In this feature-length video essay that explores the role places play in storytelling, Rolf examines how Kansas -- his home state -- has been imagined, distorted, and mythologized in cinema and television for more than a century.

Blending archival film clips, historical analysis, and deeply personal narration, Kansas Never Plays Itself traces how cinematic shorthand shapes our collective imagination. The video essay invites viewers to reconsider what it means for a location to “play itself” — and what’s lost when the real landscapes and communities behind our most beloved stories remain unseen.

Sneak preview of the video essay is online here.

Chapters:

0:00 - Intro: Not in Kansas Any More

Movies and TV shows mentioned: The Wizard of Oz (1939); Showdown at Abilene (1956); Gunsmoke (1955-1975); Dances with Wolves (1990); Kansas (1995); Capote (2005); The English (2022).

2:00 - Part 1: No Place Like Home (or, Hollywood can’t tell the truth about places)

Movies and TV shows mentioned: Suits (2011); Law & Order: SVU (2006); Elementary (2019); The Affair (2014); Slumber (2017); Vancouver Never Plays Itself (2015); Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003); Panic in the Streets (1950); Wichita (1955); Stark: Mirror Image (1986); Seinfeld (1992); Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987); The Ice Harvest (2005); The Beach (2000); Mutiny on the Bounty (1962); Brigadoon (1954); Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989); Star Wars: A New Hope (1977); Game of Thrones (2012); The Game Camera (2025).

15:05 - Part 2: Why Place Matters (or, The Wizard of Oz and Superman might be a little bit racist)

Movies and TV shows mentioned: The Wiz (1978); The Wizard of Oz (1933); The Wizard of Oz (1925); The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910); Oz the Great and Powerful (2013); Wicked (2024); Smallville (2001); Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987); Man of Steel (2013); The Music Man (1962); Meet Me in St. Louis (1944); Gone with the Wind (1939); Swing (1938); Birthright (1939); Lying Lips (1939); Shaft (1971); The Learning Tree (1969); Oscar Micheaux documentary (2021); Adventures of Superman (1952–1958); Superman (1978).

32:25 - Part 3: Why Location Matters (or, How movies lie when depicting places

Movies and TV shows mentioned: Office Space (1999); Swingers (1996); Little Shop of Horrors (1986); Avatar (2009); The Matrix (1999); The Breakfast Club (1985); Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986); Splendor in the Grass (1961); Picnic (1955); Stand by Me (1986); Kansas (1988); Paper Moon (1973); In Cold Blood (1967); In Cold Blood TV miniseries (1996); Capote (2005); Infamous (2006); Smoke Signals (1998); Geronimo (1962); Navajo Joe (1966); Masterson of Kansas (1954); Buffalo Dance (1894); Last of the Renegades (1964); “Keep America Beautiful” PSA (1971); In the Land of the Headhunters (1914); Among the Cannibal Isles of the South Pacific (1918); The Rider (2017); Reservation Dogs (2021-2023).

54:15 - Part 4: Why Kansas Matters (hint: it’s because all places matter)

Movies and TV shows mentioned: He Got Game (1998); Crooklyn (1994); Do the Right Thing (1989); Lady Bird (2017); Boogie Nights (1997); Citizen Ruth (1996); Election (1999); About Schmidt (2002); Jayhawkers (2014); Ninth Street (1999); Destination Planet Negro (2013); The Incredible Brown NDN 2 (2020); Dancing on the Moon (2003); The Dead Can’t Dance (2010); Unsurety (2022); Fear Not (2020); Somebody Somewhere (2022-2024); 42nd Street (1933); King Kong (1933); Citizen Kane (1941); Guys and Dolls (1955); Sweet Smell of Success (1957); The French Connection (1971); Dog Day Afternoon (1975); Annie Hall (1977).

1:09:00 - Postscript and end credits

“I’m interested in writing because I don’t want to sleepwalk through life. I feel like we have an appallingly brief time on earth, and we’re here to see and understand and do as much good as we can before we’re gone.” –Anthony Doerr

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Anthony talk about how the pace of travel changes the experience of travel, and what it’s like to travel as a writer (2:45); how to manage the local and the global, the specific and the universal, the concrete and the speculative, in one’s writing (12:30); how the idea of “home” influences one’s craft as a writer who travels (23:00); common mistakes writers make when writing about places and cultures they don’t know well, and humiliating travel (and book-tour) experiences (31:00).

Anthony Doerr is a novelist and essayist, and short story writer. His 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was made into a Netflix miniseries in 2023.

Books and authors mentioned:

Other links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

Note: This encore episode is dedicated to the memory of Alice Potts, who died on August 20, 2025, aged 81.

“In America aging is often seen as an insult rather than an inevitable human process. We don’t celebrate getting older; we ‘fight’ age by pretending to be young.” –Rolf Potts

In this episode of Deviate Rolf and his parents, Alice and George Potts, talk about how surviving the COVID-19 pandemic has changed their relationship, and how it gave them a pretext to go through a “death checklist” together (3:00); how one’s grandparents and parents live on in one’s memories and one’s conversations, the life-values they passed on, and what it felt like when those loved ones declined and died (14:00); how, over the years, elderly people and philosophers have come to terms with notions of decline and death (31:00); and personal insights about what it’s like to have grown older after having lived a long life (44:00).

George and Alice Potts are retired schoolteachers based in Kansas. George taught science at various Wichita high schools, as well as at Friends University, where he pioneered graduate-level programs in Zoo Science and Environmental Studies. He also helped facilitate the Outdoor Wildlife Learning Sites (OWLS) program for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Alice taught second graders in the Wichita public schools for more than 30 years. In 1994 her classes succeed in promoting legislation to declare the barred tiger salamander the Kansas State Amphibian.

Notable Links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

“No endeavor to write a travel book is ever lost, since it gives you a useful perspective on (and intensified attention to) the reality of the travel experience itself. When embraced mindfully, the real-time experience of a journey is invariably its truest reward.”  –Rolf Potts

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf touches on nine lessons from attempting to write a (never finished) van-life vagabonding memoir at age 23, including:

On Pilgrims in a Sliding World (1:00)

Lesson #1: No work is lost (and “failure” has lessons to teach)

On the author as a character (6:30)

Lesson #2: “Show, don’t tell” is still good narrative advice

On depicting other people (14:30)

Lesson #3: Travel books require reporting (not just recollecting)

On recounting dialogues (22:30)

Lesson #4: Be true to what was said (but make sure it serves a broader purpose)

On veering from the truth (32:30)

Lesson #5: The truth tends to work better than whatever you might make up

On depicting places (39:30)

Lesson #6: “Telling details” are better than broad generalizations about a place

On neurotic young-manhood (48:30)

Lesson #7: Balance narrative analysis with narrative vulnerability

The seeds of Vagabonding (1:01:30)

Lesson #8: Over time, we write our way into what we have to say

The journey was the point (1:06:30)

Lesson #9: In the end, taking the journey counts for more than writing it

Books mentioned:

Essays, poems, and short stories mentioned

Places and events mentioned

Other links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

“Realizing that you will die greatly clarifies your vision of life, and stimulates opportunities for making the vision real.”  –Ed Buryn

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ed discuss the impetus behind Ed’s first travels to Europe by van in the 1960s, and his early forays into self-printed and self-promoted books about the experience (3:00); how travel to Europe was different 50 years ago, and the joy and freedom that comes with not knowing what happens next (14:30); Ed’s philosophies and influences, including living in “the now” (21:00); how travel allows you to reinvent yourself, and how meeting people is the best gift of travel (36:00); and Ed’s ambitions for poetry and travel, and his advice to travelers in today’s world (44:30).

Ed Buryn is an author and photographer who was one of the first to popularize the term “vagabonding” through the publication of his books Vagabonding In Europe and North America and Vagabonding in America. For more about Ed, check out https://edburyn.com.

Notable Links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

"No one motivation is ‘better’ than any other. We travel with different motivations at different times, and they sometimes overlap." –Ash Bhardwaj

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ash talk about curiosity as a motivation for travel (1:30); the ancient Greek concepts of happiness that underpin human motivations like travel, and how mentors influence travel (14:00); serendipity as a motivation for travel, Type One versus Type Two fun, and the dangers of "voluntourism" (21:00); how "awe" differs from "wonder," how to bring these perspectives home, and how "eroticism" can be a part of travel (36:30); "grief travel," and how one's sense for travel can become intertwined with a sense of hope (48:30).

Ash Bhardwaj is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster, and the author of Why We Travel.

Notable Links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

"Time spent traveling on trains, just staring out the window: I don't think that's lost time. That's when we have our best ideas." –Kim Krizan

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kiki introduce their interview with Kim Krizan by talking about their own personal love of the movie Before Sunrise, and how they first experienced it (0:30); Kim talks about her early travel experiences in Czechoslovakia as a teenager, and in England in her twenties (14:30); how the low-information technological moment of travel in the 1990s doesn't exist anymore in the 2020s (23:30); how Kim became involved with helping Richard Linklater write Before Sunrise, and their creative process in working together (34:00); Kim's ongoing relationship to the movie, 30 years after it came out (44:00); and an "Easter egg" segment featuring Kiki reading Melissa Fite Johnson's poem "Before Sunrise on the VCR" (55:30).

Kim Krizan (@kimkrizan) is the Oscar-nominated cowriter of the Before Sunrise movies, and the author of Spy in the House of Anaïs Nin.

Kristen “Kiki” Bush is an actress, known for Paterno, Liberal Arts, Suits, Law & Order: SVU, and onstage performances at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public, and Lincoln Center.

Notable Links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

"Time spent traveling on trains, just staring out the window: I don't think that's lost time. That's when we have our best ideas." –Kim Krizan

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kiki introduce their interview with Kim Krizan by talking about their own personal love of the movie Before Sunrise, and how they first experienced it (0:30); Kim talks about her early travel experiences in Czechoslovakia as a teenager, and in England in her twenties (14:30); how the low-information technological moment of travel in the 1990s doesn't exist anymore in the 2020s (23:30); how Kim became involved with helping Richard Linklater write Before Sunrise, and their creative process in working together (34:00); Kim's ongoing relationship to the movie, 30 years after it came out (44:00); and an "Easter egg" segment featuring Kiki reading Melissa Fite Johnson's poem "Before Sunrise on the VCR" (55:30).

Kim Krizan (@kimkrizan) is the Oscar-nominated cowriter of the Before Sunrise movies, and the author of Spy in the House of Anaïs Nin.

Kristen “Kiki” Bush is an actress, known for Paterno, Liberal Arts, Suits, Law & Order: SVU, and onstage performances at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public, and Lincoln Center.

Notable Links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

“If you're someone who's always dreamed of going to Mars but you don't have the time to become an astronaut, you can just visit the Atacama Desert.” –Mark Johanson

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Mark talk about how Mark became interested in the Atacama Desert, and his experience in other world deserts (1:45); what Mark sought when he traveled through the region (16:00); what it's like to experience the area, and why it's known as "Mars on Earth" (26:00); what travelers can do there, and what it's like for Mark to live in Chile (36:30).

Mark Johanson (@markonthemap) is an American journalist and travel writer based in Santiago, Chile. His first book is Mars on Earth: Wanderings in the World’s Driest Desert.

Notable Links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

“If you're someone who's always dreamed of going to Mars but you don't have the time to become an astronaut, you can just visit the Atacama Desert.” –Mark Johanson

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Mark talk about how Mark became interested in the Atacama Desert, and his experience in other world deserts (1:45); what Mark sought when he traveled through the region (16:00); what it's like to experience the area, and why it's known as "Mars on Earth" (26:00); what travelers can do there, and what it's like for Mark to live in Chile (36:30).

Mark Johanson (@markonthemap) is an American journalist and travel writer based in Santiago, Chile. His first book is Mars on Earth: Wanderings in the World’s Driest Desert.

Notable Links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].