The Farm

The farm where Mrs. C grew up has been in the family for a long time. It's now owned by her youngest brother and his wife, although you can't make a living on it without another full time job. This is the view from the house to the west, something my wife saw every day.

The corn here looks great. However, there were pockets around the area where it seemed to be on death's door. I asked about it - all anyone could tell me was micro-climate, irregular and narrow bands of rain, and drainage. The plot below might not even be good for silage. 
     

The Wizard of Oz, Or, Everybody's Gotta Make a Living

I don't think the book or the movie of The Wizard of Oz sets the starting and ending location, other than it's in the State of Kansas, which is larger and a lot emptier than your average east-of-the-Mississippi state. But Oz has to be somewhere in the Sunflower State, so the little town of Wamego, on one of our possible routes from Kansas City to the farm, has adopted it as a way to keep its claws into the map. Actually, it's kind of cute. We had lunch at Toto's Tacoz, which had some pretty good Kan-Mex food. And you can't say "I don't think we're in Kansas any more," 'cause you sure as hell are.

Us city folks can set up all kinds of cognitive dissonance here, like driving through the void back to town from the farm Saturday night, moonless, cloudless, across gravel county roads,  listening to the Liszt B Minor Piano Sonata. It could have been an out of body experience except that I was driving a Honda.    

The Sun Always Shines In Kansas City

City Market in Kansas City is a vibrant area of shops, restaurants and a farmers market, packed on a sunny Saturday morning. Why don't we have something like this in STL? Our Soulard Market is just not in this league. Geez, Eastern Market in Detroit, which we visited last spring, is something like KC's, leaving The Lou in the dust. I gotta call someone when I get back.       

Boo Hoo

Tom Otterness' Crying Giant  in front of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. I love this for its absurdity and genuine sorrow. A viewer doesn't know whether to laugh or mourn. 

Off to the farm shortly.    

KC MO

          

Over to Kansas City today, Missouri's second largest metro area. This is an archive photo of the stunning Kaufman Center for the Performing Arts.

We like KC and regularly stop there on our way to see Mrs. C's family farther out in Kansas. The regional population is smaller than STL's but the city proper holds a much larger share of the metro population, leading to better regional government. The City of St. Louis itself has a population of about 350,000 in a metro area of 2.6 million. The suburbs are terribly Balkanized and regional cooperation is weak.

KC has a part-time symphony. We have one of the best in the country. Both have decent regional art museums but I think KC's Contemporary Art Museum beats the hell out of ours. IMHO, our restaurant scene is richer. KC has the Country Club Plaza, a Spanish fantasy that was the first real shopping center in America. We have the Arch, which nobody else has. It is said that the only city that has more fountains than KC is Rome. We have a lot of water fountains. Both areas have vast, soulless suburbs.

We will meet some of Mrs. C's family for dinner there tonight, then out to the farmland where she grew up on Saturday. The forecast is for moderate temperatures and rain, which could lead to some beautiful prairie vistas.

Thursday Arch Series

I am so hard up for new material and once again resorting to the through-the-wet-car-window trick. But we're going to Kansas City tomorrow, where there's bound to be something new.       

City Daily Photo Theme Day - Music

Had to do a bit of dumpster diving to find something for this theme day. This is my ticket stub from The Beatles second concert at the old Shea Stadium in New York, August 23, 1966. My sister and I went. The stadium was just a few stops down the Number 7 train line in Queens, where we lived. It would have been just before the start of my senior year of high school.

I remember some things about it. Mary Beth and I arrived early. The stands were already full of mostly 12 and 13 year old girls, screaming non-stop at the top of their lungs. Nothing was happening yet. And then there were the Beatles themselves on a stage behind second base. Couldn't see them very well but I remember the singing: yeah, yeah, yeah.