IN Day 1 - Ice Cream, Icons, and Indoor Markets
My first full day in Indiana also coincided with another 30,000 miles of driving, so I had to take my car in for major service. Fortunately, Ed Martin Nissan was pretty much halfway between my Airbnb and Indianapolis’ city center. They were incredibly helpful, and they even helped repair my front bumper from where the bobcat back in North Dakota did some pretty hefty damage (not a sentence I thought I’d ever write).
While my car was being worked on, I took an Uber to the Indianapolis City Market (temporarily closed at the time of writing of this, unfortunately). The market is massive, housing dozens of local vendors in a historic brick market hall that was originally built to sell bananas that the city’s early Italian immigrants introduced to the city. That must have been an absolute ton of bananas!
Unfortunately, I didn’t think to actually photograph the market itself, but it was an impressive building so I took some photos from the internet to show it off:
I started by getting a good, strong iced coffee from Mile Square Coffee, a great local roaster that is sadly closed while the market is being renovated. Reenergized, I got an early lunch at The Tamale Place. As the name implies, they specialize in one thing, but they do that thing well. Once my dumb ass realized I had to remove the banana leaves the tamales were steamed in, I was treated to some deliciously soft corn dough with flavorful sauces, cheese, and tender meat. I wanted the full tamale experience, so I got one chicken in green sauce and one roasted pork in red sauce. Both were fantastic.
After lunch at the City Market, I walked around the city center, which was built around the towering Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument. The monument clocks in at 284.5 feet, and it was built between 1888-1901 as a tribute to Indiana’s veterans of the Civil War (though it also came to become a monument to Indiana’s veterans from every conflict before then as well). Beyond the striking height of the tower, the monument makes an impression with several bronze and limestone sculptures and fountains that really make it a beautiful centerpiece for the city.
My first non-food or car maintenance stop of the day was to visit a museum to dedicated to the Hoosier who’s probably had the biggest impact on me personally: Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonnegut’s books were something my sister shared with me when she was in college and I was in middle school, and they charged throough me like an electric current. I had never read anything like him that was funny, sad, sharp, and humanist and just completely obliterated genre distinctions. He really opened my eyes to a way of viewing the world that was absurdist without being nihilisitic, which as a little boy gradually losing the floor that Cathloicism provided was a real lifesaver to have a way of belieiving in something without belieiving in God. The fact that he was able to cut so deep while also being laugh out funny at points really blew my young mind. Plus, it was a shared thing that made me feel close to my sister when she was far away. This is all to say, the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Museum and Library was one of the stops in Indianapolis I was most excited for.
Beyond curating exhibits about the author’s life and work, The Vonnegut Museum and Library also does a lot of really cool work to further the causes Kurt championed, including sponsoring awards for local writers, providing resources for educators and students, and creating opportunties for veterans to pursue arts, continuing education, and employment. One of my favorite things they did was in response to Slaughterhouse-Five being banned by a local highschool, when the library offered free copies of the books to any students who wanted to read it. It felt cool to see a museum carrying on the same outspoken activism as their subject.
Walking in the first thing that greeted me was two bizarre sculptures. One was a skeet shooting trophy from a hardware store founded by Kurt’s great-grandfather, and the other was a warped bronze portrait of the author. Together, I feel like they spoke to Kurt’s themes of the weirdness inherent in Americana and brutally honest self-reflection.
Next up was a gallery of photos of Kurt Vonnegut from his young military days (featuring the purple heart he received after surviving the firebombings of Dresden) to his famous author days where he got to be celebrated alongside other science fiction luminaries such as Ray Bradbury.
The next few displays featured various Vonnegut related artifacts including his glasses, an unopened box of cigarettes his children found behind a book shelf after his death, tickets and programs from various talks he gave, and framed prints of artwork he did for his books including his famous asterisk which became a sort of logo for Vonnegut despite its originl origin as his crude drawing of an asshole.
One of the most poignant pieces of the museum’s collection was a box Vonnegut saved of every rejection he ever got for his submitted writings. It’s a humbling physical reminder that success doesn’t happen overnight and that sometimes those early rejections can leave scars even for people who do eventually obtain the acclaim they strived for.
Next up was a reading room featuring Vonnegut’s typewriter, a collection of avaialble books, and more Vonnegut themed art and memorabilia.
Framed on the wall, there was a very sweet reply Vonnegut wrote to a univeristy student regarding growing up in Indiana. He even makes a request for no further correspondence feel classically charming and self-deprecating.
Last up was more fan art, including a drawing of the world ending Ice-Nine from Cat’s Cradle, a sculpture of Billy Pigrim unstuck in time, and also naturally a complete history of the universe.
After the museum, I walked around downtown Indy for a little bit while I waited to hear back about my car. It was nice to slow down my pace for a bit and really get to see the city and enjoy some of the public art. Highlights for me included: a neat abstract scultpture called Lux Aeterna by Osman Akan whose more organic form was a cool juxtaposition in front of the more stately and classicaly Indiana statehouse; and a sculpture of John Wooden, one of the most influential Basketball coaches in Indiana’s history (which is a particularly basketball rich state history), where the coach is really in his element talking to a team of disembodied legs.
Contrasting the cool public art was some truly hellish art that was in the storefront windows of the local Circle Centre Mall. I think the fact that I couldn’t get a good picture because of the refelctice surfaces (an my own ineptitude) really adds to the haunting quality of these cursed woodworks.
Fortunately, after the next corner I turned, I was able to wash the wooden horrors from my mind by picking up a treat at South Bend Chocolate Company Chocolate Cafe. Right away I knew I was in for a good time after being greeted by their friendly staff:
I got their riff on Moose Tracks ice cream which featured peanut butter cups, fudge, and nuts. It was rich and delicious and perfect for a warm August’s day.
After I finished up my ice cream, my car was ready so I got an Uber back to the Nissan dealership. Reuninted with my freshly tuned up car, I went to Coal Yard Coffee for an afternoon pick me up. The cafe was really cool, living up to its name with lots of charcoal drawing decorating the space. The coffee was great too!
Despite the great coffee, as soon as I made it back to my AirBnB I ended up napping until the night’s mic.
The mic was at excellent (sadly now closed) spot called the Shoe Fly Public House. It had a cozy vibe and great food and drink options. They even made their own Ginger Beer which gave them quite a leg up over most open mic venues in terms of non-alcoholic options. For food I got a delicious grilled chicken flat bread. As the mic went on, I also got a great local stout from Indiana City Brewing Company (also now sadly closed, geez this blog is becoming a eulogy the longer it takes me to finish these posts).
The mic ended up being a really excellent introduction to the Indiana scene, which is relatively small (I’d end up seeing a lot of these folks at mics throughout the week) but really strong. My favorite comic of the night was a guy named Austin Fry who had some really silly self deprecating zingers:“I'm not smart, I won't tell you how old I was when I learned that it's not vanilla folders” “I was always really scared of shitting in karate, I thought the Sensai could legally kill me”.
Other Highlights:
Kale A - My parents sent me to a camp in Michian and said “Learn as much about yourself as you will about michigan” What did I learn about Michigan, I'm gay. Family was not happy about that one
Karen Close- As seen on tv. Walmart is selling your shit right between the thing that makes your thunder thighs strong and the cheese grater for your feet
Grace bahler - When I was 8, I used to steal people's lunch boxes and then give them back so people would like me
Kristen Day- Black hallmark cards so funny they'll just throw an ain't in there
Seth Polock- my ex won the breakup, she slept with a pilot
My own set went pretty well, and more importantly I got to talk and hang out with some of the other comics for a bit and get some pointers for where to go for the rest of the week. All in all a really solid first day.
Favorite Random Sightings: an ad promising “A wheelie good deal on bikes”; a billboard that said, “Guess who's back with a vengeance, that's right Nissan is”; a store wildly named Soupremacy; a spa called A Place to Float; Three Carrots Vegetarian Cuisine (doesn’t seem like enough): and this oddly poetic crumbling signage:
Regional Observation: Indianapolis has so much brick architecture which is really striking and something the Third Little Pig would love.
Random Joke Of the Day: A young boy walks into a barber shop, and the barber leans in and says to his customer, "This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch and see."
The barber then places a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, calling the boy over and asking, "Which one do you want, kid?"
The boy takes the quarters and leaves.
"See what I mean?" the barber says. "He never learns!"
Later, as the customer is leaving, he notices the same boy coming out of an ice cream parlor. "Hey, kid! Can I ask you something? Why did you pick the quarters over the dollar bill?"
The boy, enjoying his ice cream, replies, "Because if I took the dollar, the game would be over!"
Song of the Day:
One of the greatest jazz guitarists of all time, born right in Indianapolis