Insomniac Folklore Tour: Back in the Midwest

Homemade puppets at the Puppetry Arts Institute

July 27th

The past few days have hurried by in a whirl of steady activity. I’ve felt sick so I’ve spent a lot of time reading and thinking and zoning out. We spent the morning of the 25th at a park, and ended up in Lenexa, Kansas, with a couchsurfing host. The next day, we ran around Kansas City for a while (getting heat exhaustion, eating Subway, and visiting a puppet museum, mostly), then headed up to Ames, Iowa for a show. Along the way we realized our right front tire was flat, and changed to a temporary one. We drove from Des Moines to Ames at 45mph, but still arrived at the Ames Progressive venue on time.

I enjoyed the show a lot: we sounded dynamic, the crowd seemed engaged, and for perhaps the first time, I feel that we got a full sound with just the four of us. Since Ayden left us, I’ve felt that there’s been a huge hole in the music. But that show, we nailed it.

We spent the night at the sound guy’s house without air conditioning, but fortunately the night cooled down and we had fans. I slept like a rock. The next day, this afternoon, we visited the local tire shop to get the tire fixed. Of course it was much more complicated and expensive than we expected. We sat on the tile floor and watched prime-time TV and ridiculed both the shows and the commercials. 

Waiting for the tire to be fixed

At last, the tire was fixed, and off we went, headed north toward Minneapolis. We stopped at a motel surrounded by hoards of seedy-looking men (I haven’t been ogled so much since I was in Spokane) but with a nice interior. We ignored the guy throwing up in front of the lobby and went to our room.

Now here sit I, upon a bed with a tacky, vaguely Victorian design. And there is air conditioning— that is a huge comfort. Tomorrow: Minneapolis!

~Lisa Shafter