek near the Troost Bridge. Not big enough to support our weight, it nonetheless kept our boots from complete submersion in the stream.


What's up with this picture? I honestly don't know. It's part of Jenn's recent photo sets on jennybros.com and flickr, along with the rest of these shots shown here today. If you're willing to write a few sentences or more about what you think the story is with this picture, I'd be happy to post it here. I know there's some creative types out there reading this, and I want to give them a chance to shine.

If you came here looking for something intelligent to read, than I'm afraid I'll have to direct you elsewhere, like this story from the NY Times for example.

In the meantime, stay tuned for Giant Squid sightings and some more music-related stuff soon. A big hello to friends overseas, especially those in Swaziland.

cheers,

LW

Ice fountains and the closing of Corinthian Hall

This weekend was like a bit of spring in the middle of winter. Although it was Saturday, we came across this icy wonder in a Kansas City park. If Shiva has deserted his traditional ice-phallus dwelling in the caves of Kashmir, then perhaps he's found a new home in KC's historic northeast.

We were in the neighborhood to visit the Kansas City Museum before it closed for renovations until 2010. And I'm very glad we did. I got to meditate in Indian huts, hunt a stuffed buffalo and watch a 40-year-old filmstrip about the wagon trains of the pioneers. In the 1910 soda fountain downstairs I drank two big chocolate phosphates.

I was also pleased to find that the museum was much less boring to me now than it was as a grade-schooler. Back then I was sick of hearing about covered wagons and Lewis and Clark and the hardships of the plains. I just wanted to play Oregon Trail, and I don't think I was the only student who felt that way.

I enjoyed getting a glimpse of Kansas City in the olden days, and I was glad to see that this town really hasn't changed all that much.

It's a shame this museum will be closing down for so long, but I think the exhibits were more than ready for some spiffing up. I just hope the Fairy Princess (a female alternative to Santa Claus who enthralls children at the museum every winter) finds a suitable local alternative to reside in the interim. She's more than welcome to crash at my place, but I'm afraid my digs might be a shade humble for royalty, at least that of the fairy variety.

Meanwhile, more info about the KC Museum here, and a few more shots of the weekend are up on Jenn's flickr site.


Parting shot: I'd already mentally written the first line of this post when I found an inscription on a bench near Brush Creek that sums it up even nicer: "In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer" -- Albert Camus.

Have a nice week and go easy on the hell-broth.

LW

update: there's a nice lil' video on the Star site today of some kids enjoying the museum yesterday. The aforementioned Indian hut and buffalo can be seen in the background. Which reminds me: there was a kid on Saturday who marched into the gift shop behind us shouting "Me like Buffaloes and Cows!" repeatedly. Rather than correct his grammar, the mom actually repeated the kid's words back to him, as if to encourage it. Oh well. It's her kid, I guess.

You know it's October because...

...The fountains run red-orange with the pulp of blood oranges

In case you haven't been to the Country Club Plaza in the last several days, this is what has become of the once-beautiful fountain in Mill Creek Park. When I called city officials, they insisted the water was dyed orange in tribute to this weekend's Nextel Cup at the Kansas Speedway, but the occultists I consulted say otherwise:

Says me: "It looks like a scene frozen from the Trojan War, with the horses leaping out of giant pools of blood."

Says Cristina: "It looks like the horse tried to break out of hell and got turned into stone from trying."

Says Burton: "It looks like Tang."

Whatever the case, the Plaza area fountain is certainly not the only part of Kansas city awash in phantasmagoric properties. While driving through the West Bottoms last weekend, I found much to fear in our god-fearing cowtown.

...The West Bottoms have come to life

It was a dark and stormy night. Brian and I drove downtown with the aim of getting pizza, but were denied at every turn. Grinder's was busy being City Market Jr. and was off limits. Another nearby pizza place was already closed. Faced with a shortage of eateries and a bunch of streets closed to construction, I proposed a back-up plan.

"We can always take the 12th street bridge into the west bottoms and try and find this hot-dog vendor near the Edge of Hell," I told Brian. Neither of us had any particular appetite for the Price Chopper brats and potato chips served by the sausage schlepper in question, but the idea of visiting a hot-dog vendor at the Edge of Hell sounded too romantic to refuse.

The Edge of Hell, by the way, is one of Kansas City's oldest haunted houses -- seasonal theme park/buildings that open up to give visitors a chilling (and expensive) trip into netherworldly madness.

Unfortunately, we couldn't find the guy's stand. We drove around in circles for a while, crossing railroad tracks and passing flocks of haunted-house goers, the screams and sound effects from the five-story slides following us as we drove through the bottoms. Probably it was too early in the season for the vendor to be out, especially with the rainy weather that night.

If you've ever been to the West Bottoms on such a night, you can attest that it's a spooky experience, regardless of whether you pay 20 bucks to visit one of the haunted houses. As far as I'm concerned, the real haunted houses are the buildings that have stood unused for decades, imposing red brick structures that housed various businesses decades ago and have since fallen into ominous disrepair.

Still, one of the most chilling images of the evening was driving on the bridge overlooking the the Edge of Hell entrance. The name of the building is printed in white on the red awning, and with a night watchman supervising a small crowd, it looked very much like a seedy hotel in the East Village, or a halfway point between eternal damnation and Kansas City, Kansas.

We drove back out of the area and then decided to go down Cliff Drive, a narrow street that trailed into darkness. It looked as though the street might be blocked off, but we were able to turn right and drive under the bridge between downtown and the West Bottoms. After crossing a pond-sized puddle, we found ourselves back amid the brick buildings and shadows of the Bottoms.

At that point, I looked up, and what I saw nearly took my breath away. I grabbed Brian's shoulder and pointed up to the right.
It was a gargoyle, completely by itself, the largest I'd ever seen. Not some pansy Parisian decoration, either, but a truly hideous, three-stories-tall monstrosity. We stopped the car to stare at and laugh about our discovery. I may complain about Kansas City being unexciting at times, but in this case I had to hand it to the urban planners responsible for this terrifying work of art.

This picture was taken by Steven Bower with 120 slide film and cross processed (mixed with improper chemicals) with C-41 development to give it the crazy red look. You can see more of his photos here.

...Dinosaurs devour senior citizens just East of Lee's Summit

Fortunately, the West Bottoms are not the only place in the metro area where you can come face to face with giant monsters.

For one more week and one more week only, Powell Gardens is hosting Jurassic Gardens, an exhibit of life-size dinosaur sculpture set amid its vast and scenic arboretum.

Jenn and I drove out there instead of going to the Plaza Art Fair. With all due respect to watercolorists, candlemakers and sculptors of fine glassware, the possibility of seeing dinos greatly outshined the Plaza's biggest fall event.

Powell Gardens caters mostly to elderly folks, and as we drove through the parking lot, we wondered if any of them were being brought there by conniving family members to be fed to the dinosaurs.

But of course no such things were taking place. Unlike the animatronix "Dinosaurs Alive!" exhibits I saw as a kid, the residents of Jurassic Gardens were totally inanimate. And though I found little to fear from these particular tyrant lizards, the sculptures did attain a certain grace in their carefully landscaped setting.

We visited the chapel just before a wedding party arrived -- unfortunately not on the backs of dinosaurs, as we had hoped.

And we learned a few things. For example, that Missouri has its own dinosaur, the Hypsibema missouriense, also called a Hadrosaur. This herbivore had jaws that contained over 1,000 teeth, and it lived in Missouri during the Late Cretaceous Period, which I think was shortly before I moved back to town.

Overall, I have to say that the gardens did have a transformative power.I turned into a brachiosaurus.
And Jenn turned into a butterfly.

Look for more examples of the supernatural, monstrous and mysterious all month as this site celebrates the Halloween season.

KC Wolf, etc.

This photo by David Eulitt and article from Sunday's KC Star is one of the finest examples of sports journalism I've seen in some time. KC Wolf came to my grade school one year to speak out about the dangers of drugs and alcohol (at least I think so -- that's what most speakers in wolf suits came to talk to us about). It's good to know he can put his money where his muzzle is.

Most of you in town have probably already seen this, but for Chiefs fans abroad and my friends in countries where football means something entirely different, this should at least show you that "touchdownball" (as German sporting goods stores call it) can indeed be an fun, visceral fan experience. I am of course referring to the video of the Chiefs mascot taking down a drunken fan who ran out onto the field before being tackled by the 7 foot 2 wolf and a pair of security guards. Emboldened by the play, the Chiefs went on to win the game against the Minnesota Vikings, 13-10.

While I'm link farming, I might as well send you to a couple of other vids that show how interesting life can be in America. The first is another view of the Kerry speech in which a student was tazed. I know...I found the whole thing ridiculous and annoying, too, but this is a well-done spoof. The only thing that eclipses it in silliness is this short interview with a hippie filmed during anti-tazing protests at the Florida campus where the incident took place.

Enjoy, and look for a more traditional post soon.

DDR Night in Kansas City

I'm a big fan of Germany. I studied there, I have friends there and I'd like to go back at some point. Most of you know this. So you can imagine my excitement when I walked into Muddy's coffee shop on 51st and saw a shiny poster advertising a special "DDR Night" at the UMKC Campus.

At first I was perplexed. Why would our local university sponsor a tribute night for the Deutsche Demokratische Republik? (The DDR, or the German Democratic Republic in English, was the offical name for East Germany from 1949 - 1990)

Then I was excited. I figured there was a former Ossi in the school's German department, or maybe a bunch of kids had somehow developed an interest in the former East Germany and wanted to meet up to discuss the benefits of socialism, dress up in stonewashed jeans, eat Spreewaldguerken and dance to Nina Hagen. Whatever they planned to do on DDR night, the shiny, retro/futuristic poster sure made it look it would be fun.

The next meeting was scheduled for Monday, Aug. 27, so I arrived at the UMKC dorms that night with a freshly trimmed punk-rock haircut and a volume of Brecht under my arm only to find this.

Apparently in the United States, DDR does not stand for the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, but instead a video game called "Dance Dance Revolution" in which players move their feet to a set pattern on a dance pad, stepping in time to the general rhythm or beat of a song. How foolish I felt.

Even though the cameraderie I was looking for at UMKC didn't pan out, I do have a couple of film recommendations for anyone interested in learning more about East Germany. Good Bye Lenin is an excellent movie about the transition from life in the DDR to western capitalism, and The Lives of Others provides a fascinating look at the scrutiny East German artists faced by the secret police.

If you didn't see The Lives of Others in the theater, it's now available to rent on DVD. Even if you don't have any interest in the subject, it's a fantastic film and you'll easily see why it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 2006.

Finally, here's a few songs you might enjoy from the former East. The first is featured in the Lives of Others soundtrack, by the East German group Bayon. The song, "Stell Dich Mitten in den Regen," takes its lyrics from a poem by the German poet Wolfgang Borchert, a Hamburg native who was killed at age 26 in WWII.

The second is a propaganda tune called "Ami, Go Home" performed by the Freie Deutsche Jugend, a sort of boy scout group for former East Germany. The lyrics, set to the tune of "Jesus Loves The Little Children," basically tell the U.S. occupiers to go home and split the atom for peaceful purposes. Thanks to Susi and Adam for this one.

Track #3 comes from the DDR prog-rock group Berluc's 1979 album, "Reise Zu Den Sternen" (journey to the stars). This song, "Bleib, Sonne, Bleib" is a nice hopeful number about the experience of leaving Earth behind, something East Germans prog-rockers and Dance Dance Revolutioners can surely both relate to.

Thanks for reading and stay-tuned for a more general mix of German music soon.