Does ANYBODY remember the mechanized dolls in the display windows at Harzfeld’s at Christmastime? And if you do, do you have a decent picture or, better yet, a line on where I can get one of those dolls or six?

There is a Harzfeld’s page and a Harzfeld’s blog, both created by historians with a book in the works, but neither has a search feature, and as far as I can tell, this is the only mention of the dolls:

A couple years ago a Dresden Doll (right), said to be from Harzfeld’s, was sold at a Kansas City area auction. This was a mechanical doll that may have been part of a Christmas window display.

(I want want want one of these dolls, even if I have to build one. I’m good at DIY! Promise!)

As an aside, I remember these chairs:

But a trip to the Harzfeld’s blog yielded something fabulous: Elle Decor featured an article on Kansas City (worth the read, even for non-Kansas Citians), and the picture gallery features the usual suspects, but gorgeous as always.

However, the ugly-ass addition to the Nelson-Atkins was extolled briefly:

“The marriage of the original neoclassical building and the stunning addition by architect Steven Holl . . . ”

I will not be happy until somebody takes a wrecking ball to that abomination. I would PAY MONEY to attend its destruction.

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Okay, I’ll admit I didn’t like them at first, but they’ve grown on me. But! Don’t think the construction trailer Bloch Addition will grow on me in a similar fashion.

Godspeed, Artist.

(OH HO!!!! What’s this? Now 24 hours after I wrote the above post and slotted it for publication):

So Tony reports that the Star reports that the Nelson-Atkins is laying off 20-25 people because their endowment income is down (well, shit, everybody’s investments are down—wanna look at our 401(k) stats? I thought not).

No, really. It’s not that the endowment is down. For Pete’s sake, the thing got built during the effing Depression (well, like everything else in Kansas City). Your problem is your light bill, which you knew back in October, if not before. So gallery CEO Marc Wilson says to the Star, he says,

“These figures are impacted by museum attendance,” Wilson said. “The public is not responding to the expanded museum the way past indicators suggest.”

Gee, ya think?

SOLUTION! Tear it down. Then you could create jobs and your attendance would go back up again. After all, the people who love and adore the construction trailer Bloch Addition don’t actually live here.

Oh, and donate the materials to Habitat for Humanity. I love those people.

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UMKC (University of Missouri-Kansas City) is an urban commuter school in the University of Missouri (known for the journalism school) system with the one in St. Louis and Rolla (School of Mines). UMKC has a law school, an MBA school, a pharmacy school, a dental school, and a medical school. But it doesn’t look urban or commuter once you start going from building to building. I think people forget that once you get off Rockhill Road and start walking, it’s a very pretty (and more importantly!) compact campus. (Uh, but could you plant more flowers, please? BYU spoilt me on the flowers thing.)

 

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Platte County is, weirdly, the same shape and size as Chouteau County in The Proviso and it’s in the same spot, too! I don’t know how the hell that happened.

Although it’s not exactly the same demographic, it has Parkville, which is just too cute. If you’re coming into Parkville via 3rd Street from the north going toward the Missouri River, it kind of reminds me of a microscopic Estes Park, Colorado. Or at least, the Estes Park I remember from my childhood. Without the mountain part. If you’re coming into Parkville via 9 Highway from the east, it kind of reminds me of Hannibal, Missouri. Only with a smaller river. There’s a walking path in English Landing Park right along the river.

 

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And about that Chouteau (pr. SHOW-toe) County thing. If it’s not an English or Irish word around here, it’s Shawnee or French. There’s a reason for that. Anyway, half of the northland (i.e., north of the Missouri River) is Chouteau this and Chouteau that and Chouteau something-else. When I was looking for a name for my not-so-fictional fictional county, I looked it up and there was NO Chouteau County in Missouri. Surely, this must have been an oversight, thought I, but yay for me. Something uniquely Kansas City that hadn’t been done.

Yet.

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And you know what? I’m not even gonna touch Herm Edwards with a 10-foot punt. I want a Schottenheimer clone. Yeah, we never got the brass ring, but damn, at least we got close a few times.

Then I had to go rub salt in my wound and read Whitlock’s column this morning, which asks the question: “Why did the Chiefs go away from what was working?” Well. If they could answer that, we’d have a winning team, right? Or at least a mid-’90s team. And then this:

There was only one way to ruin Sunday’s game, and Edwards and Gailey found it.

For you non-Kansas City readers: We’re all about the football. I’m not sure who these “Royals” people are that get talked about every so often.

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Peter May’s House of Kielbasa, on the east side, just west of I-435, a few blocks south
of the Truman Road Viaduct. (In the Sheffield neighborhood—click the pic.)

Peter May’s House of Kielbasa
1654 Bristol Avenue
Kansas City, MO 64126
(816) 231-9850

I pimped a bunch of businesses in The Proviso, amongst them:

Peter May’s, Tasso’s Greek restaurant, Strawberry Hill povitica, Bryant’s, and Planter’s. (Mind, this does not mean I don’t like Gates, because I do, but I had to cut the scene in Gates, ’cause, damn, this book is huge.)

So. Peter May has precious little web presence. I’ve suggested they get a website and set up mail order because they are genius, but alas. Go there. Have much gastronomical orgasming.

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The Nelson-Atkins Gallery of Art is one Kansas City locale that plays a fairly significant role in The Proviso. I mean, the whole city is rather its own character (or at least, I tried to make it so), but this one spot, I think, plays the most parts other than “Chouteau” County and its pretty courthouse and The Country Club Plaza. It hosts a senatorial fundraising party, it’s where one of the female protagonists goes to meditate, and it’s the gallery chosen to premier a new painting by an infamous artist.

Anyhoo, I see on BlogKC that the gallery’s having to cut back like everybody else. Well, you see, the difference this time is because of that, uhm, $200M construction trailer brilliant Steven Holl masterpiece called the Bloch addition that they built next to the neoclassical structure.

Time called it the number one “(New and Upcoming) Architectural Marvels.”

Adding a new wing to a neoclassical museum, Holl devised a spectacular update on classicism: an irregular series of volumes that cascade down the museum’s lawn and glow from within. The effect against the nighttime sky is nothing short of magical.

If you say so, but I’m just an ignernt country rube who obviously doesn’t know brilliance, especially when it cost more than it was sposed to. And why are all the kudos about its brilliance coming from people who don’t live here?

(Poor Rodin. They displaced The Thinker.)

Now, three problems with this thing.

A. It’s ugly. Did I mention that yet?

B. It’s expensive to light (because, you see, its only marginally redeeming architectural feature can only be seen at night when it’s lit).

C. It’s the most inefficiently designed interior space I’ve ever seen.

So what is one of the things they’re having to cut? The hours and the lighting. And I’m telling you, folks, in the daytime, without the lighting, it looks like a construction trailer/storage shed.

Now, I’m not going to be one of those people who would start crying if they began to charge admission, because, well, it’s a very prestigious gallery in terms of its collection and yeah, I’ll pay to get in. And I know they’re not going to knock the damned thing down especially since they spent so much money on it.

But I just need to poke a stick and say, you spent a whole lot more money than you thought you would on something the citizenry doesn’t really like and now you can’t pay to make it do its featured thing that somewhat redeems it.

Enjoy. Or don’t. If you live here and you feel me, meet me in the Rozzelle court (closed Tuesdays now, remember!) and we’ll commiserate.

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Now, I love this town and yes, I have always thought there was a certain romance to it, but I never thought I’d hear someone not a native say it. I mean, that’s like saying Toledo is romantic. Maybe it is, but “romantic” isn’t the first thing I think of when I hear “Toledo, Ohio.”

Then there’s the inevitable comparison of what cities are more romantic and, well, N’awlins tops my list. Most of Europe qualifies, although I’d be hard pressed to tell you my favorite spot (maybe Maredsous Abbey in Belgium…oh, the cheese!).

All that said, I took Tax Deduction #1 (hereinafter referred to as TD1) out and about this afternoon to some of my mostest favoritest haunts, all mentioned in The Proviso. Peter May’s House of Kielbasa (no website, drat them) has a spot in my gallery now (and I have a good 10 pounds of fresh homemade kielbasa in my fridge at the moment—that should last a couple of days). I also added the UMKC School of Law (where two of my female characters go to school and one of my male characters teaches). Lo, I went looking for Tasso’s Greek restaurant, absolutely positive it was on 79th & Troost only to find out when I got home that it was on 84th & Wornall. *headdesk* (Yeah, it’s been a while. I must rectify that situation. They don’t have a website either; what’s up with the good dives not getting online?)

I spent most of my gigabytes at Loose Park, though, which is probably what I’d consider our version of Central Park. I would have gone into the rose garden to take pictures, but TD1 had to go potty and we couldn’t find it fast enough. This necessitated a trip to the Crown Center fountain to clean her up—you can’t turn around in this town but you bump into a fountain.

In my life, every moment of every day I’m doing something and if it doesn’t produce something, I won’t bother doing it. I’ve always been this way; I’m even working when I read. However, running around Kansas City just to hit its sweet spots is one of the only ways I truly relax.

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