Vox Magazine April 2021

THE VOICE OF COLUMBIA  APRIL 2021

CELEBRATE 40 YEARS OF THE BLUE NOTE PAGE 14

OUR GUIDE TO HEALTHIER TAKEOUT PAGE 35

THE MANY PROBLEMS WITH PLASTIC PAGE 39

In the last year, everything about everything has changed. PAGE 17

END GAMES

FROM THE EDITOR

E DI T OR -I N -CHI E F CHRISTINA LONG M AN AGI N G E DI T O R EMMY LUCAS DI GI TAL M AN AGI N G E D IT O R LAUREN POLANSKI

T

he other day, I was telling someone about my tattoo — an aspen leaf inked on my ribcage. He asked when I got it. I told him, “October. Like, the pre-pandemic October.”

He joked that was how we’ll look at time now. In the same way we use “before Christ” and “Anno Domini,” when discussing days of old, we’ll think of our lives in terms of “before the pandemic” and “after COVID.” In the early days of the pandemic, I remember talking to my dad on the phone and lamenting the struggle of living through a historical event. It felt like a dream to me, but one that everyone was having simultaneously. I remember what he told me: “This is going to a blip in the long story of your life.”

I wanted so badly for him to be right.

Neither he nor I believed the pandemic would be over in a few weeks. But hanging onto the idea that one day we would be years out of this time and looking back on the events of the last year as something that

ON L I N E E DI T OR GRACE COOPER

had happened, not that was happening, kept me grounded during those first few months.

I’ll be honest: As an editor, I get tired of COVID-19 stories. Asking “How has XYZ industry adapted to the pandemic?” becomes less interesting by the day. But the changes the past year has brought to our lives are among the most important stories we can tell right now. Behind every one of those stories is someone who lost a job or a loved one or had to put a dream on hold.

It’s true that one day we’ll look back on the year-plus we spent with COVID-19 as a thing of the past and think of what we created, including the poetry we wrote (p.

5), the music we listened to (p. 11) and the ways we connected (p. 13). But there are things that have changed dramatically, and some of those changes will remain (p. 17), including the emotional effects (p. 30). In the pages of this issue, Vox writers explore all the reasons this pandemic, although it seems to be waning, will be remembered as so much more than a blip.

CR E AT I V E DI R E CT O R MADISON WISSE ART DI R E CT OR S GABRIELLE FALETTO, MAKALAH HARDY PHOT O E DI T OR C O URT N E Y P E R R E T T M ULT I M E DI A E DI T O R MARGO WAGNER AS S I S TAN T E D IT O RS CULT UR E FRANCESCA HECKER, TYLER MESSNER, MATTHEW RIOS E AT + DR I N K L I ZZI E B E N S O N , VIVIAN HERZOG, ALYSSA SHIKLES CI T Y L I F E DAVID KITCHIN, SARAH STRAUGHN, LAUREN TRONSTAD, COLLEEN WOUTERS DI GI TAL E DI T OR S ARI ANZELMO, BRENNA ERWIN, WALTER FIELDS, HANNAH GALLANT, ROSHAE HEMMINGS, TOM KAVANAUGH, HANNAH KIRCHWEHM, EVAN MUSIL, ALEX NEASE, OLIVIA SHEEHY, LAUREN STONE, ALEX WANG, COLIN WILLARD, SARA WILLIAMS, MARISA WHITAKER M ULT I M E DI A E DI T O RS VICTORIA COX, CONNOR LYFORD, ZIYE TANG ART AS S I S TAN T MOY ZHONG CON T R I B UT I N G W R I T E RS MASON ARNESON, SHANNON BELT, EMMA BOYLE, ANGELINA EDWARDS, LAURA EVANS, IAN LAIRD, SKYLAR LAIRD, MAX SHAPIRO, RASHI SHRIVASTAVA, ABBEY TAUCHEN, LIA WALDRUM

E DI T OR I AL DI R E CT O R HEATHER LAMB DI GI TAL DI R E CT OR SARA SHIPLEY HILES OF F I CE M AN AGE R KIM TOWNLAIN

CHRISTINA LONG Editor-in-Chief

Behind the issue

The design concept for the “Our pandemic year” feature package is a reflection of what has happened to us this past year. Life took a turn into something more abstract and unrecognizable. The faces represent how a lot of people have been feeling — not their normal selves, but rather jumbled, not-quite-real versions of themselves. The brighter colors contrast the gloomy, serious realities of what our community and beyond have experienced. And, I hope, point to a brighter future in store.

–Hannah Kirchwehm Photography courtesy of Christina Long and illustrations by Hannah Kirchwehm

Vox Magazine

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ADVERTISING 882- 5714 CIRCULATION 882- 5700 EDITORIAL 884- 6432 vox@m i ss o u ri . e d u CALENDAR send to vox@mi s s o u ri . e d u o r subm i t vi a onl i ne form a t v o x m a g a zi n e . c o m TO RECEIVE VOX IN YOUR INBOX sign up for email newsletter at voxmagazine.com A PRI L 2021 V OL U M E 2 4 , IS S U E 3 PUB L I S HE D BY T H E COL UM B I A MIS S O U RIA N 320 L E E H IL L S H A L L COL UM B I A, M O 6 5 2 1 1

MAGAZINE Cover Design: Hannah Kirchwehm VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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TABLE OF CONTENTS IN THE LOOP

30

05

Writing through it Three Unbound Book Festival poets discuss how the pandemic has affected their work.

07

In search of justice: an activist’s journey With People’s Defense, Roy Lovelady aims to amplify local voices and bridge the gap between the community and local government.

08

Working on the spectrum The road to full-time employment for individuals with autism is a journey of fortitude.

CULTURE

35

EAT + DRINK

11

35

Albums from the past year reflect how we’ve dealt with the pandemic.

Order takeout that’s on the lighter side.

13

One meal at a time

Flashback soundtrack

Takeout, but healthier 37

Plug into the discourse Platforms like Discord have helped more than gamers find a sense of community.

05

A shared passion for cooking became a blog and two successful cookbooks for two local women.

38

Kondo your kitchen

14

The beat goes on

Spring cleaning heads to the pantry.

The Blue Note celebrates 40 years.

16

CITY LIFE

Digging up gems in forgotten LPs

39

It’s time to start crate digging.

The plastic pandemic

FEATURES

The consequences of the rise in singleuse plastics will be felt for many years to come.

17

Our pandemic year Vox writers document the many ways our lives have changed a year after the start of the pandemic.

30

11

41

Streaming (dis)service Moving city meetings online opens up a discussion about how public comments should be heard.

The cyclical art of healing

42

In her photo essay, Lia Waldrum explores the physical and mental tolls of COVID-19.

These three native plants will make your garden a haven for pollinators.

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VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

Flowers with benefits

Photography by Lia Waldrum, Trenton Almgren-Davis and courtesy of Unbound Book Festival, illustrations by Makalah Hardy

PROGRESS STARTS HERE P. 7

ON THE SPECTRUM OF STRENGTH P. 8

Writing through it Poets from the Unbound Book Festival are part of poetry’s evolution amid the pandemic.

BY RASHI SHRIVASTAVA

Sojourner Ahebee is a Philadelphia poet who won a National Student Poet honor from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 2013.

Photography courtesy of Unbound Book Festival

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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IN TH E LOOP POETRY

A poem is more than just a collection of words. Whether it’s performed on a stage or written on a page, whether you write it secretly or share it with a community, a poem is an expression of emotions and a reflection of society.

As we surpass one year of the pandemic, poets participating in the Unbound Book Festival reflect on how COVID-19 has influenced their creativity, the topics they write about and the mediums through which they reach their audiences.

Taking up the pen With time to spare and plenty of reasons to express their feelings, more people are trying their hand at poetry.

Karen Craigo, the Missouri poet laureate, says people have taken up poetry in the same way they started making bread at the onset of the COVID-19 lockdowns. She spoke at the Missouri Poets panel on Jan. 26.

Craigo is a mother of two children, the author of two full-length collections and three chapbooks, which are small booklets typically containing poetry.

She wakes up at 5 a.m. every day to a quiet and peaceful home. Craigo says writing poetry requires solitude. “I’ve found that I need to work on my poetry in fits and starts,” she says.

Craigo is a lyric and free-verse poet. She writes about motherhood and spirituality, but lately she has been writing essays on grief.

“I had two major losses,” she says.

“My mother died. She had a stroke.

She’d been ill for a long time and my ex-husband, who was my best friend, committed suicide.”

She says writing has helped make sense of her grief. “It’s good to try to wrestle with it, and then it’s good to leave it behind,” Craigo says. “But I’m still wrestling.”

Hala Alyan, a licensed clinical psychologist in Brooklyn, N.Y., has also been tussling with grief through poetry.

“I write usually about things that are happening in my life, or in the lives of people around me that I care about,” she says. “I have had some struggles with my body and with fertility and miscarriages.” Alyan says the focus of

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VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

To Hala Alyan, poetry is a lifeline.

She says its power is a transformative process and has used it with her own clients in therapy.

her writing has shifted to the human body as the pandemic made her realize the ways that the body could be harmful to others.

Alyan, who’s on the Healthcare Poetry panel March 25, says both therapy and poetry require attention to detail and the ability to understand emotions.

“If you’re a therapist, you’re helping people put together their stories,” she says. “You’re helping people make sense of chaos, or a fragment of things that feel disconnected. It’s very similar to writing a poem.”

Coming off the page The performance and presentation of poetry is closely linked to the audience.

Sojourner Ahebee is a poet based in Philadelphia, and she says the city has a vibrant poetry scene. Before the pandemic, Ahebee had gotten involved with spoken-word and slam poetry. When she read in front of an audience, she could tell which lines were landing.

“I’ve personally missed having that sense of writing community to tap into,” she says. “But it’s also a really import-

READ THEIR WORK Sojourner Ahebee: Reporting from the Belly of the Night Hala Alyan: The Arsonists’ City Karen Craigo: Passing Through Humansville

In 2019, Gov. Mike Parson appointed Karen Craigo as the Missouri poet laureate. Craigo is tasked with fostering the reading and writing of poetry in the state.

ant indicator for my work in my craft.”

Ahebee spoke at the Emerging Poet Award panel on Feb. 9.

Slam poetry and poetry readings have reached different platforms to engage with audiences. The Unbound Book Festival has had success with live events on YouTube, says Alex George, the festival’s co-founder. During the poetry readings, people leave comments and emojis in the chat, or they repeat the lines that resonate with them, he says.

Giving the power of voice Although some members of the poetry community are critical of “Instapoetry,” Craigo says Instagram has made poems more accessible. Craigo herself has been using Twitter, not only to share poetry but to create it. She uses “American sentences,” which is a Haiku turned into a single line of 17 syllables. Experimenting with this form and platform, for a time, she tweeted about gun violence. “Every day, I would wake up and check the news and see what kind of gun violence had happened,” she says. “I felt like as Americans, we were kind of sentenced to the terrible fate of violence.” You can find her poems on Twitter @AmrcnSentences.

Craigo is not the only poet to write about societal issues. Ahebee writes about race and recently started writing a fulllength manuscript about Sojourner Truth, a 19th-century Black abolitionist. Ahebee also started creating audio mixes with excerpts of her own poems and recitations of Truth’s speeches. She has written about assertion of self and voice, topics that became more relevant to her during the Black Lives Matter movement.

“When I think about that project, and then I look at BLM and everything that we were fighting for this summer, it was really clear to me that I couldn’t just be writing these poems,” she says.

“I also had to be out in the streets and marching with people.”

Alyan has engaged some of her own clients in narrative therapy, which is a process that helps people reclaim the narratives of their lives or of a particular traumatic event and empower them through writing and narration. For many people, poetry is just words. But to Alyan, “poetry saves lives.”

Photography courtesy of Unbound Book Festival and Hala Alyan

I N T HE LO O P Q&A

dove in and started finding out information, like things going on with the City Council. The way People’s Defense does it is we look to find local injustices, and people feel comfortable enough to come to us with things they need.

IN A CITY LIKE COLUMBIA AND IN THE BOOTHEEL, SOMEBODY HAS TO FIGHT THE FIGHT. SO I DECIDED IT WOULD BE ME. – Roy Lovelady

In search of justice: an activist’s journey Roy Lovelady wants everyone to know that whether in a big city or a small town, progress can start with a single person.

BY SHANNON BELT

T

his is probably neither the first nor the last time you will see the name Roy Lovelady. He has owned 360 Star Styling Studio on Business Loop 70 for 16 years and has performed as local drag queen Mahajanay DeMornay. But his most recent role in Columbia is founder of People’s Defense, an organization that amplifies local voices and bridges the gap between the community and local government. The organization has helped inform citizens about voting rights, rent assistance and chokehold bans.

Donna Mitchell, Lovelady’s sister, says part of his strength as a community organizer is his empathy. Since joining Photography by Kayla Szymanski

the activist community, he has heard people’s concerns and tried to create solutions. Lovelady’s family moved to Columbia from Kennett when he was 13 years old, and since his arrival, Lovelady’s path to activism hasn’t been linear.

Lovelady talks with Vox about how activism became a part of his life and what motivates him in his fight for change.

Why did you start People’s Defense?

I founded it last summer. After the George Floyd incident, people had already taken to the streets, but they weren’t organized. One thing I’m really good at is organizing, so I started to pose a question to the people: What’s next? I

Roy Lovelady was inspired by the death of George Floyd to start People’s Defense.

If you want to get involved, check out @peoplesdefensecomo on Facebook or @ComoDefense on Twitter.

The City Council didn’t pass the ordinance to ban chokeholds in January.

How do you avoid feeling discouraged?

That’s just one thing. There are too many other things you still have to fight for. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Slavery didn’t go away after 400 years. That’s something activists are trying to capture.

Anytime you want to be heard loud and clear, you join as many groups as possible. You have to be faithful, hopeful and get out there and do the work.

Who are your role models?

My mom is the biggest role model because she taught me almost everything that I know that we usually give credit to schools. Another one was my African American studies teacher who was white... weird. How can a white man teach me about me? That was my philosophy, so I gave him hell. But he took the time to teach me that [outlook] was racist. He brought it to the forefront, and he did nothing to make me feel less than. My cosmetology teacher told me the first time that you do anything is a mistake. Every time after that is a choice.

And for every choice, there’s a consequence. And my pastor Russell L. Freeman (at United Community Cathedral) taught me how to build my own spiritual connection with Christ and helped me understand the Bible verses rather than just throwing it at me.

How has your hometown and time in Columbia affected your thoughts on activism?

Where I’m from, the town is split in half.

We lived in what we would call Colored Town — that’s where the Black people live. To this day it’s still called that. So knowing what it was like down there let me know all towns need to be changed, from the smallest to the biggest. In a city like Columbia and in the Bootheel, somebody has to fight the fight. So I decided it would be me.

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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IN TH E LOOP ESSAY

Working on the spectrum The unemployment rate for college graduates with autism is 85%, almost 20 times the national average.

BY MASON ARNESON

I

t was almost 2 a.m. on July 15, 2018.

I was sitting on an uncomfortable bed at a summer camp in Owatonna, Minnesota, entrenched in a routine latenight conversation with my roommate, when I realized what my future could entail: being cast off from my dream job as a sports journalist and sent to the island of misfit toys because I am on the autism spectrum. I broke down crying.

My roommate tried to console me as best he could, but I couldn’t shake the statistics filling my brain. A harrowing chorus shouting, “85% of autistic college graduates are unemployed,” played in a never-ending loop.

Why such a high number?

For autistic individuals like me, the road to full-time employment is like climb-

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VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

ing Mount Everest while it’s slicked with ice, and you’re wearing Timberlands coated in WD-40. With so many places to slip along the arduous trek, it seems futile to try.

Autistic college students often leave their postsecondary educational career with minimal workplace experience.

“They’re already a few steps behind their typically developing peers when it comes time to get that hands-on job experience,” says Cortney Fish, program coordinator of STRIVE, an autism employment readiness program at MU’s Thompson Center for Autism & Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

People with autism might have resumes that show they have moved around to different jobs frequently or have gaps of time between jobs, says Ian Bazzoli,

IN THE KNOW A local resource for autism information, including research, training and services, is the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Call 884-6052 for information.

chief operating officer of Integrate Autism Employment Advisors in New York.

“The skills and talent are there, but their growth may not be as linear,” Bazzoli says.

Once a neurodivergent individual, someone who is on the autism spectrum, finally breaks through the glass ceiling and gets hired, challenges can force them to be less productive. Office lighting or loud settings can bring a neurodivergent employee’s day to a screeching halt.

With roadblocks throughout the onboarding process, job searching can feel like disappointment after disappointment to an autistic college graduate.

Between two worlds As an individual diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, I am able to blend in as a neurotypical, a non-autistic person, Illustrations by Kiana Fernandes

I N T HE LO O P ESSAY

because it is a high-functioning variant of autism. I exist in a gray space when it comes to the issue of employment.

I liken it to a line from Nina Simone’s “Four Women” that reads, “between two worlds/I do belong.”

I have to mute anything that could make me stand out as autistic so I can be taken seriously in this world. I’ve become a chameleon, expertly blending in with my surroundings so I can seem as neurotypical as possible. A weight hangs over my head as a result.

Every time I accomplish a goal in school or write an article I’m proud of, there’s always a pang of feeling like it’s all for nothing. There’s a sadistic slideshow flickering in my mind of hypothetical situations. For example, I trust my boss enough to disclose my diagnosis to them, and I receive different treatment as a result. Just another autistic college graduate with high hopes, waiting for them to be macheted.

Feeling the need to fit into a neurotypical world so I can slip into the professional sphere is exhausting. The neurotypical “mask” I put on when I step out of my dorm and into the world suffocates me.

I feel stuck in The Sunken Place from the film Get Out. I can see all my hopes and dreams right in front of me, but when there’s a 15% success rate for

Mason Arneson is an MU freshman from Golden Valley, Minnesota, majoring in journalism. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome when he was 7 years old.

other aspiring autistic professionals, it’s easy to feel trapped and powerless to stop what’s happening.

But at the same time, I have made it this far. There are people on the autism spectrum who are low-functioning or even nonverbal. Estimates show that 25% to 30% of children on the autism spectrum are minimally verbal. I count myself lucky to have the opportunity to be an advocate and pursue my dream of becoming a writer.

We are Ehud The biblical tale of Ehud, the left-handed deliverer of justice, always comes to mind when thinking about individuals with autism.

Illustrations by Kiana Fernandes and photography by Owen Ziliak

Masking is a common term used to describe when a person with autism learns, practices and performs certain behaviors while suppressing others in order to fit in with social norms.

Until the middle of the 20th century, lefties like Ehud were considered to be at a disadvantage because they couldn’t use the same tools as their right-handed counterparts. But in order to escape the rule of an evil king, the Israelites sent Ehud to kill the king, armed with a double-edged sword placed strategically where no one would check a right-handed person.

As aspiring autistic employees, we are one and the same as Ehud; our disadvantages are not what people assume. We possess so many valuable traits. Linking autistic individuals with careers they are passionate about can work wonders for a company.

The process of change The world isn’t optimized for Ehud or us. But when the world starts to see our differences as strengths instead of weaknesses, it will realize what we can offer.

This means more autism hiring initiatives. Companies like Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, and several others in STEM industries, banking and nonprofits offer programs to hire more qualified candidates, but more opportunities in more sectors would allow autistic individuals to shine in the line of work they love.

This means more connections between people on the spectrum and job opportunities. National companies such as Integrate build bridges between college graduates who want to enter the professional world, and more companies should undergo training to become autism-friendly workplaces.

This means more focus on diagnosing youth on the spectrum from an early age. One in 54 children are identified as having autism spectrum disorder, and diagnosis rates are going up. It’s hard to solve problems when someone doesn’t know what the problem is. An early diagnosis doesn’t solve the issue of unemployment after college entirely, but it’s a start.

Autism is a lifelong condition that requires a lot of patience, practice and growth. It can be frustrating to a head-splitting degree, yes, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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IN TH E LOOP VOX PICKS

Vox Picks for

APRIL Each month Vox curates a list of can’t-miss shops, eats, reads and experiences. We find the new, trending or underrated to help you enjoy the best our city has to offer.

BY LAUREN TRONSTAD

Join...

Pulitzer-winning poets Tracy K. Smith and Jericho Brown in conversation as they close Unbound Book Festival’s sixth year as the keynote speakers.

Smith’s memoir, Ordinary Light, was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was selected as a Notable Book by The New York Times and The Washington Post. Brown’s first book, Please, won the American Book Award in 2014, and his poems have been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Nation and Time.

April 23, 7 p.m., virtual, free, find more information at unboundbookfestival.com

Visit...

Coralene’s Flower Farm, a new farmer-florist business that offers bouquets, flower arrangements and stem flower sales. With the rise of warm weather, you can also make a trip to local nurseries, including Helmi’s Gardens and MillCreek Nursery, which offer a variety of trees, shrubs and flowers for landscaping.

Coralene’s: by appointment, 3701 Sardis Court; Helmi’s Gardens: Mon.­–Fri. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat.­– Sun. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 7201 S. Nursery Road; MillCreek: Mon.–Sat., 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 1012 W. Old Plank Road

Cast your vote...

In a number of upcoming elections in Boone County. Voters can make their selections for state representative for the 45th district, two members of the Columbia School Board and Second and Sixth Ward Columbia City Council members. In-person absentee voters can cast their ballot early by April 5 at the County Clerk’s office at 801 E. Walnut St. Other absentee ballots must have been mailed in by March 24.

Vote in person April 6, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., find your polling place at showmeboone.com/clerk/elections/

Chow down on...

Mexican barbecue at Barred Owl Butcher & Table’s pop-up, Barbacoas del Norte on April 12. Popular for its fan-favorite brisket platters, Barbacoas del Norte popped on the scene in September. To order, direct message @barbacoas.del.norte on Instagram. A couple of other newcomers to try include Casa Maria’s Mexican Cantina for specialty margaritas and The Strollway Market, which opened March 9, for locally sourced sandwiches.

Barbacoas del Norte: April 12, pick-up from 4:30-7:30 p.m., 47 E. Broadway; Casa Maria’s Mexican Cantina: Mon.–Thu. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., 1305 Grindstone Parkway; The Strollway Market: Tue.–Sat., 9 a.m.-2 p.m., 114 S. Ninth St.

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Photography courtesy of Casa Maria’s Mexican Cantina, Wikimedia Commons and Unsplash

SEE YOU ONLINE P. 13

THE BLUE NOTE TURNS 40 P. 14

Flashback soundtrack From Swift to Savage, popular music from the past year reflects how we’ve coped with COVID-19.

BY IAN LAIRD Music is an emotional experience for those who make it — and those who listen. It’s easily accessible, incredibly diverse and can be intensely personal. Music speaks to people on a deep level, making it a vital medium during the pandemic.

Hitt Records co-owner Kyle Cook says he saw people deal with the pandemic differently. “A lot of people were trapped in their homes, so they were coming to us and being like, ‘I am going crazy in my house; I need some new music,’” Cook says. “Everyone reacts to stuff differently. There’s kind of denial, acceptance and all these people coming at it from different angles.”

With that in mind, Vox took a look at the most popular new album releases from each month of the past year, according to the Billboard 200 charts, and how listeners have used them to cope with the pandemic.

March 2020: After Hours by The Weeknd (released March 20) The Weeknd embraced brooding moodiness — a fitting forecast of the year to come. His songs are wrapped in torturous longing and are woven with even darker themes of death and addiction.

April 2020: Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa (released March 27) Upbeat and brash, Future Nostalgia’s liveliness was at odds with the sobering lockdown sweeping the country and pop music’s current trend toward emotion and away from bravado. The alIllustrations by Makalah Hardy

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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C ULTURE MUSIC

touched on a wistfulness everyone was feeling. Swift builds an intricate fantasy world that draws listeners into fairytaleesque stories of love, innocence and loss.

Her storytelling gives life to the escapist thoughts running through the heads of listeners forced to spend a summer at home.

bum was freeing for listeners seeking to break the monotony of the new reality.

May 2020: Dark Lane Demo Tapes

by Drake (released May 1) This album soared up the charts, with the virality of “Toosie Slide” encapsulating the popularity Drake manufactures. The album showcases sad boy Drake with a loneliness that hit close to home as the severity of the pandemic continued to settle in.

June 2020: Chromatica by Lady Gaga (released May 29) A return to her electro dance-pop roots, Chromatica is a euphoric album that comes with a hefty tinge of sadness. It’s impossible to listen to the up-tempo club songs without yearning for normalcy to return so you can lose yourself on a packed dance floor.

July 2020: Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon by Pop Smoke (released July 3) This posthumous album had listeners thinking of what was and what could’ve been. The album feels diluted by excessive features, but the lasting impression will be Pop Smoke’s domineering voice and the machismo Brooklyn drill sound he brought to the forefront.

LISTEN LOCAL Columbia musicians haven’t let this past year stop them from making music.

Here are some of singles and albums that local musicians released from October to now.

All can be found on Spotify.

– Elephant Foot “Gimme Yer Love” Oct. 14, 2020 – HFGhost “Blind” Nov.1, 2020 – Faerie the Kid “To Love Her” Nov. 6, 2020 – Mighty Daxter “Love is Fake” album Jan. 2 – SlumBums “For Free” Jan. 26 – Post Sex Nachos “Take My Heart” Feb. 12 – j.artiz “Blinded” Feb. 18 – Ruby Lane “Trains, Spaceships and Automobiles” album Feb. 19

September 2020: Detroit 2 by Big Sean (released Sept. 4) Detroit 2 is peppered with bars that come off as either deeply motivational or selfhelp book-level corny. Big Sean said the album, originally slated for a mid-March 2020 release, evolved throughout the pandemic. It can seem eerily personal to those who were left with little more than their thoughts over the previous months, with lyrics about appreciating what you have before it’s gone and the toxicity of social media.

October 2020: Savage Mode II by 21 Savage and Metro Boomin (released Oct. 2) In the sequel to the 2016 release Savage Mode, 21 Savage further immerses himself in the role of rap villain, sneering at his peers and telling stories inspired by his checkered past. After nearly a year of unfamiliarity, the album served as a comforting nostalgia dump and left listeners wishing for a time when the biggest headline was that 21 Savage was a British citizen, not an Atlanta native.

November 2020: Positions by Ariana Grande (released Oct. 30) On Positions, Ariana Grande uses her trademark glimmer to paint over blunt-

ly risqué lyrics. Throughout, Grande has reached an enviable level of happiness, reconciling with the immense trauma she has experienced, which serves as a beacon to those struggling with the pressures of the past year.

December 2020: Evermore by Taylor Swift (released Dec. 11) Evermore delivers many of the same feelings Folklore did but is less cohesive and generally more playful. The album leans harder into fanciful character- and story-building, which makes it a fitting cap on a year that seemed fictional in many ways.

January 2021: Dangerous: The Double Album by Morgan Wallen (released Jan. 8) The chart-topping Morgan Wallen represents the double-edged sword of modern country music. Wallen is undoubtedly talented, but his odious use of a racial slur is a continuation of a familiar tale. Wallen is country, and in a genre that claims to be America’s genre, he is seen as a reflection of this nation in its promise and its ugliness, which were both laid bare this past year.

February 2021: Shiesty Season by Pooh Shiesty (released Feb. 5) The album is the long-awaited debut for the Memphis-based rapper. Overall, the catchy hooks and ease with which Pooh Shiesty flows over minimalist instrumentals satisfyingly fulfills the potential he has shown. Here’s to hoping the rest of 2021 can be just as promising as Shiesty’s career appears to be.

August 2020: Folklore by Taylor Swift (released July 24) Six months into the pandemic, Folklore Illustrations by Makalah Hardy

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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C U LT U RE GAMING

Discord connects communities near and far.

Plug into the discourse Discord continues to grow into a platform that helps more than just gamers come together and find community.

BY MAX SHAPIRO

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n a time when in-person gatherings are generally discouraged, clubs and organizations depend more than ever on platforms like Discord.

Discord is a messaging and digital distribution platform designed for housing communities. Organizations or individuals create servers, then users can text in chat rooms, talk in voice channels or communicate via video call. Almost everything about these channels can be customized to suit the needs of the server, whether public or private.

Even before the pandemic, Discord had a large presence in the realm of gaming. Andrew Goewert, the community manager for MU eSports, relied on the platform while running the Overwatch team because he couldn’t always be on campus. Through Discord’s messaging and voice chat systems, he managed practice sessions and kept in touch with members to ensure they maintained a healthy balance between school and the team.

When students were sent home in March 2020 because of COVID-19 and Illustrations by Madison Wisse

other sports programs couldn’t compete, the eSports team was able to continue playing in competitions. Discord allowed tournaments to go fully online, despite players being all over the country.

In addition to MU eSports’ private channel for team members and other affiliates of the organization, the team set up a public server in August. Described by General Manager Kevin Reape as a “virtual quad,” it is open to the entire MU community. The channel also contains subsections dedicated to hobbies beyond gaming.

The Kansas City Pioneers eSports team uses Discord as a way to engage with fans. The team can set up tournaments, host watch parties and promote their sponsors.

Alex Laughlin, the team’s chief operating officer and co-founder, says its Discord presence is a special way to communicate with fans. “[Discord gives] back to those active, engaged community members who not only follow us on our other socials but want to interact with us behind the scenes in ways that they don’t get to see on Twitter or Instagram,” Laughlin says.

FOLLOW MU ESPORTS MU eSports has teams that compete in three games: Overwatch, League of Legends and Rocket League.

You can follow MU eSports on Instagram @mizzouesports, Twitter @MizzouEsports or through its Discord server. An invite link to the Discord server can be found on its Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Laughlin noted versatility and customization as aspects that make Discord preferable to similar platforms such as Skype and Slack. Users can filter content so they only see what they are interested in. For instance, somebody might want to follow the Pioneers’ Rocket League team, but not its Call of Duty team.

And Discord is not only for eSports organizations. The MU Super Smash Bros. Club uses the MU eSports team’s server to raise awareness for its weekly game sessions. And the popular social media satire account University of Misery recently launched its own Discord server to give followers a place to connect.

“Discord was gamer-centric for very long,” Reape says. “It’s been cool to see it broaden its horizon, and now it’s not just for gamers, it’s for anybody.”

Laclede’s LAN is a St. Louis-based organization that hosts gaming events to raise money for science, technology, engineering and math education. Being unable to hold in-person events since the pandemic began, it now hosts casual gaming sessions online through Discord.

The increased need for virtual communication caused Discord’s appeal to spread. Magelings Games owner Nathaniel Graham hosts a server dedicated to finding opponents for tabletop games such as Magic the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons.

Even as COVID-19 vaccines become available, these organizations do not see Discord’s presence shrinking.

Goewert says, “eSports can survive in an online environment, and it honestly has thrived in an online environment.”

The platform has kept communities afloat through the pandemic and will only continue to help organizations grow, gamers or not.

“So many companies and so many teams that are involved in Discord understand the need for the online space,” Goewert says. “I don’t think the online competition is necessarily going to go away.”

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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CULTURE MUSIC

The beat goes on Over its 40 years, The Blue Note been revamped many times, but bringing in big names and supporting local artists remains a top priority.

BY ANGELINA EDWARDS

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iolet Vonder Haar grew up outside of Columbia, and as a preteen, she attended her first concert. It was a Shawn Colvin show at The Blue Note.

Now, Vonder Haar is a musician herself, performing solo or with her band Violet and the Undercurrents. She also collaborated with The Blue Note for the first show by Jane Doe Revue, an all-female rock orchestra, in 2017. “Being able to see artists that you admire on that stage and then eventually getting to a point where you are on that stage, and you’re also making an impact on younger musicians, is just kind of a full-circle feeling,” Vonder Haar says.

The Blue Note has been a Columbia staple for artists and listeners alike.

It’s gone through many changes as the music industry evolved, but it remains an essential piece of local culture.

Wanna be startin’ somethin’ The Blue Note’s first owners, Richard King and Phil Costello, opened The Blue Note in 1980, originally located on Business Loop 70, as a way of sharing their love of music. Ten years later, the venue moved to its current downtown space on Ninth Street.

King says marketing was the hardest part about the venue’s earlier days. Without the Internet, he promoted concerts

In 2017, The Blue Note surprised rap lovers across Columbia with a surprise announcement that Snoop Dogg was rolling through.

by hanging up posters for upcoming shows around MU’s campus every morning. “We were notorious for just every building you went into, you would see five or six Blue Note posters everywhere you looked,” King says.

With the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, King changed his marketing strategy. Many employees were students, and they helped him create a website and Facebook page, which made it easier and cheaper to promote events.

II SHOULD PROBABLY SHOULD PROBABLY GET GET AA RIDE RIDE HOME. HOME. BUZZED DRIVING IS DRUNK DRIVING

BUZZED DRIVING IS DRUNK DRIVING 14

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Photography courtesy of Freddie Cabrera

C U LT U RE MUSIC

Tyler Childers is one of many musicians who’ve performed in Columbia before and after gaining more popularity.

A change is gonna come Twenty years later, the venue attracted business partners Matt Gerding and Scott Leslie, who own other concert venues across the country. Gerding is a Columbia native. After a previous offer from the duo, King was finally ready to pass ownership to the two in 2014.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that they were the right owners,” King says. “To this day, I think they’ve done an unbelievable job with The Blue Note.”

Gerding and Leslie completed many renovations, including new flooring and paint and updated rigging to hang new stage equipment. Aside from aesthetics, bringing in more high-profile acts and supporting local musicians is crucial, Leslie says. “It was really important to us that when bands came in, they felt like it was a beautiful venue, and I think, by and large, we accomplished that.”

The Blue Note has hosted numerous popular artists over the years, such as Grammy Award-winning country artist Chris Stapleton. The Ninth Street Summerfest concert series, held right outside the venue, has also hosted big names such as Kacey Musgraves and Snoop Dogg.

In 2016, country musician Tyler Childers played a happy-hour show for about 100 attendees at Rose Music

Hall, which is also owned by Gerding and Leslie, and went on to sell out The Blue Note in 2018. Childers now plays arena-sized venues and events such as the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

“It’s really rewarding when the smaller acts come through, and then they become big,” says Mike Nolan, general manager of the venue. “You get these bands that play Rose Music Hall and then The Blue Note, and next thing you know, they’re playing arenas and they’re too big for us. Being part of the development of those artists’ careers is pretty meaningful to all of us.”

Although Leslie lives outside of Missouri, he says it’s still rewarding to know the venue is important to people throughout Columbia.

“The Blue Note is something that makes Columbia a better place to live,” Leslie says. “You don’t have to live there to be excited about the fact that you’re going to do your part to make a community, in which you do have business to get done, a better place to be.”

U.S. ARMY CAREER CENTER 1305 Grindstone Pkwy #107 Columbia, MO 65201 (573) 303-7394

Photography courtesy of Kody Ferrin

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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C ULTURE MUSIC

Digging up gems in forgotten LPs

Going through records can take patience and a keen eye for undervalued vinyl.

The downtown options for vinyl are more extensive than you might think.

BY ALEX NEASE

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t many record stores, bins of used vinyl records often sit close to the floor and out of sight. But crate digging — sifting through those unmarked collections in search of who knows what — is more than just a way to add unexpected music to your collection.

Musicians, especially those in the hiphop genre, often find obscure or forgotten records to use as audio samples for their own songs. It’s common for artists to pull instrumentals or unique vocals from older songs and rearrange or place them directly into their own music. One of the best to ever do this is the late rapper MF DOOM. His song “One Beer” combines jazz, reggae and even an Ethel Merman lyric to create a unique song despite containing parts of three other songs.

This critical difference is what makes sampling and crate digging artistic; it’s not simply taking other artists’ work to make your own. Good sampling and, by extension, good crate digging means elevating those samples

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and records and combining them into something completely new.

Records have been making a comeback since 2006, and consumers appreciate the value and nostalgia of owning LPs, according to an article on the business data platform Statista. Vinyl album sales went up 46% from 2019 to 2020 and show no signs of slowing, according to the same article. This trend is not likely to challenge streaming numbers anytime soon, but records have surged in recent years to compete with CD sales in the United States. COVID-19 restrictions have slowed the comeback somewhat, with some vinyl stores reducing their hours or closing permanently. But Hitt Records, Slackers and The B-Side/Bluescentric are three local record stores open for business, even after a year of the pandemic.

Kyle Cook, co-owner of Hitt Records, describes classic crate digging as going through all the unorganized crates and boxes and picking an album based on its cover or artists. Cook says one of his favorite things about the store is that

PLACES TO GO Hitt Records 10 Hitt St. Open Mon.– Sat., 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 12–5 p.m.

Slackers 1010 E. Broadway, Suite 101 Open Mon.–Sat., 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The B-Side/ Bluescentric 1122 Wilkes Blvd.

Open Mon.– Fri.,10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

it’s a community hub. With its proximity to the MU, Stephens and Columbia College campuses and Uprise Bakery and Ragtag Cinema being next door, Hitt Records is a place people gravitate toward. There are a lot of options for all kinds of music genres, and there are unmarked and unorganized crates all over the store — perfect for anyone looking to add some underappreciated gems to their collection.

Being a community hub adds to Hitt Records’ crate digging potential.

It’s at the top of anyone’s mind when they think of records in town, and Cook says people regularly sell their vinyls to the store in large collections or just a couple at a time.

If you’re looking for another stop for great records downtown, Slackers has a wide selection, especially in the 99-cent and $1.99 boxes. Along with the 10 for $5 deal on these records, Slackers is perfect for anyone looking to find a deal on some community-sourced records.

Will Smith, the record curator for Slackers, says one of his favorite parts about working there is the relaxed atmosphere. Similar to Hitt Records, Smith says people sell records to Slackers often, with large collections coming in about every two weeks.

Whether you want to add more undervalued records to your collection or find the best combination of sounds for a project, crate digging is an activity any record-lover can enjoy.

Photography by Alex Nease and courtesy of Pexels

The pandemic upended the world as we knew it — what we wear, how we eat, who we meet. Everyone lost something, if not someone.

One year after everything began, Vox highlights our current reality and how we’ve adapted to life in lockdown.

DESIGN BY

hannah kirchwehm

Employees like Breanne Dale (right) have adjusted their living spaces to be more friendly for working from home.

The remote future

Yes, eliminating the daily commute is nice, but what do we sacrifice when we WFH?

BY NIKOL SLATINSKA

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few weeks into the pandemic, Tim Carroll, general manager of the office design firm Working Spaces, got a call from a client. “We are getting rid of all of our offices,” the client said. “Can you help us find someone to buy our furniture?” Within two weeks, the client called back to explain the business had overreacted and would be keeping its physical office space.

According to The Balance Small Business, an entrepreneurial advice website, those who predict virtual work arrangements will last post-pandemic cite advantages such as increased productivity and downtime, more job opportunities and communication efficiency.

But these forecasts sometimes fail to consider what is lost when the majority of a company’s employees operate solely from computer screens. Carroll boils the loss down to one key sentiment: “It’s very difficult to create and maintain culture in a virtual world.”

Breanne Dale, a graphics and interior design assistant for MU’s Architectural Studies Department, knows this. On weekdays, she wakes up at 8 a.m. and enjoys a slow morning until it’s time to get dressed for work. She

then makes the seconds-long commute to her office. Formerly a spare bedroom, the space is sparse but well-lit.

Dale has kept this daily routine since the university’s campus shut down one year ago.

She falls into the pool of 56% of Americans who still clock in virtually, according to a Feb. 12 Gallup report.

Although she doesn’t miss her 15-minute drive to work, Dale says she would prefer to be in the office. She longs for the routine of grabbing coffee, getting to her department’s office and seeing her meticulously organized desk, where she could physically and mentally leave her unfinished tasks at day’s end.

“I think that’s what I miss the most — and also just talking to people,” Dale says. “If you have a quick question, it’s like, ‘OK, I can just go knock on their door.’”

Not all of Dale’s colleagues have been working remotely, however.

Working Spaces and most of its clients apply a hybrid model with some working from home and others on location. Carroll says this flexible format will persist post-pandemic. He encourages an office design that balances safe

collaboration and still allows bonds to form within the workplace.

“The more you let someone go without any kind of connection to the organization, the more they drift off to an island unto themselves, and you start to lose them,” Carroll says. He notes that businesses are increasingly leaning into the concept of “resimercial” spaces — spaces that combine residential and commercial elements — or “homing from work,” which entails bringing cozy, domestic elements into the workplace. As people return to physical offices, they might not have to forego the now-familiar act of completing tasks while curled up on a couch.

Ancillary spaces, what Carroll refers to as little neighborhoods throughout the buildings, allow staffers to unwind and converse comfortably. These enclaves are also likely to stay around in the long run largely because they are conducive to social interaction.

The employee cafeteria at Shelter Insurance is another social hub. But Jay MacLellan, the company’s public relations director, says the space has been closed since the onset of the pandemic. The cafeteria allowed workers Photography courtesy of Breanne Dale

The COVID-19 Glossary As our lives have condensed in the past year, our vocabulary has expanded.

BY SARAH STRAUGHN

The pandemic has added a lot of new words to our standard lexicon. Had you ever uttered the phrase “social distancing” until a year ago? Much less used it as a verb? Here are some of the words to emerge in 2020:

Maskne Asynchronous and synchronous These mouthfuls tell university students if they need to be in class on time or if they can sign into class at 3 a.m. ... or whenever.

to discuss projects in an informal setting and facilitated a family environment. Employees miss that community feeling, MacLellan says.

Shelter Insurance employs between 1,100 and 1,200 people in Columbia. Since the pandemic, roughly 100 of them are in the main office on any given day. Looking ahead, MacLellan says he foresees the permanence of technology platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom for quick, convenient communication, as well as the option to work remotely now that the company knows it can be done efficiently.

Although these elements remove physical barriers to collaboration and communication, they can also compromise the learning experience for new employees. Bill Dampier, executive vice president of MBS Textbook Exchange, says it has been a struggle to train recent hires. “Our business isn’t extremely complicated, but we have a lot of things to teach them,” Dampier says. MBS employs more than 1,000 people in Columbia, with roughly 350 of them off-site.

But Dampier says employees who work from home have more flexibility to be with their kids during remote learning and prefer not having to commute during bad weather. Despite these conveniences, there’s still something to be said for the ability to go to a physical workplace, as well as the opportunity to retreat from one.

“Our employers think that we’re more accessible because we can just do a quick meeting at almost any time of the day,” Dale says. “And my mindset has changed, too, because I’m in my house still. Some days I love it, and some days I’m like, ‘Oh, I wish I were going somewhere.’”

Maskhole See also: Covidiot.

The unfortunate facial consequences of wearing a mask for 10+ hours a day.

PPE Blursday

Did you ever think you would know what this acronym stands for?

Much less be versed in its availability?

Yesterday, today, tomorrow. It’s all the same. Who can even keep track anymore?

Bubble Anyone you still actually like to see.

Quarantine It’s a verb. It’s a noun.

It’s a lifestyle.

Contact tracers Very essential workers, but you never want to get a call from them.

Super-spreader In any other year, this would just be a normalsized gathering.

Covidiot Anyone refusing to take the pandemic seriously.

Essential workers While much of the world was in lockdown, we learned to thank those who kept our lives turning.

Unprecedented times The nicest way to refer to the dumpster fire of this past year.

Sometimes known as “the new normal.”

WFH The most-used acronym since LOL.

What’s Corona got to do with it?

From picnic dates to Zoom meet-cutes, COVID-19 changed the rules of the dating game.

BY JANAE MCKENZIE

S

tay home if you’re sick, come over if you’re thick” is a popular pandemic pick-up line. As dates grew risky, parties became infectious and bars closed, couples and singles were left to navigate this new labyrinth.

Apps that were once a waste of time became the front lines for romantic encounters.

For some single people, dating during a pandemic is a nonstarter. Lauren Dulle, 20, left a relationship at the beginning of the pandemic, only to realize she was OK being single. “Coming to college, especially as a freshman, you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, people meet their husbands in college,’ ” Dulle says. “No, they don’t.”

Brendan Durbin, 21, went on a few dates over the summer and tried every app he could find: Tinder, Grindr, Bumble and Hinge. The talking stage of meeting new people lasted a few weeks longer than usual, which led to an unfortunate downside: ghosting. “There could be other options, or we just lose it because you didn’t get that in-person meet-up.”

Hanna Watson, 21, says she started to find odd things attractive about people. She approached dating apps in phases: she would download as many as she could, put real effort into meeting people with the hopes of a socially distant date, grow tired of it, delete all of her accounts, rinse and repeat.

Elena Rollins, 21, had a self-described identity crisis when the pandemic began, breaking up with her boyfriend of three years and exploring her attraction to women.

COVID safety became a decision factor in Rollins’ potential matches. Rather than suggest a date, she would ask about how they were handling the pandemic and go from there.

In this together For those in relationships, COVID-19 has served as a unique trial by fire. Anna Burturla, 20, and Kermit Kreder, 19, have been dating since September 2019.

As their social circles grew smaller, they supported each other through the pandemic’s stress.

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Some of this strength could come from an accelerated intimacy, where couples show each other more of themselves in a shorter period of time. Rollins jokes that with her current girlfriend, the pandemic normalized the stereotype of the “U-Haul lesbian,” someone who is prepared to move in after the first or second date. “It’s, in a way, forced us to become very intimate very quickly,” Rollins says. “So that’s definitely a positive outlook. I don’t think our relationship would be the same if we’d met during different circumstances.”

Temporary connections Despite the pandemic, hookups are still happening. “There’s still people that are hooking

up with people they don’t know really well,” says Mary Martin, community health manager at Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services. Martin runs the clinic at the Family Health Center, which provides testing of sexually transmitted diseases. “There’s still the amount of alcohol involved. There’s still the percentage of positive [STI] results. In fact, some of our STDs are ramped up to a point that surprises even us,” she says. Martin says she has seen a major increase in positive gonorrhea and syphilis results.

Nicole Crespi, former coordinator for Sexual Health Advocate Peer Education, says there are benefits to pandemic hookup culture:

Photography courtesy of Anna Burturla, Elena Rollins and Unsplash

Currency exchange The pandemic accelerated the move to card and digital payments, leaving behind those who still rely on bills.

BY ZOIA MORROW

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Anna Buturla and Kermit Kreder have been together for over a year, and Elena Rollins and her girlfriend, Abby (right), found each other on a dating app.

It’s a good time to grow confidence in asking the question, “When did you last get tested?” whether asking about COVID-19 or an STI. So, why do people continue to be sexually active given the health risks? As Tracey Bathe, Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services health educator, puts it: “When people are isolated, they want to feel something.”

“People always want to be loved, and they want to be held,” Martin says. “And I think for a certain amount of time postCOVID, they’re going to want to be held a lot more.”

hink about the last time you used cash.

It might have been during the Before Times — sorry, pre-pandemic life.

The COVID-19 pandemic fast-tracked what society was already moving toward. In 2018, non-cash payments totaled $174.2 billion, an increase of $30.6 billion from 2015, according to a 2019 Federal Reserve payments study. For businesses, going cashless means quicker transaction times and no cash-in fees when processing funds at the bank.

Shortly after Columbia issued its first public health order, local businesses began to reduce cash transactions, largely to limit customer interaction and concerns about virus transmission. Karlan Seville, communications director for the MU Division of Operations, says the discussion about going cashless began when the pandemic started to affect Columbia.

One of the ways dining services could minimize interaction was to go cashless.

Add in the coin shortage in summer 2020 — when business closures disrupted the circulation of coins — and the move toward more cashless payments was swift.

But this move isn’t beneficial for everybody, health concerns or otherwise.

A 2018 Pew Research Center study found lower-income Americans are about four times as likely as higher-income Americans to make all or most of their purchases using cash. Those with an annual income of more than $75,000 are twice as likely than someone earning less to say they do not use cash in a normal week.

Although cashless payments are becoming more common, many businesses still offer a variety of payment options. One example is Mexican-Peruvian restaurant Carlito’s Cabo.

Owner Sara Huaco says she doesn’t want to leave out the people who simply prefer cash. She says she has always been skeptical of the germs carried on cash, so washing her hands after every transaction has been a habit. The restaurant was actually cash-only in its first four years, but Huaco says she doesn’t see the restaurant ever going back to that, even with the 3% sales fee charged by credit card companies.

Businesses not accepting cash can cause hiccups for anyone. MU student Cameron Townson experienced this during a coffee stop on MU’s campus. She went to the Starbucks in Memorial Union before a class, reached in her pocket for her debit card and instead found a $10 bill. She was unable to use it — the location wasn’t accepting cash. She says she likes the comfort of knowing she can use bills just in case.

Carrie Gartner, executive director of Columbia’s Business Loop, says it’s not practical for businesses on the loop to go cashless. “It’s important for us to recognize there are a lot of different ways for people to pay,” Gartner says.

“I think we just forget that for a large majority of us, banking is just something normal that we think about, and we all have a card in our wallet and rarely have cash,” she says. “But we forget that not everybody lives like that.”

For centuries, cash has been America’s leading payment option, but COVID-19 has made room for more card payments and apps such as Venmo, Zelle and Apple Pay to thrive in a time in which physical contact is limited and discouraged.

It’s clear that the world is changing and moving forward. The question now is, will cash?

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Making it work

Local business owners add online features and new services in a year of challenges and change.

BY EMILY LEIKER

A

sk Columbia business owners what words they’d use to describe the past year, and hardship comes up often. But some of those same people say the pandemic year has also been incredibly rewarding.

While adding new business practices required staffing and resource changes for some, those efforts were rewarded as Americans looked for new ways to shop and dine. U.S. e-commerce rose 44% in 2020, according to Digital Commerce 360, a media and research organization with news and data on online retail. That’s more than double the growth it saw in 2019.

Columbia’s business scene was no exception.

Although several businesses did not survive the year’s challenges, others found ways to stay alive.

Online shopping Alex George, owner of Skylark Bookshop, says he never planned to launch an online ordering system. As a book fanatic and author, George says he thought shopping online took away the magic of bookstores. “The bookshop has always been, in our minds, a sort of fulcrum for the community, a place for people to gather

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and to talk about books — none of which you can have if you just go online and click on a book,” he says.

But when the pandemic temporarily shut down Columbia businesses last March, Skylark added curbside delivery and then launched an online ordering system in October. It’s a change George doesn’t plan to turn back from.

“We’ve been blown away by how enthusiastically people have embraced it,” he says. Thanks to the system, George says he’s now serving customers all over the country. Skylark has also welcomed guest speakers with the addition of virtual author events.

Similarly, the Columbia Farmers Market added an online shopping feature. CFM Online Market, which launched in November, was created to allow shoppers to purchase items online from local sellers and pick them up at the market on Saturdays.

Dinner and a movie ­— at home Like many restaurants, Barred Owl Butcher and Table now has a busy takeout business. It fills more than twice as many carryout orders now than it did before the pandemic. It’s part of,

an effort to remain independent of third-party delivery services, says owner Ben Parks. Companies like DoorDash and GrubHub have been charged with class-action lawsuits in certain states for adding restaurants to their sites without permission. “Most of those companies will set up a website for a place like Barred Owl and start taking delivery orders without any input from the restaurant,” Parks says. The restaurant has instead found success in its own curbside system, which required the creation of new staff positions to serve customers for lunch, dinner and in its retail shop.

Along with taking dinner home, moviegoers are also able to rely, at least partially, on Ragtag Cinema for evening entertainment. Ragtag at Home was created to help people engage in media literacy by offering activity guides for a select group of movies. Daniel Boone Regional Library cardholders can access the films for free through Kanopy, an online film collection.

Family dinner made easier Daniel and Ali Bauer had owned Cherry Street Cellar for only five months when the pandemic hit. Temporarily closing its dining room on March 18, the couple had to figure out how they could quickly implement ideas they hadn’t planned on using until later.

In April, the Cellar launched its Chef Share meal program, which provides fully prepared, seasonal and locally sourced meals through a subscription service. Three entrees, complete with a salad and dessert, are delivered weekly for $59, along with additional a la carte items such as desserts and wine. The Bauers and their staff have prepared everything from homestyle Midwestern comfort food to saffron risotto and Mediterranean veggies. “Throw a dart at a map, and you’ll hit a country we’ve made food from,” Daniel Bauer says.

As the parents of two children, ages 3 and 5, the Bauers also added a family meal option in December. For $60, meals are delivered to customers’ homes on Wednesday and feed a family of four. Cherry Street’s shareable, family-style meals are aimed at helping families who would like to spend more time together at the dinner table.

Changes like these are only some examples of how customers have been supporting local businesses and also how businesses are supporting customers.

Bye-bye buffets It has been a year since we experienced the joys of salad bars and communal vats of fried rice. Will they ever return?

BY KAYLEE SCHREINER

P

icture going out for a buffet-style brunch on a Sunday morning. Steaming pans overflow with exposed food for customers to help themselves. Each person grabs a plate from the same stack, grips the spoons one after the other, fingers mere inches away from grazing mountains of eggs and toast.

Although this used to be the reality at weddings and restaurants across the globe, the buffet could become a relic of pre-pandemic society.

The Sunday brunch buffet at The Heidelberg, which has been a staple in the Columbia community for 40 years, is just one example. “It’s something people look forward to,” says Richard Walls, owner and manager of The Heidelberg.

Or it was something people looked forward to before it was shut down.

United States buffet restaurants earned about $106 million in May 2020, which is about 30% of the revenue such restaurants earned in May 2019, according to market research firm the NPD Group.

In March 2020, The Heidelberg was closed for one month due to COVID-19. Although the restaurant has reopened with socially distanced seating and mask requirements, the buffet remains empty a year later.

Sara Humm, an information specialist for Columbia Public Health and Human Services, says the current city ordinances regarding restaurant protocols prevent buffets from operating traditionally. But some buffet restaurants Illustrations by Hannah Kirchwehm

such as Golden Corral and Cicis Pizza have been able to operate under adapted practices.

“What some of them have done is more of what we would consider a cafeteria style where someone is serving them versus them serving themselves,” Humm says.

For smaller businesses like The Heidelberg, though, that model isn’t sustainable. “If we had people serving the food, we could still do it, but it would be expensive,” Walls says.

The Heidelberg would have to sell buffets to nearly 150 people to generate enough profit for it to be worth reopening its buffet.

For catering services, shutting down is not an option. Travis Rudloff, co-owner of 4 Points Catering, says he and his team have added more staff to accommodate wedding catering. “What happens is we either have to serve it, or we have to portion up [the food],” Rudloff says. “That adds costs as far as staff and time.”

This is also the case for boxed lunches and plastic-wrapped plasticware, which are things

4 Points Catering had never done before the pandemic. “We are seeing some people order, and everything has to be individually boxed and portioned out, which not only takes more time, but it adds more cost as far as the lunches are concerned,” Rudloff says.

In a time when personal health and social distancing are still concerns, drawing customers in is a problem buffets and catering services face nationwide. “I think it’ll take a little while for them to come back,” Walls says.

“People are used to service and convenience, so it might take a little while for them to get used to going through a buffet.”

Walls says he believes it’s unlikely that The Heidelberg’s buffet will resume in the near future, but it could open for big or special events.

Rudloff, however, remains optimistic. “I think the pre-packaged silverware… some of that stuff will still stick around,” Rudloff says.

“But I also do believe the larger events will eventually come back.”

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From athleisure to The Comfy, people are wearing what they want when they want.

F Casual every day In-person interactions declined when the world went on lockdown ­— and so did people’s motivation to dress up.

BY JASHAYLA PETTIGREW

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ashion has always managed to find a way to adapt and evolve to whatever is happening in the world. For example, World War II had a significant influence on the way people dressed, especially women. While the men around them were enlisting for war, the women had to make adjustments to their own lives, which meant fulfilling the roles traditionally taken on by those men. Women ditched their traditional garb for clothing that was considered more masculine, such as jumpsuits, overalls and slacks. This generation’s crisis — the COVID-19 pandemic — has prompted people to change their style, too.

Much like how COVID-19 caused shortages of various goods, World War II caused a shortage of materials. Nicole Johnston, a curator

at the Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection and instructor for MU’s Textile and Apparel Management Program, explains why the U.S. Office of Price Administration set a cap on certain goods during the 1940s. “There were restrictions on using rubber and leather because they needed to be used for the war effort, so fashion designers had to be creative in what they would use,” she says.

The age of Zoom meetings, Google Hangouts and FaceTime dates has encouraged a similar sense of creativity. People are trading in their high heels and dress shoes for socks and sandals, button-up shirts for hoodies and jeans for sweatpants. In April 2020, purchases of sweatpants increased by 80%, according to retail data company Edited.

Photography by Toby Young

“It’s something we kind of had to adjust to. As the world changes, fashion kind of just goes with the flow and adjusts with it,” says Jay Malloyd, a Stephens College fashion marketing and management student.

And 2020 wasn’t the first year people tried out the casual look. The U.S. athleisure market was already valued at $155.2 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach $257.1 billion by 2026, according to Allied Market Research. This new desire to dress down could be a long-lasting trend even after the pandemic, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Stephanie Carlo, assistant professor and program director of Stephens College’s Fashion Program, says she thinks that these new fashion habits are helping with the pressure to be perfect. “I think that being comfortable is more important now,” Carlo says. “Whatever you’re wearing, you’re going to make it cool and trendy. I think it’s kind of like comfort meets style.”

The pandemic has given some the opportunity to think critically about why people wear what they wear. “Specifically for the fashion industry, I think [the pandemic] caused a lot of people to not only take a step back, but it also gave people the opportunity to rebrand,” Malloyd says. “I think that’s good because people are seeing what they want to do, and they’re adjusting to what’s to come.”

Even brands that are known for a specific style are adjusting their inventory to match people’s new interests. Kayla Roth, store man-

ager of Columbia boutique Glik’s, says sales of cozy clothes went up drastically at the beginning of the pandemic. As more businesses reopen and the temperature rises, though, Roth anticipates new trends. This year, she’s predicting crop tops, bandana tops, lots of silk, and of course, mom jeans.

Maybe everyone will start dressing to the nines in a post-pandemic world, but there’s no telling how fashion will evolve in the coming years. “It could be a combination of both: bringing back some of that extravagance, and maybe seeing some new things emerge in clothing because people will want to experiment,” Johnston says.

Business casual from the waist up has been popular in the age of Zoom calls.

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Let’s get virtual For online students, physical education is more about tracking and less about track.

BY SKY STRAUSS

S

tudents used to face the often-dreaded 1-mile run every year in physical education classes. But this year, students are facing school-issued iPads.

Schools in Columbia and across the nation are experiencing a learning curve unlike any other. Students took virtual and hybrid classes while institutions prioritized public health and safety.

This spring semester, many Columbia Public Schools middle and high school students have been attending school in a hybrid structure, where they were split in two groups that each attended school for two in-person class days.

CPS students return to in-person classes five days a week April 5. However, they weren’t off the hook for PE courses while at home.

Some people might see PE as just a state requirement, but CPS K-12 health and PE coordinator Kim Goforth says movement is important, especially right now. “No matter your age, being quarantined, staring at a computer screen on Zooms or Google Meets affects our brains,” she says. “Any time you can get physical movement, it’s kind of like your recharge.”

Braedyn Goodrick, a seventh-grader at Lange Middle School, says she misses PE. As a member of the Boys and Girls Club of Columbia and a dance team, she considers herself an active kid. “I enjoy going outside and doing activities rather than staying inside and doing exercises,” Goodrick says.

She has attended in-person classes every Monday and Tuesday. “I really do like my phone, and I thought being on technology would be fun, but it’s really boring now,” she says.

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Her in-person PE classes feel a little more normal to her because she’s able to go outside with some of her peers. The students have to wear masks and be mindful of social distancing, especially during “mask breaks.” On warmer days, they are allowed to take a breather outside without a mask as long as they spread themselves out.

The virtual aspect of PE for CPS is built on the honor system. Students are given activity logs and links to exercise videos — and even a seventh-grader can see the problem with that. “I have a feeling a lot of my friends are just writing in them,” Goodrick says. “I think it is better in school because there are teachers there that push us to do it. Virtually, nobody is telling us, ‘Do your exercises.’ ” Goforth recognizes such challenges, and says it’s important for students to engage with their virtual PE classes.

MU athletes are pitching in to help keep students active while they’re at home. Mizzou

Moves, which brings MU athletes into public schools to teach students about physical education and demonstrate different exercises, has gone virtual this year. Riley Rohler, a student-athlete development graduate assistant, is part of a team that is helping take the athletes online. “The main goal is to provide 5- to 10-minute videos made by the student-athletes to promote fitness, exercising and overall healthy lifestyle choices,” Rohler says. The team is still in the beginning stages of planning these videos and hasn’t posted anything for students yet, but Rohler hopes Columbia kids will eventually use the videos to form healthy habits.

Although the months of learning remotely have been difficult for many students, there is a hopeful end in sight with most in CPS returning to in-person learning after spring break. And perhaps students will even face that dreaded 1-mile run.

Capacity to care

leaders from low-income and minority neighborhoods, which are more prone to having transportation barriers.

Get involved. PedNET is currently doing bike donations and repairs through Bike to the Future. Learn more at biketothefuturemo.org.

When nonprofits went virtual, the passion remained, and online alternatives emerged.

BY KATELYNN MCILWAIN

D

uring the pandemic, trying to salvage in-person events into lackluster online alternatives felt like its own crisis.

However, for local nonprofits, the online shift wasn’t lackluster for fundraising. CoMoGives, an online donation campaign for 142 nonprofits in Columbia, exceeded its 2020 goal of $1.5 million, raising more than $1.6 million.

This increase doesn’t remedy the canceled events that raise awareness and funds for these organizations. There is a silver lining, though.

Virtual engagement is helping local nonprofits make adjustments that will benefit their missions even after the pandemic.

The Central Missouri Humane Society, for example, has a new online booking program that allows interested adopters to schedule a visiting time with a specific animal. Despite a challenging year, the shelter had a 98.6% placement rate in 2020 — the highest rate on record. Other local nonprofits are seeing similar success.

Columbia Art League What changed? Art in the Park, one of the league’s largest events of the year, was held online in 2020, with 93 artists showcasing work.

Normally, artists display their art in Stephens Lake Park for the summertime event.

What’ll stick? Executive director Kelsey Hammond says streaming art shows online helps her introduce minority communities to local art and make it more accessible.

Being online has also helped Hammond partner with other nonprofits such as the Humane Society. For the Pet Portrait FUNdraiser, people submitted requests for local artists to make portraits of their pets. The proceeds from the $35 portraits were split between CAL and the Humane Society.

Get involved. CAL hosts its first ever 5K on May 1 from 8-11 a.m. You can register at columbiaartleague.org.

PedNet Coalition What changed? This year, PedNet was not able to host its annual member party. That meant the organization lost at least $3,000 in donations, communications coordinator Erica Ascani says.

What’ll stick? Online conferencing options help more community leaders attend the meetings of PedNet’s Civic Engagement Program. The initiative engages community

Illustrations by Hannah Kirchwehm and photography courtesy of Pexels

Rainbow House What changed? Rainbow House, an organization that provides shelter, intervention and support to families in crisis and children facing abuse, was not able to host its annual Masquerade Ball in April. Director of Development Richie Vanskike says the shelter was counting on raising $100,000 at the event.

What’ll stick? Vanskike says he wants to continue pushing social media campaigns like Save or Shave. Sarah Vanskike, the deputy director and human resources coordinator for Rainbow House, let donors decide whether she saved or shaved her hair. The effort raised more than $14,000, with shave winning by close $237.

Rainbow House also had a year-end social media campaign that called for the community to donate $50,000 to increase the organization’s services by 50%. Richie Vanskike says they surpassed the goal.

Get involved. See the wish list to learn what items you can donate at rainbowhousecolumbia.org.

Unchained Melodies What changed? Unchained Melodies, a nonprofit that rescues chained, penned and abused dogs, had to cancel Puppy Yoga, events where more than 100 guests do yoga with puppies.

The events, held two to three times per year, raise awareness and $2,000 each in donations.

What’ll stick? In addition to going paperless, Unchained Melodies has made inspecting potential homes for the rescues more convenient by doing virtual home visits through FaceTime or prerecorded videos. Director Melody Whitworth says she plans to keep the virtual visits even after the pandemic has subsided.

To Whitworth, the end of the pandemic will mean a revival of the heart behind every nonprofit. “All nonprofits need money, right?” she says. “But money doesn’t buy time. Money doesn’t buy volunteers. ... And without volunteers, you don’t have a nonprofit.”

Get involved. Join the Fast and Furriest 5K at Stephens Lake Park on April 3 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sign up at unchainedmelodies.org.

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Some things might never be the same

BY SARAH STRAUGHN

The pandemic altered many common activities — perhaps permanently.

1. Coughing and sneezing in public Everyone gives you looks, even if you just have allergies.

Tiger Walk usually means big crowds (above), but this year featured small groups and masks (right).

2. Family holidays You can turn your camera off when politics come up.

3. Virtual doctor visits No more reading old magazines in waiting rooms.

4. Going to the movie theater Will people even want to eat popcorn anymore?

5. Carpooling and ride-sharing Vehicle for one, please!

6. Graduations Throw your caps — not masks — in the air. . . if the events even happen.

7. Snow days You can just hop on Zoom.

9. Enjoying live music

8. Taking sick days Well, no one is going to question whether you’re actually sick.

This one hurts.

10. Nightclubs 11. Talking to strangers You’re welcome, introverts!

No more sweaty dancing with somene you’ll never see again.

12. Sporting events Do the players think the stadiums are too quiet?

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Freshman year of solitude Gone are the days of packed lecture halls and social events. New undergrads feel isolated and increasingly stressed out.

BY OLIVIA EVANS

A

h, freshman year. These two words usually call up images of crowded move-in days, raucous parties and the first tastes of freedom. But a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, freshman year looks ... different. First-year college students now spend hours upon hours alone in their rooms staring into Zoom screens, often never meeting their peers or professors in person.

The pandemic has altered the physical, social and mental landscape of college for students at Stephens College, Columbia College and MU — and all across the country.

According to a BestColleges national survey, 50% of students feel increased levels of stress, anxiety and disconnect due to the pandemic. “[I] feel a little nervous going forward,” Namratha Prasad, an MU freshman studying journalism, says. “It’s a little harder to reach out to people and get help from friends in classes, which I didn’t really expect to be so difficult, but it is.”

University support MU Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Bill Stackman says he is saddened by the lack of engagement across campus. A regular part of Photography by Maddie Davis/Archive

teammates tell me, ‘Boy, you’re missing out.’ So I guess [college] could be a lot more fun than it is right now,” Walker says.

One perk of attending a large state university such as MU is the ability to connect with many people. Geoffrey Dean, an MU freshman majoring in journalism and statistics, is part of a Freshman Interest Group. In the fall semester, he had all his virtual classes with only the other members of his FIG. “I didn’t have a huge diversification of my social circles,” Dean says. “It was nice at the beginning to have a solid group of friends, but at the same time you have to make a concerted effort to branch outside of that.” his job used to be interacting with students on campus, but now he gets little to no face time with students. “One of the things I love about student affairs is that it provides students with an opportunity to connect with their university through interaction, and that’s pretty much off the table [now],” Stackman says.

Andre Thorn, the director of MU’s Center for Academic Success and Excellence, says freshmen lost opportunities to establish cohorts of support from the start of this year. Online classes require less student-to-student engagement, and many freshman summer programs were shifted online, preventing them from networking. “Students are being robbed of an undergraduate experience,” Thorn says. “COVID is limiting the depth of relationships.”

Through voluntary surveys, MU has attempted to understand how students — especially freshmen — are struggling and what can be done to help. Some students have identified academics as an area of difficulty, but isolation and disconnect have been the biggest challenges.

MU has seen an increase in visits to the university counseling center during the pandemic, Stackman says. “A lot of folks are struggling,” he says. “It’s the isolation, it’s the fear of the unknown, it’s job security, it’s finances.”

didn’t even have a TV to distract him during his quarantine. “At the time I didn’t really have much,” Walker says. “It was challenging.”

MU also welcomes freshmen into its Greek Life community each year. As of 2019, nearly 30% of all undergraduates participated in Greek life. Madelyn Gamertsfelder, an MU freshman majoring in journalism and education, comes from a long line of Greek life members. After waiting for the chance to create her own lifelong memories with newfound sisters at their sorority house, Gamertsfelder instead found herself sitting alone in her bedroom on video conferences.

“My dad was in a fraternity, and it’s all he talks about,” Gamertsfelder says. “I’m in Chi Omega, but we haven’t really had events, so it’s been really hard to get to know the girls.”

Both Walker and Gamertsfelder say they had heard the stories that come along with being a Division I student-athlete and a member of a sorority. But neither has had the chance to see if these legends hold up. “A lot of older

The new freshman experience Every August, MU typically welcomes its student-athletes with a pool party at Wilson’s Pool Club. In 2020, rather than at a pool party, freshman football player and psychology major Johnny Walker found himself quarantined in his room in Todd Apartments after testing positive for COVID-19. Walker had been on campus for only two days. He didn’t have any friends or family in Columbia to check on him — he Photography by Owen Ziliak/Archive, Sarah Bell/Archive and L.G. Patterson/AP Photo

Looking ahead All five MU freshmen interviewed for this piece shared a sense of disappointment and frustration at the loss of their freshman experience. When asked how they imagined their freshman year, there was a cynical chuckle followed by a sigh of dismay. The student who writes for The Maneater sounds the same as the football player who sounds the same as the sorority member who sounds the same as the statistics major.

There’s no doubt that college freshmen don’t have it easy right now, but the challenges they face make them a uniquely resilient class.

It’s what makes them the class of 2024.

With ticket sales extremely limited for the 2020 season and distanced seating required (above), packed football games (left) and tailgates quickly became relics of a bygone era.

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photo essay by lia waldrum and design by gabrielle faletto

Today I woke up after a late night of tears to the bright sun pouring into the room. Usually sleep offers respite, but I woke up in a fog, weighed down by another day. And the light was too bright. I rolled over to shield myself and create a haven that felt like my own, pressing my fingers over my eyes to block out that harmful light. I didn’t realize, but many minutes passed and when I finally got out of bed I saw in the mirror the red marks pressed into my forehead in the shape of my fingertips. The feelings inside were becoming visible. They matched the dark circles under my eyes and my red, blotchy skin.

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Usually, I can’t fall asleep unless I’m on my stomach. Tonight, as I lie with my chest pressed against the bed, all I can focus on is my heart beating much too hard. It feels like a caged animal.

I tried to lie there until it stilled, but it kept rocking me. I had to roll to my side to get away from it.

I

t was a Tuesday in early November when we found out everyone in my house had been exposed to COVID-19. Two of my roommates were already showing serious symptoms. My sweet home all of a sudden felt too small, and the air felt thick with sickness. I packed up and drove through the night to my home in Nashville.

I couldn’t find comfort in my parents’ arms; I was contaminated. Instead, I stayed in a neighbor’s empty house a few blocks away.

Looking back, I’m unsure if running away was the right decision. It was there that months of deep-rooted emotional instabilities surfaced, and I frequently spiraled into fits of tears or long stretches of numbness. I was so alone.

I began to feel claustrophobic in my own body and mind. I can typically pull myself out of funks quickly with a song, a dance, a long drive or a hike. But I was grossly unequipped to overcome this. I would wake up some days and couldn’t make myself get out of bed. But there were also days when I could close my eyes, and a smile would break through.

Although I so badly wanted the healing process to be linear, it was far from a straight line. Rather, the journey of healing is cyclical, with opposing emotions erupting mere minutes apart. The photos in this essay depict these conflicting realities as well as the efforts I made to find my normal again. I have never been good at talking about my feelings. Creating these photographs was a way to process the dark emotions.

Those efforts have extended into the now. I returned to Columbia two weeks later and leaned hard into friends for strength and comfort. And although my mental health still ebbs and flows, I finally feel clear-headed. But there is much healing and processing to be done.

Our sense of normalcy was flipped on its head, and learning to cope has been a process for all of us. I’m still learning how to be honest about my emotions and allow myself to fully feel them — and then to let go and move forward.

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I can finally feel again. It seems insignificant, but for months now my senses have been repressed.

My mind has been foggy, and I haven’t been able to respond as I normally would to music or sunshine or dancing or something funny — the things that would normally pull me out of the muck. It feels like I’m emerging from the fog, carefully and cautiously, scared something will trigger a spiral.

But for now I’m getting tastes of normalcy. I guess I laugh at that, because what about this existence is normal?

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I’ve realized that looking at old photos reminds me of who I am and how I normally relate to the world around me. I am reminded of the things I love, such as hiking and plants and travel and self-care and kisses and orange trees. These things ground me, center me and focus my mind on the larger picture. It takes the power away from daunting things in the present.

Today I woke up from a dream where I was standing in the sun. I opened my mouth, and the sun filled me.

I have become frustrated with the slow healing process of mental health. As an outlet, I work my physical body hard. I push to find its limits and discover what it means to feel and be alive. I bear any soreness or bruises with pride because it shows my determination and efforts at healing.

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I have never experienced many of these emotions before.

I often have a hard time determining the root cause of the negativity.

My typical responses to positive stimuli are dulled or fleeting.

Two things brought me joy today. The first was watching my mother take a cellphone photo of the sunset.

She jutted her chin high in the sky, peering underneath her glasses and tapping with slow precision on the screen to get the photo.

The second joy was watching her pick up bright yellow ginkgo leaves.

Her hands slowly sorted through the fallen forms to find the ones she wanted. It was beautiful. After a few moments, I picked up some leaves and put them in my pocket, so that later I could cup them in my hands and feel my mother in me.

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I go all day with my body entirely clenched.

My jaw and my muscles held tight, my legs drawn close to my body. I ache from feeling so vulnerable and exposed, and retreat. There is no one to lay a finger on me to release my tightly wound body. No one to soothe the skittish, animalistic being curled up inside me.

A BOOMING BLOG P. 37

Takeout, but healthier

KITCHEN CLEAN OUT P. 38

Main Squeeze’s Buddha Bowl is packed with veggies and protein.

Ordering in doesn’t have to leave you feeling greasy and stuffed. Here’s Vox’s guide to healthier carryout.

BY LAUREN STONE We all know the feeling: It’s almost dinner time, and cooking isn’t in the cards. Food delivery is an easy alternative and has become increasingly common during the pandemic. According to Statista, a business data company, the food delivery market is expected to reach $28.5 million this year. But it isn’t always the healthiest option. It’s no secret restaurant food is more calorie-dense than home-cooked meals, but that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your health every time you order in.

Photography by Trenton Almgren-Davis

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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E AT & DRINK RESTAURANTS

There are ways to order smarter; it’s about knowing what’s in your food and its nutritional value. “People need to be educated so that they are able to select healthier options,” says Katherene Osei-Boadi Anguah, an assistant professor in MU’s Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology. Being aware of how various foods affect your body can help you make informed decisions when ordering takeout.

For example, Osei-Boadi Anguah says some salad dressings can be very high in fat, so it’s better to opt for a lighter vinaigrette rather than a creamy ranch dressing.

“I would try to stick to things that you know are better for you,” says Leigh Lockhart, owner of Main Squeeze Natural Foods Cafe. “Choose things that are the least processed and the least fatty and carby as possible.” Processed foods, which are common at many chain restaurants, can be high in salt, added sugars and unhealthy fats. Lockhart says a good way to avoid this is to order from locally owned restaurants, which generally have more homemade products than chains.

No matter where you order from, you can alter your meal with your health in mind. “If you’re going to get a pizza, maybe get a pizza with a lot of vegetables instead of pepperoni,” Lockhart says. Even little changes to your order can increase the nutritional value of a meal. “Instead of ordering a soda, you may just get a bottle of water,” Osei-Boadi Anguah says. Choosing water over soda eliminates up to 200 calories and your sugar intake.

There are a few rules of thumb to help you make mindful takeout choices. Order sauce or dressing on the side. A sauce can add hundreds of calories, and getting it on

the side can eliminate unnecessary consumption. Avoid dairy in takeout meals, and ask the restaurant to prepare your dish with less or no cheese to lower the fat content.

Swap out thick crust for thin and white rice for brown to reduce your carb intake with little difference in taste.

The healthiest — and cheapest — option when it comes to eating is cooking your own meals, since you know exactly what’s in them. “It’s really hard to control what is in the food you’re eating when you eat out,” Lockhart says. Her biggest tip is to eat at home as much as possible.

Osei-Boadi Anguah has the same advice.

“As much as you’re able to do your own food prep at home, do it,” she says. When you’re unable to, order smart.

To help you on your road to healthier takeout, Vox rounded up a few options from local favorites.

Sub Shop Vegetarian sub This sandwich is jam-packed with vegetables. It’s loaded with mushrooms, olives, green peppers, onions, tomatoes and Swiss cheese.

Make it healthier: Eliminate the mayo, mozzarella and American cheese to cut out fats and sodium. Add spicy brown mustard for a tasty spread with only about 10 calories per serving.

Four locations: 209 S. Eighth St., 601 Business Loop 70, 805 E. Nifong Blvd., 2105 W. Worley St.

Big Mama Chims, which opened over two years ago, has a number of healthy options on its menu.

Why it’s healthier: The coconut milk in this dish is an alternative to an ingredient such as heavy cream, but it provides the same rich flavor.

905 Alley A Main Squeeze Buddha Bowl With brown rice, tofu, cabbage, broccoli, carrot, scallions, sesame seeds and a sesameginger dressing, this dish will leave you full and happy.

Why it’s healthier: Main Squeeze has plenty of healthy options, but this bowl is protein-packed. The veggies add flavor and nutrients.

28 S. Ninth St.

Big Mama Chims Noodle House Tom Kha soup This hearty, spicy soup is filled with chicken, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and cilantro, all together in a creamy coconut milk broth.

Sub Shop’s vegetarian sub is one of the healthier options on its menu.

Just hold the cheese.

Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant Grilled chicken salad Grilled chicken, sauteed mushrooms and onions topped with lettuce and shredded cheese pack in the Mexican flavor without the calories.

Make it healthier: Order this dish without the cheese or have it on the side.

3306 W. Broadway Park Court Taste Place Steamed chicken with mixed vegetables The chicken and vegetables are prepared with garlic and scallions. Add a side of Szechuan sauce to spice it up.

Make it healthier: Swap out the rice for extra steamed vegetables for more nutrients and fewer carbs.

215 N. Stadium Blvd.

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Photography by Abigail Young/Archive and Tanner Bubeck

E AT & DRI N K HOME COOKING

One meal at a time Two Columbia moms turned a passion for cooking into a popular food and lifestyle website and two successful cookbooks.

BY EMMA BOYLE

W

hen Polly Conner and Rachel Tiemeyer started separate personal blogs in 2008, they didn’t know how much success their collaborative food and lifestyle website, Thriving Home, would bring years later.

Prior to meeting, both were new moms trying to cook healthy meals for their families. Tiemeyer had a toddler diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, and Conner was balancing cooking for her family while her husband, Austin, commuted to St. Louis for graduate school.

After Conner and Tiemeyer bonded over a shared interest in blogging and food, Thriving Home was born in 2012 as a way to turn their hobby into a business.

After months of hard work, Google and Pinterest exposure caused their web traffic to expand in leaps and bounds. Now, the website is visited by hundreds of thousands of readers, equipping parents to get homecooked food on the table.

A labor of love Throughout their blogging careers, Conner and Tiemeyer have balanced time between Thriving Home and their families. Despite the challenge, the blog allows them day-to-day flexibility.

“I love my work, and I love what I do,” Conner says. “But I also love my family and prioritize being present with them, so it definitely takes a lot of discipline to set boundaries.”

Tiemeyer says the strength of their partnership helps keep the balance, creating a support system that allows the women to be efficient and adaptable.

Often, one woman will test out a new dish with their family, after sending a frozen version to the other’s home.

“We always joke that it’s a little bit like being married to the person,” Tiemeyer says. “You’re sharing financial burdens together and making decisions for your future together.”

From blog to books In 2016, Rodale Books asked Conner and Tiemeyer to write a cookbook as the pair’s website gained attention from eager readers.

After nine months of writing and editing, From Freezer to Table was published with a focus on healthy recipes that could be made fresh or frozen.

The success didn’t end there. Before their first book was released, the bloggers locked down a contract for a second book, From Freezer to Cooker, that was published in January 2020 and highlights slow cooker and Instant Pot meals. The second cookbook involved a hefty amount of research and testing to adapt their recipes to the different cooking format.

“It was really challenging,” Tiemeyer says. “But I think it’s one of the things we’re most proud of because there’s just nothing out there like that.”

The cookbooks opened the world of Thriving Home to an entirely new audience. After they were published, Conner and Tiemeyer appeared on the Hallmark Channel, People and other media outlets.

Photography courtesy of Polly Conner and Rachel Tiemeyer

For Rachel Tiemeyer (left) and Polly Conner, recipe inspiration can be found in their homes. Adelyn’s Sticky BBQ Drumsticks and Jack’s Chicken and Dumpling Stew are two family favorites named after their kids.

The sweet and spicy honey bourbon chicken recipe is full of flavor and great for the slow cooker or Instant Pot.

“It’s still hard to believe,” Conner says. “With the food blog world being so saturated, having these opportunities helps us establish credibility quickly. We are so thankful for them.”

For parents everywhere Despite the increase in exposure in recent years, Conner and Tiemeyer have maintained their original mission: helping your home thrive, one delicious meal at a time.

From Thriving Home’s repertoire of recipes, Conner and Tiemeyer recommend testing out their crispy carnitas, frozen smoothie packs, Mexican soup and honey bourbon chicken — all of which they love to make for their own families.

“From the beginning, our goal has always been to just try to help moms use their time efficiently in the kitchen and create delicious meals that really bring their family together,” Tiemeyer says. “So that’s the heart behind Thriving Home.”

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E AT & DRINK KITCHEN

Kondo your kitchen If the mess is getting you down, try these four simple tips to tackle the clutter and tidy your mind.

BY LAURA EVANS

S

pring is a season of reset, so you might feel inspired to tidy up your space. If so, the kitchen is a great place to start.

For Sarah Benson, founder of the business Simplified Home, an organized kitchen can be more than just a clean room.

“For me, being organized just makes me happy,” Benson says. “If things are a mess, people just get overwhelmed. They don’t want to cook — they don’t want to even look at it. It brings them anxiety.”

A 2016 study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that clutter can affect your mental state. The study surveyed 1,489 people and found that less clutter meant more belonging and identification with your space.

Lauren Crosby, founder of Orderly and Organized, told Vox in a 2019 interview that many of her clients feel overwhelmed by the prospect of straightening up. Yes, cleaning a whole house or even a whole room can be daunting, but Crosby recommends starting small with something like a closet or pantry.

So if your Tu p p e r w a r e cabinet is out of control or your pantry is full of dusty, old food, don’t fret. Vox rounded up some simple

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tricks to boost organization and tidy up your kitchen.

Take inventory The first step to decluttering is getting all of your items out in the open. Seeing everything you have at once can help you assess what you really need, Benson says. This can also help you find forgotten items.

“Sometimes things get pushed to the back of cabinets or stuffed in the pantry, and you don’t necessarily realize that you have as much as you do,” Benson says.

From here, it’s easier to eliminate duplicate or unnecessary items. With fewer items around, the space often looks better and more minimalistic.

Get grouping Once excess items are eliminated, the key to reorganization is grouping like items.

Think about what placement makes the most sense. Put items as close as possible to the appliances they are used with, such as mugs near the coffee maker, glasses and cups near the sink or pots and pans near the stove.

Arrange items that are frequently used within arm’s reach and near the front of your shelves. Crosby says you can also use this trick in your pantry by placing food you need to eat soon in places that are easy to access.

“If you don’t have to spend time searching for something, and if everything’s in a place where it makes sense and is logical, you can save time that way,” Benson says.

Do you really need that half-eaten box of week-old lo mein? Or the wilting parsley?

Toss it!

Streamline your kitchen tools to free up counter space — and mental space.

Labeling jars or bins for baking supplies can create a uniform, orderly feeling in your pantry.

Chuck expired food Expired food can take up major space in your pantry. Just like taking stock of kitchenware is an effective way to identify what you don’t need, it’s a good idea to look over your food products to ensure nothing has gone bad.

The spice cabinet can be an easy place to pare down. Benson says she has noticed people tend to keep spices around for a long time.

“If you look online, it’ll say six months or a year is the longest [spices] have their full potency,” she says. “I don’t think it’s a danger to keep them past that, but to have them be freshest, they have to be fairly new.”

Use products to revamp your space Mary Stauffer is the founder of Tallulah’s, a kitchen specialty store in downtown Columbia. She says labels and label makers are popular for organizing kitchen storage, as well as specialty containers for items like flour and sugar.

If you want to add some flair to your spring cleaning, products such as candles and scented cleansers can give a fresh, extra boost to a space.

“It’s always nice to give your kitchen a fresh new look,” Stauffer says.

Illustrations by Madison Wisse and courtesy of FreePik

WHOSE VOICES ARE HEARD? P. 41

GARDENS THAT SOAR P. 42

The plastic pandemic Single-use cups, to-go containers and throw-away utensils — all have become staples throughout this past year and create waste that will last ages.

BY ABBEY TAUCHEN

Illustrations by Madison Wisse

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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C I TY LIFE ENVIRONMENT

We see it every day: disposable masks strewn across streets, takeout containers drifting across parking lots and plastic straws littered throughout parks.

Plastic overuse is not a new problem, but over the past year, the need for single-use plastics has increased due to COVID-19 hygiene protocols.

To keep communities safe, many restaurants are doing takeout only, grocery stores have banned reusable bags, coffee shops are only using disposable cups and disposable masks are an everyday accessory.

Problems with plastic “We keep feeling like our convenience is more important than the health of our ecosystem,” says Bob Henkel, program director at earthday365 in St. Louis.

Takeout is quick and easy; without a second thought, you can get your favorite foods for a night in quarantine or a Netflix binge session. But once the food is gone, the plastic remains. “I get a cup at the QuikTrip, and that soda is gone in 30 minutes,” Henkel says. “But that cup will be around for 250 plus years.”

By 2050, the World Economic Forum predicts there will be more plastic by weight in the ocean than fish.

COVID-19 has increased the global need for plastic items. An estimated 129 billion disposable face masks and 65 billion gloves are used worldwide each month, according to a study from the research journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Single-use in restaurants Part of the problem is that items made for a “single use” actually use materials that are designed to last forever. Many restaurants are struggling with how to deal with this issue.

For example, Café Poland is currently doing takeout only, and the containers are made out of Styrofoam, says manager Robert Burlinski. Their kitchen is so tiny that they have limitations when it comes to sustainability. “We try to do our best to save the planet, to limit the (plastic) use, but sometimes we just have no choice,” Burlinski says.

When the restaurant was open regularly, they recycled items such as soda cans and plastic water bottles. Customers often ask if the restaurants recycle.

Environmentally safe options Henkel suggests that restaurants stop Styrofoam use and provide reusable togo containers instead. Many restaurants try to give their customers reusable or compostable to-go containers.

Prior to the pandemic, Bubblecup Tea Zone had started selling reusable cups as an alternative to single-use cups. Once the shop opens dine-in again, customers will be able to bring their reusable cups and get a discount on their drinks.

“Once the pandemic is over, or when we get to a place that we’re able to use them again, we encourage people to buy them more since they are able to reuse them and not waste as much plastic,” says Seran Stegnaier, a barista at Bubblecup Tea

A single-use plastic item might be used for 10 minutes, but it will last long after it’s tossed out. A plastic bag takes 20 years to degrade, while a plastic straw will be around for 200 years, and a plastic water bottle for 450 years, according to World Wildlife Fund.

By 2050, the World Economic Forum predicts there will be more plastic by weight in the oceans than fish.

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Zone. She also believes restaurants can mitigate plastic use by using recycling bins.

Local food truck Ozark Mountain Biscuit Co. uses compostable and recyclable materials, such as plant-based containers and wood product utensils.

“We realize a lot of other restaurants are just now confronting the issue, having a lot of to-go ware,” says Bryan Maness, owner of Ozark Mountain Biscuit Co. “We don’t have any plastic in our truck, nor have we ever used plastic in the seven years that we’ve been open.”

What can you do?

Henkel says recycling is not the end-all be-all to helping the environment. If someone is new to recycling, he suggests two steps: Contact your local recycling center to see what it accepts and look at all the other ways you can take action to help the environment.

If you are getting takeout to bring home, Maness suggests telling the restaurant ahead of time that you do not need the plastic utensils. “A lot of people will put those utensils in the bags automatically and then they end up piling up and going in the waste bin,” he says.

Henkel advises looking at your consumption habits and maintaining them even when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

Plastic waste is often viewed as a faraway problem that is not ours to fix. But if we start considering the consequences now, we could make a difference.

Illustrations by Madison Wisse

C I T Y LI FE CITY GOVERNMENT

Streaming (dis)service Virtual city meetings have raised the issue of how public feedback is allowed, and whether those solutions are accessible to everyone.

BY SKYLAR LAIRD

O

n a snowy Monday night in February, the Columbia City Council met with almost no audience in the room. Disabilities Commission Chair Jacque Sample sat at home, watching the meeting over livestream. She’d submitted a written public comment for discussion, but was unable to discuss her feedback with the council.

Columbia, like much of the world, has come to rely more heavily on technology to get work done. Due to the pandemic, along with general accessibility concerns, the Disabilities Commission has been advocating for more virtual options to allow members of the public and people on all boards and commissions to participate in meetings.

Members of the Disabilities Commission and others have begun to wonder: If everything else can be done virtually, why can’t city council meetings?

Plenty of other cities have been able to hold meetings virtually. In Missouri, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen has been conducting business via Zoom for months. Still, Columbia requires a physical quorum in order to vote.

Sample says it would be helpful for boards and commissions to be able to hold meetings without a quorum — the majority of a group’s voting members — physically present. Members of the public must also attend in-person to speak.

from the standpoint of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The commission reached out to Troy Balthazor, an ADA consultant with Great Plains ADA Center.

He says virtual meetings are covered under the ADA as a reasonable accommodation for people unable to otherwise participate. During pandemic times, Balthazor says, this virtual option can be critical.

“It is clear that people with a wide variety of disabilities will be well-served by limiting their contact with others, especially in close quarters,” he writes in a letter to the Disabilities Commission. “Modifying current procedures to adjust to the pandemic may save lives and prevent long-term health issues for people.”

Remote software The council voted in February to purchase AnyMeeting Webinar software, which will allow it to stream meetings.

Using this software, members of the

SHARE YOUR OPINION Members of the public must attend meetings in-person to speak during comment sections or hearings.

However, there are ways to share your voice without physically attending. Send an email to CityClerk@CoMo. gov. Or, call the city at 874-7208.

Comments must be received by 4 p.m. on the day of the meeting.

public would be able attend meetings virtually. It would also allow city staff to provide additions on the screen like speakers’ titles.

However, in testing this software, city staff realized it didn’t meet ADA accommodations.

It doesn’t have keyboard compatibility, which is the ability to use a program using only the keyboard and no mouse. If the software can’t meet ADA requirements, the city will have to consider other options.

True accessibility The Disabilities Commission wants one thing: accessibility for everyone, and Sample says she wants to see virtual options continue past the pandemic.

“You can move toward universal design, but it’s difficult to say, ‘We’re going to make everything completely accessible,’ and be sure it’s accessible to every person because every person has their own abilities and limitations,” she says.

Brian Adkisson, the city communications and creative services director, says the city strives to do just that. “We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can, really, to make sure we’re delivering and trying to identify all the options we can to best serve the community,” he says.

Allowing virtual meetings, potentially with just the chair physically present, would be a step toward accessibility at a city level, Sample says.

Providing options About 29% of adults in Missouri have some sort of disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the Disabilities Commission has been discussing virtual options since before the pandemic, the issue was exacerbated by the higher risk posed by the virus.

Sample says the Disabilities Commission began looking at the problem Illustrations by Gabrielle Faletto

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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CITY LIFE GARDENING

Flowers with benefits Make your garden a pollination haven with these three plants native to Missouri.

Bee balm

BY SARAH STRAUGHN

A

fter a long winter combating piles of snow and frigid temperatures, spend some time outside testing your green thumb with these Missouri native plants that will attract our state’s pollinators.

Bees, butterflies and hummingbirds are among the winged guests that add life to your garden and move pollen from flower to flower — a key to plant production.

They are a vital part of any living ecosystem. More than 150 food crops in the U.S. alone are dependent on pollinators’ efforts, including nearly all fruit and grain crops, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

Spring means the beginning of planting season, which can be overwhelming to gardeners. One easy solution is native flowers. Not only are these plants beautiful, but pollinators love them.

Jennifer Schutter, a field specialist in horticulture for MU Extension in Adair County, says people should do research before starting their gardens. With over 20 years of horticulture experience under her belt, Schutter recommends people try to keep their gardens blooming from spring to fall. “You can start small, with maybe one or two spring plants, a few summer bloomers — the summer ones are always easier,” she says. “And then incorporate some for fall.”

She also recommends having a water feature somewhere in your garden, even if it’s as simple as a saucer filled with water. Both birds and insects need water, but bees are in special need of it. “Bees have to have water to make honey,” she says. “If they don’t have water, they can’t make honey efficiently.”

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Purple coneflower

Joe Pye weed

Thinking about planting native pollinators? Make your garden hum to life with these three plants.

Bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) This mid-summer bloomer, also known as wild bergamot, will attract all sorts of pollinators with its sweet scent.

Care: These flowers prefer soil that is

Pollinators are responsible for bringing us one out of every three bites of food, according to Pollinator Partnership.

dry to medium-wet, and, like most other natives, grow in full sun (about six hours of light per day) to partial shade (at least three hours of light).

What they’ll look like: Bee balm grows about 2 to 4 feet tall and spreads 2 to 3 feet. The blooms are a pink-lavender color with little tubes where pollinators can get to the nectar.

Who they’ll attract: Ruby-throated hummingbirds and bees.

Why you should plant them: Beautiful blooms won’t be the only thing you’ll enjoy with this plant; the long, aromatic leaves can be used to brew tea.

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) This tall, showy flower is recognizable by its spiky cone center and bright petals.

Care: These low-maintenance perennials will give some desired height to your garden. They thrive in well-draining and dry to medium-wet soil. Coneflowers do best in full sun but can stand partial shade.

What they’ll look like: Coneflowers have an orange-red cone in the middle with pale purple petals. They can grow between 2 and 5 feet tall and spread up to 2 feet wide.

Who they’ll attract: Bees, butterflies and beetles.

Why you should plant them: After the flowers are finished blooming, the seeds in the center cone become a tasty meal for birds, especially American goldfinches.

Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum) Another tall plant, Joe Pye weed is best if you’re looking for some serious height in your garden.

Care: These low-maintenance flowers prefer moist soil that doesn’t dry out.

Like coneflowers, they thrive in full sun to partial shade.

What they’ll look like: Joe Pye weed is marked by long stems with clusters of five to seven flowers on the end, which are a pretty shade of mauve. They’ll grow between 5 and 7 feet tall and need 2 to 4 feet of space to spread.

Who they’ll attract: Butterflies.

Why you should plant them: In the winter, the flowers dry out and give way to seed heads, which can be used for indoor flower arrangements.

Photography courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

YOUR HERO

CARED FOR YOU.

NOW, YOU CARE FOR HER.

Find the Care Guides you need to care for your loved one at

aarp.org/caregiving 1-877-333-5885

C ALENDAR

TO-DO LIST

Your curated guide of what to do in Columbia this month.

ARTS

Science on the Screen Ragtag Cinema launches its spring film series, which focuses on current, cult and documentary films that highlight the world of science and technology. The series kicked off with a screening of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” in March, with more to be announced later.

March–June, $9.50 general admission, $7.50 seniors and children, $5.50 members

Women on Paper The Women on Paper art

exhibit at Sager Braudis Gallery features mid20th century prints and drawings of women. The portraits include significant women in American history, and the exhibit spans the east and west galleries. Exhibit open April 2–May 1, Tues.–Sat. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., free

Visiting Writers Series with Cynthia Cruz Join MU’s creative writing program as it welcomes Cynthia Cruz, who has published poem collections such as

Ruin and Dregs, to chat about her work as a contemporary American poet. April 8, 7 p.m., free, virtual event

Invoke This Austin-based string quartet is described as “not classical ... but not not classical.” Join for a genre-bending musical experience that focuses on telling the stories of America piece by piece. Tickets sold for pods of up to five people. April 11, 7 p.m., Missouri Theatre, $35-$175, 882-3781

Blending bluegrass, Appalachian fiddle tunes, jazz and minimalism, Invoke’s sound defies genre classification.

Hindsight is 2020 It’s safe to say that 2020 was a year no one expected. This art exhibit at Columbia Art League examines the past year through artistic reflection, showing how we’ve been shaped by a year of unpredictability, loss and triumph. April 13– May 21, Tues.–Sat. noon to 4 p.m., free

NO ONE GETS A DIPLOMA ALONE. If you’re thinking of finishing your high school diploma, you have more support than you realize. Find teachers and free adult education classes near you at FinishYourDiploma.org.

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Photography by Zachariah Matteson/Archive

CALENDAR

18, 2 p.m., Missouri Theatre, pod prices (1 to 5 people) $25-$125, 882-3781

CIVIC

FOOD

Language: Let’s Change It Up

Fifteen Minutes of Warhol

Show-Me Opera: Falstaff

The Museum of Art and Archaeology opens its exhibit on the history and life of Andy Warhol, which examines his lasting impact on art and culture since the 1960s. April

A comedic period piece opera by Verdi, this Shakespeare-inspired show will have you laughing out loud at the story of a foolish man who unwittingly sends two love letters to a pair of best friends. April 17, 7 p.m.; April

13–Sept. 12, free

SHELTER PET & LIFE OF THE PARTY

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HAMILTON 75K+ Instagram Followers

Food Trucks in the Park can satisfy any craving, with sweet treats from RJ’s Italian Ice to savory delights from Big Cheeze.

Ragboat

Learn how the English language has been used to marginalize people. Kari Utterback, a trainer with National Conference for Community & Justice, and Abbie Coleman, a city risk management assistant, will walk guests through how to use language to uplift. April 20, 6–7:30 p.m., virtual event, register at dbrl-org.zoom.us

Just Between Friends This nationwide biannual children’s goods trade show features clothing and other essentials for up to 90% off retail price. April 22, 4–8 p.m., $3; free on April 23,

9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and April 24, 8 a.m.-4 p.m., Columbia Sports Fieldhouse (across from Nifong Park)

Enjoy a Sunday night movie from Ragtag on Logboat’s lawn with a beer in hand. You’ll get a night of entertainment with movies such as The Muppet Movie and Stray. March 21 and 28, April 4 and 11. Details at ragtagcinema.org

Food Trucks in the Park Drop in and pick up dinner from local food trucks at one of three Columbia parks. Masks are required while waiting in line and ordering food. April 7, 5–7 p.m., Stephens Lake Park, Cosmo-Bethel Park and Cosmo Park

Diverse programming you can’t find anywhere else.

It’s community radio!

KOPN

89.5 FM live streaming at kopn.org Photography by Jenny Justus/Archive

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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CALENDAR

MUSIC

SPORTS

Bring a few friends and rock out at Eastside’s Karaoke Nights. Show up early to take advantage of drink specials and enjoy a night of music. Thursdays, Fridays

Watch the Mizzou baseball team live on ESPN+ or in-person. With Georgia in the NCAA top 25, it’s sure to be a nail biter. April 23,

Eastside Tavern Karaoke Nights

and Saturdays, 7 p.m. doors, 8 p.m. show, no cover

M-Odyssey The Odyssey Chamber Music Series presents M-Odyssey: a concert series dedicated to classical music of smaller ensembles. The rescheduled program has been organized

by Odyssey Performance Fellows, and with Kassandra Ormsby and her friends performing, you can expect a fun night of music. April 16, 7 p.m. Watch online at OdysseyPlowman on YouTube,

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Mizzou Baseball vs.

Georgia

noon, tickets available at mutigers.com odysseymissouri.org or live at First Baptist Church

Sundays @ Murry’s Get dinner and a show with the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series at Murry’s featuring the Bobby Watson & Roger Wilder Duo. See it live or stream the performance on YouTube or Facebook. April 18, 7 p.m., $40

1322: Music of the United States MU students and ensem-

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

bles bring this concert in memoriam of Michael J. Budds, musicologist and former music history professor at MU and former education coordinator for the University Concert Series. The group will perform some of Budds’ favorite music and honor his commitment to his work. The event is presented by Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. April 25, 3–4:30 p.m., Jesse Auditorium, $25-$125

Spencer Miles pitches against Western Illinois University during a game March 8 at Taylor Stadium.

The 24 Hour Lion’s Roar If you love running, join this two-day, 100-runner timed trail race on a 2.5-mile loop course at Gans Creek Recreation Area. Runners will have the opportunity to will prizes, such as a custom belt buckle or T-shirt. All proceeds go to Pascale’s Pals, a local volunteer organization that benefits children and families staying at the Children’s Hospital in Columbia. April 23, starts at 6 p.m., $115 registration fee

Photography by Madi Winfield/Archive

photo finish

Learning in the great outdoors PHOTOGRAPHY BY KAYLA SZYMANSKI Waverly Arthur, a first-grader at City Garden School, sits outside in the sun during recess. When she’s done playing, she’ll return to her classroom, which is also outside. Recently, City Garden School transitioned to teaching its students entirely in the outdoors. In August, the school moved its permanent location to Camp Takimina, 33 acres of nature about 15 minutes north of downtown.

First- through fifth-graders are getting an outdoor holistic education, where arts are integrated into every part of the day. Students spend five days a week outside, from 8:20 a.m. to 2:20 p.m.

“Being outside has transformed the children’s relationship with school and learning,” says firstgrade teacher Neeley Current. “Their education is learned through experience.”

VOX MAGAZINE • APRIL 2021

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A five-day celebration of music, art, and cutting-edge nonfiction film transforming Stephens Lake Park into a one-of-a-kind creative wonderland √ OUTDOORS √ MASKED √ PHYSICALLY-DISTANCED

True/False Film Fest

MAY 5-9, 2021 | COLUMBIA, MO

PASSE S !

E L A S ON truefalse.org