This is not your normal night
We’re lounging on the couch, watching TV, and for whatever reason, I say to Chris: “maybe I need to learn how to make a tourniquet before we go to North Dakota next weekend.” Before I know it, I’ve crawled deep into a YouTube hole of top-of-the-line tourniquet videos made by tactical military dudes that could break me in half just by stepping into my personal space. They all say the same thing: buy a real tourniquet, don’t buy a knock-off. So in less than thirty minutes, I have over $50 of North American Rescue supplies headed my way, Prime-shipped of course, to make extra sure they’re in our van before we head north. Ready for battle. And that battle might be the next incarnation of the Manchester Death House.
Grab some milk and cookies, have I got a story for you.
Five years ago
It’s the fall of 2017. We’re on a big road trip to shoot various abandoned locations throughout the South Dakota area. This is our first tête-à-tête with the Death House. Luckily, we got out with only wounds to our pride. Upon arrival, the sky was a putrid slate gray and winds gusted to about 50mph, as demonstrated in this video where I thought I was speaking plenty loud enough.
Winds at this level meant our camera tripod wouldn’t remain still enough to shoot an exposure time of more than a few seconds (we need at least two minutes). All we could manage was a quick snap with a bare flashlight, as seen here:
Oh how I wish that arrow was actually there by that ominous plank of wood because it would’ve been our Red Level Warning omen to stay far, far way from this place.
Two years later
On another photography trip to the Dakotas, we return to the scene of the crime yet to be committed. The skies above Manchester are a gorgeous gradient of midnight-meets-cerulean with a low swath of creamy rose-gold cuddled close to the horizon, plus just an obnoxious number of stars. No wind. Full moon. Perfection. Let’s go.
Usually when we’re at a site, we spend about three hours to shoot different angles and try out different colors. I checked the tape: that night we took five shots in one color. Unheard of. Even when we’ve run through the entirety of Mr. Roy G. Biv’s closet of technicolor dream coats, Chris will ask me if we’ve tried some outrageously rare one like Puce.
We take just five shots because after I light up the house for the fifth time, on my way back down the porch, the plank of wood—yes, the very same plank that Red Arrow tried to warn me about—attacks my boot with its shimmery frosty top layer. I slip, my feet go forward, my body goes backward, and I slam the back of my head on the plank which I’m sure is laughing maniacally at my expense. To say the least, I was shook. Sure there were holes in the second story that I could’ve fallen through, but this is my precious brain we’re talking about. We’re done here.
One year later
And we’re back! Technically we’re headed to Fargo, North Dakota, but we need another location for the week, so we scout the area on our way up. It’s broad daylight. No need to put our lives at risk. But Chris wants to revisit the Manchester Death House because it’s Halloween and of course.
I’m hanging out by the car, snappin’ B-roll for social and suddenly I hear a high-pitched but man-sounding yelp and the gulunk of boots hitting old rotten wood and suddenly Chris is galloping out of the house—spooked by a raccoon of all things—onto the treacherous porch, onto the evil wooden plank, and yep, down he goes. He slices his hand right open on a rusty nail poking out from god knows where. It’s like we’re on a dark, slapstick sitcom and someone out there is havin’ a real chuckle. The plank is, that fiend.
So Chris’ hand is gushing blood and we’re trying to find washcloths in our luggage, because, no Mr. Military Guy with the Epic Biceps, we do NOT have any first aid supplies. Chris plays it off like he’s going to be ok, so I drive to another old house a couple miles away to snap some more B-roll. I circle back to Chris in the van and every inch of the washcloth is soaked with blood. Neat. I quick Google search and, as it turns out, there’s an ER clinic fifteen minutes away in De Smet, once home to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I’m sure her father Charles would’ve known exactly what to do about that nefarious wooden plank.
Now, if you did your math, 2 + 1 = 3 + 2017 plus Halloween = October 31, 2020. Covid. So much Covid. Chris masks up and heads into the belly of the beast: a small rural clinic that caters to sick and injured farmers where they tell him he’s lucky he didn’t slice right through his important wrist artery area because they were running low on blood due to the raging pandemic.
No, instead of bleeding out, Chris won the prestigious second prize of seven lucky stitches to his throbbing hand. (A quick fast-forward, he also won a bonus door prize of Covid a few days later. Coincidence? No. The Manchester Death House is to blame.)
By the way, I don’t know if this is pertinent information, but we didn’t purchase a first aid kit until two years later after Chris was stung by a wasp in our art booth and we thought: yeah maybe first aid would be a good idea in our line of work.
So now we are loaded up to the crumbly open rafters with all the standard first aid supplies, plus enter/exit wound chest seals, rolled gauze that comes out of a hole so the rest stays sterile, and the coveted Combat-Application-Tourniquet in Rescue Orange. (And don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere near the Death House this coming weekend.)
Speaking of which…
Hey, you know who else could use a first aid kit? The Arts.
I need to take advantage of this perfect segue because the past three years have been one hell of a wild roller coaster that included one financial up but mostly many financial downs (which, in theory, you’d think would make for a pretty neat roller coaster idea but not in the real world, Mr. R.C. Tycoon). I don’t know who to blame. Is it inflation and interest rates? Is it egg prices? Is it that low-to-middle-class Americans, who can’t even buy a house anymore, have to put art patronage last on their budget? Is it ChatGPT? It’s A.I., isn’t it?
With all that said, I just spent about two and a half days (I lied, three) writing the most epic Think Piece trying to convince the reader—but mostly myself—that maybe A.I. isn’t the death of art. Maybe everyone is making too big of a deal about it because I found a factoid where—upon seeing his first Daguerreotype photograph in 1939—French painter Paul Delaroche was quoted as saying, “From today, painting is dead!” Painting, of course, never died at all. It just took a wild turn when people decided to paint melting clocks instead of pastoral landscapes. So why can’t Human Art get more interesting than A.I. Art?
You know what also got much more interesting? Scraping that entire 2500-word think piece I wrote over three days to write about this adventure instead. I did it in about two hours with the majority of that time spent searching for the bloody receipts of Death House and it was way more fun.
The only way we artists are ever gonna beat the bots and the busted up economy is to have a good time on the roller coaster, even when it keeps going down and like way too many times. Because, sure, I was easily and quickly able to prompt Midjourney to create this hauntingly beautiful Moonlit Night landscape of an abandoned house in rural North Dakota, Blue windows, photo taken by Hasselblad, professional lighting, 50mm, 80mm, 100m --ar 3:2 --v 4…
…But it didn’t get me any cool f-actual stories about attempted murder by wooden plank, blood soaked prairie dirt, and reading my Tarot cards in the front seat of our van while waiting in the De Smet ER parking lot while my husband gets stitched up and maybe contracts Covid. Ok ok, I could’ve prompted ChatGPT to graverob the internet and Frankenstein something together. But I don’t need to. I’ve got the real deal inside my still-in-tact brain bucket.
And just you wait ‘til I get to this story:
So welcome!
The theme: Not your normal night.
The mission: Rescue art.
The goal: Keep you entertained as best we can.
So on that note, are you thirsty for more? We’ve got another one for you…
lfg
Your writing is such fun to read. I get the feeling that it's also fun to write. Love this!