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THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
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CONTENTS
THE PITCH
Publisher Stephanie Carey Editor in Chief Brock Wilbur Digital Editor Kelcie McKenney Music Editor Nick Spacek Film Editor Abby Olcese Contributing Writers Emily Cox, Liz Cook, Rachel Potucek, Barbara Shelly, April Fleming, Deborah Hirsch, Brooke Tippin, Roxie Hammill, Archana Sundar, Beth Lipoff, Riley Cowing, Meghan Severance, Celeste Torrence, Ameerah Sanders, Dan Lybarger, Vivian Kane, Jen Harris, Kara Lewis, Orrin Grey, Adrian Torres, Reb Valentine, Aaron Rhodes Little Village Creative Services Jordan Sellergren Contributing Photographers Zach Bauman, Chase Castor, Caleb Condit, Travis Young, Beth Lipoff, Rebecca Norden Graphic Designers Austin Crockett, Jake Edmisten, Lacey Hawkins, Angèle Lafond, Jennifer Larson, Katie McNeil, Danielle Moore, Gianfranco Ocampo, Lauren Onions, Kirsten Overby, Alex Peak, Jack Raybuck, Fran Sherman Director of Marketing & Promotions Jason Dockery Director of Operations Andrew Miller Editorial Intern Celia Searles Multimedia Interns Jonah Desneux Samantha Sprouse Design Intern Jack Raybuck
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Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Carey Chief Operating Officer Adam Carey
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DISTRIBUTION
The Pitch distributes 35,000 copies a month and is available free throughout Greater Kansas City, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $5 each, payable at The Pitch’s office in advance. The Pitch may be distributed only by The Pitch’s authorized independent contractors or authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of The Pitch, take more than one copy of each week’s issue. Mail subscriptions: $22.50 for six months or $45 per year, payable in advance. Application to mail at second-class postage rates is pending at Kansas City, MO 64108.
COPYRIGHT
The contents of The Pitch are Copyright 2020 by Carey Media. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without the express written permission of the publisher. The Pitch 3543 Broadway Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111 For information or to share a story tip, email tips@thepitchkc.com For advertising: stephanie@thepitchkc.com or 816-218-6702
16 4 LETTER
14 EAT THIS
5 STREETWISE
14 DRINK THIS
Letter from the Editor The killing joke BY BROCK WILBUR
The best, the worst, and everything in between from our great city BY BROCK WILBUR
6 NEWS
App Covers the Cost of Those in Need The merry outlaw encourages us all to chip in BY MEGHAN SEVERANCE
8 HEALTH
Your Body is a Temple, or Maybe Not, Whatever Accepting your pandemic body changes is the healthiest choice possible BY LIZ COOK
10 FOOD
Here’s the Rub Joys and ethical minefields for pandemic cookouts BY APRIL FLEMING
Eat this Now Summer To-Go from Rye BY APRIL FLEMING
Drink this Now The Paloma Cocktail Kit from Mean Mule Distilling Co. BY APRIL FLEMING
16 CULTURE
Visual Arts Bloom in the Gloom Creativity never shuts down BY EMILY COX
22 CULTURE
26 FILM
MARY CLARA HUTCHISON
What KC’s Been Watching? Members of the film community share their virtual cinema recs BY ABBY OLCESE AND THE FILM GROUP
28 KC CARES
Rightfully Sewn makes PPE fashionable BY BROOKE TIPPIN
30 SAVAGE LOVE
Power Players Fash fantasies and noisy dom insomnia BY DAN SAVAGE
Setting Boundaries in Polite “Post-COVID” Society The new manners are going to be anxiety-inducing to live by BY CELIA SEARLES
24 MUSIC
Something’s Awry How Sterling Witt makes Hitchcock into Hitchrock BY NICK SPACEK
“GRILLIN’ UP A GOOD TIME” Zach Bauman
thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
3
LETTER
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR THE KILLING JOKE BY BROCK WILBUR
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THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
Sometimes you just have to laugh. I’m doing a lot of laughing these days, but for my wife it’s difficult to tell if it is genuine laughter or the laughter of someone teetering on the edge of a complete break with reality. I found a Tweet I sent circa day five of self-imposed quarantine, where it seemed like I was already breaking down. That was mid-March. Looking at it now, all I can think is how I would be living this way well into June. If I knew that at the time, I worry that I would have freaked out. I basically only exist to do journalism for the community and to throw parties, and I’m all out of parties. Having a gin and tonic with my cats does not create the type of stimulating conversation I’m used to enjoying. The scale, the timeline, the spectacle of this whole situation… it is very funny. Or it will be. Not right now. But you can see how this will be funny in the future. Can you imagine a stupider situation? I don’t mean that us staying in is stupid, nor do I imply that the situation is not serious. Far from it. It just exists in this perfect little bubble of “Wow, how is any part of this even possible?” Oil wound up costing a negative amount of money. The President suggested that maybe we should inject ourselves with cleaning products. There are arrows made out of tape on the floor of the grocery store, to control the flow of traffic. I’m wearing a mask everywhere I go, crafted from my wife’s childhood Simpsons-themed bed sheet. I don’t particularly remember how to drive a car. Toilet paper became our new money. Turns out you can spend enough time in your backyard that the normally skittish bunny rabbits just start treating you like patio furniture and sitting underneath you with no fear. White people held protests because they didn’t want to be told to live in their houses. I accidentally bumped into a person yesterday and I’ve
VIVIAN KANE
JIM NIMMO
spent 24 hours feeling terrible about it because what if I got germs on them? Some of us watched so much Netflix we got to the end of Netflix. That’s it. No more Netflix. That’s the final episode of The Netflix Show. You’ve won Netflix. Can you imagine a stupider situation? In the progression of trauma, I’ve just reached the acceptance phase. This is good. This is healthy. I’m no longer itching to leave the house without good reason. I’ve found ways to celebrate small victories, practice self-care, and develop better relationships with those I care about. I know that people everywhere are hurting, and I know that my actions in staying inside are in a small way the most helpful I can possibly be to preventing further loss. Both my favorite and least favorite part about this entire process has been how it interacts with my inherent Midwest Nice Guy instincts. I’m always the person who needs to smile and nod and say “Howdy” to anyone I pass. Right now, I have a mask and shouldn’t be talking to people in public, so I can kinda just skip that whole part? Which is difficult. Whenever I find myself too close to someone, my instinct is to immediately start apologizing. Which... talking can spread the disease, so I shouldn’t do that? Trying to beat that one into my brain. My laughter now is laughter at the concept of looking back on this, from the future. I’m just imagining three years down the line, at a party with friends, going around the room and sharing our stories of the most embarrassing, stupid things we did while trapped in our homes for months on end. I’ll share how I started narrating my cats’ playful battles as if they were Vegas boxing matches. I’ll share how I did one entire week without putting on pants. I’ll share how, since the disease seems to have every symptom, I started checking my temperature hourly with a dig-
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ital thermometer, to the point that it broke. It’ll be funny at some point, and I’m trying to live in my imagination of that point. But I can’t. Because we’re so far away. And none of this is funny now. While typing this up, I got a text informing me that one of my neighbors just died of coronavirus. He was younger than me, in better shape than me, and trying to stay inside like me. His wife is distraught. We’re all distraught. Another friend texted earlier today, letting me know that his wife is pregnant, and they’ve known since February. They still can’t tell their family because she’s a nurse, and the family would demand she stop going in. She knows that she’s saving lives and can’t stop going to work. We’re all distraught. Usually, I appreciate a bad joke. And that’s what this all feels like. But the worst joke is when we’re all the punchline. I look forward to laughing again, when what I’m laughing at isn’t the darkness in front of us, but rather a shadow behind us. Hope that cheered you up! Have an excellent summer!!!!! If you have stories about life under quarantine, concerns, or the rare moment of levity, please reach out to brock@thepitchkc.com this month.
STREETWISE
Taylor Akagi and Jacob Hoegler get married at Loose Park on April 4.
CHASE CASTOR
STREETWISE
THE BEST, THE WORST, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN FROM OUR GREAT CITY BY BROCK WILBUR
The Chief ’s Super Bowl victory saved thousands of lives. Dr. Niraj Sehgal, a professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco and co-leader of UCSF’s COVID-19 command center, said that the novel coronavirus would have likely experienced a widespread transmission if San Francisco had held a Super Bowl parade. Feel free to thank us for trouncing you anytime, California. Patrick Mahomes kept your grandmothers alive.
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Troost will no longer be the home of an immigrant child detention center. VisionQuest, a national corporation that manages youth holding facilities, sought to build a facility for housing kids that crossed the border illegally. The community responded strongly to the idea of Kansas City playing host to a baby jail, and nearly 8,000 signatures went to the City Planning Council, letting them know we weren’t thrilled. After months of delays and protests, the developer finally retracted their petition, and cannot refile. We won. Good work, everyone. Two ICU nurses held a makeshift ‘rona wedding. Taylor Akagi and Jacob Hoegler work in an emergency room together. Their wedding was set for April, but between the inability to hold religious gatherings and being a little busy with their day jobs, that ceremony was cancelled. Rather than wait for this to end, they met in a park with their kid and a minister and tied the knot. Their friends and co-workers from the hospital drove around the park, honking car horns in celebration. Penguins explored the abandoned Nelson-Atkins Museum. Around the country, zoo animals are depressed because they haven’t seen people in months. One solution has been to take some of the creatures out into the world to see new sights. A family of pen-
guins waddled through the N-A and adorable video of it can be found on thepitchkc. com. They seemed to react much better to Carravaggio than Monet. The cast of Netflix’s Ozark bought food for front-line workers. Jason Bateman continues to be the absolute best dude. Thank you for keeping the family together, Michael. Local law firm spices up morning meetings with celebrities. If you’ve been working from home, you’re probably as tired of Zoom meetings as we are. Brown & Crouppen knew how to keep their 100+ employees psyched to show up: by having famous people stop by to say hello. The website Cameo allows you to hire celebs of all levels of fame to record messages for yourself of friends. Utilizing this system, B&C got folks like James Van Der Beek and Lena Headey from Game of Thrones to stop by and keep morale on the up-and-up. A new Pulitzer Prize comes home to KC. Local author Anne Boyer was just awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in the category of General Non-Fiction. Her book The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care is an elegant and unforgettable narrative about the brutality of illness and the capitalism of cancer care in America. We have a podcast now. It’s also called Streetwise. It is quite good, and I think you will enjoy it, if you enjoy those types of things. It’s like this page, but in audiobook form. Also, there are interviews, music, and the rantings of a man trapped in his basement because the outdoors are quite scary. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, thepitchkc.com, or anywhere else where recordings of people rambling can be found. thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
5
NEWS
APP COVERS THE COST OF THOSE IN NEED THE MERRY OUTLAW ENCOURAGES US ALL TO CHIP IN. BY MEGHAN SEVERANCE
The Merry Outlaw mission began with the concept of a socially supportive restaurant. Various chefs would cycle through. Evening meals would be expansive affairs, deliberately overpriced. The extra cost would carry over to cover lunch the next day for the financially impaired members of our city.
An app would allow diners to communicate needs and find solutions within the skill sets of other patrons. Subsided meals and a delightful dining experience. It would become a bridge between classes, and a chance to build a shared space with a shared positive experience. An innovative approach to
Left: The Outlaw Mutual Aid app lets Kansas Citians request or submit funds to help pay bills. LINDSAY SMITH Top Right: “A Very Merry Potluck” holiday party, where members of the organization and supporters came together to break bread. L-R: Aliena Martes, Tokina Dixon, Maria Harris, and Onnissia Harries. NIGEL RUE Bottom Right: A group of volunteers and organizers meet to brainstorm. L-R: Bryan Dorsey, Jacob Nickel, Alex West, Tokina Dixon, Rachael Koone, Lindsay Smith, Andrew Smith. NIGEL RUE
forming community in an entirely new way. Then COVID-19 hit, and the whole plan fell apart. Founder Lindsay Smith and developer Chris Whited responded by converting the intentions of this social safety net into the form of a different kind of app: KC Mutual Aid. Originally conceived as a tool for connecting those in need with legal advice and financial planning, the Outlaw Mutual Aid team streamlined the program into a simpler, more immediately effective tool.
When you pull up the Outlaw Mutual Aid app, it is divided into two simple categories: “I Would Like To Help” and “I Could Use Some Help.” Kansas Citians who are in need of financial aid for any number of issues (rent, groceries, medical care, etc.) can request up to $300 in assistance. App users that have the means can then select situations that they can cover. This gives the public the opportunity to stand in solidarity with their neighbors. To give and receive in a private setting, where
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THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
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you can know that the money you have to share will go directly into someone’s pocket, unlike other larger organizations. “I don’t know if it’s a generational issue,” Smith says, “but people my parents’ age seem skeptical of donating to a new nonprofit organization. One that isn’t as established. They don’t trust it. Well, we’re doing this for free, and there’s no overhead. Every dollar goes to those who need it.” Outlaw Mutual Aid aims to retain privacy as much as possible. It uses money sending apps like Venmo where the funds can be directly transferred to the account that needs it. It only requires a handle being used, rather than a full name, so those participating won’t see the donor’s name or the recipient’s. Any funds that are donated directly to The Merry Outlaw are being sent back to the fiscal sponsor of the organization, Community Capital Fund, where the 100 percent tax-deductible donations to The Merry Outlaw are disbursed to bills that have not obtained their full amount requested. The app can be used from a web browser or from the downloaded app on a cell phone or desktop—meaning easy accessibility, with or without an iPhone. Smith recognizes that some users might be concerned that participants requesting
LINDSAY SMITH
aid could be attempting to scam the system, as is a worry for almost all social safety programs, especially those without larger oversight. She believes that even if there was a rare instance of such fraud, the intentions of an overwhelming majority of users are good and true. “We have protection systems in place,” Smith adds. “The app is closely monitoring IP addresses, along with other security measures to eliminate possible issues.” Since opening, The Merry Outlaw has helped pay bills for 40 individuals and earned over $10,000 in support. As unemployment doubles each week, with few signs of slowing down, it’s important now more than ever to acknowledge points of position, and to accept that there is something you can do about it that has an immediate impact. Smith says that in the first week of operation, there were a lot of donations, but that participation has been dropping, simply because residents aren’t aware of its existence. “I feel like I need to do PR full time for this to fill our needs,” Smith says. To download the app, please go to outlawmutualaid.com. If you would like to make a direct donation to the organization, themerryoutlaw.org. Tell a friend or two if you can.
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7
HEALTH Take care of yourself, in the best way you can. LAUREN ONIONS
YOUR BODY IS A TEMPLE, OR MAYBE NOT, WHATEVER ACCEPTING YOUR PANDEMIC BODY CHANGES IS THE HEALTHIEST CHOICE POSSIBLE BY LIZ COOK
The last time I saw Charles Ferruzza, The Pitch’s long-time former restaurant critic, he gave me some advice. “Stay thin,” he said, in the low, conspiratorial voice one might use to say “the bouillabaisse is poisoned” or “beware the Babadook.” I knew he was thinking about health— he’d dealt with more than his share of medical problems and wanted to spare me the pain. But I was thinking about the Frisbee-sized chocolate chip cookie I’d just eaten and the skinny jeans embossing a seam pattern into my thighs. It’s hard to avoid comments about weight when you’re a semi-professional eater. When I tell people I’m a restaurant critic, I get a lot of fatphobic variations of “If I did that, I’d weigh 300 pounds.” The “300 pounds” is ostensibly a joke, the punch line
8
THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
the hyperbole of it all—300 pounds! Me! Can you imagine? Laced into the subjunctive mood is the implication that our bodies are fragile, that any change in circumstance or lapse in vigilance could dramatically alter them. Like, say, a global pandemic. When COVID-19 made landfall—hurricane metaphors seem appropriate here— nearly everyone’s routines were disrupted in some way. We may not have been eating in restaurants, but many of us were eating (and drinking) more than usual. For my part, I started eating handfuls of chocolate chips from a bright red, pillow-sized bag while staring out the window like a passenger on a halted train. My nightly cocktail became plural. I worked out when I wanted to, which was almost never.
And as if through a trick of targeted advertising, my social media feeds seemed to proliferate overnight with guilt-soaked memes about gaining (or avoiding) the “COVID 19.” “People have this deep-rooted fear of weight gain, and that’s coming through in the Twitter jokes and memes,” says Cara Harbstreet, a registered dietitian. “And it’s perpetuated by a lot of really influential voices, too, which is creating additional stress.” Harbstreet owns Street Smart Nutrition, a business that takes a “non-diet” approach to health. That approach was a natural extension of her time as an athlete and sports nutritionist, where she was exposed to disordered eating and a singular focus on the number on the scale. And those hangups, she says, can be counterproductive.
“Chronic dieting rarely leads to healthy outcomes in the long term. And when diets fail, other healthy behaviors—exercise, sleep hygiene—tend to fall by the wayside as well.” Lauren Thompson, owner and instructor at Thrive Pilates & Movement Studio on the Westside, agrees. “Everybody is doing some emotional eating right now, and that’s OK. We live in an extraordinary time. I think if you start shaming yourself for the eating, that makes it less likely that you’re going to engage in other healthy behaviors.” Thompson deliberately avoids talking about weight loss in her studio. Before opening Thrive in 2015, she worked as a licensed professional counselor and also interned at an eating disorder recovery house. She says the weight jokes and memes that have been circulating during the COVID-19 crisis aren’t likely to create healthy habits. “Shame is not a good motivator. So many people have a history with working out as a shaming thing: You’re not good enough as you are right now, we need to change you. So it’s really hard for some people to have a positive movement experience.” How, then, do we take care of ourselves without falling into those traps? What does it even mean to make “healthy choices” in the middle of a pandemic when our set of choices has winnowed so drastically? I asked Harbstreet, Thompson, and yoga instructor Jill Gillespie for some practical, shame-free advice on how to think about health in the middle of a health crisis.
You don’t have to be a “body positivity” proponent to treat your body well.
If you’re struggling with body positivity, you’re not alone. For years, I’ve had an OK for thee but not for me attitude toward selflove. I’d cheer on my friends and their bodies over drinks, then go home and appraise my own in the mirror like a stern antiques dealer. As long as thinness offers access to social capital, we’re going to feel some pressure, whether internal or external, to look a certain way. Instead of stewing in meta-guilt, Gillespie recommends aiming for “body neutrality” instead. “Body-neutral statements are just accepting that your body is doing everything that it can to keep you alive,” she says. “And that any time you’re struggling with food or feel like you’re failing a diet, it’s because your body is trying to fight the restriction. It’s about getting to that baseline acknowledgment that you’re not a bad person for not being good at diets.”
Don’t treat workouts as punishments.
Eating is not a sin, and workouts aren’t plenary indulgences. Thompson encourages her clients to find ways to move that they find joyful and rewarding on their own—not
HEALTH
as compensation for what they ate that day. To avoid that trap, she follows three “rules” when mapping out her own movement regimen. “It has to be either mindfulness-based, it has to be outside, or it has to be with other people,” she says. “One of those three has to happen. For example, I’m never going to go run on a treadmill by myself. I’ve learned that if I’m in that mode, then I’m probably using exercise as a punishment.”
Your eating habits have probably changed—and that’s OK.
Many of us are eating at restaurants less, but that doesn’t mean we’ve all transformed into stock photos of women eating salads. Grocery shopping has changed for a lot of people, too, with packaged and processed foods filling a greater share of our cart than fresh produce. Harbstreet says that’s OK. For those in lockdown or trying to minimize grocery trips, she notes, shelf-stable foods might be the better option—and they might also be more budget-friendly. “The biggest advice I can offer,” Harbstreet says, “is the grace and permission to step back if it seems completely overwhelming to maintain a fitness routine, or if your cravings are leaning you toward comfort
foods or familiar foods from your childhood. There will be a time and a place when you can return your focus back to health, and that’s for you and you alone to decide.”
with your personality” and the time of day you function best. If you try to force yourself into an ass-crack-of-dawn yoga routine when you’re a night owl, then you’re already setting yourself up to fail.
times it’s a walk. Sometimes it’s sleeping.”
Take it slow.
“The city is reopening and there’s this desire to immediately bounce back into what we were previously doing,” Harbstreet says. “It can create this really chaotic swinging back and forth from one extreme to the other end of the spectrum. One word of caution would be to ease back into things and really discover what this new normal will look like.”
Shame is not a good motivator. So many people have a history with working out as a shaming thing. It’s hard for some to have a positive movement experience.
Don’t optimize yourself into a corner.
Fitness magazines and websites are filled with articles about the “right” time to exercise— can you lift more weight in the morning or the evening?—but Gillespie advises choosing a movement regimen that “actually aligns
Cut yourself some slack (and a piece of cake).
Food is fuel. It’s also comfort and crutch and celebration and medicine and probably all of those things at different times for those lucky enough to have a surplus of it. Chefs and food writers love to talk about “eating with the seasons.” A life-changing pandemic surely qualifies as a season, which makes adjustments in response to it natural. We don’t need to exercise to balance the scales. We don’t need the scales. Before the lockdown began, I spooned a peanut M&M from a communal dish at work. Someone told me, “you have to walk a football field to burn off the calories from one of those.” I don’t, though.
Instead, spend some time figuring out when you feel most energetic and what you actually enjoy. “We’re really good at asking the internet and diet culture these questions,” Gillespie says, “but we don’t often sit with ourselves and ask, ‘body, what do you need right now?’ Sometimes it’s ice cream. Some-
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FOOD
HERE’S THE RUB JOYS AND ETHICAL MINEFIELDS FOR PANDEMIC COOKOUTS BY APRIL FLEMING, PHOTOS BY ZACH BAUMAN
Grilling is as synonymous with summer as illegal fireworks stands and the coconutty smell of sunscreen, but in the year of Coronavirus, the hobby has taken on new significance and popularity. Some reasons are obvious: it’s warmer outdoors, we’re still largely at home, beyond bored, restaurants are closed. Plus, all of the other well-covered challenges of our new not-normal. Other reasons to regularly fire up the charcoal are less obvious. Grilling gets us outside and away from our too-familiar walls, and cooking out (much of cooking, really) can generate warm feelings of family and nostalgia. For some, occasional dis-
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tance hangouts with friends outdoors generally seem to be safer and more manageable than inviting anyone into our homes. As well, many cooks who have experienced meat shortages at grocery and big box stores have been visiting local butcher shops and specialty stores, often for the first time. There are many are experiencing both new flavors as well as products and practices that offer a stark contrast to those coming out of the Coronavirus-infested meatpacking plants owned by companies like Tyson, National Beef, and Cargill. Though essentially all restaurants in Kansas City are still cobbling togeth-
er some version of survival with a mix of curbside service, delivery, and some drastically limited in-house seating, business at local butcher shops is, perhaps surprisingly, booming. Stuart Aldrige of Broadway Butcher Shop in Midtown says he’s never seen anything like this, and is struggling to keep up with demand. “We have seen a pretty dramatic spike in sales,” he says. “In the first two weeks that this was going on, we saw a fair bit of, well, you could call it quasi panic buying. People would ask: What do I need to keep my freezer? What do I need to stock up on?” Customers, he says, have in recent weeks have by and large settled down as far as panic buying goes, but that his overall sales volume is still way up, and new customers walk into the shop every day. Many of them have never been into a butcher shop. He also adds (on more than one occasion during our conversation) that much of this success, if you can call it that, makes him feel somewhat guilty, as so many of his friends in the food and beverage industry are currently out of work or are struggling. Alex Pope, owner of Local Pig ButcherShop and Pigwich, has had a similar ex-
perience. Though Pigwich, which generates the majority of revenue for Pope and his team, has been closed since March, Local Pig itself has seen a significant uptick in sales. The butcher teams at Fareway Meat Market (formerly McGonigle’s) also told me that business has been surprisingly brisk [they asked not to be directly quoted in this piece, noting they didn’t feel that they could speak for the Iowa-based Fareway at large]. The Upper Cut, a specialty meat shop north of the river that specializes in Akaushi and Angus beef, also says sales are high enough they sometimes struggle to meet demand. Patrick Montgomery, owner and operator of KC Cattle Company, which both raises and sells American wagyu from its ridiculously pretty ranch in Weston, Missouri, says that his company sells out of product as quickly as he can stock it. KC Cattle Company’s sales took off after Food & Wine Magazine lavished praise on its wagyu hot dogs last fall, but now he is consistently selling out of everything, including steaks, roasts, and even ground beef, usually within an hour of updating his shop each Tuesday.
FOOD
Making carne asada tacos.
ZACH BAUMAN
“You get people like us doing this because we have a passion for it, and we truly do care that we want to feed our community with well-cared-for food and well-cared-for workers.” Ordering from Fareway Meat Market.
ZACH BAUMAN
WHERE TO GET YOUR GRILL FIX
Broadway Butcher Shop facebook.com/BroadwayButcher Shop 3828 Broadway Boulevard, KCMO
Leeway Franks leewayfrankslawrence.com 935 Iowa Street, Lawrence, Kansas
Local Pig localpig.com 20 East 5th Street
The Upper Cut KC theuppercutkc.com 9769 North Cedar Avenue, KCMO
Bichelmeyer Meats bichelmeyermeatskc.com 704 Cheyenne Avenue, KCK
Paradise Locker Meats paradisemeats.com 405 West Birch Street, Trimble, MO
Fareway Meat Market farewaymeatmarket.com 1307 West 79th Street, KCMO
He says that “Even in January, [our local delivery service] was probably only making up about five percent of our sales. It has grown to 20, 25 percent. Then the other portion of that is, you know, every other state in the union. At first we had a lot of sales to people in California, Washington state, New York. But since the shelter in places basically took effect in all of the States after that, orders come in from everywhere.” So why are people utilizing local butcher shops and producers more than ever, and what are they cooking? A lot of things, it turns out. Michalis Koutsoupides, a musician and professor at Avila University, says it helps him feel connected both to his home in Greece as well as to his friends here. “I have kept a family tradition going of cook-
ing out in recent years by inviting friends over for cookouts and making Greek kebabs, but now I find myself cooking for one or a few friends at a safe distance. It gives me a sense of togetherness now that we’re all apart, because of COVID. Also, for fear that soon we might run out of meat soon!” Koutsoupides cooks steaks or kebabs a few times a week on either a trusty black Weber or on a small backyard spit. Zach Bauman, a regularly featured photographer for The Pitch and other local publications (this piece features his work, as well as several dishes he prepared in the past few weeks), has ramped up his home grilling and smoking considerably. He cooks out at least a few times a week, often more. “Being outdoors provides a little relief from being cooped up in the house,” thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
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FOOD
Photographer Zach Bauman smokes a pork butt at home.
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ZACH BAUMAN
FOOD
he says. “I like figuring out what I’m going to put on the grill or in the smoker and researching how I want to prepare it. The longer it takes, the better. The end product really doesn’t even matter that much—it’s just fun to make something, and if it isn’t terrible, that’s a bonus.” Bauman has been smoking pork butts and grilling sausages, steaks, and vegetables like bell peppers and zucchini. Alex Pope at the Local Pig says people have been buying a lot of chicken and beef in an effort to stock up, and Stuart Aldridge at Broadway Butcher says that he’s selling a lot of everything he stocks, including fish, but he’s seeing many customers coming in looking for specific items they are having trouble locating at their regular stores, such as brisket. K. Meisel, who owns Leeway Franks in Lawrence with her husband Lee, says that they “are cutting more chops and briskets as a result and find it a challenge to keep up with the demand for ground beef as we grind our own in-house.” At Fareway Meat Market in Waldo, customers are particularly loading up on ribs, ground beef, beef skewers, bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers, and yes, lots of brisket—all traditional backyard fare. At this moment, Kansas Citians are not experiencing significant meat short-
ages, but customers at grocery stores like Price Chopper, Hen House, and HyVee are seeing limits being placed on quantities they may purchase, and certain items have become more difficult to find (KC, you are one brisket-obsessed town). This is mostly due to well-reported outbreaks of Coronavirus in meatpacking facilities across the country, and across the world. Workers in these facilities, which are extremely dangerous and ethically compromised work environments even without the threat of highly contagious disease, are testing positive for the virus at staggering rates, and many are still being permitted to work despite positive test results. In St. Joseph, just an hour’s drive north of Kansas City, for example, over four hundred workers tested positive for Coronavirus in early May, in a single pork processing facility run by Triumph Foods. Workers there told a reporter from The Kansas City Star that those who have tested positive are permitted to return to work if they aren’t showing symptoms, and testing there is not mandatory. So—objectively—we should feel at least conflicted about our supply chain—or in other words, our food and the people who work in dangerous environments for very little money in order to bring it to us. Kansas City’s mom-and-pop butcher
shops and specialty stores present an alternative for all your cookout needs—one that is safer for workers involved in the supply chain, less taxing on the environment, and generally is far less cruel to the animals we eat. Local shops including Leeway Franks, Broadway Butcher Shop, Local Pig, Bichelmeyer Meats, The Upper Cut, and Paradise Locker Meats, as well as farmer’s market vendors like Black and Gold Farms and Bauman’s Cedar Valley Farm (both regulars at the Overland Park Farmer’s Market), are all open for business. Aldrich at Broadway Butcher Shop notes that he is not seeing shortages from his producers, which operate on much smaller levels than Triumph Foods or companies like ConAgra and Tyson. What he is seeing are rising prices. “We’re just now getting to the point where, because things like beef are a commodity, prices are starting to go fairly high [due to demand],” he explains. “And because we are a natural shop [no hormones, little or no use of antibiotics], we’re already going to be a couple dollars higher across the board.” Alex Pope at Local Pig says that there is continual pressure on his supplies because he sources from small farms in the Kansas City area exclusively. He says, “We
get 100 percent of our meat and eggs from small family farms in Missouri and Kansas—most within 50 miles of KC. We have developed our own supply chain apart from the factory farm supply chain. Our biggest issue now is that we are trying to scale up our supplies, but the small slaughterhouses we use are being inundated with demand.” Aldrich, Pope, and Patrick Montgomery of KC Cattle Company all express genuine sympathy at the challenges they see their families, friends, and communities experiencing. But they also all feel that the Coronavirus presents an opportunity for consumers and home cooks to learn more about where their steaks, burgers, and brats (and all of their other food) come from, and what the real cost of cheap, extremely available meat actually is. “I think it’ll probably be a pivot point for how people purchase their protein items,” says Montgomery. “It’s eye-opening to know where the product’s actually coming from, where it’s being sourced.” Aldridge expands on the same idea: “If you visit a shop like mine, or Alex at Local Pig, or Bichelmeyer’s over in KCK, you get people like us who are doing this because we have a passion for it, and we truly do care that we want to feed our community with well-cared-for food, and well-cared-for workers.” thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
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EAT THIS
Eat this Now
Drink this Now
Summer To-Go from Rye
The Paloma Cocktail Kit from Mean Mule Distilling Co.
PHOTO AND WORDS BY APRIL FLEMING
PHOTO AND WORDS BY APRIL FLEMING
Just in time for summer, you can now get the most picnic-y, outdoorsy of dishes from the recently (partially) reopened Rye: Cody Garrelts’ beloved crispy fried chicken. The work it takes to make this chicken is still apparent—Garrelts’ team brines the birds for 24 hours in salt, honey, and spices. It dries for another day before it’s dunked in slurry, dredged in flour, then fried. It’s crispy and crunchy on the outside, moist and flavorful inside. It’s reliably and admirably consistent from day-to-day, and holds up well to carryout and reheating. The fried chicken meals from Rye also come with a bunch of sides—mashed potatoes and gravy, pickles, and salad. And... AND(!) they come with Megan Garrelts’s fluffy biscuits with butter and some goddamn pie to boot. All that for $35 for two people, and you’re practically losing money if you don’t pick it up. It’s almost as good as normal life.
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DRINK THIS
THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
A few months ago, we couldn’t have fathomed what bars and restaurants have devised in order to survive the pandemic. Inventive to-go fare, bottled cocktails, pop-up bottle shops, and unique collaborations have made all of our days a little bit better, and keep customers coming back. One of our favorites—and certainly one of the best values out there right now—are the cocktail kits from Mean Mule Distilling Co., located in the East Crossroads. They offer kits which include full bottles of their excellent agave spirits (tequila made outside of Mexico), as well as all the fixins. We kinda basic (sue us), so we love the Paloma kit, which includes a 750ml bottle of Mean Mule Silver, two bottles of Jarritos grapefruit soda, and fresh limes, all for $40 (the booze by itself is $34, and worth it). The kit is enough for six cocktails, with lots of booze leftover for your weird, own at-home creations (or, if it’s a rough one, shots). Mean Mule also offers margarita, old fashioned, and (appropriately) mule kits. Sweetening the deal, Mean Mule will deliver these kits to your home for free—though one should tip excessively, of course. While it’s no substitute for being able to saddle up to a bar with friends, it’s pretty damn good—and it’s the little things that will help us (and local businesses) get through this.
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VISUAL ARTS BOOM IN THE GLOOM CREATIVITY NEVER SHUTS DOWN BY EMILY COX
When the city shut down, I was optimistic about the sudden expanse of free time ahead of me. I thought I’d write all the stories I’d been meaning to write. I spent three invigorating days doing so. And then my focus and attention all went downhill from there, now coming in fits and starts. My ambitions were quickly scaled back to simply maintaining some semblance of mental health. Sometimes that involved writing, sometimes it didn’t. I started working on this story in that early burst of optimism. I gleefully won-
dered what visual artists around the city might be working on, especially those whose obligations were stripped down to nil, and who, like me, theoretically had no impediment to days on days on days of endless creative time. Except, well, the reality of living in a pandemic. Here’s what I learned: Everyone’s creative practice has been impacted by this pandemic, in one way or another. Whether it’s ground to a halt or taken on new forms, artists are adapting in the face of new limitations. I trust we will continue to
adapt, to imagine new ways of being and doing and making. Read on for glimpses into how 17 local visual artists are shaping their work and lives in this new era.
CHARLIE MYLIE
“I pull an invisible blanket over me believing that nothing else exists except for what is right in front of me.” Charlie Mylie’s time has gotten more precious. Since their baby was born last spring, Mylie takes care of him while his wife works. That part’s the same, his wife just happens to be working from home now. But pre-pandemic, they had babysitters for relief so Mylie could spend a few hours on his own work, too. (Maybe you caught his debut children’s book last year.) Now, he’s sneaking in work during naptimes, as he can. It calls for heightened attention. “It has absolutely trained my focus to those hour and a half chunks! Even though I can’t leave the house, it’s like slipping into a crawl space in my mind.” He started doing observational charcoal drawings. “It feels great just to look at something and bring a version of it to life in a way that allows my imagination to slip in. I keep room for the strange or unexpected to appear. Sitting for many hours over many sessions is the opposite of how I worked before in the immediacy of ink and watercolor. Now, things are more deliberate and composed. Everything gets attention. It’s a way to be present and self-isolate my mind. It feels therapeutic. I feel less distracted. Honestly, I could get used to this being ‘normal.’”
KELSEY BORCH
The uncertainty of a freelance lifestyle has prepared Kelsey Borch for this. “I’ve always built my life upon creative problem-solving for my nonstandard lifestyle. So while it’s a little scary, I almost feel most myself when
CHARLIE MYLIE
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Kelsey Borch
I’m trying to break through a challenging time and I’m ready to adapt to this scary new world.” Not to say there hasn’t been a financial hit. “It was difficult before, since my work was a delicate balance of several different income sources. All of these sources have changed. My hours have been halved (at least) for my stable, non-freelance jobs. Many of my consistent freelance clients are now on-hold with their work since their offices are also being hit by the crisis.” Borch’s illustrations are often bright, busy, immersive worlds to drop into. Her work has been here in The Pitch, as well as in national publications like the New York Times and Vice. She also operates the risograph at Oddities Prints. On the upside, “I’ve had a lot more time to reflect on what makes me a happy human on the day-to-day, and my fear during this crisis has forced me to seek some balance between work and life. When I think about the return to ‘normal’ though, I do get a little scared. I don’t want to stop having the space that has given me time to reflect and be mindful.”
ALEX SAVAGE
Alex Savage was really ahead of the curve in getting laid off from his job back in February, for non-COVID-19 reasons. Now it’s kind of a weird time to be looking for work. “I have retreated into self maintenance,” says Savage. “Creative work is largely on the back burner. Still making idiot tweets and looking for work.” A few drawings are coming through though, which I’m glad for. His mix of melancholy humor and cultural commentary, of critical ideas and unpretentious delivery feels exactly right for this moment. What feels inspiring right now? “I’m excited for the potential of class revolt.”
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M.O.I. - Video still
line, and then I’ve been recording guitars, synthesizers, and vocals over it to finish a song up.”
M.O.I.
“We’re in for an extended period of hurt.” Don Wilkson, who makes art under
it’s planting a garden. Maybe it’s the hope that since every state will soon be broke and in need of tax revenue, they will all legalize weed. Maybe it’s the realization that everyone is struggling, and to get caught up in your own struggle is to ignore the plight of humanity.”
Alex Savage
DAN OHM
“Everything’s kind of at a stand still,” for Dan Ohm and his work in ceramics. He makes pottery that’s as functional as it is whimsical, but without access to the KC Clay Guild, there’s nowhere to fire, to glaze, or to access more clay. For now, he’s reworking old clay, hand building stuff at home, but there’s only so much he can do.
“While I do have lots more free time,” he says, “it’s hard to remain focused on goals I have and honestly to even stand up and do much.” Old long-sidelined projects, like recording music, fill his time in a more fulfilling way right now. He’s using the creative tools at hand. “I’ve had a couple friends send me drum tracks or maybe drums with a bass Unicorns in the Snow - Still from Footloose 2020
Dan Ohm’s home music set-up
the name Minister of Information (M.O.I.), is concerned about the already-fragile arts funding ecosystem. “Funding for the arts and the future of being an artist in our country are concerning. Not that it hasn’t always been. Will I be able to complete projects already in the works? Will funding be reduced? Do any of the outstanding project proposals I have hanging out there stand any chance of ever coming to fruition? Proposal success rates are low in the best of times. How many calls will never happen because circumstances have changed for the funding organizations? Impossible to tell.” He has a public art project in the works, though now there’s no certainty it will move forward this year. “If that project doesn’t happen, I could be looking at zero art income for the year.” In the present, there are things to enjoy, though. “Weirdly, sometimes I feel more relaxed. Maybe it’s the spring weather. Maybe
JULIA VERING
“The kids and I are doing lots of outside exploring, and I’ve started to take my Zoom H5 recorder along to make field recordings with them,” says Julia Vering, who creates multimedia performance art under the moniker Unicorns in the Snow. Having two children home from school means less time to dedicate to her own art, and finding new creative strategies. She still works at her hospice job, while her husband handles most of the homeschooling. “It’s great to be married to a high school English teacher at this time.” Vering’s drama therapy group for seniors with dementia is, like everything, cancelled for the time being. Before the shutdown, they had completed an unofficial remake of Footloose. “We had also been working on a new piece, Re-Enactments, incorporating participants’ memories into a fictional meta story about pre-teen sisters thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
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“I am scheduled to have a show in August, which is just enough time that it still may happen. I want to continue making work in case it does end up working out. It is difficult to find the energy to be creative right now as I adjust most aspects of my life. I miss my friends! I miss art events.” He’s experiencing a relatable contradiction: While it’s hard to be motivated or necessarily work towards goals right now, creativity offers a much-needed outlet from everything else we face. “[My artwork] is a chance for me to have some time to step away. I wish I could say that my work is always an escape from reality; but usually, it is also my part-time job. With all the uncertainty, I can’t place many expectations on my work other than to be a distraction.”
Bo Hubbard’s temporary studio set-up
who build a mannequin body double to ‘take their place.’” In May, she released a single from the soundtrack of Re-Enactments with remixes by local KC acts MX.MRS, Stem Cell Uterus, Killus, and Le Maître du Donjon. “Luckily it’s easy to share electronic music digitally. I am excited, as I have never had remixes done of my work, and have not collaborated with other musicians in a while.” She hopes, too, that some seniors from her group will continue to collaborate by voice acting over the telephone.
BO HUBBARD
“I have been looking to my artwork as a break from reality,” says Hubbard, whose abstract wall tapestries were included in the Nerman Museum’s exhibition “Queer Abstraction” this winter. He had to move out of his downtown Charlotte Street Residency studio, and set up a temporary studio space in his friend’s spare bedroom. “We have an agreement with each other that we will be transparent about where we go and who we interact with. Some new levels of trust being built!”
MARY CLARA HUTCHISON
“Within a couple hours, I decided what were the essential materials for my practice, packed them into my car, moved them into my apartment, and rearranged my entire living space to make room for a makeshift studio.” Mary Clara Hutchison, also a Charlotte Street resident, is one of the many artists across the country who lost
that be via a virtual video chat or a (safe) visit to my family’s house. This is exacerbated by the swift and sudden disappearance of community events. A Zoom meeting can only get us so far. A virtual gallery show does the artwork disservice.” Hutchison’s work revolves around themes of home and personal rituals, so there’s at least a lot of inspiration to mine right now. “It’s incredibly interesting and stimulating for me to see what others are doing in their homes, how they are using their immediate environments to cope with change, and the simultaneous comfort and imprisonment in ‘staying home.’” “I do really love having my studio space integrated with my living space. I love waking up, having coffee, looking at my work, drawing a little, sitting on my porch, drawing some more, and so on. I can feel myself acclimating, which I hope means I will soon adjust to this new schedule and return to making.”
NATALIE BEER
“More than ever, human expression as simple as a pencil drawing means more to me,” says Natalie Beer. “The video conferencing on Zoom, houseparty app, scroll-
Drone Bombing the Widening Gyre. Christopher Beer and Natalie Beer, Gouache on Stonehenge paper. (4’x6′) 2017 (Photo by E.G. Schempf.)
access to their studio spaces with the stayat-home orders. “At first I held hope for a heightened productive and explorative phase as we (artists, writers, et al) worked on creative solutions to this nation and world-wide problem. What I am actually experiencing is a demoralizing and distracting environment. My desire for social interaction trumps my previously devoted studio time in the afternoons. After working from home alone all day, I just want to talk to someone, whether Mary Clara Hutchison
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ing through and giving likes, feels empty, anxious, and schizophrenic. Like a Lizzy Fitch and Ryan Trecartin video. I know that I need that ‘in person’ view without the frame and the false light.” This spring, the Beers family won a two-year battle against their son’s school and its handling of the Individualized Education Plan for their son, who has autism. The exhausting experience deterred Natalie from making art. Now, the battle was won, and school’s out to boot. That’s not a bad
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drawings of the butterflies being injured or deformed in some way, because over the long course of my treatment I felt the need to express my frustration over the many obstacles I was facing while trying to heal.” “This quarantine feels a lot like I have had to re-enter treatment—in the ways I feel stuck and like what I am able to do is restricted—and I’m experiencing a lot of pain from feeling like I just got out of treatment and now I have to continue to be restricted. But I have a strong passion for durational artwork—or artwork that takes a very long time to make. I love it when it is evident in the finished work that it took time and repetition. So I’m trying to channel that passion into this quarantine time and look at my work with a renewed vision. Since I was restricted to making small work with pen and paper while I was in treatment, I’m starting to make durational work that is larger with the other materials I have around my house. I’m starting to make quilts, which is one of my favorite types of durational art, when they’re in the context of time spent idle. I’m making a quilt
that features some of the same themes that are in my butterfly works—thorn brambles that are restricting growth—and I’m expanding my butterfly drawings to show an evolution from destructed butterflies to galvanized ones. I’m trying to look forward to healing and comfort.”
IDA PATTON
“I have been waking up excited to meet each new day and to put brush to canvas,” says Ida Patton. “It is difficult for me to publicly share that this has been one of the most clarifying, heart centering, and beautiful times I have had within my practice in a very long time without feeling a slight layer of guilt at how many people are suffering because of this virus.” Before the pandemic, Patton had felt stuck in her creative practice, putting all her energy into her day job in retail. Now, though, “I don’t feel as fearful about taking greater risks with my work and am rewiring my brain so that I do not feel as if I am on some kind of deadline with my own creative practice. Painting feels like a way for me to
Brandon Forrest Frederick
thing: “I love having my son home with us. He is happy, safe, and inspires me to keep making art.” She and her husband, Christopher, collaborate on paintings, using their home as their studio, a less-than-ideal choice they made out of financial necessity. “Money is tight, we are utilizing every resource we can to maintain. I am proud of our creative resourcefulness. Sometimes, I laugh and think of how I am like a Sims character painting on our large open kitchen wall, while the stove is on fire and the only way to put out the fire is to give our child 13 popsicles. This simulation is not logical at all. Neither are the times.”
BRANDON FORREST FREDERICK
“I lost almost every job I had lined up,” says Brandon Forrest Frederick. “I derive some of my income from being an artist, but a lot of it comes from doing contract art handling, photography, and fabrication. Several thousand dollars of income just gone, that I was counting on, especially coming out of a slow winter work-wise.” Like many, he’s currently looking around his house to see what he can make do with. “I’ve started a portrait project asking people to share with me something about themselves and have begun creating
still lifes with whatever is available to me at our house.” He had an exhibition scheduled to open at Kiosk Gallery on March 20th, along with a coinciding book release—the show got hung, but the opening reception didn’t happen. You can take a virtual tour— though it may just leave you longing to see it in person.
PUCE FELLING
“I’m grateful that I can take breaks from my practice to cry and mourn,” says Puce Felling, “because they are ultimately fueling what I am making, since it is and always has been about trying to heal.” Felling completed 13 months of medical treatment just a few months before the pandemic began. “My old work had been installation and performance based and always centered around my body and my identity, but once I was in treatment, I started making work that could be done while I was sitting around and waiting for things, ultimately, and I wanted to make work that was healing to me personally, so I started drawing butterflies. The butterfly drawings are delicate, repetitive to make (they are primarily stippled), and gave me a chance to meditate on how amazing transformation can be. There are strong themes in these
Puce Felling thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
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blooms and growth.” There’s a challenge, though: getting additional supplies. “I went to Home Depot a few times prior to the stay at home order, but when I attempted to go a week or so back and drove into the parking lot and was floored by how many people seemed to be there shopping and disregarding space, and decided not to go in.”
JULIA MONTE
Ida Patton
connect with myself and to invite others to access their creativity.” She’s working on a large painting in a familiar style: Working from a friend’s childhood photo, she made a rough sketch on the canvas and is building layers of paint in sections. But she’s also expanding. “The rest of the work I’ve been making has been all over the place and it feels very freeing.” She’s working from memory and from imagination, which, she says, “I have never given myself permission to do before.”
STEPHEN PROSKI
“There’s nothing to look forward to right now,” says Stephen Proski. He had planned to start graduate school in the fall, but if they cancel in-person classes, he might not attend. “I feel very hesitant to uproot myself and move to a different city if my first semester is going to be done virtually.” For now, he says, “I find myself very inspired, but highly unmotivated. My sketchbook just keeps filling up with titles for paintings, and reference points, and symbolism to resort back to. I’m looking forward to sitting down and drawing at some point. But right now, all I’ve been doing is cutting and sewing and face-timing with equally depressed and unmotivated friends.” As for the various organizations trying out various virtual experiences—they don’t quite cut it. “All of these online ‘exhibitions’ are not adequate surrogates for experiences.”
DAVIN WATNE
An Arte Laguna Prize exhibition in Ven-
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THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
ice, IT: not happening. An exhibition in Iowa City to coincide with the election: postponed, indefinitely. An artist residency at Wassaic Project in upstate New York in June: nope, also postponed. Watne’s year, like all of ours, is suddenly looking very different than planned. On the day-to-day, now, “It has been a challenge to get to the studio, to deal with my three children 24/7, and I have to find time and space to be active and creative.” But Watne sees the potential in the chaos. “I am feeling inspired, I can’t put my finger on it. It can be fleeting and at times hard to formulate. It might also be too early to tell how this will affect all of us and artists especially. However, I do have faith in artists, this is a time in which they will shine.”
making garden pathways and borders. The biggest project he’s working on will eventually be a 50-foot-by-3-foot rainbow gradient mosaic path. “Throughout the quarantine thus far, perennials around my yard have been slowly blooming. I suppose I look forward to walking around each day and discovering new
ANDY OZIER
“Maybe this response is in bad taste, but I’m very much thriving in these conditions,” says Andy Ozier. “The weather has been ideal for working outside, and, not to mention, the limited outside distractions are allowing me to dedicate more time to my large scale mosaic projects.” Ozier’s creative practice has shifted over the last few years to be more environmentally-based than studio-based. He works in his wooded midtown backyard to remove invasive species and replace them with beneficial ones that attract wildlife. “I suppose I’m treating the land as a canvas to experiment with unconventional landscape design, idea,s and processes.” He also casts concrete shapes and then covers them in mosaics for embellishments,
Andy Ozier
“I was harboring a lot of anxiety for a while that felt like my heart was a gigantic ball of rubber bands,” says Julia Monte, “so large the bands might start popping off.” While she’s still getting income from her part-time job, she’s lost her income from bartending. Like many folks right now, the finances are a struggle. “Doing things I usually don’t have time for (workaholic over here...) having a dog to spend time with, exercising, and many virtual connections with family and friends, have extremely helped gently discard those stressful bands of tension.” Monte’s the editor of Informality Blog, covering local art, and their Crit Club has moved to Instagram Live. Each session has a selection of artists lined up to share their work. “It has been a great opportunity for artists to share what they are working on and engage in a conversation about it without having to leave home. It is helpful for me as well, to engage with them and be inspired. I hope we can reach as many artists as possible, to present or simply participate by watching,
CULTURE
save the Julia Monte - Recent sculpture, plus her dog
SAMANTHA SOLMAR
“Like everything else during quarantine, making art has looked a little bit different. While things have been unstable and unpredictable, I felt it was more important for me now than ever to continue to do what I enjoy,” says local photographer and Pitch intern Sa-
mantha Solmar. “Unfortunately, my shoots during the end of March and all of April were cancelled, which meant I had to get creative about how I was, well, creative. As things started opening up, I felt more comfortable shooting with models as long as we were outside and not super close to each other. This smoke bomb shoot was actually my friend’s idea, but I’ve always loved playing with bright colors and distortion to create almost dream-like images, so I was down.”
Taco Week A
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and bridge any gaps we can this way. I appreciate being alone, but I crave socialization and connectivity. The internet is a place of possibilities (if even a bit overwhelming!)”
G 24 -3
date! FOLLOW THE EVENT PAGE ON FACEBOOK FOR UP TO DATE INFO! Alessia Filutze poses at the end of the world.
SAMANTHA SOLMAR
thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
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CULTURE
SETTING BOUNDARIES IN POLITE “POST-COVID” SOCIETY THE NEW MANNERS ARE GOING TO BE ANXIETY-INDUCING TO LIVE BY BY CELIA SEARLES
Boundaries. If you’re like me, that word used to send a prickle up your spine. Many of us (myself included for the longest time) associate the need for boundaries with something being wrong in one of the relationships in our lives. When it came to my own feelings, I felt it was bad to want alone time, scary to tell someone not to speak a certain way to me, and that I was too uptight when I had terms of how I wanted to be treated by others. With age and practice, however, I have learned to listen to the inner voice that tells me what feels okay and what doesn’t. I’ve spent time having difficult conversations with loved ones about what feels good in my relationships, and when to draw the line. As most things in life, as soon as I felt like I was really getting the hang of these boundaries, a pandemic came in and swept the rug
comfortable getting out of the house as restrictions have been lifted, while others are feeling more scared than ever. A conversation with Holly Anderson, a local marriage and family therapist in the Kansas City area, shed some light on navigating our changing social climate and how to honor ourselves during these rapidly-hanging time. Anderson uses a definition of boundaries that popular shame and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown suggests as, “what’s okay and what’s not okay.” In looking to implement boundaries into our own lives, one of the first things we can do is to listen to our bodies. Noticing what feels good and what doesn’t is our best indicator for where these boundaries lie. A common misconception about boundaries is that they are not as set in stone
Good boundaries make people feel safe. Trust your internal compass and go with the feel-good. out from under me. Suddenly, all the roles I played in my life were compounded into one: I was a daughter, friend, student, partner, and intern all at once. I had to learn to live within government-mandated boundaries and make space for new, personal ones. Now, re-integrating into our community and social circles is the next challenge in our pandemic society. As the stay-at-home orders that dictated many of our daily movements have relaxed over the past months, we are left with the task of setting our own personal boundaries in a post-COVID society. The task of a new work-life balance, easing into a social life that feels safe, and prioritizing ourselves looks more complicated than ever before. Mental health professionals in the community noted that some of us are feeling more
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THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
as we think. Our comfort levels with certain situations, people, and experiences change. “We have to look at boundaries not as linear but more as kind of a dance. What was okay before might not be okay anymore,” Anderson says. The process of re-implementing these guidelines into our social practices can be challenging if we haven’t dealt with the task prior to the pandemic. If you are new to boundaries, one way to get started is to “hold space,” Anderson recommends. Having conversations with those closest to you should be approached with curiosity rather than rules. “The key with figuring out how to have a conversation around boundaries is to be curious about the way you work or the way someone else works,” Anderson says. Speaking with Mary Belle Wright, a li-
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censed professional counselor in the Kansas City area, continued anxiety about getting back to “normal” life was highlighted. Many of her clients have taken the pandemic seriously and feel frustrated with their peers who don’t. For those still wanting to social distance or quarantine, “be clear about it,” Wright advises. “Good boundaries make people feel safe,” trust your internal compass, and “go with the feel-good.” In addition to what may feel comfortable or manageable with our time, concerns about our safety and the rules we place around certain activities have never been more front and center. The sheer anxiety of figuring this out ourselves is half the headache. In the fight to protect ourselves and our loved ones against COVID-19, some of our boundaries may be firmer than they had in the past. “Make no apologies for wanting to keep yourself safe—this isn’t over,” Wright says. Introducing more separation and balance into our lives as government restrictions are lifted presents challenges especially when caring for others. “I have to worry about everyone’s health and well-being,” says Hannah Pence, a math teacher in the Shawnee Mission School District and a mother. “How do I know when it is safe to take my son inside a store or restaurant? Is it safe for me to go inside my parent’s house, since they are still in the highrisk group, due to their age? I wish someone would tell me those answers. But, as it has been through most of the past two months, no one knows. I feel like I am guessing all the time, which adds a whole new layer to the stress and worrying.” This predicament of having to pick and choose where we feel comfortable going and who we feel comfortable seeing can lead to a lot of tough feelings with those in your social circle as you begin to branch out again. “People’s safety feels different for each person,” Anderson says. “A lot of times there’s a feeling of judgment or shame or blame when someone says, ‘This doesn’t feel good for me,’ but you’re like ‘But this feels good for me!’ So there’s a lot of feelings of difficulty in navigating that,” Anderson adds. One piece of advice she offers: “See these conversations as similar to politics. How do you honor and not judge, but also honor and not judge yourself?” Caring for ourselves and our loved ones has never been more complicated in the time where every action means so much, but there are so few guidelines on what we can do when, now that the guidelines are relaxed. Boundaries, while long praised for their effectiveness in creating harmonious relationships, may be able to do more than just conflict management: They may be the key to health management. JOSEPH DAUGHERTY
FRIDAY AUGUST 21, 2020 WALDO PAVILION 7421 BROADWAY 6-9 PM VIP ENTRY AT 6 PM GA ENTRY AT 6:30 PM
SAVE THE DATE! We’re hoping for the best and will only host the event if it’s safe to do so.
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thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
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MUSIC
The band Sterling Witt.
SOMETHING’S AWRY HOW STERLING WITT MAKES HITCHCOCK INTO HITCHROCK BY NICK SPACEK
Sterling Witt’s newest album, Something’s Awry, is akin to a 12 song version of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, featuring tales of spooky things like the river-haunting Scottish shape-changer the kelpie, werewolves, ghouls, and haunted houses. Blunt and declamatory in its straightforward delivery, it’s a forceful bit of punk energy, like Roky Erikson collaborating with Wesley Willis. The record was recorded as a threepiece, featuring Witt on guitar and vocals, along with Kitten A. Boggs on bass and vocals and drummer Evan Verploegh, but the songs on Something’s Awry started life in a different form, says Witt during a lengthy email interview. “I’m in the final stages of writing and editing a book right now that relates to my album,” Witt says. “The album has 12 songs and the book has 24 stories and poems.
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THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
Half of those stories I turned into songs to make the album Something’s Awry.” The book, to be entitled Something’s Awry: Ting Tong and Other Terrifying Tales, will feature illustrations, also by Witt, some of which are used for the album, too. The whole process was one of discovery, says the musician, explaining that it all began with “Ting Tong,” about a tentacled foe “who crushes bones / Late at night when you’re all alone.” “It was the first story and the first one I made into a song,” Witt says, explaining that the original version was prose, not a poem. The song is another viewpoint of the tale, with lyrics different from the story. When Witt was converting “Ting Tong,” he didn’t realize I was making an album of songs. “I was still writing the stories—half of
which turned out to be poems that rhyme,” Witt continues. “All those poems sounded like they could be songs to me and my first thought was to keep the words to the songs in the same order as the poems, so that the story could be understood from listening to the song.” Witt says that Something’s Awry, the album, can be thought of as being like an amped up audio book, with all the musical arrangements dictated by the words: “There are many oddities in the music and vocal melodies that happen just once. Maintaining the stories was the only rule I gave myself while turning them into songs: The words made me do it.” There are quite a few places from which Witt drew inspiration for Something’s Awry, he says, explaining that “Little Buford Beaman” is based on a urban legend he grew up with about how, if one had a tapeworm, they could make chicken noodle soup, hang themself upside down over the soup. Breathing in the steam, the tapeworm would crawl its way out. Gross. However, Witt’s looking to tales which allow him to really explore a concept, more than trying to make you toss your cookies. The musician isn’t really a gore fan at all, and shies away from anything where the visual gore is over the
JEFFREY MUNDINGER
COURTESY STERLING WITT
MUSIC
top. It bothers him to see excess gore, as it seems unnecessary. “On the other hand, if the subject happens to be gross and disgusting—like that of a ghoul—I don’t want the facts downplayed,” Witt admits. “Give it to me straight. The fact is, by definition, a ghoul is a grave robber who digs up fresh graves and eats the corpse. When writing my song
to pull off the boards from the front door, and go in. After they go in, they realize they aren’t alone, in more ways than one. “When I was writing this song, I actually freaked myself out,” Witt admits. “Because I have done the things they do in the song. ‘The House’ is the scariest song I have in my opinion because it’s all tangible—things we could all do this afternoon
“Your feelings are in the blender. Up is down. Left is right. Funny is scary.” ‘The Ghoul,’ the only way I could do it was to write it in first person as if I am the ghoul. That way, I had the freedom to be excited by the notion of eating dead bodies. I figured a real ghoul is thrilled by it all: reading the obituary, figuring out who is on the menu, going through all body parts like most people do their grocery bags.” Witt gets to chatting about the sort of things he’s into, such as the aforementioned Alvin Swartz and Stephen Gammell’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, along with TV series like The Twilight Zone, Unsolved Mysteries, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents and movies such as They Live, The ‘Burbs, and another Hitchcock production, Rear Window. As is incredibly clear with that partial list, Witt’s a big fan of things which blend the comedic and the scary, and are weird and off the wall. “Rear Window is a masterpiece,” says Witt. “One of those rare films where everything is as perfect as it can be. It’s an extremely subtle film—the crime is never seen. It’s all people speculating, looking out a window and being nosy neighbors. It’s incredible to make such a simple silly thing fascinating and entertaining for nearly two hours.” As to how one makes music like that, Witt says that spooky music is a delicate genre, and one which needs to be funny and/or legitimately frightening, and ideally, both simultaneously. “That way, your feelings are in the blender,” he explains. “Up is down, left is right, funny is scary.” That said, Witt thinks that the scariest song on Something’s Awry is one called “The House,” which is about two friends joy riding in the rural countryside, because all of the material in the song is grounded in reality, as the pair come upon an old house they figure is abandoned, get brave enough
if we wanted. We just assume it’s not going to end badly.” For Witt, however, things are not ending badly. He’s on the fourth round of edits for his book and just confirmed a performance to celebrate the album in early October. As we wrap up our days-long email chat, he mentions that he’s reading the original Brothers Grimm stories, describing them as an inspiring read. “Talk about strange,” he says. “It doesn’t get weirder. I love the way those stories have unforgiving craziness: conversations with the moon, the sun, and stars as if that’s just the way things are, moving right along.” Coming back around to where we started, I ask if those Brothers Grimm stories influenced the upcoming Something’s Awry book. Those original stories are so weird and creepy and exceptionally violent that I have to imagine they’re creeping in somehow. “I had all the stories written before I started reading the Brothers Grimm tales,” Witt concludes. “Of course, I’m familiar with the many renditions and the modern retelling of many of the popular ones, but there is nothing like the originals. They are so good, and unforgiving and I think that’s what piqued my curiosity to read it during this time of editing my book: Editors tend to want to tame down the stories, make them less jarring, less horrifying, less violent and so on. And I really didn’t want to water them down in that way. I like the bluntness of my stories and wanted something reinforcing of that approach.” Sterling Witt’s Something’s Awry is available now at sterlingwitt.bandcamp. com, with vinyl and compact disc versions coming later this year, along with a performance at Holy Hill Art Farm’s Art & Farm Market on October 10. thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
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FILM
Police Story. Hong Kong action movies are massively fun to watch, and Chan’s first two Police Story movies are classics of the genre, with stunts inspired by martial arts as much as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Police Story 2 ups the ante significantly from the first entry (no mean feat), with even crazier stunts, a fabulous soundtrack, and an unforgettable explosive finale. JONAH DESNEUX, THE PITCH
The Infiltrators Available via Screenland’s digital screening room
Isn’t it great when a documentary pisses you off? I don’t mean frustratingly bad, but incredibly effective at showcasing injustice. The Infiltrators is a hybrid documentary that will captivate, inspire, and get you ready to raise hell at a major problem in our country. Based on the true story of undocumented Dreamers getting themselves thrown into a for-profit detainment center on purpose, the film mixes narrative with interviews and videos, creating a unique film that invokes all of your emotions.
WHAT KC’S BEEN WATCHING?
MEMBERS OF THE FILM COMMUNITY SHARE THEIR VIRTUAL CINEMA RECS BY ABBY OLCESE AND THE FILM GROUP
It’s no secret that the film community, particularly folks involved in independently owned theaters, festivals, and filmmaking, have had a rough go of it these last few months. Long-planned screenings have been postponed. Beloved movie houses have shut their doors and are finding new ways to keep up revenue so those doors can open back up. Studios holding off on releasing new films have exacerbated the situation, even as theater owners and programmers consider the process of opening back up. If you want to support Kansas City’s film community, there are plenty of ways to do your part. Several theaters, including Screenland, Glenwood Arts, Liberty Hall, and Alamo Drafthouse, have virtual screening rooms, where viewers can pay to watch a first-run film, and their theater of choice gets a share of the profits. Screenland and Glenwood Arts are both running fundraising campaigns. KC underground cinema Stray Cat Film Center offers a monthly membership option, in addition to an ongoing Twitch stream featuring live watch movie nights. We at The Pitch love watching movies. We also love our local film community. So, as Kansas Citians continue watching films from home while phasing back into public social interaction, we reached out to get rec-
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THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
ommendations from some of our favorite area film folks, as well as Pitch contributors. Whether you’re looking for ways to support local theaters, or just need something to stream tonight, we’re here for you.
widower Martin (Barry Ward) to exorcise the spirit of his dead wife. Meanwhile, local rockstar Christian Winter (Will Forte), makes a demonic pact to revive his career, requiring a virgin sacrifice. Winter has his eye on using Martin’s daughter. If you’re a fan of UK cult comedy like Darkplace or Look Around You, this is the movie for you.
Jupiter Ascending Netflix
ABBY OLCESE, THE PITCH
Extra Ordinary Available via Screenland and Liberty Hall’s digital screening rooms
Extra Ordinary managed a brief theatrical run before theaters closed, but this endearingly shaggy Irish horror-comedy still deserves all the attention it can get. It’s about a driving instructor, Rose (Maeve Higgins), who can speak with ghosts. Rose is hired by
The Wachowski sisters’ space opera flopped upon release, and there are some out there who consider it a bad movie. These people are wrong. Jupiter Ascending is wildly inventive and sees the Wachowskis building a scifi universe all their own. Think The Matrix crossed with Cloud Atlas. Granted, not all of their ideas work, and the performances aren’t all on the same level (Eddie Redmayne is on another plane of existence). However, it’s still an engrossing story with memorable characters, and it looks gorgeous. Jupiter Ascending is pure escapism, and right now some of us need that.
Police Story and Police Story 2 Criterion Channel
One of the best choices I’ve made during isolation was stir-frying some noodles, grabbing a beer, and watching Jackie Chan’s
Jackass 3 Hulu
When the world is falling apart, sometimes the best thing to do is sit back, relax, and turn your brain off. There’s no better film to do this with than Jackass 3 (the best Jackass of them all). Don’t fret about things out of your control, just laugh at stupid people doing stupid things. If you want to get analytical, you can dissect the themes of aging masculinity from the MTV Generation, or you can just mindlessly giggle at Johnny Knoxville getting rammed by a buffalo.
Taste of Cherry Criterion Channel
Taste of Cherry is Abbas Kiarostami’s masterpiece. The film’s subject matter may seem bleak: A man drives around looking for someone who will bury him under a tree after he commits suicide. However, Taste of Cherry is a thoughtful celebration of life. With each passenger the driver picks up, a new life philosophy is explored, some being more relevant now than ever before. Taste of Cherry is the first Iranian film to win the Palme d’Or and has an ending unlike any other. ADAM ROBERTS, CO-OWNER SCREENLAND THEATERS
The King of Staten Island
I’m picking something I’m excited to see that comes out in June, even though it will likely not be on Screenland’s virtual screening room. The King of Staten Island was meant to play at SXSW, and is the latest film from director Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin). It stars Pete Davidson, who also co-wrote the film, playing a
FILM
fictional version of himself.
The Beastie Boys Story Apple TV+
The Beastie Boys Story is a documentary directed by Spike Jonze chronicling the group’s story from their teenage punk years up to the death of MCA (Adam Yauch). It’s a larger-than-life story that plays like a greatest hits version of the *Beastie Boys Book*, one of my all-time favorite autobiographies. It’s light, fun, and might make you appreciate this band even if you’re not a fan.
absolutely delightful little movie. Unfortunately, it hasn’t found much of an audience after its very successful festival run in 2019. The movie tells the story of a young boy named Cody as he travels with his mom to clean up the house left to them by his aunt, a reclusive hoarder. A stressful and painful trip soon turns into a heartwarming story as Cody develops a friendship with the elderly war veteran who lives next door. It’s predictable and a bit simple, but sometimes you need a movie that feels like a hug. Driveways scratches that itch.
MANTLE! The Core is absolutely a mustwatch good-bad movie.
It Felt Like Love Kanopy, Criterion Channel
The world is finally realizing that Eliza Hittman is among the greatest contemporary American directors. Her newest film Never Rarely Sometimes Always (also available to stream) walked away with awards from both the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals, but for me It Felt Like Love is still her best work. The story of a melancholic teen girl trying to understand love and sex, It Felt Like Love relies entirely on its main character to express the agonizing process of sexual awakening and exploration. This is an uncomfortable movie, but it’s so lovingly crafted and beautifully acted that you have no choice but to be completely enveloped in the sun-drenched world of South Brooklyn in summer. KARI BINGHAM-GUTIERREZ, KANSAS CITY UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
Saint Frances Available via Screenland’s Virtual Screening Room
One Cut of the Dead Shudder
One of the most inspiring and purely joyful films I’ve seen in the last year is One Cut of the Dead, which played Panic Fest 2019 to huge success. The film works best when the audience knows nothing going into it. I promise you, it’s not scary. It must be seen to be believed. WILLY EVANS, KANSAS CITY UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
Driveways Available via Glenwood Arts’ digital screening room
From director Andrew Ahn, Driveways is an
The Core Netflix
If you’re anything like me, there are multiple times a week where the dread becomes overwhelming and you can’t bring yourself to focus on anything. In those moments, throw on The Core. I vaguely remembered this movie bombing when it came out, but when I watched it a few weeks ago, I discovered it’s a gigantic messy treat. Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, and Stanley Tucci lead a team of scientists as they drill to the center of Earth to set off a series of nuclear bombs (it doesn’t make any more sense in context). At one point, THEY GET OUT OF THE SHIP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EARTH’S
Thirty-four-year-old Bridget (Kelly O’Sullivan, who also wrote the script) is struggling to find her purpose in life. The audience sees her take on a job as a nanny to six-yearold Frances (who is an absolute delight on screen) and detach herself from her feelings after having an abortion. You’ll see similarities to Frances Ha, Tully, and Obvious Child here. This film has so much heart and authenticity that made it a five-star watch for me.
Paddleton Netflix
Two friends (Ray Romano and Mark Duplass) journey together to buy life-ending drugs after one of them is diagnosed with terminal cancer. It’s a sad buddy movie. I’m a huge fan of Duplass, but Romano is the standout star and deserves so much more recognition for this role. You know this film will inevitably be a downer, so go ahead and
have a good, cathartic cry with Paddleton.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Kanopy
Four words: Iranian. Vampire. Western. Horror. Are you sold yet? I should add that the vampire is a badass skateboarder who hunts and kills bad men. This black and white film written and directed by Ana Lily Amirpour is the gorgeous feminist vampire flick we all need in our lives right now.
BROCK WILBUR, THE PITCH
Blood Quantum Available via Shudder/Amazon
Each year, Panic Fest strikes the Screenland Theatres and brings me a wave of fantastic movies from across the world that strikes terror into my tiny little heart and makes me thankful to be alive. Last year, Starfish showed me what it would be like if Silent Hill and 13 Reasons Why had a baby. You should watch that one; it’s a delight. This year’s lineup was incredible, and you should get a pass to next January’s event as soon as possible. But the highlight for me was a film I’ve been waiting to see for nearly a year: Blood Quantum. It’s a zombie movie, made by an Indigenous director and featuring only Indigenous actors, revolving around a story that only an Indigenous storyteller would bring to the table. It begins as an early John Carpenter joint, and very quickly evolves into a bit of political horror on par with what we celebrate from Jordan Peele. Spoiler: white Americans find themselves on the other side of the immigration issues they’re accustomed to.
thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
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KC CARES
Rightfully Sewn’s fashion masks will be available soon.
AP VISUAL
KC CARES RIGHTFULLY SEWN MAKES PPE FASHIONABLE BY BROOKE TIPPIN
Over a decade ago, I met one of my best friends at a modern dance class while attending KU. I remember it was raining the very first day of class, and he arrived late with his soaking wet umbrella, giggling loudly, and apologizing for being tardy. I knew I had to be his friend. (I would like to note he completely aced the class, while I barely made it alive.) Fast forward to today: I’m blessed to still be best friends with one of the coolest guys making waves in Kan-
manufacturing, while at the same time, propelling Kansas City fashion designers to market so they can supply the burgeoning demand for high-quality, American-produced garments. On March 24, Rightfully Sewn began its mask initiative and shifted its operations to produce 40,000 non-medical grade fabric masks to be donated to area hospitals to help protect frontline hospital workers. They are publishing patterns, fabric sugges-
Though medical personnel at the University of Kansas Health System have sufficient N95 masks, they requested Rightfully Sewn provide fabric masks for each of their cancer patients. sas City, Godfrey Riddle. Godfrey works at Rightfully Sewn, which provides seamstress training for individuals so they can thrive in a specialized workforce aiming to reestablish Kansas City as an epicenter of garment
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THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
tions, and sewing instructions and asking for help from volunteers to sew non-medical grade fabric masks. Some hospitals are using this type of mask for non-COVID-19 patients in order to reserve N95 masks,
Donated hospital masks in the works.
RIGHTFULLY SEWN
while others are wearing them over the top of their N95 masks or under their face shields while working with COVID-19 patients because they are in “crisis capacity,” as described by the CDC in its Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of Facemasks. Rightfully Sewn seeks support to purchase supplies and cover seamstress wages for nonmedical-grade fabric mask manufacturing in response to COVID-19. Masks will be donated to hospitals in need. Rightfully Sewn has confirmed mask needs and design preferences with Children’s Mercy, Liberty Hospital, North Kansas City Hospital, Saint Luke’s Health System Kansas City, and Truman Medical Center. Earlier this year, Godfrey underwent cancer treatment at the University of Kansas Health System (he is doing well). Individuals receiving chemotherapy are at high-risk for complications should they contract COVID-19. Though medical per-
sonnel at the University of Kansas Health System have sufficient N95 masks, they requested Rightfully Sewn provide fabric masks for each of their cancer patients. It costs less than $7 to produce one mask, and Rightfully Sewn’s seamstresses are paid a living wage with benefits. If you feel called to donate for masks needed for hospitals or for those patients receiving chemo, please visit RightfullySewn.org/donate. Rightfully Sewn also plans to sell fashion masks to the public. They have considered the environment, every person involved in the fabric production process, their team members, and customers at every step. Fashion masks will be produced on a separate production line from the non-medical grade masks, and will be priced accordingly to fund the additional labor and material costs to create them. Learn more at RightfullySewn.org/Shop.
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thepitchkc.com | June 2020 | THE PITCH
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SAVAGE LOVE
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THE PITCH | June 2020 | thepitchkc.com
Dear Dan: Here’s a non-COVID question for you: I’m a queer white female in a monogamish marriage. I vote left, I abhor hatred and oppression, and I engage in activism when I can. I’m also turned on by power differentials: authority figures, uniforms, hot guys doing each other. Much to my horror this thing for power differentials plus too many WW2 movies as a kid has always meant that for my brain (or for my pussy) Nazis are hot. Fuck me, right? Other maybe relevant bits of info: I’m not interested in roleplaying with actual partners, I’m fairly sure this proclivity is not reflective of any deeper issues, and I’m both sexually and emotionally fairly well sorted. Not perfect, but fine working order and all that. And I get it: people like what they like, don’t judge yourself for your fetishes, just get off without being an asshole to anyone. The problem is that my usual way of getting off on/indulging my fantasies is to read erotic fiction on the Internet. I’d love your input on whether seeking out Nazi porn is problematic for some of the same reasons that porn depicting sex with kids is problematic. Am I normalizing and trivializing fascism? ––Freaking About Search Histories Seeking out child porn—searching for it online, downloading it, collecting images of children being raped and sexually abused— is problematic (and illegal) because it creates demand for more child porn, which results in more children being raped and sexually abused. The cause-and-effect is obvious, FASH, the victims are real, and the harm done is incalculable. But while it may discomfort someone to know a nice married lady who donates to all the right causes is furiously masturbating to dirty stories about hot guys in Nazi uniforms doing each other, FASH, no one ever has to know that. So you do no harm—not even the supposed harm of discomforting someone—when you privately enjoy the fucked up stories you enjoy. And while there are doubtless some actual Nazis who enjoy reading dirty stories about other Nazis, most people turned on by dirty stories about Nazis are turned on despite themselves and their politics. Transgressive sexual fantasies don’t arouse us because they violate societal norms and expectations (in safe and controlled manner), FASH, but because they allow us violate our sense of ourselves too (ditto). Just as a feminist can have rape fantasies without actually wanting to be raped herself or for anyone else to be raped, a person can have sexual fantasies about hot guys in Nazi uniforms doing each other without wanting Nazis to come to power.
I have to say it was easier to give anti-Nazi Nazi fetishists like you a pass—to shrug and say “you do you” but please keep it to yourself—before racist demagogues, white supremacists, and anti-Semites started marching around waving Trump flags. But no one picks their kinks and being told “that shouldn’t turn you on” has never made a problematic or transgressive kink less arousing. And when you consider the number of non-erotic novels, movies, and television shows the culture cranks out year after year—and how many actually trivialize fascism (I’m talking to you, Hunters)—it seems insane to draw a line and say, “Okay, this story about Nazis isn’t okay because that lady over there masturbated while reading it in private.” Dear Dan: I’m an apartment-dweller in a dense urban area. Last night I overheard my neighbors having sex—no big deal, right? I consider myself a sex-positive person, and have always held and espoused the belief that if you can’t have loud sex in your own home, where can you have it? But the sex I overheard last night was fairly kinky. Someone I read as a cis man was dominating someone I read as a cis woman. They were in the apartment right across from mine—about 20 feet away—and my bedroom window faces theirs. There was a LOT of derogatory talk, hitting, name-calling, giving orders, and some crying. I could tell it was consensual—she was very clearly having a good time—and I eavesdropped long enough to witness the post-coital return to equilibrium. Everything seemed great. But physically I experienced this as overheard violence. I was shaking and had a hard time getting to sleep afterwards. I’m glad I stuck around until the end. It helped me feel better. I guess what I’m saying is that I needed some aftercare. I’m still thinking about it this morning, and I’m concerned that being triggered by my neighbor’s sex is going to become a regular part of my life. I’m wondering about the ethics of the situation: Do kinky folks have an obligation to muffle potentially triggering sounds? Or is any overheard sex potentially triggering to someone and am I, therefore, applying a double standard here? What do you think? ––The Vanilla Neighbor You went from overhearing kinky sex to eavesdropping on it—meaning, you went from accidentally hearing your neighbors fucking to intently listening as your neighbors fucked. And you needed to do that. You heard something that sounded violent but hearing more led you to guess it was consensual sex and listening all the way to the
end—all the way through the aftercare— confirmed your guess was correct. So for your own peace of mind, TVN, you needed to keep listening. But you don’t need to listen next time. If it triggers you to hear your neighbors fucking, don’t listen. Close the window and crank up some music or go for a walk and listen to a podcast. That said, TVN, you raise an interesting ethical question: Are kinksters—particularly the kind of kinksters who enjoy verbal abuse and impact play—obligated to keep it down? While I think people should be considerate of their neighbors, people are allowed to have sex in their own homes, TVN, and it’s not like vanilla sex is always quiet. But if the sex a couple enjoys could easily be misinterpreted as abuse or violence by someone who accidentally overhears it, that couple might wanna close the window and turn up some music themselves—not only to avoid alarming the neighbors but to spare themselves the hassle of explaining their kinks to a cop. For the record: I would tell person who enjoys a good single-tail whipping to find a soundproof dungeon to enjoy that in (because that shit is loud) but I wouldn’t tell a person who screams her head off during PIV intercourse to find a soundproof box (even though her shit is just as loud). Instead, I would urge her fuck at 8 PM, when most people are awake, rather than 2 AM, when most people are asleep. (It can be annoying listening to someone screamfuck but it’s even more annoying to have your sleep ruined by a screamfucker.) Is this a double standard? Perhaps. But it’s one I’m willing to endorse. Dear Dan: 1. Is it safe to hook up again? 2. Will it be safe to hook up again soon? 3. You’ll tell us when it’s safe to hook up again, right? --Getting Really Impatient. Need Dick. Really. It isn’t. At some point. I will. Question for Dan? Email him at mail@savagelove.net. On Twitter at @fakedansavage.
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