Sorry, Toto -- Still In Kansas
Sep. 27th, 2009 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_camera
JUMP: Hooker, Oklahoma --> Hugoton, Kansas – Stevens County Fairgrounds: 30 miles
RIGHT out of the lot... LEFT onto MAIN STREET
LEFT onto JEFFERSON/CO ROAD 18 NORTH into Kansas
LEFT onto HWY 51 WEST to Hugoton... arrows to lot
Shows at 2pm/4:30pm
I was gonna whine some more about fuckin’ Oklahoma. But then it dawned on me – I’m in fuckin Kansas. Relatively prosperous town of Hugoton, just down the road from Garden City and the former Clutter home – scene of much unpleasantness back in ‘59 that culminated in a lengthy visit from Truman Capote.
Capote is one of two great writers whose names are inextricably linked with the state of Kansas. Yet it’s impossible – impossible for me at any rate – to imagine him here.
The other great writer is L. Frank Baum, author of the Oz books. There are at least two Oz museums in Kansas, one of them in Liberal (it’s not) where I got lost yesterday looking for – what else? – the local Walmart.
The tourist center where I stopped for directions was next to something called Dorothy’s House.
“Bless my soul,” said the lady behind the counter. “Yes, L. Frank Baum taught school here. This was before he wrote The Book, of course.”
Such a nice looking lady she was too, graying hair, glasses. She tried to give me a refrigerator magnet: Liberal, Kansas – THE LAND OF OZ.
Except the bitch lied to me!!!!!!! L. Frank Baum never lived in Kansas, in fact he set foot here exactly once and then only for a couple of days. “Kansas” was just Baum’s code word for a place that’s gray and boring but which for some strange reason you don’t want to leave.
I had to go to Walmart to print out Petra's birthday card. Petra – the third of America’s Foremost Unicycling Family’s performing daughters and some might say the most beautiful (photo does not do her justice) – was about to turn fourteen. She is mad about two things – horses and Twilight, so I thought it might be fun to Photoshop her into the movie poster. If I’d spent more than 20 minutes on it, I would have gotten the skin tones right. But damn. The whole vampire phenomenon bores me. I hated Anne Rice too and what's Twilight but Anne Rice Lite?
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Date: 2009-09-27 08:56 pm (UTC)I will not be showing my daughter your Photoshopping handiwork as she will want one!
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Date: 2009-09-28 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-09-29 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-10-07 04:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 04:34 pm (UTC)I'll update my email there.
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Date: 2009-10-07 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-05 04:40 pm (UTC)that's just the western 2/3's of the state, say from topeka on. the eastern 1/3 of the state is quite hilly.
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Date: 2009-10-07 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-16 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-28 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-28 02:00 pm (UTC)The EMO thing is very big among the non-footballing youth in these tiny western towns.
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Date: 2009-09-28 11:21 pm (UTC)also- i'm looking for new books to recommend to my brother. i think you will have tons more ideas as a reader + mom of max & robin! basically, he's like most 16 year old boys (re girls, beer, and weed- not out of control, but feels like he's single-handedly discovered them), he thinks he's very liberal (also in that specific way you tend to as a 16 year old) and listens to a lot of classic rock.
over about the past two years i've given him things like to kill a mockingbird, all 3 of frank mccourt's memoirs, high fidelity, mcmurtry's horseman, pass by, travels with charley, the catcher & the rye. he really liked them all.
do you have any recs? i was starting to give him some short story collections, but he doesn't seem to like those quite as much as novels or narratives.
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Date: 2009-09-29 01:35 am (UTC)(I just finished a fantastic book called The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss but it's an historical novel about -- duh! -- the Whiskey Rebellion in western PA. Max & Robin both loved Youth In Revolt. I hated it. Does he like science fiction? Ender's Game, The Foundation Trilogy, Stranger In a Strange Land are all adolescent boy classics.)
a littllle long
Date: 2009-10-01 02:59 am (UTC)he loves writing, history, and speech/debate (he's very good!). he used to be really hit or miss academically (i.e. just as happy with an A as a D), but debate has him more inspired. his communication style is a lot more like my mother's- he's blunt (even when he's not trying to be mean) and his voice can be booming.
he's very anti-materialism. his most recent observation to me about capitalism and why he feels less driven than some of his friends, was: well, someone has to be at the bottom, right? (to which i responded, "yes, and someone has to be at the top!") his current idol is bob dylan.
he also loves anything about the mob.
i've thought about youth in revolt! you've written a lot about it + the movie is in production, but i also take into account how much you personally dislike it as a book. maybe in this case, i'll let the boy-factor win.
i think he would like good sci fi- i'll do all of those!
i will also look into the whiskey rebels for at least myself!
Re: a littllle long
Date: 2009-10-01 12:32 pm (UTC)Has he ever read Grapes of Wrath?
Fun little mob book is Henry Hill's autobiography, Wise Guys. Basis for the movie Goodfellas, but not nearly as deep.
Re: a littllle long
Date: 2009-10-03 02:58 am (UTC)i'll do all these, thank you so much!
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Date: 2009-10-05 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-05 05:16 pm (UTC)Hope I didn't sound too judgmental about Kansas! We were only in a couple of border towns, Caldwell & Hugoton, both of which seemed pleasant if unmemorable.