SD Day 5 - Craft Beers, Creativity, and Corn Palaces
Today I bid farewell to my friends from home which was a bittersweet start to the day. It meant a lot to get to spend time with good people I knew before the trip. I try to talk a lot about things I care about in the comedy and on this blog, but Alexis has been doing Teach for America on a Reservation in central SD and, back in MA, Sami works two jobs at a daycare and an ABA center, so they both really walk the walk caring for people who a need a helping hand and I can’t possibly give them enough credit.
After saying my goodbyes, I got some good coffee at a cute cottage/organic coffee shop in Spearfish called The Green Bean. It was such a cozy small town meeting place, and I was just happy to hang out there for a bit, partially because I saw an older man wearing a tee-shirt that said “Living with a German Builds Character” and I could barely contain my delight at such an improbably article of clothing. The fact that the coffee was really good was just an added bonus.
After getting my coffee, I hit the road for a big push across the width of the state (just around 400 miles) to Sioux Falls. My first stop on today’s big road trip was to pull over to the side of a state highway to get a good picture of this beautiful, haunting sculpture simply called Skeleton Man Walking Skeleton Dinosaur. I love the dream-logic of it, where you get a sense that this guy and his dinosaur are really heading somewhere even if it’s not clear where, why, or how they ended up there. For something that seems positively bursting with symbolism, the story of the sculpture is far more straightforward. The artist was a man named Clarence Hullinger and his sons. Clarence ran a tourist attraction called 1880s Town, where visitors got to visit a mock frontier village and dress up in period clothes, and which happens to be just a few miles up from where the sculpture seems to be walking toward. It seems like Clarence really just wanted something eye-catching to bring attract visitors, and when one of his sons logically asked “What does a dinosaur have to do with 1880s Town?”, Clarence supposedly replied “It’s old, isn’t it?” I didn’t know that story on the road, but I’m glad to know it now. I do like the mystery it must pose though to hundreds of drivers passing by though, which is probably why its been such an enduring landmark since 1978 when it was built.
A little over an hour’s drive later, my next stop was to see another incredible giant piece of public art standing guard just over the wide Missouri River. This gorgeous 50 foot sculpture is intended as a tribute to Native American Womanhood (particularly South Dakota’s Lakota, who were the most direct inspiration as three Lakota modeled for the piece) entitled Dignity of Earth and Sky. Dignity, as she’s often called for short, was sculpted from stainless steel by an artist named Dale Lamphere with a Lakota artist named David Claymore adding the particularly stunning designs of the Star Quilt that enshrouds her. It’s a monumental and powerful tribute to sub-group of Americans who are so rarely acknowledged or celebrated in mainstream art or media which just adds to its strength. Plus it was even done without destroying any sacred land. Who knew that was an option?
That view out over the Missouri is not too shabby either
I got to Dignity after a little more than 3 hours of driving so I was pretty grateful that she happens to be standing near a rest stop and tourist information center where I could take a much needed pit stop. I was even more excited to find out that while Dignity was the showstopper, the rest area was pretty packed with cool art including a giant abstract teepee and these great aluminum silhouette panels along the outer walls:
There was even a giant replica of a 19th century boat suspended above the ground as soon as you walk inside. Not exactly your run of the mill highway rest area.
My next stop was to see one of the great folk-art landmarks of the plains: The Mitchell Corn Palace. This imposing convention center was originally built in 1892, and while it’s not actually built out of corn the sizable murals all along the exterior are made entirely out of careful arrangements of twelve naturally occurring shades of corn grown in South Dakota. Local grasses and other grains fill out the smaller designs giving the whole outward appearance of the building an earthy quality that is charmingly at odds with the absurd grandeur of the huge Turkish-inspired minarets and large Russian dome added to the palace in 1937. The palace was initially intended to attract tourists and wow them with elaborate displays of local agriculture, and while it seems like a goofy premise, grain palaces were apparently a hugely popular fad around the turn of the 19th century when the standards for excitement were a little different. Once there were dozens of such palaces all over the country, but now the Mitchell Corn Palace stands as the world’s only remaining one, a monument to an unusual historical moment and a very unique art form.
The corn murals were the big selling point and they were beyond insane. Each year they pick a new theme and make a completely new batch of murals, which would be pretty damn impressive even if they weren’t making them entirely out of corn. This year’s theme was Weather, and the murals ranged from serene portraits of sunflowers to dramatic scenes of tornadoes and lightning storms. Some of my friends teased me when I got back because of how much I raved out about this place, but I was really blown away.
Inside the palace, the spacious interior plays hosts to college basketball games, concerts (including past acts like Johnny Cash and the Beach Boys!), community events, and even an annual Polka Festival which sadly I was a couple months too early for. While I was there, the stadium area was filled with various local vendors selling souvenirs and crafts. While the different stalls were all neat, the best part was that all along the ceiling they had hung up various murals from years past left to gracefully age and fade into duller shades of yellow and brown.
On the second floor was an exhibit showcasing sketches by one of the longest serving artists responsible behind designing the annual mural themes: Oscar Howe. Oscar designed the murals from 1948-1971, and managed to still find time to become one of the most celebrated contemporary Native American artists of his time, being credited as one of the first artists to lead the charge for Native artists to be celebrated in styles that weren’t viewed as “traditional”. His designs were phenomenal, and I loved getting to see the past themes even if they weren’t done up in corn. I was also pleasantly surprised by just how wild and out-there some of the scenes and themes Oscar went with were. The first series was all around the theme of conservation and featured gleefully dark, dreamlike tableaus of apocalyptic imagery, scenes of unchecked consumption, greed, and pollution destroying the natural world. It was pretty heavy stuff, that I was honestly shocked someone was willing to put up on the walls of a community center but they really showed off Howe’s talent at blending grandeur with cartoonish simplicity that would actually allow for everything to be recreated in the palace’s chosen medium.
The next series was considerably lighter featuring playful episodes from Mother Goose Rhymes which showcased what an impressive illustrator Oscar could have been if he’d wanted to go that route.
Next up were Scenes from Nature, which were some of Oscars most serene and beautiful compositions:
Next was South Dakota Yesterday and Today, featured emotional and powerful portraits of everyday life in SD through the ages. Oscar’s inclusion of Native History and contemporary life are true to his own Sioux background, and add an authenticity that a lot of other artists may have overlooked.
Lastly, my favorite theme for sheer sci-fi weirdness was called Space Age and it really let Oscar embrace his more fantastic impulses creating scenes right out of pulp comic books:
Before bidding a fond farewell to this Palace of Corn, I did feel like I had to stop at the concession stand and get a nice box of the finest corn based snack around:
After the Corn Palace, I got another boost of caffeine from a cute local spot across the street called the Cornerstone Coffee House which had good coffee and a slightly religious atmosphere which I wasn’t expecting but I probably should have been based on the biblical allusion in their name and also the fact that they were attached to Mitchell’s other biggest attraction the Valitory Bible Land Park, a massive old testament themed castle. I didn’t take a picture because I didn’t want the serious visitors to think I was making fun of them, and also I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t have been able to take a picture without laughing, but here’s one from the web so you can have an idea how crazy one street with the Corn Palace on one side and this on the other is:
After getting some coffee, the next stop on my statewide road trip was another incredible display of folk art called the Porter Sculpture Park. Just off I-90, self taught artist and blacksmith Wayne Porter has taken a beautiful empty stretch of prairie and filled it with over 40 scrap metal sculptures which seem like they sprung directly out of the artist’s imagination directly into the real world. The scope and detail in the sculptures would never lead you to suspect that Wayne has no formal artistic training, but they do have a certain rawness to them that gives them a certain visceral quality which makes them evocative and captivating. Walking through the park, you feel like you’ve really entered another person’s sub-conscious, dark, surreal, and whimsical in equal measure. There’s no unifying theme, so the sculptures range from realistic to fantastic to cartoony to nightmarish, and as you walk along the little trail Wayne’s left for visitors you never really know what each bend will bring.
My favorite pieces skewed towards whimsy and I loved how they both benefited from and added to the natural landscape all around them. My favorites were: a giant hand reaching out of the ground for a butterfly to land on it, pierced by a wooden nail but undeterred; a silly scene of a goat guru playing sweet licks on the sax while naked ladies dance around him (obviously); a wonderful scene of goldfish valiantly staging an escape from their bowl; and a truly shocking allusion to Edvard Munch’s the scream that brings new meaning to the term “jaw-dropping”.
The most famous piece is a 60 ft. iron bull’s head surrounded by ghostly monks and skeletons, creating an image that’s impossible to miss from the nearby highway and which creepily evokes an otherworld pagan ritual.
You can actually walk into the bull’s head, but what you see might haunt you. I’m not sure if it’s intended as an effigy to ward off the evil spirits contained within or a celebration of those spirits but the tonal uncertainty and the surprise reveal of this spooky guy is a big part of the charm:
Amidst all the sculptures, there were these lovely, funny plaques filled with prankish descriptions of the art and poems by Wayne (and one by his mom). I met Wayne working in his tool shed, and chatted with him a bit, and while he’s funny and warm to talk to, he sort of downplays his own creativity suggesting that things just sort of come to him and he doesn’t really put a lot of thought into the art. The poems suggest to me though that there’s a lot of existential searching going on behind his playful wit, and I love that the whole park can just be enjoyed for it’s silly surface pleasures but there’s certainly deeper themes that emerge from the dreamy imagery if you’re inclined to look for that sort of thing. The whole park is a really incredible accomplishment.
The sculpture park was my last major stop for the day, before I finished my road trip in the biggest city on the Eastern side of South Dakota, Sioux Falls. I still had a little ways to go though, and I worked up quite a sweat walking around the expansive outdoor art on this hot summer’s day so I cooled down with a quick pit stop at Dairy Queen. Normally I try to avoid chains, but Dairy Queen at this point in Summer 2018 was doing a Jurassic Park themed blizzard called Jurassic Chomp as a tie-in to the newest Jurassic World movie, and I was very curious as to what kind of dino-flavor it could be. It ended up being just chocolate-dipped peanut butter bites and fudge which was very tasty and welcome on a hot day but not quite as surprising as the resurrection of extinct of reptiles.
the fact that this didn’t end up all over my pants was a small miracle
When I finally made it Sioux Falls, I went looking for a nice place to get dinner and a drink. I was also perhaps overly-optimistic hoping to find a spot to drop in and do comedy, because I’ve heard universally positive things about the Sioux Falls comedy scene from both the comics I met in Rapid City and from Boston comics who’ve traveled through. I had no luck with comedy, but one of the venues that sometimes hosts shows was a fantastic brewpub called Monk’s House of Ale Repute, and when I showed up and saw that out front they had a funny parody of Robert Indiana’s iconic pop-art Love Sculpture I knew I found the place for me.
Monk’s was awesome on both food and drink fronts, and I had a great time there enjoying my meal and chatting with the bartender. For food, I kept it simple since I’d just recently downed a bunch of ice cream and got the BLTG sandwich (a BLT plus guacamole) which was no frills but perfectly done. For beer, I got one of the house made brews from their in-house Gandy Dancer Brewery (named after a light-hearted job title for the backbreaking work of laying railroad spikes) called the Raccoon Toaster beer which was a dark German styled beer called a Weizenbock, which had both the richness of more common darker beers like stouts and porters with a lighter, lager-y body and drinkability. It was an excellent compliment to the food, and a perfect way to wind down after 7ish hours on the road.
After dinner, I made my way to my Air BnB for the night and passed out almost immediately.
Favorite Random Sightings: a billboard for “Motorcycle Attorneys” (I think they specialize in laws around motorcycles but I like the idea that they just ride them everywhere); No Name City (an actual real place); and an insane billboard advertising a restaurant with the slogan “Serial grillers, we also smother potatoes” (so creepy)
Regional Observations: Driving through the plains were largely empty, but there were hay bails everywhere. Monet would have had a field day.
Albums Listened To: Today I just worked on finishing the Lincoln in the Bardo audiobook, which made me get embarrassingly emotional alone in my car.
Joke of the Day:
The Pope just finished a tour of the East Coast and was taking a limousine to the airport. Since he'd never driven a limo, he asked the chauffeur if he could drive for a while. The reluctant chauffeur pulled over along the roadside, climbed into the back of the limo, and the Pope took the wheel. The Pope then merged onto the highway and accelerated to over 90 mph to see what the limo could do.
Suddenly, the Pope noticed the blue light of the State Patrol in his side mirror, so he pulled over. The trooper approached the limo, peered in through the windows, then said, "Just a moment please, I need to call this in."
The trooper called in and explained to the chief that he had a very important person pulled over for speeding. "How do I handle this, chief?" asked the trooper.
"Is it the Governor?" questioned the chief. "No! This guy is even more important!"
"Is it the President?" asked the chief.
"No! Even more important!"
"Well, who the heck is it?" screamed the chief.
"I don't know, sir," replied the trooper, "but he's got the Pope as his chauffeur."
Songs of the Day:
I didn’t really listen to any music today so here’s the only avant-garde disco/jazz/cello/funk song I know that’s all about corn:
this song is wild. Arthur Russell had been one of my favorite musical discoveries since my road trip ended, because he was such a Zelig like character. He started out as young queer Cello prodigy from Iowa who fled the plains for a Buddhist retreat in SF where he became friends with Allen Ginsberg who took him to NYC, where he met Warhol and became a rising star among minimalist classical composers like Philip Glass and Steve Reich before taking a left turn into disco making these wild dance compositions for the artsy Gay nightclub scene. When he died of AIDS at only 40, he’d only put out one album and a handful of singles, but thanks to music nerds and a loving boyfriend who saved all his masters, dozens of posthumous releases have come out since revealing a sweeping enigmatic discography including fantastic early singer-songwriter works, punk songs, classical instrumental suites, and of course disco. What a fascinating guy