We went to Kansas City for Mark’s favorite aunt’s 100th birthday. Aunt Wanda is everyone’s favorite, really.
Before the trip I had the old standard, Lieber & Stoller, 1952, going through my head, although the David Bromberg version is the one I’m most familiar with. Then we watched the first episode of Ted Lasso, Season four, and they used the Marcus Mumford/Bob Dylan song Going Back to Kansas City from the New Basement Tapes in the last 10 minutes of the show. Appropriate since Mumford wrote the show’s theme song. So now this one’s in my head.
Younger, chubbier Mumford back in 2014.
We drove. On the way there, we stopped for breakfast in Iowa City, the Bluebird Diner.
We didn’t do as well coming back through Des Moines. The restaurant’s logo was better looking than the food. Early Bird Cafe was adequate but not nearly as good as Bluebird. We were there at about 1:30 and they were closing at 2:30 and it looked like there’d been a substantial rush. It was Sunday morning after all. The bacon on my sandwich was really good. As I’d expect for any type of pig eaten in Iowa. And it was on the east side of Des Moines, the direction we were going.
We got in around 5:30 and got checked in at our contactless check-in, boutique hotel, The Truitt. It was quite nice, big old house, high ceilings, about 12 rooms. The only real poor design choice was they opted to paint a lot of the wood work and the interior of the closet flat black. Which made it kind of hard t find anything you put in the closet. But we each had our own sink in the very large bathroom, and the toilet was in its own alcove with a door, separate from the shower, so it was a very easily shared bathroom.
Even though it was contactless, there was a hotel staffer there when we arrived and we got a restaurant recommendation from them, and Italian place called Ragazza.
I indulged in a Negroni and we split a salad and a pasta and a basket of focaccia. Perched at a little counter bear the entry, which was all they had left for walk ins, because they had a big wedding rehearsal dinner going on.
Paper lanterns in the window of a storefront Christian Center on the way to the restaurant
After dinner we walked around a little bit, including the grounds of the Nelson-Atkins Museum where we planned to spend the next morning, till we had to go get Mark’s brother and sister-in-law at the airport.
In the morning we found a coffee place we liked, Oddly Correct. We split a biscuit there, and then proceeded on to Dad’s Bakeshop and got a berry handpie and a large heavy chocolate chip cookie. We ate and then proceeded on to the museum.
This is Oddly Correct the next day when we split a cimmy bun as a light breakfast before Aunt Wanda’s party.
Mark especially wanted to see the “new” part of the Nelson-Atkins, the Bloch Building, because it’s got all this light filtering glass, but it’s in the midst of a big construction project. They had the basement open for a special Mucha exhibition so we went there. And only Mucha had an admission fee; the rest of Nelson-Atkins is free. We got a discount as Art Institute of Chicago members.
The museum’s sort of logo is the Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen Shuttlecock in their sculpture garden, but I didn’t take a picture of that. Instead I got this one by the same artist, Magdalena Abakanowicz, who did the sculpture in Chicago we call the Legs, but it’s really Agora.
I was sorta cynical on the way in, like yea, here we go, looking at art from everyone’s college dorm room walls, but it was actually a great show, tracing the influence of Mucha on poster art up to the 21st century.
Entrance to the exhibition. You can kind of tell it’s in a basement. Something about the floor.
I loved this postcard.
Memory of Ivančice, 1909
Postcard published by the town of Ivančice
I thought Jasper might like this one. It’s a magazine cover
There was a slideshow of b&w images of Mucha’s models
This is Topaz from a series of prints about gems.
This is either a cover or (more likely) a plate from a book.
Thistle from the Sands from the series
Les Fleurs de la Bretagne, 1902
Color lithograph
What I really like is all the ornament.
A border
Another
Roses in the corner of a poster
Stars from the same one. This is my iPhone wallpaper right now
And the whole Divine Miss Sarah – I’m pretty sure I had a cheap copy of this one. I so remember those stars.
This was all leading to the poster part of the exhibition, the almost last room. The very last room was a video about Mucha’s Slav series of paintings, a history of Czechoslovakia, that had to be hidden away during WWII. All the light filtering, even in the basement, made the video a little pale but it was still fun to watch. It was kind of projected into a corner with a small image on one right angle wall, and a larger image on the other side. Back in our room at the hotel, there was a flat screen TV in a corner with a large mirror at right angles and it reminded me of the Slav video.
The posters displayed that were considered descendants of Mucha included a lot of San Francisco psychedelia.
Wes Wilson
American, born 1937
Published by Bill Graham Presents
American, established 1966
The Sound, Jefferson Airplane and Muddy Waters at Winterland, September 23, 25, and 30 and October 1, 1966; Butterfield Blues Band at Fillmore Auditorium, September 25
and October 2, 1966
Offset lithograph
Skull & Roses, the album cover just mooshed into the frame, by Alton Kelly and Stanley Mouse, better known as Kelly Mouse. I thought Trappistine was a hazelnut liqueur, but I guess it’s more herbal.
After Mucha we crossed over into the main museum, to look at the permanent collection. Stopping at the restrooms. of course.
Arty door handle on the way into the women’s bathroom
Arty door handle on the way out of the women’s bathroom
Nelson Atkins has a very nice collection, similar to the Art Institute of Chicago or the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Kansas City is ranked second tier after NYC but there has been significant wealth there resulting in a very nice museum. And Nelson Atkins must have a substantial endowment because it’s free. So I liked a lot of stuff but only took pictures of these flowers.
Henri Fantin-Latour
French, 1836-1904
Annual Chrysanthemums, 1889
Odilon Redon,
French, 1840–1916
The Green Vase
ca. 1900
Fleurs des champs; Le vase vert
Edouard Manet
French, 1832-1883
White Lilacs in a Crystal Vase, 1882 or 1883
Then it was time to go get Mark’s brother ad sister in law at the airport. That all went fine, it was when we got to their hotel that the trouble started. It was a Hampton Inn, and evidently Hilton was having an international outage, and the very young looking hotel staff said they couldn’t check anyone in because they didn’t know how many rooms were available without the computer system. We were all kind of appalled at this – us retired librarians and Mark’s brother worked for FEMA and was a consultant working with companies to do disaster planning. Where was their backup? Paper spreadsheet? Clone of the system running on a local laptop? They gave us bottles of water and we decided to drive back north into Kansas City and go to the shi-shi Country Club Plaza area and get an early dinner. It was getting on for 5:30 by then anyhow, and Jean & Gregg were on Eastern time. We went to a wine bar, Cooper’s Hawk. A chain. It was OK. We asked for a quiet table, which we got momentarily until they seated a very loud group of women near us. After dinner, drove back down to the Hampton Inn, and finally got Gregg & Jean into a room.
On the way there and back again, I got interested in this building by the highway (also overleaf). Evidently it was built in the 1960s for House of Fabric and its parent company, Eisen Mercantile. Now it’s Kansas City’s “most extravagant self storage facility”.
The next day it was finally time for the 100th birthday party. A lunch at a wedding barn, Silo Hills Farm, that was quite pretty. There were speeches and music and food. Then a bit of socializing at the retirement community where Aunt Wanda lives. Then finally out for Kansas City barbecue for dinner until about 9:30. We closed the place down. And Aunt Wanda was there for all of it.
Mark and Aunt Wanda
Me and Aunt Wanda
The Bendures, Mark’s mom and Wanda’s side of the family. I learned that I am a Bendure by marriage
Whew. We went back to the hotel to sleep and then head home.
I want to grow up to be Aunt Wanda.
Since we’ve been back, I had a week with two Jasper days, interspersed with 3 long early voting shifts, 10:30-7:30, and one shorter one, 10:00-5:30, followed by the election itself on Tuesday. I worked a double, 6:00AM to 10:30, which I usually hate doing. I split the day with someone else, and I wasn’t the Chief Inspector all day, only after 4:00, when the other Chief had another commitment. And I got a break from about 3:00 to 4:00. And they came back to help close. And this year’s high school exchange studnet arrived on Wednesday. I think I am finally starting to feel back to normal.
And I have been trying to finish this post ever since we got back. It’s now 2 weeks since our Friday at Nelson Atkins. Not perfect but done. Yay!
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