HARPERS FERRY, IOWA — On the final mile of a three-hour hike along the bluffs between the Yellow River and the Mississippi, we noticed the forest had begun to fill with smoke.
At first it looked like it was rising from the valley, like the pasture fires we’d seen the day before en route to the dairy. But at a bend in the trail we could see the hill itself was on fire, the underbrush crackling lightly as smoke drifted in curtains up the opposite slope.
The kids had gone up ahead, eager for a promised rest and wade into a stream at the hike’s completion. Them being out of sight amidst a forest fire was maybe not good. But before any real worry set in, we looked ahead and saw the kids talking with a park ranger who was leaning against a go-cart and smiling. I thought for sure the ranger, whose name was Joe, would make us turn around, tacking on another two hours of hiking for our already weary party, but he said it was safe to proceed as long as we stuck to the trail. (Eric later told me that this is exactly what he loves about Iowa.)
Joe explained that the fire was a controlled burn that the forest service conducts every eight years to foster older growth oaks and hickory, a forest kept healthy for recreation, harvesting wood, and fostering new growth. The work used to be done by a prison camp but that closed in 2017.
The burn was as mesmerizing as it was unexpected, and with the smoke drifting away in the opposite direction, we were able to appreciate it more comfortably. It was more of a diffuse low-key campfire than the out-of-control West Coast wildfires I’d seen on TV. It burned swiftly, chewing underbrush into ash with a satisfying crunch, smoke lingering as the fire crept steadily across the hillside.
Up ahead, Joe’s buddy (who he referred to as “Bilbo Baggins” in apparent jest although he bore little likeness to a hobbit) walked a careful line on the trail’s left edge, torch in hand, steadily kindling the burn line. He nodded to us, and we took a few pictures, but kept our distance.
The kids had run on up ahead again, so we followed, taking a last look at the smoke rising amid the trees as it rose in an almost ceremonious, ghostlike fashion.
Back at the trailhead, the kids waded in the creek, taking turns crossing the rocks and testing their balance at safe if splashy heights. I played harmonica and drank coffee roasted and brewed by my new friends, who run Thinkwell Coffee in Waverly. It was delicious.
While the Johnsons drove back to the cabin, my fam and I drove through the old logging camp and up Fire Tower Road.
The firetower itself is one of those classic overlook towers with zigzagging rows of wood steps and an iron cabin at the top that looks like a mix of WWII watchtower and faux monastic treehouse airbnb.
I wanted to climb it but Jenn wouldn’t let me. There was a sign that said “authorized personnel only.” Which, I pointed out, is not the same thing as “danger: unsafe structure,” a warning I would more willingly heed. But I didn’t want to set a bad example for the kids. Plus there was also lots of barbed wire and two missing flights of steps.
I definitely should have climbed it, though. Yes, I would have been breaking the rules, but I also would have been honoring the tower’s purpose: spotting a fire, in this case the one that had how spread all the way to the roadside.
Instead we wound up driving alongside a much wider burn, watching small trees topple and branches fall. We saw a rock tumble into the road as heat fanned the side of the car. Jenn stopped to take a picture, but I — apparently the new voice of caution — encouraged her to keep driving. It was epic to behold, but the sight of fire hits different when you’re in the car on a narrow road, so we sped on by Smokey Co and Co. for the second time that afternoon.
Later Emil did the math and figured that if this section of the forest only burns every 8 years, and the trail area only takes a few hours to burn, we had only a 1 in 30,000 chance at being there in that moment, maybe closer to 1 in 10,000 if you exclude nights, seasons, and other large disqualifying chunks of time.
No matter how you slice it, it’s a near-miracle we happened across such an event — especially considering we probably shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near in the first place. Years from now I’ll think back on those columns of smoke and marvel: What a wonder we were ever here at all.
(Founded in the early 2000s, Lake Times is my ongoing yet previously unpublished newsletter written at a half-submerged picnic table at one of various regional lakes, rivers, ponds, etc. New editions will be published sporadically and mostly out of season. Annual print subscriptions or an electronic newsletter may be available in the future. More to come soon.)
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“Strange… You don’t look 42?” Well I skipped a few seasons…
A tale as old as time. Writing on the hotel patio, drinking a local beer. What else is there to do, what better way to pass the time?
The gondola operator blasting Profokiev. We couldn’t afford ski passes but we rode up to Peak 8 for free.
Salida, where the “S” on the hill is lit up at night, first in a heart, then the letter. The pizza parlors are packed but the owner of the Museum of Authenticity is away for the week.
America is dying but it ain’t dead yet.
Instead of saying “4 days ago,” my 3-year-old nephew will say “yesterday yesterday yesterday” or “another yesterday another yesterday another yesterday.” He knows about how long ago in the past something happened but has his own way of saying it.
The old man on the Santa Fe Plaza was wearing a Chiefs hat and selling beautiful earrings spread out on a blanket. Which made me wonder if reappropriation may be possible.
Doppelmeowwolfwoche. Week of two Meow Wolfs. First Convergence Station, then the original soulful cosmic bowling alley / House of Eternal Return. And later the folk museum unless we need to get out of town ahead of the snow.
Learning the Lord Randall song on guitar and crying along to Abner Jay’s mournful singing — you always thought of yourself as the wandering child but now you can (just barely) access the part of the weary elder calling after their child.
Imagining a post-Spotify era, a new way of communicating through music without depending on streaming services. What will that look like?
Admitting you know nothing, have no authority in this world from which to speak, and yet a valid point of view by virtue of being someone who breathes, feels, sees.
He’s a troubadour, yes? No, a falsebadour.
“Ready to connect,” says the bluetooth speaker in a robotic femme monotone— an awkwardly timed reminder to the couple in the kitchen that they are due for biological pairing.
My 9-year-old son plays the piano every morning. He is vast. He contains octaves.
Let go of the projects you feel guilt rather than joy about. When your head is dripping with ideas don’t feel like you need to wring it like a sponge until it’s dry. Like a good mushroom hunter (and mixer of metaphors), leave some spores and stems to allow for new growth next season.
Fascinated by the gap between what is available to us and what we choose not to do.
“Oh, you’re going to Portugal? My notebook is from Portugal.”
The dead garfish in Toronto Lake, longer and more sinister looking than anything you’d expect to see in Kansas. How did this prehistoric monster arrive in a lake that’s only 60 years old?
It’s nice to get away from the city, a place no one cares about who isn’t there.
“She’s discovering she’s not the traveler she thought she was,” he said. Of course she isn’t. But how else do we find out how to be the travelers we are?
The problem with chasing something that doesn’t exist is that you’ll never catch it. Or maybe that was the appeal.
“Phenomenology” — what does that word mean again? IDK but I think for a moment today I understood it. We were by one of the channels of the Verdigris River, sitting on a massive slab of granite and thinking how nice it would be to have one of them in our backyard, and watching a deer in the distance, I was keenly aware of my senses, the echo of our voices in this particular moment in time, how years from now we’ll wish we could peek back in or revisit these specific ages, the pitch of the kids’ voices, what we were wearing, but time will obscure and distort what in that moment was incredibly clear, and even though the deer could definitely hear us, probably even hear us thinking, it didn’t feel threatened enough to run.
Today I played tennis with my dad & looked up & saw a bird flying high over the courts but far below the moon. I had already been to the pool with my family, these days I’m just another dad on the diving board, not a skinny 13-year-old kid hanging out at the snack shack listening to Collective Soul and Lisa Loeb.
In the kayak, without a boat or car or person in sight, I pulled up the Disintegration Loops on my phone and just drifted.
Coffee on the rocks, a cool breeze, the morning sun warm on the sandstone bluffs, the sunlight hitting the ripples on the lake like snow on an old-fashioned antennae television, like flashes popping in a crowded ice skating arena in the 1980s, and all the other now-outdated technological similes for the interplay of water and light.
Playing frisbee with E on the big field, working different angles and lofting it so we had to run to catch each other’s throws. People tell me once the little boy grows into a bigger boy the little boy is gone for good. I am trying to keep this in mind as we stretch into the summer and life feels like it’s pleasantly stuck on this domestic beat. I know it isn’t & feel like maybe I’m done with selfish pursuits. I just want to play, swim, camp. I want to be good.
Ghosty reunion show and all Andrew’s golden lines come back to me: “The way you tell me life’s a game, I almost want to play” “Oh the place of my birth it was only an accident” “In a big world, little dreams count.”
To love someone indirectly, to gain an appreciation for them through an object. Like how I feel about Jenn when I look at the vine she’s trained to grow around the pergola she designed and built. Fifteen years ago our wedding postcard was a portrait we took behind our old apartment where there was a fence draped in red-orange blooms of a trumpet vine, which at the time we just referred to it as the ghetto flower.
Driving home on Beardsley Road sober, a weird experience. Even with no buzz, I enjoy being around people, but it’s like having to play frisbee with my left hand. I know the motions but I almost have to coach myself in real time. Begin with the basic motions — say hi, hug, talk, nod — and then you can add feeling and eventually style. Don’t overdo it. One thing at a time.
I’m not used to being even, usually my moods crest and sag like one of those promotional tube balloon figures. I have to remember that a lot of my negative reactions are just that — reactions. Not final conclusions or facts.
There is nothing sweeter to this German film student than the sound of Hanna S. in a Fassbinder film asking a playful “Siehst du?”
How do I summon the werewolf energy without turning into a werewolf? How do I channel Mr. Hyde without drinking his potions?
My backyard is not a backyard it is a chipmunk forest.
The paradox of abundance — if I keep wanting more, I will never have enough. If I stop wanting, I will have all I need. I don’t want to be a hermit or an ascetic. I just want to recognize the richness of what I already have.
Historians agree. 2023 has been the most beautiful spring on record. Maybe two unpleasant days in a row at most. “Paradisiacal,” Stephen says. I had never heard anyone say that word out loud.
I admit that at this point in my life I’m tired of writing and publishing in fragments. Still, some of my favorite passages emerge in the sleepless hours between family time and work, so I’ve decided to scrape all the near empty midnight docs and pour them into one strong and clarifying soup. I hope you enjoy these mixed messages and unusual musings from Old Year Me to New Year You.
I want to make it perfectly clear, my love of the deep ball may kill me, but I will pursue this flight path until my organs and my imagination fail me, my imagination which is itself a kind of organ, shredding opposing defenses since time immemorial.
* * *
I had a dream that the world was waking up and I had missed it. There was a Mardi Gras parade winding down my street. I recognized the Top of the Bottoms medley, the Eliza Jane refrain. I raced to grab my mask and found it on the dresser, but I couldn’t find my clothes. The music was fading by the time I got to the open window. The saints were marching in without me and they wouldn’t come this way again.
* * *
Tonight I can hear the cacophony of coyotes and geese. It sounds like two rival sports teams being cheered on from opposite ends of the campground. First it was the coyotes winning, then the geese. Now I’m not sure. Have wild dogs entered the mix? Are there any pro sports teams in America called The Wild Dogs?
* * *
A confession: I don’t always open or close my parentheses. There are unresolved formulas that dictate my life, incomplete lines of code afloat in my system, pictograms and symbols stuck in my teeth. I like tattoos that are barely visible and require a perceptive viewer to notice. My last work of body art was a stick and poke tattoo of an ellipses just beneath my third eyelid. It complements my two regular eyes, which have been described by local poets and stick figure art critics as two gentle parentheses rolled onto their sides.
* * *
My daughter complains that the moon is shining too brightly through her window for her to be able to sleep. “It looks like an alien planet,” she says.
* * *
The interviewer asks: What would you like to see more of in poetry? “Stakes,” the editor replies.
* * *
Whatever happened to A? He spent the rest of his life attending reunion shows no matter how many of the original band members had died. He identified the exact point in young adulthood where his destiny was mostly set but his dreams were still alive, and he’s been rewinding to that moment and celebrating it ever since. As for me, I’m on the reunion circuit, too, as the last surviving member of an unknown supergroup.
* * *
Right now there are a thousand Instagram therapists in my pocket telling me I should spend money on experiences, not things, but how much do those experiences cost? And how much have I unknowingly modeled the same thing, looking young and carefree in my archived posts while real-time me sweats over bank accounts and balance sheets? Not that I blame any of us. I’d go to the ends of the earth and spend all of my savings to not feel dead inside.
* * *
Writing as a means of saying something, of expressing what you believe and the value of our time on earth. Writing not as anything grand or philosophical, just a series of exercises to stack together until you have something substantial. Writing as an aura, a mode of being that you never have to live up to, an activity you use to describe yourself but rarely actually do. Writing as a means to generate income, a series of applied assignments undertaken for purposes of promotion or commerce. Which one are you?
* * *
We’re cutting up our alphabet soup in tiny pieces, we’re mincing words again.
* * *
I read a headline about how, for ecological and ethical reasons, we shouldn’t buy roses this Valentine’s Day. “Forgo roses? Never!” the poet in me shouts. And yet I remember that spectral bus ride through the mountain roads on the way to the Quito airport, peering into the valleys and seeing endless rows of glowing greenhouses stretched into the night. “What are these?” you asked the driver. Roses, he said. They grow straight toward the sun here. The perfect roses, millions of them, an ecological paradise upturned by a sprawling grow-op to serve our romantic appetites up north, in service of symbol and cliché.
* * *
My 22-year-old hairdresser is talented but he cusses a lot and wants to get the fuck out of this town and move somewhere with mountains to play music and go hiking. He is just over half my age and seems to be a nice and talented young man who maybe does too many drugs. A parental urge kicks in to say, hey now, don’t be so nihilistic, set some goals and come up with a plan. But the more he talks the more I find myself agreeing with him, and by the next time I make an appointment I hope he’s already gone.
* * *
My great grandpa was called Footsie because a train rolled over his foot in the West Bottoms when he was a boy. He was a bookie and a minor league baseball manager and had some vague association with Al Capone but it’s not the kind of roots you brag about. We are a humble people. We enjoy the Kauffman center but miss the old Denny’s. At least in theory. The food was never that great. The food was never what it was about at diners. Like Chubby’s with the checkerboard floor, which later became Sidney’s and had a great karaoke night, a hangout space for my first gay friends, some of them not yet out. We always stayed out as late as we could. First dates in coats borrowed from our parents, who must have laughed at our choices but drove us to and from the movies without judgment. Who picked us up from the haunted houses. Over the years the Edge of Hell looked less cartoonish and more like a real place, a psychological state for anyone who overstays their welcome. The 12th Street Bridge on a rainy night after all the photographers have gone home. A lone woman in a long coat, smoking a cigarette. The six story slides. The drop in your chest. What future is there for all of this, what afterlife? Is proximity to the underworld an asset or a liability for out-of-state investors? I’m not going to stick around to find out. I’m going to jump that train and stick the landing this time. I’m going to play spring ball and nobody can stop me.
* * *
A banshee squawkbox, National Private Radio, a homeopathic mode of disappearance. Elizabeth Hardwick writes: “I am afraid of the country night and its honest slumbers.” The awkwardness of trying to explain to some farmer that you’re on a mental journey, out exploring the countryside on a whim, trying to get out of your head so you can re-enter it again in time for the harvest.
* * *
We had a substitute teacher when I was in first or second grade. I don’t remember her name. I don’t think I knew exactly what a student teacher was at the time. She taught us about the history of Kansas City and showed us how to do the foxtrot. I don’t think any of us actually learned. It was strange seeing this woman—whose name I don’t remember, who maybe had a short ponytail or hair pulled into a bob—teaching a bunch of 7-year olds this old-fashioned, sexy footwork. She told us not to tell people outside of Kansas City about how great it was here, otherwise everyone would want to move here and it would change. It took me twenty five years to figure out what she was talking about, and by then I’m not sure it would have made a difference. I wonder where she is now and would like to ask her what it was she was trying to teach us, to find out if she’s still living here and see how her opinion about the place has changed. I’d like to ask her, for old time’s sake, if she’d like to dance.
Now that we’reofficially into winter and no longer in the shadow of this fallen giant, an official farewell to one of the most trying episodes of our homeowning career…
* * *
I’m half dryad / I have trees to tend to / and trees to tend to me
– anonymous 19-year-old poet
OK, I admit it. That poet is me. Or at least it used to be. I’ve always over-identified with trees, never more so than in my early twenties, when I would climb trees and even play guitar or smoke while sitting in their branches.
I have yelled at utility companies for clearing too many branches, and am proud that our neighborhood emblem is an oak tree. A few years ago I pleaded with our neighbors not to take down our massive pin oak between our houses. So it felt a bit personal when that same oak tree fell over in a sudden violent storm this past summer, smashing my Mazda 5 minivan, putting several holes in our roof, and sending us on a months-long journey of worries and repairs.
I had always been nervous a branch might fall, but the whole damn thing? I did not see that coming. We watched it fall while standing in our living room, quickly feeling drips as the rain poured through holes in the roof and soaked through the insulation. Thankfully Jenn had the presence of mind to grab a flashlight and drag a rubber washbin up to the attic, or else our whole ceiling would have collapsed.
People kept telling us that we were lucky, since no one was hurt. But I have to admit that’s not how I felt at the time. There were too many insurance claims to settle, too many sudden financial setbacks. I knew I was far from the only one in the city facing similar issues, and I’ve since looked at natural disasters on TV with a great deal of sympathy, but at that moment we were caught up in what felt like our own private tornado.
It rained a lot at night in the weeks following that storm. Each time it did, I couldn’t sleep, or would settle uneasily into tree-related dreams. I pictured trees falling, all over the street, one by one, knocking over our houses, poking through the bedroom wall, knocking out my teeth. But one morning I woke up and realized: It’s OK. You are OK. Your kids are OK. The kids next door are OK. Your house is dinged and your car is gone and you’re going to have to come up with a lot of money from somewhere, but it could have been so much worse.
For fun, and out of necessity, I started biking or riding the bus to work. I talked to people at the bus stop. I witnessed occasional scenes of beauty (birds scattering over Turkey Creek, fog beside the new Ferris Wheel) but unless I wrote them down I tended to forget them quickly. Sometimes I wrote emails on my phone to old friends. Each bus stop is at least a 25 minute walk from my house, so I got a bit of extra exercise, stopped for coffee once in a while, remembered that a car is something everyone seems to own but not everyone does. I began to feel more connected to this city. But it was also an hour commute each way, and once it got rainy and cold I decided to buy a car after all.
The house, however, was still in need of a lot of repairs. At first we started small, spending hours on our hands and knees digging out sticks and oak tree fragments from the front lawn. At one point I told Jenn: it feels like we’re picking out pieces of the tree from our souls. Still, it was a welcome break from dealing with insurance claims, which is a story far too tedious and frustrating to rely here. Let’s just say that Jake is not your buddy and Flo is not your friend.
In the meantime, when in doubt, get moving. I learned this from Jenn and from my dad. For her it was landscaping, picking out a new garage door. For my dad, it was ripping down the dilapidated gutters, which I think he felt embarrassed by on our behalf.
For me, it was repairing and painting the porch, digging up the yard, and planting new grass seed. I’ve mowed the lawn since I was a kid, but I think this was the first time I’d ever actually cared about my front lawn. At night I even whispered encouragement to the patches of seedlings.
I won’t claim it was fun to get knocked down the way we did. In the moment it was super stressful. But it was also OK. For the most part, I’ve had a pretty charmed existence, and I think to really appreciate my little life I had to get to know the ground a bit.
Naturally I wish I would have had the tree taken out before it took such a heavy toll. But I also remember how beautiful it was every fall. I can’t find any photos, but I can picture it— an expansive golden canopy filtering light and casting wavering shadows on our lawn, stirring in the breeze, providing shelter as we ran around beneath it or labored to sweep up its endless leaves. The end was traumatic, but it had a good run.
Months later, the grass is green, the house almost repaired. We’ve mostly moved on to other things. And in a time of unbelievable suffering for so many in the world, my own problems feel tiny. But tiny moments of joy also feel more precious now than they ever have. A home is a place to live, a car is to get around easily. Our real treasure is each other and our time together. It took me a few months to really feel it, but all those people were right. We are so lucky.
Postscript: a noble closing sentiment, but don’t leave things to luck. If you’ve got an aging or just a large tree poised dangerously close to your house or neighbor’s house, get it checked out, trimmed, or removed completely if necessary. 19-year-old half dryad me might not have understood, but 40+ me has learned the hard way: better safe than sorry, and while still not cheap to remove a tree, it’s much cheaper to do it preventively than pay for it later.
My advice as far as insurance goes, having one through this and talked to others: Know what’s in your policy and if possible go through a broker or a human being when you purchase it. Stuff you buy online ain’t the same, even if it’s backed by one of the big boys. And while there are some kind folks who work in insurance, getting them to call you back can take weeks or even months, so prepare to be patient.
In this first of a series of year-end blog posts: The mystical midwesterners among us may be at least partially hallucinated, but as this post and our new state license plate reminds us, not all who wonder/range/surf are lost.
* * *
When I first used Chat GPT, for a variety of editorial and experimental purposes, I eventually got around to asking: Who is Lucas Wetzel fromKansas City. The answer surprised me.
This, in the parlance of AI models, (and as you’ve most likely read) is a “hallucination” — the AI model confidently spitting out facts that are in no way connected to reality. I’ve seen it happen a lot with other material, but watching it instantly invent a new identity for me made me wonder — did it know more about me than I knew about myself? Might it have some inkling where I’m headed?
When I re-entered my name and location with the same question, it told me: Lucas Wetzel is a professional soccer player from Kansas City who plays for the Swope Park Rangers. Which is actually the training squad for the city’s Major League Soccer club, Sporting KC. Interesting that of the two options, it chose the far lesser-known team. But in a way also much cooler.
The next week, while staying in a cabin on Lake Pomona, I picked up a copy of the Kansas state travel guide. There was a picture of a guy surfing, sporting a rakish beard and leaving an artfully carved wake. I had in fact waterskiied at this very lake many years ago, but I certainly hadn’t had that much facial hair. If it was my brother and I on a waverunner smoking a cig, however, that would have been a much more historically accurate and awesome cover shot.
The existential whiplash from all this reminded me of the timeless John Lennon song “Who am I? What am I supposed to be?
For some questions, the answers aren’t as important as much as how you ask them. As anyone who plays with AI can tell you, the detail and specificity of your prompts are a bigger influence on the quality of the response you get. You can feed it complex and seemingly disparate material and get back an impressively authored summary.
So just as an exercise, I cut and paste a few recent notebook entries from a running Google doc and asked chat GPT for help summarizing. It said:
Not bad. Maybe even a bit generous. But not inaccurate. It’s always nice to hear someone gets you, even if that someone is artificial.
These days when I ask chat GPT who Lucas Wetzel is, it answers: I don’t know. Though surely it knows more than it lets on, at least if I approach things indirectly. In the meantime, I’m more than happy to fill that void on this very blog with more tall KC tales to come, with a side of nostalgia, observations, and dreams.
Incidentally… this fall, I was walking back to my car from the youth soccer fields where my kids play and happened upon a Swope Park Rangers game just as the Rangers scored on the visiting team. The goal resulted from a deft cross over to the wing, where the left SPR striker could accurately be described as “ranging,” seemingly a style of play as well as an identity. He ranged far and wide, but eventually found the back of the net. May we all be so lucky.
*Recently there’s been some controversy over the official state license plate translating Ad Astra Per Aspera to “To The Stars.” (The travel guide apparently adopted the slogan before the license plate.) While virtually everyone in Kansas speaks fluent Latin, as a wider messaging campaign the translation of this state’s natural highlights makes sense. To The Stars!
**And to bring this post all the way back to the title, I want to close by saying that anything is possible, as my friend Neil has proved at Surf Anywhere, Canada, a pioneering outfit in engineering and setting up locations for river surfing. I’m proud of Neil and am glad to see we are each living our best landlocked beach boy existence.
Remember the Occupy movement? A series of protests in which demonstrators took over public squares in order to make a statement about capital and inequality. Occupy Wall Street, Occupy London, Occupy Kansas City. Over a decade later I’m engaged in a solo demonstration I’m referring to as “Occupy My Own Mind.” Which, in the attention economy, feels like the ultimate protest.
I haven’t spent this much time here in a while without interruption. It is vast and echoey and surprisingly small. I can access it through familiar portals: on walks, in the shower, on the patio at night, or at the downstairs desk or chair where I now sit. I see the cat stroll in the room and I envy her freedom. She circles the floor, mews sharply at the irony of my last thought, which seems to have reached her telepathically, and exits the room again.
Left alone with my thoughts. I am used to voids and crescendos, not this steady hum of mental energy. “Just sit with it,” I have been urged. But that is asking a lot. Better not to focus on anything too much, just let the thoughts drift as they would in sleep even if my body resists actual slumber.
The Pinegrove Shuffle song pops into my head, a stupid two-chord acoustic riff to which people everywhere perform the same dance move: a self-hug, a lurching step forward, and a splaying out of arms and palms. It’s the laziest dance trend I’ve ever seen, halfway between planking and a figureskater’s flourish. I love it, this form of nonverbal communication across society and space, the pressure of world events or perhaps boredom spitting out this absurdist oyster: chord, step, chord, step, upload, share, repeat.
Our workplace held a Wellness Fair in the lobby on Wednesday where different organizations and vendors set up tables to talk to us about things like nutrition, finances, and mental health. I stopped at the last booth and got a handout about Stress vs. Anxiety. One apparent difference is stress is caused by external factors and anxiety by internal ones. But I think the external can only press so deep for so long until it, too, becomes internal.
I need to let my membrane rest, release the pressure as much as possible for at least some period of time. It’s tempting to look for escape in intoxication or travel but even though flights to Bangkok across the second full moon of August are surprisingly reasonable and Kansas City is full of billboards promoting psychotropic herbs, I am instead forcing myself to sit with it, to occupy the inner basement rooms where the real levers and levels are hidden. And which slowly—with luck and patience— may become accessible.
In a book-length essay my friend Todd wrote about the creative process, he addresses the importance of honesty, of seeing yourself for who you truly are rather than who you think you should be. I’ve had to admit that I can be a very negative person, and if I don’t acknowledge those negative reactions they get suppressed and have a way of coming out anyway. But they are also just that—reactions—not the final word or conclusion on any subject. It’s often possible to see things in a new or more positive light.
Yesterday Till wrote to me from Berlin, a long-awaited reply after his surgery and recovery in March, which went surprisingly well. He was still off work but back on his bike in May and wrote to me about experiencing several “Lukas-days,” which he describes as magical spring days when you hang out with friends until 2 or 3 a.m. and ride your bike back home through blooming trees and nightingale songs. It makes me happy to be thought of in this way, like I still inhabit the hearts and cities I once though of as home.
This summer I am mostly staying in Kansas City. A staycation implies a settling-for-less, a making the most of things, a form of pretending you live somewhere exciting. Instead I am thinking of it as not missing out on what’s right in front of you. It feels nice to actually be in town for people’s backyard birthdays and pool parties and barbecues instead of sending our “would love to, buts…” In just this week I have taken the kids to a Royals game, the trampoline park, Winsteads, and Shakespeare in the Park.
This year’s play was “The Tempest,” which I’d never seen before but have been told by a winning Jeopardy contestant is the answer to almost any trivia question about Shakespeare. Southmoreland Park, just across from the Nelson-Atkins museum, is in its own way as enchanting as the theater at Epidaurus, with the glorious elm tree bending in front of the stage, the leafy branches swaying in the suddenly cool breeze and lightning flashing just as Prospero summoned the play’s namesake storm. In a moment of improvised comedy, Stefano snagged a handful of kettle popcorn from an audience member, prompting Ruby and I to pick up a bag at intermission as well. It was delicious and still warm.
The play sides with forgiveness instead of vengeance, a most welcome outcome as smog, sirens, and uncertainty swirl outside the familiar stone walls of Southmoreland and its annual 17th-century speeches. The storm seemed to get closer as the play went on, and with each lightning flash I worried that the drama would not conclude in time, that the marooned monarchs would be forever lost in the wilderness, Caliban eternally doomed to hateful scheming, and my own inner dilemmas indefinitely unresolved. But the rain held off, and the moon melted through the clouds just as the faithful spirit Ariel was finally set free.
When I got home I decided to stay up until the storm arrived, listening to occasional mortars in the distance as June officially became July. For some reason I decided to update my LinkedIn, adding skills such as: time travel, harmonica, listening to music and figuring out what chords they are playing, falling asleep on trains at will, and working with artists and writers to visualize and realize their book projects. It might be unwise to be sarcastic on that site but pretending to be 100% serious feels equally false. My friend Brooke recently said she heard that art decorates space and music decorates time, so in that sense at least I am telling the truth, so help me Basquiat.
While on the porch I listened to lots of old songs I hadn’t heard in a while, including some electronic power ballads by semi-forgotten or quasi-canceled recording artists, sparkly little indie gems unearthed by the algorithms, and the entire “Paint a Lady” album by Susan Christie.
Jenn woke up and came out to join me around 3:30 a.m. just as the storm finally hit. We sat at the tile mosaic table we’ve had for longer than we’ve been married, the flicking candles illuminating the empties, and I sensed my long-held tension had finally dissolved. Wind, rain, tiny flames, my bare feet touching the damp backyard earth and stone. Maybe a break in the heat and a rebalancing of elements was all I needed.
And I may be solipsistic but I’m not escapist. I know the fires are still raging, the rights and opportunities of the less-powerful are being stripped away, the mental health challenges I alluded to earlier are more present in those close to us than we often realize. I am an aging individual with a limited sphere of influence aside from raising children and making books. But small as I am, I want to be a force for good. To quote a recent comic by the artist Worry Lines, “What would change if, instead of feeling like a problem, I felt like a part of the solution?”
This week I applied for a grant to establish The Bureau of Wild Ideas and Urban Reimagination, an organization that will interview people across the city to solicit and share creative solutions for how to improve the world around us. The premise is that what seems utopian or even impossible today could be what helps make our cities livable in the future. Whether that gets funding or not, I’m sure we’ll find ways to keep having those conversations.
So if you’re an old friend or at all interested in these topics, let’s hang out or catch up soon. And if you’re a current colleague or prospective professional partner, don’t worry, I remain committed to the creative projects I’ve taken on and am happy to have such work, stressful as it may be. Lately I’ve seen good friends show incredible resolve in the face of genuinely difficult circumstances, and it inspires and reminds me to make the most of my own rather favorable lot in life.
Today I bought my first new harmonica in 15 years, a Hohner Marine Band in the key of G. I like harmonica because, in addition to channeling and redirecting the breath into lonesome wails and joyful trills, it’s an instrument you can play while driving or even riding your bike, though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. Self-care comes in many different forms, after all.
On that note, I’m shuffling off to do a few more garage rehearsals for an upcoming picnic gig. I’ll see you around town soon or over email or in some other fashion. Wishing you a blessed 4th, stay in touch, and may all your fuses light and all your sparklers be bright.
In June/July 2021, Jenn, our two kids, and my brother Peter were lucky enough to visit Greece between the country’s covid travel restrictions lifting and the extreme heat and wildfires later that summer.
Instead of island-hopping, we rented a car and drove along the coast of the Peloponnese peninsula. We kayaked in Kardamyli, gave names to dozens of street kitties in Hydra, watched Euro Cup games at crowded outdoor tables in Athens, and chased a thieving ferret away from my plate of shrimp Saganaki at the old fortress city of Monemvasia.
During the annual theater festival at the ancient theater of Epidaurus, we watched a production of “Iphigenia in Tauris” from the very back row, mesmerized by the procession of the chorus as the singing women took the stages in white robes, carrying candles and singing complex harmonies that date back to the 5th century B.C.
On the last night of our trip, we drove out to the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, which my parents had visited while they were expecting me, joking around about naming me either Zeus or Poseidon. Watching the sun set beside the same ruins 40 years later gave me a profound sense of coming full circle, and being able to travel internationally after a year+ of lockdown felt like a small miracle. As the glowing orb of Helios disappeared from sight, the group of tourists scattered along the rocks broke into spontaneous applause.
As an encore to this trip, we recently published a series of mythology-inspired haiku written that summer by our daughter, Ruby. It seemed fitting to share these poems on Kawsmouth, the arts/lit site we launched in 2012 just a few weeks before she was born.
At the time of writing these, Ruby was 9 years old and had spent the previous year reading Greek myths from different sources, starting with the classic D’aulaire’s anthology, which is a great place to start for a kid who is interested in Greek myths. She quickly became an expert on Greek Mythology, talking about its heroes and villains like those of any other book series.
Ruby made illustrated biographical profiles of Goddesses like Athena and Hestia, wrote 15 chapters of a book about a girl who discovers she’s the daughter of Aphrodite, and even drew some cute comics starring Cerberus. She’d occasionally mention having dreams about or feeling sympathy for unfairly maligned figures like Medusa, whose monstrous fate was all Poseidon’s fault (thank goodness her dad wound up with a different name in the end).
In these poems, presented with Ruby’s permission and guidance, she expertly captures the flawed nature and tragicomic dilemmas of the Gods and the mortals whose lives they impact. And there are a couple of bonus haiku here, too—one about her cherubic cousin Abel and another about the cuteness of kitties. It’s a bit of a departure from the classic texts, and I’m hardly an unbiased editor in this case, but I think the muses would approve.
Last night one of the most exciting live music residencies in recent Kansas City history concluded with a three-set performance by the Hot Toddy Trio featuring Todd Brozman (electric piano), Dave Brick (drums), Brett Hendricks (bass) and Seyko Groves (vocals) live at Peter’s Loft. This ensemble specialized in soul/jazz interpretations of pop, grunge and yacht rock, putting a funky instrumental spin on everything from Queen to the Pixies while paying more direct vocal tributes to Stevie Wonder and Al Green. It was a truly magical run of shows over the past 12 months, and to commemorate I wrote a piece I intended to read live but didn’t quite put together in time. So I’ve written it out below instead—a tribute to a special microchapter of KC musical history and the unique yet rapidly changing neighborhood where it all took place.
An Ode to the Hot Toddy Trio Ft. Seyko Groves aka Aloha Means Both Goodbye and Hello
At midnight the train of souls rolls past 11th & Santa Fe The floorboards rumble The stairs shake
At midnight your Uber turns into a pumpkin Then rolls perilously down Beardsley Until we smash it Pick up the fragments and turn it into musical Kintsugi
At midnight Alice slips out of her chains Stevie wonders if Mary has what it takes And Prudence replies to your letter to say: Dear Dave, I too like to shake it loose it’s (almost) a brand new day
At midnight the Edge of Hell moves to the center Bats fly out of antique pianos Gorgons escape from overpriced turquoise cabinets Scattering vintage dresses and terrorizing suburbanites
At midnight the ghost of Jay B. Dillingham wakes up and packs his pipe Smokes out 670 Covers the promontory in fog The Marriot blinking like a stoned robot
At midnight the groove builds to ever climbing temps Hot Toddy all through your body rock the sporadic weekend Wurlitzer party
At midnight Peter pours the Torn Label until our workaday sorrows are mended The musicians play on his handcrafted stage Backed by the municipal scoreboard lights Like a field of dreams He built it and we came
At midnight the West Bottoms are sold to the highest bidder On the promise of work/play utopias But these developers have no idea what they’ve purchased What chambers of horrors and wonder they’ve added to their portfolios
You can empty the stockyards Buy all the buildings Chase away the ghosts Turn Kemper into Hyvee But this neighborhood will always be haunted
Remember the Bottoms, such as they are And will continue to be
And yet, we concede change is the only constant
You can’t piss in the same river twice Especially if it’s two rivers The Kansas and the Missouri The Republican and the Big Muddy
At midnight the Green Dolphins breach the levees Our heads swim in tones of Afro Blue We’re always on the verge of drought or flooding It’s not safe to swim But who says we can’t fly?
But now we say bye bye to T On the eve of his move to NYC Today the skies cried in anticipation of this parting Todd’s a cool cat When you go, you take the sunshine Please visit and bring a slice of it back
Dave B will keep on keeping the beat We used to play Meters jams in his basement And now he writes genuine soul anthems Rise Up!
To Brett, our prodigal southpaw, back from Bali and beyond With a heart as big as his bass runs deep
and Seyko, whose singing carries us Higher than these five flights of steps ever could All the way to the top of the bottoms
The four of you together have been magic For those of us in the crowd And your musical guests
“Shades of delight, Rich as the night”
One day these brick cities will be forgotten But not tonight Hot Toddy has more songs to play
I recently wrote about my experience taking the last ever flight out of the old Kansas City International airport, hanging out in Chicago for six sleepless hours with a group of friendly strangers, and flying back the next morning on the very first flight to arrive at the brand-new Kansas City International Airport. You can read about it over at Kawsmouth.
I’m still not sure how the Chiefs won the Super Bowl this year. I watched or attended every game, so I know how they did it. But there were several other teams in line for this year’s crown — the dynamic, dominant Philadelphia Eagles led by the near-unstoppable Jalen Hurts, the Buffalo Bills with their history of perpetually falling short plus the season’s most harrowing and hopeful story in Damar Hamlin, and the seemingly ascendant Bengals backed by Joe “Cool” Burrow.
But the Chiefs dashed all of those hopes, directly or indirectly, and last week we had a parade. My season-ending post last year was about the lessons of losing for a generation that has not experienced it yet. This year we’ll look at four Chiefs players / municipal sports heroes through the lens of parade clips and highlights to better appreciate the season and what it all means.
Patrick Mahomes — The Champion
Patrick Mahomes is the champion this city has never had, at least since the days of George Brett. But while Brett was a rogue-ish, rakish figure, Mahomes seems to embody a higher level of champion — not just winning the league but championing social causes, saying all the right things, deflecting praise to his teammates, always willing himself and others to win.
At the parade we got to see a bit more human side of Mahomes, a guy “as humble as anyone can be who is wearing a wrestling belt and sideways champagne goggles,” as someone described it. I was at the game against Jacksonville when Mahomes got hurt, I saw him blowing up at his coaches on the sidelines when they made him come out. A hush fell over the crowd that only a Henne touchdown drive and a Lil John halftime concert could cure. Somehow, amazingly, he came back every time, winning the second half and two more games after that.
Anyone who has been injured like that knows how a sharp twinge of pain can lead to instant surrender. Most of us would place our own self-preservation ahead of putting ourselves at further risk. But #15 didn’t, and now he’s a champion yet again, and the whole city feels like a champion, too.
A lot has been made of a few letters to the editor expertly used for clickbait by the local paper of record. “It’s a shame these players were drinking,” was the gist of it, leading to a predictable outpouring of “They’re grown-ups, they’re champions, get over it.” I love a good low-stakes controversy, and while celebrating by spraying watery domestic brews is a bit tacky for my tastes, so is encouraging your children to worship professional athletes. Still, nothing humanizes us like being wasted in public. And even in this arena, Mahomes excels.
After the parade, a clip came out showing Mahomes handing a fan the Lombardi Trophy and just wandering off. Lombardi Trophies at a Super Bowl Parade are like Santa Clauses at Christmas. Supposedly there’s only one real one but they seem to be everywhere at once.
Let’s pretend for a moment that this wasn’t a replica, that it was the real thing, American Football’s biggest prize carried by its star player. “He was just drunk and having a good time,” fans might say in excuse of Mahomes’ move. But what if he knew exactly what he was doing and handing off the real trophy to a random fan and dancing away was instead a way of saying:
What, this old thing?Yeah, we fought hard for this, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a hunk of metal in the shape of a football. Big deal. The real prize was the fun and touchdowns and locker room dances we shared along the way.
In a word: swagger—championship swagger.
Travis Kelce – The Brophet
Travis Kelce’s touchdown catch on the Chiefs’ first drive of the Super Bowl was fantastic, the kind of catch only he makes. But his ensuing celebration dance was as cringeworthy as his catch was special. I say this not to dance-shame the guy (celebrate how you like, you earned it) but to illustrate the duality of Kelce.
At the parade, thousands of people were looking to the stage and screen, ready to laugh or cheer their heads off at absolutely anything Kelce said, but when he did say something, it was mostly a variation on the classic 2015 Johnny Gomes “they doubted us” riff and then to issue repeated guttaral choruses of the Master P classic, “let me hear ya say uhhhh / sha na na na.”
The local news station I was watching ran the speech live, but once Travis started using adult language they hit some kind of sound-blur button and it sounded like he was talking backwards, or speaking a foreign language full of elongated vowels and sh-sounds. Instead of a rally speech, the obscured segment sounded like a call to prayer, Mahomes and teammates behind him nodding at the Truth as the camera panned over the massive crowd, a sportscentric Sermon on the Mount with the Beastie Boys in place of the Beatitudes.
My parents and several family members were at the parade, and talking to my mom later I could tell she was hoping for some kind of meaningful or positive message from the Chiefs’ keynote speaker rather than the drunken ramblings of the Brophet (though if you really want to see a crazy Kelce SB speech, check out brother Jason’s epic rant from 2018).
But in a way the speech was beautiful. The lack of meaning was the message. No sports movie cliches about hard work, playing together, not giving up. Just the championship climax of damn, this feels good. Not the safest for kids, perhaps. But for a fan base that didn’t have any championships for 50 years, it’s hard to argue with #87 on the gridiron or on the mic.
Isiah Pacheco – The Dancer
For many Chiefs fans this year, Isiah Pacheco emerged as their new favorite player. Just the act of wearing number 10 the year after Tyreek left was an act of hubris. You know the coaches saw enough in him that they believed this 23-year-old from South Jersey could live up to it. And live up to it he did.
I loved watching Pacheco get up from being tackled, almost knocking over more people in his return to the sidelines or huddle than on the run itself. I always wanted to yell “Go, Manny” and I didn’t realize why until my friend pointed out I was thinking of the boxer Manny Pacquiao.
Isiah Pacheo’s story is incredible and tragic, overcoming incredible hardships including the death of two siblings. He’s a seventh round draft pick who scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl his rookie season. Amazing.
But the enduring image of him in the postseason was his dancing — in the locker room, in the parade, in his return to his alma mater. He’s like a young girl at the Irish Dancing Competition, hopping from one foot to the next and churning his arms while slapping one knee and then the other. It’s a mix of ancient cultural traditions and tik-tok, the kind of fresh Gen Z energy any modern organization needs to succeed. Congrats, #10.
Chris Jones – The Destroyer
The Chiefs roster is filled with all-stars, champions, and playmakers, but none as formidable or enigmatic as Chris Jones. No question the Chiefs wouldn’t be here if he didn’t serve as the “closer” in the game against the Bengals after falling just short the year before.
You can see tears in #95’s eyes during the anthem, fire in his eyes during the game, and a sanguine glaze in his eyes while giving victory interviews. I love his sarcasm in screaming the proper name of the Chiefs corporate sponsor after being chided for doing so earlier in the season (he called it Gee-Ha when contractually the organization needs to say G-E-H-A), silencing the critics in all categories, not just the haters on the field but the corporate stiffs in the front office.
I don’t know of any parade highlights featuring Jones, but watching the short mic’d up video of him and Mahomes during the big game revealed several things:
His incredible focus, not just on his plays but on keeping his teammates focused, even making sure they sit down to rest between defensive stands.
Steve Spagnulo hugging him at the end of the game, telling him, with the sweetness of a school yearbook signature, that he has a big heart and to never change.
And the moment before the game, when he responds to a trash-talking Eagles lineman by saying “May God bless you.” He says it twice, and not especially kindly, as if to suggest: By the time we’re done with you, you’ll be praying for mercy. It’s the kind of message only someone with Jones’ stone-cold confidence could back up. God bless him.
Conclusions and Questions
There will be a lot of soul-searching to do this off-season. Questions to answer.
Are you really a winner if you talk trash to a vanquished opponent, especially over a controversial call?
Will the sky cams running on a wire get replaced by drones?
Did the moment of prayer and unity following Damar Hamlin’s injury and recovery have any lasting impact on how we view the game?
Will the Chiefs ever change their name, and if they do divorce themselves from the cultural cannibalism will they find other ways to bring attention to Native issues and the troubled parts of regional history instead? (a topic we’ve written about before over at Kawsmouth)
Should we instead become the Chefs, chopping vegetables in the air? The Kerchiefs, with a mascot in an ascot? The Wolfpack, which is what dozens of tailgaters already call themselves?
All good questions. But one question we won’t have to ask in Kansas City is how long it will be until we climb back to the tier of champions. Because we’re already there.
So for now, in Kansas City, the Championship Swagger continues. As Mahomes might say, in not so many words:
You want this trophy? Here, take it. We’ll go out and get ourselves another.
Last night we burned all the Christmas wreaths. Basking in the sudden heat and light of the crackling greenery made it feel like the year had finally started at last, the January malaise burning away and giving shape to something new. These last hours of the old lunar year seem like the right time to share this tapestry of writing from 2022, a mix of quotidian and fantastical phone notes that I compiled and fleshed out over the past few weeks, though there are about 1,000 words per month so read at your own risk. Wishing you a warm and glowing 2023.
Every year I make vague plans to complete a long and continuous work of writing and instead I wind up scribbling short observations and reflections about daily events. I suppose it’s my way of bending rather than breaking with the modular work calendar that governs my weeks, days, hours. And it’s a way of writing at least something when I’m too busy with work projects or emails.
In the past I have also used the daily calendar format as a basis for creative projects, but this year’s collection is more straightforward. These 200 or so entries were expanded from my initial notes to paint a portrait of a year that was by turns Epicurean, difficult, transitional, sad, and at times also very fun.
I also find writing daily or near daily entries enormously helpful in keeping track of what happens to my time, cataloging big life events and small moments alike. Seeing everything in one places helps me get a sense of what kind of year it was, and it’s a more accurate barometer of life’s ups and downs than what you might find on social media.
I admit this kind of writing may be more fun to write than to read. The tenses jump around a lot from one day to the next. It’s a bit personal in places. But I think there’s enough here to be of interest to at least a few of you, even if it’s just to provide a moment of “Hey, I could do this!” (you absolutely could, and maybe even should).
Seeing all these moments in one place reminds me how rich in relationships, humor, and experiences my life really is (even if many important people and events are not expressly mentioned here). It highlights things that I may be overlooking or failing to do, or that I may need to change in my life.
You can’t slow down the time, but pausing to appreciate the good, difficult, unique, and interesting moments makes daily writing a worthwhile exercise. My grandpa B, who always seemed joyful and at peace in his later years, said that life’s greatest reward was the knowledge that you have lived it well.
Right now I’m a very long way from that kind of sanguine wisdom. But after the seemingly interminable uncertainties of the past few years, I’m learning to take longer breaths again, calm down a bit, look further ahead.
Who knows, maybe this will be the year I write something longer. Until then, please enjoy, politely skip on past, or better yet, pick up your pen or notes app and write a few entries yourself. For the intrepid water rabbit of 2023, it’s not too late to start.
There’s a bus stop on Ward Parkway that to my knowledge is not in use, but which nonetheless serves as an anchor in the Westwood, Missouri, neighborhood. It’s more of a little stone pavilion than a bus stop, almost like the little shrines you see in Eastern cultures, if a bit more utilitarian. I stop there for a moment sometimes when crossing the street, but it’s only a few feet back from the curb, wedged uncomfortably between speeding traffic and a bridge people often spend the night beneath, so I never tarry. Tonight, though I noticed a sparkle, a bit of gold, an orb of some sort wedged between two of the boards. I realized someone had taken one of the oversized and increasingly out of date Christmas ornaments from the statue basin on the opposite side of the street and wedged it decoratively between the pillars of the bus shrine. They had done so with creativity and artistry, if apparently not great care. As I got closer I saw the large ornament’s surface was broken, a lower quadrant perhaps having been impaled or dropped in transit, but the overall shape remained intact. It shone like a proud but broken globe, the black of the night sky filling the gap in its glittering golden surface. A plein air installation piece, the first artifact in a new series of celebrating things that might otherwise go unnoticed.
I read the other day that the way you spend the first 12 days of the year will determine how you spend the rest of your year. If that’s the case, then I’m in for a long year of walking along industrial stretches of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, skipping along sandbars, and snapping vivid phone pictures of the sunset or blurry zoomed-in images of the moon. And of course working, sleeping (at least a bit), and spending time with friends and family.
I want to share more writing, too, but since it’s the 11th hour of the 11th day of that critical 12 day stretch, I better get cracking. After all this time in the wilderness of work, relationships, and lonely riparian sojourns, I’m not quite sure where to start.
I guess I can take a brief look back at the new year so far. We are adding on to our house and the living room and porch areas are complete. Ruby has been practicing viola in the new space, which without furnishings or stained floorboards feels like a yoga studio. Last night I sat on the floor and could see the moon shining through the skylights in the vaulted ceiling. People keep asking when the project will be finished but since most of it is done I’m enjoying these final few weeks of the building process and these first tentative uses of the space.
Emil is playing a lot of Super Mario Maker and composing his own video game soundtracks on the programmable Casio keyboard we bought during lockdown. His electronic compositions are a nice blend of the jazz standards he learns in piano lessons and the hours he’s spent reading the Casio’s manual and skillfully manipulating the arpeggiator. In school he enjoys math and is illustrating the animals in the Chinese zodiac. We’re almost through with the year of the tiger and on to the year of the rabbit. Thank goodness.
Raising older kids is a lot different than raising younger kids. You never know what kinds of conversations you are going to have or need to have. The other night Ruby couldn’t sleep because she’d either read or heard from a friend that the sun will eventually swell to such a large size that it will fatally suck all the planets in the solar system into its orbit, including Earth. That prompted a long conversation about worry, life, the universe, faith, science, and many other things, all while we listened to an instrumental album of a string quartet playing Miyazaki soundtrack themes. I was touched by her concern for the future of people hundreds of millions of years into the future. I remember feeling the same way as a kid, still largely unaware of present-day problems in society but overwhelmed by the idea of eternity. You just listen, stroke their hair, gently share some perspective, and send them back to bed. But their questions and earnestness in asking them stay in your mind for a long while afterward.
After an intensive few years of helping people buy and sell homes, Jenn has mostly stepped back from real estate and is refocusing on her photography business, specializing in interiors, portraiture, and also shooting random objects and scenes just for fun in her free time. It’s been great to see her return to her professional and creative roots while also planning the home addition and helping out with the kids school activities and projects.
Life for me has been good, but humbling. In the past five years I have edited over 100 different titles for Andrews McMeel Publishing, mostly graphic novels, thematic comic collections, a few memoirs, books of poetry, and narrative nonfiction. I love helping authors shape and focus their ideas and working with our design and production team to help realize each author’s vision. I work with some amazingly talented people. The only problem is it can all be dizzying to keep track of, and I spend a lot of time writing emails, walking around drinking coffee, or staring into space and hoping I didn’t forget to do something critically important. But I’m grateful to have a job that aligns with my interests and affords us the chance to do fun things and explore new places.
People often comment to us how much we get around or are always traveling, which is a combination of truth and optical illusion. Many of the posts that look like travels are in fact from nearby locations, just framed in a way that looks interesting or exotic. And some of the trips we take (hello and goodbye, Dauphin Island, Alabama!) turn out to be bumpy and misguided. While we have been fortunate enough to go on some great trips this past few years, the superficial sheen of social media rarely reflects the more mundane or complex realities of daily life, which is one of the reasons I want to do more writing instead.
Whether I’m in a foreign country or at home in Kansas City, the reality is that I’m mostly just moving in circles—not heading toward anything specific as much as just moving around. On a walk through Westwood Park a few weeks ago, I was reminded of the Rilke poem “I Live My Life in Widening Circles,” in which the speaker talks about endlessly roaming through the world, circling the ancient tower of God, asking himself who he is: a falcon, a storm, or some giant song. I love the idea of eternally searching and not even knowing what you are searching for, even if I’m not yet quite as resigned to the concept as the guy in the poem.
After completing so many circles, I also thought I would have things a bit more figured out by now. I guess I expected that at around age 40 I’d hit some sort of threshold of accomplishment, age, or understanding. But I didn’t, and I haven’t, so I keep moving.
But now that I find myself in a rare moment of rest, settling back into routines amid the shorter and colder days, I find that the corollary of that poem is also true. I live my life in tightening circles. I find myself walking familiar routes, revisiting projects that have been on pause for years, trying to figure out how to integrate my desire for travel, exploration, and escape into my daily life here in the Midwest.
It’s so easy to live in the same city or work the same job for a long time and feel like you’ll never be surprised again. To feel like you’ve seen it all before and everything new is just a repackaged iteration of something that’s already been done. But then I take a look at the artwork, writing, or projects by a few of the artists I know—people who may be quite a bit older than me, but who still look at their surroundings with the same sense of newness and exploration one might bring to a country they are visiting for the first time.
Their work reminds me to remain open to new things, new people, new ideas, and new possibilities. It reminds me that no matter where you live, there are always new opportunities to work with others or to dig deeper within. It reminds me to stay curious and keep experimenting. And most importantly, to stay in motion and stick with things, especially when I feel stuck.
So in conclusion, before the clock strikes midnight on this 11th day of the year, I’ll sign off by wishing you a happy 2023 and a furry and gentle year of the rabbit. Please look for some new posts here soon and see the “about me” page if you’d like to get in touch. I’m very much looking forward to a new year of explorations and discovery, and I’m wishing you the best of luck.
So long, old Westwood View! Tomorrow is the last day the 50+ year old building will be the home of the neighborhood elementary school that I attended as a kid and where my own kids go now. I have to admit I’m a bit heartbroken about the quaint old place being torn down, so I thought I’d channel that toward remembering some of the unique things about it. Feel free to chime in with your own memories or tributes as well.
But first, some things that I’ll miss…
The building itself: The building is made up of two octagonal pods resting on either side of a hill, with narrow hallways, rows of lockers, and a massive gymnasium with a knotted rope and basketball goals, one of which was apparently signed by KU basketball player Jerod Haase. Our gym teacher used to put on the record to “Kokomo” by the Beach Boys and make us run laps to start the period. I never know why she chose this song but to this day when I hear it played I instinctively move to the perimeter of the building and begin running laps. The classrooms are not large, but the high ceilings create a sense of security and openness that always seemed like a stark contrast to the more confined classrooms at other schools.
The school grounds: When I was a kid, you weren’t a true kickball hero until you’d landed at least one utility ball on the roof. Tetherball was marked by epic rivalries, and four-square competition was intense. Today my kids play a lot of gaga-ball, and after they taught me how to play I can see why. Many of the massive oak trees I played under as a kid are still standing today, and another classmate pointed out one to me recently where his gang of friends, “The Mini-Spies,” used to gather to plot imaginative mischief. The lower playground equipment has changed, but used to be the home of a climbing structure called “The Spider” due to its shape. We also used to build homes for squirrels out of woodchips, decorated with tiny furniture and artwork. The upper parking lots are where many a kid has learned how to ride a bike on weekends or evenings. Just last week the school grounds were home to the school carnival complete with a dunk tank and cakewalk. Many of the trees have plaques in tribute of past teachers and students. There’s so much history here and it’s hard not to imagine these school grounds buzzing with life.
The composite pictures: The school itself predates the existing building, and class pictures line the hallways from 1938 to the present. The children in the oldest pictures look so much older than any kids today, thanks to the faded sepia photographs, changing styles, and formal attire. When I’ve been back in the school I always stop to find my class picture or those of my siblings, remembering names and faces I’ve forgotten, snapping a picture to send to friends I still talk to, and remembering those who are no longer with us. I’m sure most kids walk past them without a second thought – we didn’t pay them much attention either except maybe to make fun of an odd photo or two – but if you think about it, it’s a pretty intense thing to have that many faces staring out at all times. Not quite Hogwarts-level eerie, but definitely something that contributes to the atmosphere and generational continuity of this small neighborhood school.
The memories: Too many to recount, but a few that have come up recently include playing Oregon Trail on the old Apple computers, shooting hundreds of pounds of Buffalo meat even though I could only carry 6. Kindergarten, where we watched baby chicks hatch in the incubator and made a paper-mache unicorn inspired by the Shel Silverstein poem/song. D.A.R.E. assemblies where kids performed songs pledging to stay drug-free (with eventual mixed results). The bright yellow ribbons we got to pin on and take home when we were “child of the day.” And the smiling blue and yellow python mascot you still see today.
Mostly, I remember Westwood View as an encouraging and welcoming place that lived up to the closing lyrics of the school song, “At Westwood View, you can’t go wrong.” My teachers got me interested in science, math, and reading, but also made sure that if I hurt someone’s feelings, I understood what I had done wrong and apologized for it. I got in trouble for a few things over the years (throwing food, giving a substitute teacher a false name, writing and performing a rap song with explicit lyrics, lol) but was never made to feel like a bad person for it. The school had a maternal feel, as the teachers were mostly women, but there were always a few male teachers or administrators to play football with or set you straight or tell you about the birds and the bees with the aid of super old-fashioned filmstrips.
What’s remarkable to me now — nearly 30 years after my own sixth-grade graduation, and with my own kids in 2nd and 4th grade — is how little things there have changed. The faces and names are different, but the teachers are still fantastic, caring, and dedicated to what they do. During the pandemic, teachers, staff, and administrators faced all kinds of extra challenges, navigating remote school, health concerns and protocols, and masks. But they worked through it and our kids come home each day energized by what they’ve learned, what projects they’re working on, and what they’ll be doing tomorrow. At a time when nothing in the world has seemed “normal,” this is something I’ll always be grateful for.
Another thing that makes Westwood View special is the involvement of the parents. Walking through the front doors last week, I was instantly reminded of my mom, who helped put that mosaic together a couple decades ago and who was active in school events for nearly two decades. I remember her staying up late to paint the backdrops to the school carnival, helping to design the yearbook, or playing piano at a school concert. Her contributions then remind me of the many current parents who make the Westwood View experience fun, educational, and sometimes even magical for kids — I could name a bunch of names, but who you know who you are. I’m sure that spirit of parental involvement will continue to thrive in the new building.
So, as sad as I am to bid farewell to the old building, I can tell from talking with my kids, their teachers, and the principal how excited they all are to make use of the new facilities, rooms, and resources. And most importantly, the new building ensures that the school will thrive for many years to come — something that seemed in doubt not that long ago.
Lately a number of the big trees I walked past on my walk to school are being taken down for safety reasons, having reached maturity or sustained damage from storms. I see new parents pushing strollers and know that in a few years their kids will be starting school at WWV just as mine are moving on. There’s a lot of change in the air, and it feels like the right time for a new school building for students, teachers, and staff to grow into. It’s bittersweet, but mostly, it’s exciting.
So I’ll just sign out by saying how lucky I am to have experienced life at Westwood View as both a student and a parent, and by saying congrats to all the teachers, staff members, parents, students, and community members who make this place what it is. It feels great knowing that the school’s A+ Attitude and Achievement (old school motto, for the heads) will live on for many years to come.
Today was a day of highs and lows, and tears of joy and sorrow, all having to do with sports.
I woke up at dawn, still a wee bit tipsy from the previous night’s campfire reunion of friends, and tuned in to the 4th set of Nadal vs. Medvedev in the Australian Open final. Seeing Nadal slog through to victory and the huge grin spread across his face when he realized he had won, you got a glimpse of the pure joy of individual triumph — triumph against age, injury, Covid, and a formidable opponent.
Nine hours later, I sat on the same couch with my son watching the end of the Chiefs AFC championship game against the Bengals. They had first and goal at the 5 under two minutes, we seemed God-destined to win this game in glorious, escape artist fashion, just like we’ve done for as long as my 7-year-old can remember. He went upstairs and fetched the cardboard confetti cannon he made using a craft book instructions, “just in case.” But I could see through the humility, I knew he was expecting to use it and was just waiting until when.
But the win didn’t materialize, and when the Bengals kicked the winning field goal he hid his head under the blanket and cried. “We don’t cry about sports games,” I said, reciting a speech I had rehearsed in my head but, in the moment, had little conviction in. We watched a couple minutes of the postgame handshakes and turned it off on the image of Kelce turning away in defeat.
I had been trying to model good behavior, good sportsmanship, not yelling or complaining or moping, just keeping it steady. But in a way I think my son had the right idea. Cry a bunch all at once, then move on to art projects or Nintendo and go to bed without much of a care. Meanwhile I will be replaying the lowlights in my head until I finally fall asleep, which I suspect is still a ways off.
A valuable lesson, losing. And a whole generation of kids in Kansas City has yet to learn much about it, even though their parents spent decades thinking that’s all there ever was or would be. I should be used to it by now, but remembering how to lose graciously is something you have to relearn. I can’t pretend I wasn’t wrapped up in highlights and analysis and celebrations for the past three weeks, so it doesn’t seem fair to just turn the TV off on a bad loss like it never happened.
We like to call out “fair-weather fans,” or people who only watch when the team is hot or the stakes are high. But that’s really more of bandwagon fandom, which to me has always seemed logical — hot, winning teams are much more fun to watch than losing, long-suffering ones. All-weather fandom is all about how you handle wins and losses, how gracious and composed you can be in both victory and defeat.
I always seem to want to put things in a nice little bow — a “well we tried” text message, or “not our year” concession, or “back next year” sentiment — but the hard truth is that losing hurts, sometimes for a long time. Yes, football is just a game, but in sports and in life, emotions have to be accepted and processed, and not run away from.
Which takes me back to tennis, and the emotion of the milestone win by Rafael Nadal this morning. Watching him climb up to congratulate his team after this morning’s match, I had flashbacks to his very first title, which I watched live with my great-aunt Marjorie at her home in Amsterdam.
On that day, Nadal’s 19th birthday, the long-haired Majorcan climbed up into the stands to pay tribute to the King of Spain. Marjorie and I knew we were watching something pure, emotional, historical, and when I saw tears in her eyes I realized I did, too.
I didn’t know it then, but that was the last time we would see each other. I moved back to Kansas City a week later and she passed away the following year. On that day I also had no inkling that 17 years later I would be watching the same champion win a grand slam final with my 7-year-old son, wondering if he had any understanding of why his dad suddenly was emotional to the point of tears.
Sports is a funny thing. So much can happen so quickly. You can experience so many highs and lows in such a short time. But they also bring us together. Whether you’re in the stands, watching at home with friends, or by yourself and sharing game-related texts, the Liverpudlians are right: you’ll never walk alone.
While I enjoy the dopamine of highlight reels and victory Mondays, the joy of watching the Chiefs for me this year has not been the pure high of a chasing a championship — we experienced that already in 2015 and 2020. It’s been more about seeing a group of people dedicate themselves to a common cause and take a lot of pride and joy in doing their jobs.
So yes, losing hurts. And winning — from what I remember this time last week — can be pretty sweet. But I don’t regret any of it. Even though we didn’t get to unleash the confetti canyons this year, we did our part all season long, cheering and staying hopeful until the very end. And tomorrow, though we may not feel like it, we’ll have to go back to work.
What then are these poems? telegrams from a season of uncertainty
The poems and photographs in this collection were composed over the course of dozens of solo walks through covid-era moods and landscapes, celebrating neighborhood minutiae, regional geography, and natural phenomena. Drawing on Japanese haiku, Greek fragments, South American imagery, and Chinese mountain poetry, The river also changes its mind about things switches its antennae between influences in this uniquely Midwestern haiku journey.
August 25, 2021. KC, MO. Walking through downtown as depressed as can be, FOR RENT signs in the former Paragraph Gallery space, and across the street, a big sign in tribute to the founder of our company, who died in June. The Kaldi’s Coffee where I once traded employees art prints and poems for free coffee has been replaced by a Bank of America that no one needs or asked for. Everything feels dead, or over. The bright spot is a row of gingko trees on Main Street, a sidewalk so congested with scooters, signs, and pedestrians that it normally feels unwalkable, but is completely free of humans now, and also covered in leaves.
Inside the club we are treated to free yard beers and smoked pickled deviled eggs. A new bar in the basement of a restored hotel. It feels ancient and familiar. Maybe there is life yet. It feels like the last “urban renaissance” is finally over, if it ever really happened, I can hardly remember now. The Royals will not make the playoffs and my best friends have gotten divorced and moved away. This city feels small but is still big enough where you can disappear without even moving. Maybe that’s what happened to me. I don’t have a frame of reference, nor a presence on any platform of contemporary relevance. Isn’t that how it always is? People are briefly almost something and then they are old.
The show almost made me weep. The band’s first performance in over a year, the band members so deprived of applause, it was like seeing a starving person eat and try to remain polite. They played some of the old songs they normally pretend not to remember, and some of their parents were there. I drank one beer and then another. Others drank even more than me. There were shy and elegant people who I vaguely remembered meeting years ago and was reintroduced to, made polite conversation with. C0ntractors, scientists, muralists. The lights were turned down and someone said the light fixtures were from 60 years ago.
And that, my friends, is the end of my notes. The club has since officially opened. I haven’t been back, but I hope to return, maybe as a once-a-month DJ, if they’ll have me. An indie disco, or tour of other genres of Americana, soul, and folk music. I just have to work up the courage. If you’re reading this, and it hasn’t happened yet, please remind me. I probably will have forgotten and will maybe have a new venue in mind. Who knows. At the very least I’ll buy you a drink. And some deviled eggs, too, beneath the lights and local memorabilia. I am old enough that I can imagine one day becoming a fixture, something that has long since sat in storage, freshly polished.
Father always kept fresh flowers on the table And a refrigerator full of condiments Strange syrups I didn’t understand He taught me how to drain the rainwater from the candlewicks Told me how they would hiss and sputter next time they were lit He would shout out song lyrics at any given moment in the house He had lots of books but always fell asleep when he tried to read them The stereo was always on when we came home He taught us how to draw funny faces on the photos in the newspaper And seemed equal parts annoyed and impressed when we did it He often seemed like he couldn’t make up his mind And would linger in the doorway when we went to bed Like he’d forgotten what he wanted to say, forgotten he had ever wanted to say anything at all He rarely, if ever, talked about God But you should’ve seen him the day he fell through a sudden tear in the trampoline While we sat—scared—on what remained of the mat, looking down at Dad lying on his back in the dirt and smiling
-lhw (adapted from a lengthy text to self from 6.16.20 rediscovered 17 months later)
2020 started out strong at Andrews McMeel Publishing, but once COVID hit we quickly had to abandon the office and adapt to coordinating deadlines, projects, and acquisitions from home. It was chaotic at first, and at times very stressful, but fortunately the books and authors themselves made the whole experience worthwhile and fun. Instead of hiding out in a conference room or stairwell, I could take phone calls openly, go for walks in the park every lunch break to get some fresh air/ideas, and dig out a previously unused corner of the basement to carve out a 24/7 editorial bunker. I was also named a Publisher’s Weekly Star Watch honoree, which led to some introductions to other early or mid-career publishing professionals across the country. But most of the time I was somewhere buried in the process of putting the following books together. I encourage you to check them out. There’s something here for everyone.
Fangs is a love story between a werewolf and a vampire, who on the surface appear to be normal (if strange) twenty- or thirtysomethings, but who live dark, secretive lives. Their monstrous elements are played here for laughs, but the dry sense of humor barely conceals this couple’s genuine vulnerability and care for one another. The book itself is beautiful, a small, red cloth-bound hardcover volume that Sarah wanted to look “like a satanic bible.” We did a lot of experimenting with different cloth material, foil stamping, and even black dye on the edge of the pages to get the look and feel right. The book made the New York Times bestseller list and was nominated for an Eisner award.
This 50th-anniversary omnibus was the most elaborate and demanding project I ever worked on, and fortunately there was a whole talented team of people on hand to do it. Garry himself, of course, his longtime editorial deputy/historian David Stanford (who wrote several pages of summary text for each year of the strip’s history), and design team George and Susan Corsillo (Design Monsters), as well as in-house colleagues at AMP. We had to go back through physical archives and scan literally thousands of strips that had never been digitized, and design a program (included on a flash drive) that contained every strip in existence, along with a book, poster, and packaging. Garry also wrote a sentence summary for each week of daily strips and each Sunday in his catalog. Dbury@50 also was nominated for an Eisner award.
I once commented to someone in New York radio that Tommy’s comics were like New Yorker cartoons on psychedelics, a line that popped up on a few of the virtual book signing introductions. Talking with Tommy almost daily during the early days of the pandemic helped keep a lot of humor and lightness in those times, and we often traded off musical recommendations (usually Grateful Dead) between arranging comics, editing the essays he wrote on various topics, and working on the book design. It’s a brilliant and hilarious book that skewers capitalism, millennial consumer trends, phone addictions, doomscrolling, news overload, and just about everything else making us all go crazy right now. And there are also drawings of birds with big butts.
Chen Weng is a video game designer turned cartoonist in Seattle who studied art and illustration in Beijing, China. She has been writing and illustrating long-form comics in Chinese for years, and once her kids became toddlers she started posting short, hilarious comic views of parenting that I (along with tens of thousands of other parents) instantly. It’s a brilliant and lighthearted book that I highly recommend to any parents of young children.
Andrés is one of the most clever cartoonists I know, and also one of the sweetest. Rather than apply his creative genius to making political statements or creating witty, relatable human characters, his Wawawiwa comics give life to inanimate objects and animals, including a whole caste of aquatic species that cheer each other up in ingenious ways throughout the course of this book. Following the foibles of a kindly shark who just wants to make a friend, the sea life in this book come up with all kinds of ingenious ways to cheer up each other and anyone who reads this book.
Jackie Davis’s Underpants and Overbites colorful diary comics bring you into the cozy inner world and imagination of an extraordinarily observant, funny, sensitive, kind young writer and artist. She finds delight in the smallest things, making lists of the things that keep her happy, even during the pandemic, telling autobiographical stories with a great eye for detail and an extraordinary sense of wonder. If Rilke advised the young poet to “try to love the questions” that remain unsolved in his own heart, Jackie chooses to bring those big (and tiny) questions to life in her wonderful watercolor-and-ink comics.
Mochi is one of the most popular pugs on the internet, which is saying something. Gemma’s international readership follows her work for her art and humor, and also to get a glimpse at the comic dramatizations of living with Mochi, her real-life pet pug. Mochi can be clumsy and steps on people’s toes (or faces) sometimes, but with an innocence and charm you won’t find in, say, Garfield or Snoopy. He’s all id and no artifice, and he’s adorable and hilarious. If you’re a pet owner who especially loves small dogs and dog humor, you’re in good hands with Mochi.
I used to edit JumpStart when it was in syndication, and love the enthusiasm Robb has for his characters, who to him are all real people with lives of their own. It was a lot of fun going back through his 30-year catalog to put this retrospective together. Including over 500 comics, original paintings, and an intro by the author, this deluxe JumpStart treasury celebrates 30 years of one of the most beloved African-American family comic strips in history.
I remember seeing the sign for “Snug Harbor” while on a visit to Rhode Island to see Will Henry and a few other cartoonist friends, and being shocked that it’s a real place. I only knew the name from the visually dazzling imaginative comic strip, Wallace The Brave, which appears in newspapers all over the country and won the Reuben Award for Best Newspaper Comic strip a couple years ago. This is the third book in this middle-grade graphic novel series. Will’s characters are adventurous, fun, and refreshingly unusual. And the book includes some cool “more to explore” activities and crafts for kids.
When I first talked to Tommy a few years ago he had just started the candy hearts series as part of his “500 comics a day” series. I think it was to help create somethign humorous out of a breakup, and it quickly took on a life of its own. Tommy used it to reflect the ways couples are often not on the same page, and since the book was being pulled together in the summer of 2020, quite a few quarantine-themed gags made it into this book, along with a whole online dating series. The book was hugely popular and even made it on an end cap display in Target when it came out a few weeks ahead of Valentine’s Day, 2021. He’s still writing new ones, too, up on his Instagram and site.
In addition to illustrating Mutts for several decades, Patrick McDonnell is deeply dedicated to environmental causes and pet shelters. He collaborated with Jane Goodall on a book about her life, and is currently on sabbatical from the strip while he works on something not-yet-announced with (checks notes) His Holiness the Dalai Llama. This book is a collection of comics about nature and animals, featuring earth-friendly tips on how kids can take care of the planet and make their neighborhoods better places to live. Like all of his books, its printed on fully recycled paper. A great read for kids ages 7-12.
Zits has been around for decades now, and the teenager/boomer parent dynamic is never short on charm and relatability. I love the cover treatment on this one, where we used some spot gloss and blur to make the title look like its actually glowing.
BB3X is a special Baby Blues treasury that celebrates three decades of one of the most heartwarming, funny, and true-to-life depictions of raising children ever seen in the funny pages. In addition to a year’s worth of Baby Blues comics, this special collection sheds light on the unique collaborative process of Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott, whose cartooning magic has helped transform some of the most stressful moments in life into some of the most hilarious. The book includes a forward from Rick, a reflection by Jerry, and a special “scrapbook” section of archival photographs, memorabilia, and illustrations from the duo’s three decades of Baby Blues collaboration.
One of my favorite moments in this job is when, after batting around title and cover ideas for a few weeks, I get an email from Dana (usually around 2 in the morning my time) with the new cover art for her next Phoebe and Her Unicorn collection. Dana’s graphic novels are aimed toward kids, but don’t at all sell short the complexity of social relationships, joys, and insecurities faced by a 10-year-old girl and her best friend, the unicorn Marigold Heavenly Nostrils.
Dana’s other series, which she wrote for a decade before starting Phoebe, is a whimsical, philosophical, and imaginative exploration of the friendship between two foxes and the other animals around them. And Ozy’s dad, Llewellyn, a red dragon with an extraordinary knowledge of history, politics, and all varieties of arcane arts. A great read for upper middle grade readers.
Big Nate turned 30 this year, too, and with style. Lincoln Peirce’s comic about friendship, school pranks, and one 11-year-old’s comically oversized ego is now in development for a new TV show on Paramount+ and Nickelodeon that will launch next year. I’ve only seen the briefest of previews, and I can’t wait.
This book by our friend Jill McKeever was beautifully edited by my friend and colleague Melissa Rhodes Zahorsky, but I’m including it here since I first introduced Jill to AMP. After seeing how many submissions we get for books about essential oils and such I mentioned to Jill that I’d love to publish a book of her own botanical recipes instead, since her own work with all-natural fragrances, creams, and salves is a refreshing, no-bullshit counterpart to the new age mysticism of social media and consumer marketing. Jill is a true visionary and a polymath of the botanical arts, and in this book she generously shares not just her recipes her but also her personal philosophies on her craft, and on creativity in general.
Today is the 10-year anniversary of the Joplin tornado, the deadliest tornado in the U.S. since 1947, which killed 161 people and destroyed 25% of my wife’s hometown. This week I’ve been thinking about the event itself, and also how much has changed since then.
We had just moved back from Leipzig, and were settling back into a Kansas City that seemed abuzz with new civic and cultural life. The new performing arts center was about to open, our friends were taking part in a new national arts project called “America: Now and Here” that kicked off in Kansas City (and quickly ran out of money), and we were busily, happily, reconnecting with people and the city.
The Saturday before the tornado, May 21, 2011, had been predicted as the day of rapture and judgment by a Christian radio host and doomsayer, which made a lot of headlines. 2012 was just months away, and the apocalypse seemed just around the corner, if you took these things at all seriously, which no one I knew did (except for one person, but that’s another story).
The world didn’t end that day, but at least one person was killed in a storm that night in Lone Jack, which my friends and I drunkenly noted was enough to fulfill the prophecy on a small, hyperlocal level. That night I walked home from Kyle’s house in KCK, hiccuping and laughing as the tornado sirens kicked on. It was so familiar it felt almost quaint. It’s good to be home, I thought.
The next day everything changed. We got a call at a graduation party when Jenn got a text from one of Jenn’s sisters. “Mom and Dad are OK. Cell service is down. Landline might work.”
She quickly called back her sister, who told her there had been a tornado and that we should turn on the TV.
I took the remote from my cousin, deep in the NHL playoffs, and switched to network news, where early reports suggested that 75% of the town had been destroyed by a massive tornado. It might have even said 90%. I can’t remember, but the early numbers and footage presented a portrait of the devastation on the ground as near complete.
Jenn got a ride to Joplin the next day. I worked a couple more days — my second week back on the job — and drove down toward the end of the week. During the days between reconnecting we each had to take shelter (her in Joplin, me at work in downtown Kansas City) due to other tornado warnings. For several years after that I had recurring dreams of taking shelter from tornadoes at various locations. My days of smiling at the sound of storm sirens were obviously over.
The night I arrived, her dad gave me a tour of the tornado zone, which ran in a mile-wide band through the middle of the city. I’ve never seen anything close to that level of destruction. He pointed out where various friends’ houses had been, the spray-painted Xs with numbers showing how many times a house had been searched, and whether any bodies had been recovered. It was just before curfew, and a line of police cars blocked off access to the hardest-hit streets, including Jenn’s grandma’s house, which had been completely leveled. Though thankfully her grandma had been visiting relatives in Texas.
I remember a lot of things about that week. Drinking beer at night with other friends who had come back to town to help out, laughing at the kind but devout volunteers from regional church groups, offering bottled water and platitudes like “The Lord has a plan.” (“Yes, but what if his plan is to pummel the shit out of Joplin?” Jeremiah countered). Watching YouTube videos from storm chasers and people trapped in the storage room at a gas station. Jenn’s uncle setting aside his medical practice for a few weeks to investigate stories of people seeing angels (which turned out to be mostly Facebook rumors).
Mostly, though, the visuals: Flattened buildings and shredded trees everywhere. A giant shredded American flag on the highway entering town. Semi-trailers turned on their sides. The cross standing in front of the now destroyed St. Mary’s church. Looking for South Main Street and not even realizing I was already on it since all the familiar landmarks were gone. The driveways and destroyed houses painted with messages like “Down but not out,” “You loot, we shoot,” “Put down your camera, lend a hand,” and “F5? FU!”
Joplin High School had been leveled, and the sign beside the street quickly became an inspirational shrine of sorts. Next to the remaining letters in the school sign (“OP”) someone painted an H and an E. The “HOPE high school” sign was presided over by sculptures of eagles carved out from broken trees — a tribute to the school’s community and mascot. If the tornado hadn’t been on a Sunday afternoon, with the school’s graduation ceremony several miles away, who knows how much worse it could have been.
Later that year, or maybe in early 2012, the vividness and detail of the Joplin tornado’s aftermath were brought back to me in a series of paintings by Travis Pratt, a Kansas City artist originally from Joplin who spent the previous year painting scenes of the tornado’s destruction, most of them painted directly onto plywood and debris salvaged in the clean-up effort. His paintings captured the unusual and even beautiful arrangement of everyday materials, of houses and lives turned inside-out and left there for everyone to see. In 2017, they were finally featured in a solo exhibit at Spiva Arts Center, back in his hometown.
For months after the event itself, the tornado dominated conversations with friends and family from Joplin. Our friend Tom’s family was selected to appear on a special tornado edition of “Extreme Home Makeover,” which constructed a house for his family complete with a half-pipe, snack shack, and fake palm trees in the backyard. I remember having a party there the week the show aired, drinking cases of beer on the porch and looking out over a neighborhood that was still almost completely flattened.
Friends who lived through it had incredible and harrowing stories — taking shelter in a movie theater, seeing the tornado approaching and throwing their cars into reverse, as well as strange mixes of fact and rumors like the Picadilly Circus elephants that helped pull away debris, a Sebaldian detail that even now seems more like fiction than history.
The magnitude of that event — even experienced secondhand — had a strong effect on us. It was a strange and intense thing to have happen our first week back home in the States, but I’m glad we were around to help clean up and document things and not watching helplessly from too far away. Within a few months, Jenn and I were expecting our first kid, and while it’s far too tidy to cite the life-and-death nature of May 2011 as an inspiration to start a family, I do remember feeling for the first time a mysterious push toward begetting new life.
Almost 9 years later, at the onset of COVID-19, I considered the many similarities between the Joplin tornado and the global pandemic: The relatively sudden onset of a life-altering event. The distinctive divide into before/after time periods. The knowledge that things will “come back,” but certainly not in the same way as before. And the need, in the midst of chaos and adversity, to figure out the best ways to quickly adjust and keep going.
Hanging out in our backyards and porches and drinking beer with friends in 2020 also felt a lot like those early makeshift gatherings in Joplin in 2011. There was something informal and essential about social events in both of those eras. And on a Saturday night this fall, back at Kyle’s (this time in KCMO), a few of us were outside listening to music when the subject of the tornado came up. Joplin had been in the national news again as a crisis point, this time due to COVID. For some reason I started telling the story of my friend who saw the tornado and threw his car into reverse, a story that by now I surely know only as an oversimplified, dramatic version of whatever really happened.
Our friend Billy was over that night, and as a Joplin native he had stories, too, including one from his aunt. She had heard the sirens and wanted to try and make it home before the storm hit. But by the time she had buckled into her vehicle and begun the drive home, a tree branch fell across the front of her car, smashing the hood. She looked over and saw the car next to her fly up into the sky. She felt the tail of her own car lift into the air, but it stayed on the ground, pinned in place by the same tree that had almost killed her.
Hearing Billy tell that story (no doubt in a more thorough and accurate version) brought back the intensity of May 22, 2011, and the thought: we lived through that. Not directly, in our cases. But enough to be shaped by it, and to never forget those events as long as we live.
So on the 1o-year anniversary today I’m thinking of all the people who were directly affected, especially those who lost family members, friends, pets, homes, businesses. I’m sure for the parents who lost children — some torn directly from their arms — 10 years is nowhere near long enough to dampen the pain of that loss. But if you visit Joplin today, you’d hardly look around and suspect a tornado hit a decade ago, or that a pandemic is still underway. Both 2011 and 2020 are reminders that, even in historically terrible times, life can, and does, and will go on.
I like wearing a mask. I’ve gotten used to it. It’s a face scarf, it allows me to visit and support local businesses, the pattern is the same as a shawl worn by my aunt, the baroness, a design that features embroidered teeth, each one stitched with gold leaf, in tribute of the rapper who died last year, and in memory of my face before it changed. While masked up these days I catch myself making the most bizarre faces, which no one sees, but still I wonder: When did I give the muscles permission to just slacken, to contort with my moods and change shape with the thoughts that get pinched between the light of day and whichever nook they are seeking to escape. My mask holds it all in, like a steaming teapot beneath its ceramic lid. I am awake and vapid with the vapors of a vacant city, teeming with life, a blip in the sound file, a light on the projection screen. But I can’t help but wonder. When it’s time to take the masks off, will I succeed in squeezing my face back into shape?
In light of the recent passing of Dodgers Legend Tommy Lasorda at age 93, I’d like to revisit this excellent and somewhat under-the-radar regional release from 2012. I think either Scott or David must have helped me edit this feature I wrote for the Pitch, because it’s a much cleaner piece than my usual lapses into criticism and personal mood. Worth a listen on Spotify, and maybe even a few records still out there in the wild. My favorite tracks? The piano/sonic crunch of “Of Little Faith,” and eerie, swirling outtro, “His Laugh is Love.”
While driving over the Biloxi Bridge, I squint at the sunlight and find the oldies station on the dial, first some Christmas songs and then “Never My Love” by The Association. We make a U-turn on Beach Blvd. and park at the beach. My son is sleeping in the car so I sit on the bench outside our parking space and watch my wife and daughter fly a kite. This is not the first attempt this year. That effort ended with a tangle of string and broken flaps in a parking lot at Kansas City’s riverfront park, with a methhead driving his truck over to laugh and commiserate and tell me about a boy scout kit you could order to build your own. Instead I bought this one at REI. It flies gloriously. Even a child can do it. Even an inept dad. It depicts a blue and orange and yellow scene of the mountains. There is no snow here, just white sand, and it’s enough to make angels out of, which my daughter does, though curiously while lying on her belly rather than her back.
I look over and see a couple who has just parked and walked out to enjoy the sunset, which according to my phone is only 10 minutes from now. This far east in Central Standard Time you feel like you’re being cheated of evening daylight, sunset is probably a good 35 minutes later in say, Russell, Kansas. But who wants to be in Russell. I look over toward the casinos, in the direction of the bridge, and see the couple is now standing together near the water in a back-hug, an arrangement you almost only see in photographs and not in real life. So perhaps that’s why looking at them I get the sudden sense I’m witnessing an important moment in their lives, a snapshot in which they fully realized and melted into their romantic love for one another, or maybe a moment in which something was renewed, restored. Perhaps.
Our own scene is less romantic. Our son is crying because the kite isn’t flying. The wind has died down, he was napping in the car, and it seems we woke him up too quickly. Christmas has been a long day for them. How can you sleep through the night when you know Santa is coming? At 4:30 in the morning I thought I heard a voice, and went toward their room and heard them both talking to each other at normal conversational volume. The overhead light was on and they were playing Kariba, a card game. What are you doing? I asked incredulously. Mom told us just to play quietly until you guys woke up, my daughter said. But it’s 4 in the morning, I said. You still need to sleep. We didn’t know what time it was, they protested, and we couldn’t go out in the kitchen to look. Fair enough. Here’s my phone, I said. Push this button and it will tell you what time it is. I turned up a few blinds so they could see the sun come in. And don’t get up until it’s light outside.
We had mixed luck with trails. One was beautiful, sunny, with palmettos and pines and wildflowers, a habitat for the rare sandhill crane, which there are only 100 of left in the wild. The other was set along the sparkling waters of the bay with trails through the woods and wooden platforms overlooking the bayou. But much of it was closed, visibly destroyed by the pair of hurricanes earlier in 2020. We spent most of our improvised walk through the park talking about hurricanes, tornadoes, Katrina. My son was alert and interested, my daughter was sad and wanted to talk about something else. But it seemed like a disservice not to discuss them, given how much these events are likely to be present in their lives.
Driving back from the beach later, I ask my wife to drop me off on the eastern side of the Biloxi Bridge. It’s only a 1.7 mile pedestrian path across, then another mile or so along the beach back to the house. The lane is protected but still the cars race by, roaring and whooshing. I feel a rush as I break into a run, buttoning up my raincoat and palming my water bottle in one hand and my cloth mask in the other. There is no one else in sight and I feel free. I stop at the mile markers which are decorated with bronze relief landscapes of fishing, boating, and other gulf coast scenes. One of them displays a bridge buckled into fragments, a clear depiction of the Biloxi Bridge after Katrina. It was only 15 years ago, but in this medium it feels historic, even Biblical. Destroyed bridges, houses, even the famous souvenir shop, Sharkheads, which was gutted in 2005 and reopened 7 years later with a giant shark mouth entrance.
Tracing my fingers over the image of the bridge, I think about what it means to rebuild, when by the time the rebuilding occurs so much of the community has already been reshaped—people moved away, jobs changed, relationships severed, a trust broken. I’ve seen it in Joplin, my wife’s hometown, which was wiped out by a tornado a decade ago. But that destruction and recovery was quick, at least physically. Katrina was so much more widespread, a clear era of before/after, and for someone like me who never went to New Orleans or the Gulf Coast before 2005 we probably have no idea what things were like before. We’re experiencing something similar now with COVID, an even slower-moving wave of destruction, this one quiet and invisible, as restaurants and businesses close their doors, schools are shut down, and loved ones say goodbye over iPads.
It’s a nightmare. And it’s still going on, even if many of us don’t see it. Meanwhile I’m traveling across the country, wearing masks and staying out of public places but still out in society in one form or another. What makes us think this risk is OK? To be honest I’m not 100% sure that it is. But as long as we limit our interactions to the same or less than at home (carryout, groceries, brief visits to stores or museums), stay outside as much as possible, and wear a mask everywhere we go, I’m hoping that reduces our risk to ourselves and others to the point of not being entirely irresponsible.
Having been home an entire year and canceled all of our spring and summer travel plans, I wanted to make sure our kids got at least some glimpse of the world outside their neighborhood, their family unit, their school-issued iPads. Even if it’s as frivolous as seeing seagulls on the beach, street musicians in New Orleans, and driving a rented golf cart drive through the Christmas-light-covered ironwork and magnolia trees of the American South. The world still exists, even if we can’t participate in it in quite the same way.
And for me, running wild across the bridge and only stopping to yell at a tugboat to sound its horn in a Merry Christmas salute, I haven’t felt this unburdened all year. For a moment the 25-hour round trip feels worth it. To quote an ancient proverb, never underestimate the wanderlust of the landlocked water sign, the spirit of renewal, the miracle of rebirth.
Looking back through my photos from 2020, I spent a lot of time playing disc golf. This is no surprise to anyone who knows me. Once I’m free of work or family responsibilities for an hour or more, my preferred way to get some fresh air is by walking through trees and parks, hurling brightly colored plastic discs at aluminum baskets along the way. And since this year was one of working at home, needing to keep distance from others, and seeking to balance the mental insanity of checking news with more restorative pursuits, disc golf took on an even larger role in my staying-sane-and-healthy regimen.
Mostly I went to Rosedale, the sprawling park in Kansas City, Kansas, that features an expansive “up top” course in the main park and also a densely wooded “down under” course along the urban hillside. You have great views of downtown, wide open fields, and this year, a lot of helicopter traffic heading to nearby KU Medical Center. My love of Rosedale is also no secret, and it’s an easy place to meet friends or my brother David for a quick round. At one point in the spring I played a quick round over lunch break almost every weekday.
But I did my best to branch out as well, and this post will be a quick tour of 10 other courses I was able to visit and explore this year, almost all of which are within striking distance of the Kansas City area.
Disc Golf “Course” is an imperfect term, as it implies something manicured and finite, while in many cases a course is just a bunch of baskets and tee pads arranged in a forest setting. This was definitely the case for Longview Disc Golf Course in Lake PerryState Park, a well organized course where you will likely see more deer than humans. Lakes (or technically, reservoirs) in Kansas are strange places, resembling lakes anywhere except they are often only around 50 years old, so you get a feeling of being in an old-growth forest while knowing it was likely just fields or farmland a hundred years ago. Doesn’t matter as long as you turn your phone off and are able to tune out the world for an hour or two.
Cedar Ridge Disc Golf Course in Bonner Springs, Kansas, provides a similar experience, though not as expansive or isolated as Lake Perry. The throws are short and ace-able, the course filled with pine, cedar, and oak trees and a large pond at the center of the course.
Cliff Drive Disc Golf Course at Kessler Park is a mix of city and wilderness, snaking along the cliffs and valleys of one of the city’s most scenic roads. I like to play on weekends when the road is open to pedestrians only, though often I abandon playing disc and just take up one of the hiking trails instead. I haven’t had any problems but have run across some sketchy actors here and there, so I’d recommend not going alone on your first visit.
Waterworks Park, just north of downtown KCMO on North Oak Trafficway, has the most brilliant views of downtown. I like to go just at sunset, or in the fall, when the massive sycamores and oak trees are turning. I played here on Monday, Nov. 3, the day before the election, and probably the most optimistic I felt all year, knowing in the back of my mind how messy things were likely to get but choosing to remain naively positive. Walking out onto the green of hole 14 at night (I play with little blinking LED lights taped on the bottom of my discs) is highly cinematic. You’re headed straight toward a large water tower, with the small biplanes and commercial aircraft flying directly overhead into the Downtown Airport in the river valley below. As you get closer to the basket the lights of downtown come into view. If I was a film director looking to capture a unique night scene in Kansas City, I would definitely scope out this location.
Shawnee Mission Park is nice, too. It gets busy on the weekends but is a great place to play at sunset. With tall grasses, high winds, and lone trees dotting the course, it has much more of a wild, Kansas feel than the aforementioned KCMO parks. Though often by the time I drive all that way I opt for a longer outdoor excursion and walk the red and orange hiking the trails instead.
Other parks I played this year include some further afield. In far Western Kansas, the little 9-hole course at Historic Scott Lake is among the most scenic, arid, and unusual. I love the sign warning park visitors to look out for flying discs. It almost looks like code for keeping your eyes open for UFOs. Kansas may be the center of the country, but considering how far it would take for people from coastal capitals (and even Kansas City) to reach this particular spot, it may as well be the end of the world.
In Frisco, Colorado, Doozie and I played the Peak One Disc Golf Course, situated along the shores of the Lake Dillon Reservoir and with surrounding views of the mountains. An extra bonus here is the benches made from old ski lifts.
And at Shepard State Park in Gautier, Mississippi, I found an interesting and experimental placement of baskets along the bayou, including some right by the water and others placed up on five-foot poles. (If you get tired of disc, the park also offers an archery target range).
Other courses I enjoyed include Paradise Point at Smithville Lake, which is actually three courses, all hugging the lake at different points. Though I definitely chose biking in favor of disc in my 2020 visits to this park. Also the newly expanded McLelland Park courses in Joplin, Missouri, set along a scenic hillside in this gateway to the Ozarks (just try to go when the nearby police shooting range is not in session or it will seriously harsh your mellow).
And of course my favorite or at least most accessible course of all, my own backyard.
Happy disc-ing and see you on the course in 2021. Played my first round yesterday, in fact. A bit cold, but had it all to myself.
lucas wetzel 