The Corn Palace

I was born to Mike and Kathy Brookbank on September 17th, 1982 in Mitchell, South Dakota. The town rests towards the south eastern corner of the state and is surrounded by cows, corn and prairies. However, much like the appearance of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, you'll find that without having seen the Golden Grain Oblivion for yourself, it's nearly impossible to fathom. The yellow fields stretch on and on on, disappearing, vanishing, meeting at the horizon. The amber waves of grain stand erect and alert, an army of wheat, watching you pass them on the interstate, on the highway. They have been drafted from Wheatville by the thousands and they guard the secrets of the cucumber patch. Passing through the state, you are a little helpless boat lost in a great sea of seed. If your car dies out here, chances are, so do you. Children of the Corn, hillbilly helter skelters and rednecks in wranglers. In South Dakota, no one can hear you scream.

The population rests at around 15K which means it's just big enough to make it impossible for the standard Mitchellite to know everyone personally but is just small enough to know who's worth gossiping about. It has a lake on the outskirts of town that is filled to the brim with dead fish, broken bottles and man piss. As children, my sister and I would spend our summers swimming in it, a decision I can't imagine willfully making today without at least the consideration of a Borax shower afterwards. I would often dare myself to open my eyes beneath the water where I would see nothing but a slimy, radioactive green blur. In junior high my friend had sex in the lake and to this day I'm certain that, because of it, her vagina grew teeth, maybe even a mouth and nose. Had she come to me and asked if I would inspect a nasty itch or rash down yonder for her, I would of had to respectfully decline for fear of getting bit by the toothy Pink Taco, or worse, having it start a conversation with me regarding the writings of Kafka.

Around my junior year in high school we (Mitchell) acquired a Cabela's and that was a really, really, REALLY big deal because it meant that the local economy was about to go ka-boom. Job opportunities, tourists.......dare we hope......maybe a Wal-Mart??? When I went to college and people asked me about my hometown I would simply tell them that it was really no big deal until the Cabella's moved in. I would stand there, nodding my head and smiling while they generally just stared back at me blankly, waiting for more information. I was truly and legitimately surprised to find that 95% of the populous had no idea what I was talking about. Little did I know that that phrase would soon become the story of my life. Eventually the silence was broken when they said, "What is a Kublella's?" and I would say that "it's a place where people go to make themselves more precise killers. It's the Wal-Mart of hunting stores. If you are the Charles Manson of the animal kingdom, this is your wet dream. If you want to find arrows with GPS locators on them, infrared goggles and spray that takes away your scent, this is the place for YOU!" I would take a deep breath before continuing on, "Mitchell is also the boastful home of The World's Only Corn Palace. It is the jewel of our city." My new friends would stare at me with what I initially read as intrigue and amusement but would later find was just the look you gave when watching a mentally handicapped person trying to solve a Rubix Cube. After a brief pause and a few attempts at suppressed laughter they would say loudly, hoping to attract attention, more people to watch the dancing monkey, "What, exactly, IS it? This.....Corn Palace?" This, again, is shocking to me. This notion that they didn't know what The World Famous Corn Palace was. Just look at the name! A.) It's a Corn Palace. B.) It's World Famous - how have you not heard of this!!!??? So I tell them that it looks like a legitimate palace.......made from corn. The design and architecture is strictly Russian; the building is topped with strange acorn type spires and the outside is dressed in murals made from corn husks and corn cobs; murals of Martin Luther King, murals of Apollo 13, murals of Elvis Presley. Every year they change and every year they are more and more elaborate and intricate. Last time I visited I actually discovered that The Corn Palace had a mural of the Corn Palace on it. The Beatles, Abraham Lincoln, The Corn Palace. As you can see, it holds itself in QUITE high esteem and RIGHTLY SO (World Famous). I drive past it and I try to put myself in the position of the weary traveler, pulled from the interstate by billboards promising an "A-MAIZE-ING experience" or the oath of "To see is human, to EAR divine", obviously a reference to an ear of corn and, for those of you not familiar with the slew of different vocab for corn, 'MAIZE' is only one of many. Much like the eskimos with the word for snow, South Dakotans and Nebraskans have over seven HUNDRED names for the stuff, Yellow Gold among them. The tourists stand on the sidewalk opposite the "palace" and take pictures of it's many fine virtues. I wonder if any of them come back year after year, monitoring, observing, chronicling the changing exterior.

If I didn't know what was inside this King Cob, what would I imagine? I would think that it would be filled with art made from corn, just like the outside. Louis and Clark, made from cobs, pointing out to a vast unexplored ocean of popcorn seed, their fingers made from stiff throws of baby corn. Their pupils Old Maids (the popcorn seeds that don't pop), their ascots (Louis and Clark wear ascots in my imagination) are made from flowing yellow corn husks. Perhaps someone is selling corn cob pipes (perhaps Louis and Clark are even using them) or perhaps they have..........I DON'T KNOW! I can't think of any stupid art to make out of corn. If I was going to make a piece of art I wouldn't choose corn for my medium! You walk into the The World Famous Corn Palace (self-proclaimed) and you find that it is nothing more than a self-satisfying monument to itself. Pictures hang on the wall, pictures of The World Famous Corn Palace, year after year. In one of the photos there is an image of a swastika made out of corn, planted (get it) firmly above the front doors of the building. People say it's an Indian good luck sign and that Hitler inversed it and made it his own. People say The World Famous Corn Palace is haunted by the ghost of a deceased circus performer. People call it the world's biggest bird feeder. Pigeons from all over the region are attracted to this bird buffet. They gather and they peck and they eat George Washington's face, gouging his eyes out. They crap all over the picture of the capital building and they nest in the 2-D teepees that Crazy Horse might have dwelt in. The birds (but mainly the bird poop and the utter lack of respect the birds seem to hold for the pride of their nation) become so bad, so out of control, that the city heads gather to conspire against the pigeons, the doves and the robins. There will be an uprising and the winged rats will never see it coming. The blue jays, the sparrows, the hummingbirds, they won't know what hit 'em.

The mayor, his eyes glowing red in a dark room, a cigar hanging from his mouth, he says, "We will befriend them and we will attack from the inside out". The head of Parks and Rec smiles maliciously and nods. "Yes....yes, the plan is brilliant, your majesty". The villains, the masterminds, the mob, they purchase pallets and crates and boxes filled with corn and they purchase as many vials and jars of poison as they can. They use my taxes. They use my money. And they laugh. They poison the corn and they hire a man the bird's recognize as friend to set the food / bait out on the roof. The bird's flock down to the complimentary dinner and they feast, unaware that this is their last meal. One after another they drop from the heavens, starry eyed and incapable of flight, crashing and exploding on the sidewalk below, usually dying on impact but sometimes just breaking their wings and legs, spinning in tight circles and screaming until, finally, they just bleed to death.

Now when the tourists come they no longer see streaks of white bird turds vandalizing the face of Emelia Earnhart. Now they have to merely step around the corpses of the avian race that litter the sidewalk, the dead feathered friends that lay like fallen soldiers on the concrete battlefield. The tourists still take photos of The World Famous Corn Palace but now they crop the sidewalk out. Some people say you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. Maybe they're right. Maybe there is a greater good to be had here. The World Famous Corn Palace Must. Live. On.