Driving and billboards
The drive from St. Louis, Missouri to Kansas City, Missouri is one straight, flat road. When these cities' baseball teams met in the World Series in 1985, it was dubbed the I-70 Series.
In addition to all the highway billboards for personal-injury lawyers that we saw in STL, I-70 is lined with bible messages, some of them quite hilarious, and also quite a few anti-abortion billboards, not so amusing. And of course all lies. I'm collecting the billboard and sign messages for another post. But meanwhile, "heartbeat heard 18 days after conception"?? No. Just no. Blob of cells. No heart, no beat.
Also on I-70, my no-junk-food rule fell right off the wagon. Whee, vacation!
American Jazz Museum
From St. Louis, we drove straight to the American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, as they close at 5:00. They are housed together in a beautiful restored building at Kansas City's historic "18th & Vine" district. This was once a main locus of jazz, similar to Beale Street (Memphis) and 52nd Street (New York). It clearly fell on very hard times, and the museums are part of the efforts to revive it.
The building housing The Call, a major black newspaper in the days of the Negro press, is across the street. The Call is still being published.
The American Jazz Museum is a real gem. How on earth do you tell the story of something so big and complex as jazz in an accessible format? The AJM has answered this question by focusing on a few people who were foundational to the development of the music, and exploring the historical and musical context of each.
The journey begins with a 20-minute film called "Jazz Is" featuring Kansas City jazz greats narrating pieces over historical footage. This was amazingly well done, far above most of these kinds of videos. I'm trying to find it online and will link to it when I do. (You can find it through a QR code in the museum. It didn't work for me yesterday, but I'll try again today.)
After the movie, you move through four main sections: Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, and Ella Fitzgerald. The exhibits are very visually appealing, full of photographs and short, simple explanations. At each, there is a kind of tabbed flip book (but made of something heavy and solid), full of musical examples, with explanations of each. You can choose tabs and listen to corresponding audio. These help you hear the people each artist was influenced by, and their own work, and who they in turn influenced -- the whole web of collaboration.
Unfortunately, it was very difficult, and often impossible, to hear the audio. There were no headphones, and the volume is quite low, because the exhibits are close enough together that loud volumes would create an audio mess. I don't know why there aren't headphones; it's a real drawback and an obstacle.
After these four pillars, a separate section of the exhibit explores how jazz is created -- the components of the music itself -- rhythm, melody, improvisation, the instruments that are used, and so on. This area had the same flip books and written information -- but it also has headphones, creating a completely different, and much improved, experience.
I plan on asking someone why there are no headphones in the main exhibit. I imagine they frequently hear complaints about this and I'm curious what led to this odd decision.
There is also a small section on Kansas City as a jazz centre, a display of album-cover art (I could have used a lot more of this), and a section on jazz in film and on television. An obsessive collector named John H. Baker donated his vast collection -- more than 700 hours of jazz film -- to the museum. The collection includes "soundies", which were something like music videos that people could watch on a jukebox, letting audiences see performers who they had only heard but never seen. I had never heard of this before, and it's kind of amazing. We watched some soundies of famous tap dancing acts.
There is also one changing exhibit, currently about Louis Prima, which we'll see today, along with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, gift shops, and visitor centre.
The Airbnb... and Stroud's
From 18th & Vine, we drove to the Airbnb, an interesting and unusual place. It's a small basement space in the hosts' home (with a separate entrance) -- a bedroom, foyer, bathroom and tiny kitchenette. It doesn't appear to be big enough to house a guest space, but the owners have cleverly designed it to somehow fit everything. Things are hidden, tucked away, under/above/within everything else, like a pop-up book.
There is a house manual, both linked on the site and printed in a binder, explaining where everything is and how the place works. You are strongly encouraged to read it before arriving. I thought that was completely over the top -- until we got here.
For example, looking around, I said, there's no table? How can you have a fully stocked kitchenette and no table? Wait, didn't I read something about a table in the manual? And sure enough, the manual navigates you to a part of the wall, something you press, push, pull... and there is the fold out table. But are there chairs? Another hidden compartment contains folding chairs. It's a very clever and efficient use of space.
In addition to all this, there is a ranch theme. The hosts must frequent garage sales and thrift shops to collect anything vaguely ranch-related, and the place is filled with decorative ranch stuff.
As if to compensate for the small space, the hosts keep it fully stocked. Two bathroom cabinets hold every conceivable bathroom need, for anything you might have forgotten or didn't know you needed. The fridge is stocked with sodas and cold water; the kitchen includes a basket of crackers, chips, pop tarts, instant oatmeal, and microwave popcorn. Cheers to this host for supplying a big can of coffee, filters, and a small coffee maker rather than the wasteful Keurigs that have become standard.
The downside of all this space efficiency is a real lack of accessibility. The apartment is down a short but steep flight of stairs, and between each room or space, the floor has a raised lip, not quite a step, but also not level. I already stubbed my toe badly in the last place -- a lip in the bathroom entrance -- and I'm determined not to do that here, which means being super mindful all the time -- not my strength! This morning, for example, I knew I couldn't walk to the bathroom in the dark, but I couldn't even access my phone to use the flashlight. There are sliding pocket doors separating the sections of the apartment, so we can leave lights on for safety without disturbing sleep. The doors must have been included with that in mind.
So it's a really nice space... but also small and cramped. After Tulsa, we return to KC for one night. We have this place booked, but I'm thinking we might stay somewhere else.
We got a bit settled, then headed straight to Stroud's for dinner. This deserves its own post, coming soon.
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