Just like that, it’s November.

My favorite season-within-a-season this time of the year is ginkgo tree leaf season. The fan-shaped leaves go full golden and typically lose all of their leaves in a single day. The trees remind me of something right out of a Seuss book.

Savor ‘em while you can.

See ya ’round the county!

-Ed (connect on LinkedIn)

Today’s cover art is “Reach for the Stars” by Horst Arts, painted on the side of Zion Lutheran Church in Manheim. Photo cred: Jason at Horst Arts. Check out their new shop opening in the city this First Friday or follow all of their work.

If you know an artist who should be featured as the weekly cover art, forward this email.
We love to feature local artists, creators, and those who celebrate Lancaster thru all mediums.

Let’s share a bowl of soup…

There’s still time to add your favorite fall soup recipe to the list. I’m looking for the bowl recipe you and your siblings would fight over if there was just one bowl left…

take my grammy’s 3×5 recipe and let’s slurp

Today’s a big day… the Loop launches its very first video game.

Meet our hero: Sir Siegfried Farnon Hanko. Sieggy to his friends. Rescue pup. Zero gaming experience (lacks opposable thumbs).

Very food motivated.
Still mastering, “sit”.
Eager to guide you around Lancaster.

The game is simple, but made to be fun: run, jump, duck, pass a friend, win a prize, help an animal charity.

You (Sieggy) are going to crash. A lot. That’s kind of the point. Have fun.

This game comes with a personal doguarantee for improving your happiness 391%.
Sieggy says so.

Which is also why Growth-ish is the perfect sponsor for launch week. Brandon Stanchock founded Growth-ish and is a gamer himself. You don’t get better overnight. You get better one run at a time. Level by level. Every crash, you go a little further and get a little weirder. That’s growth…ish. Read more about Brandon in the sponsor section below.

THE PRIZE: Whoever has the top score on Monday 11/9 at 6p wins a $100 gift card to Cabalar Meat Co and a $100 donation in their name to one of three charities of choice. Sieggy expects burger scraps.

Trash-talking amongst your coworkers, friends, and animal lovers is highly encouraged. There is already one Spanish-speaking Hanko cousin in Europe with a few-hour advantage planted atop the leaderboard.

Now go play a few runs and find out…who’s a good boy?

PLAY SIEGGY TAKES A LOOP → play.lancloop.com

P.S. Sieggy has no IG, no agent, and no idea he might be a star. But he’ll get a big bone for all his hard work this week.

Grab Your Mallets, Lancaster: It’s Marimba Week

Picture a xylophone. Now make it bigger, warmer, and a lot more soulful. Hang some metal tubes under the wooden bars so every note pings like a tiny pipe organ. That is a marimba.

I had no clue.

Nor did I know the importance of marimba in Lancaster County. There is tons of history here and this week is the annual celebration in Lancaster for everything marimba.

A marimba lands in the percussion family and its roots track back hundreds of years to Africa, then over to Central America. The modern-day concert marimba though is only about 100 years old. Which is where a legend from Manheim enters the story.

Meet the Godfather of the Modern Marimba

Clair Omar Musser was born in Manheim in 1901. He began on violin, piano, and xylophone. Then he switched to marimba and pretty much owned the instrument.

He started his own marimba instrument company. He conducted a 100-piece marimba orchestra at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. He marimba’d.

Then he left music, went into aerospace, and consulted for NASA. Later he built a musical instrument out of melted-down meteorites. Very meta of you, Musser.

The Mural (aka this week’s cover art…scroll back up)

That rocket you’re looking at lives on the side of Zion Lutheran Church at 2 S. Hazel St. in Manheim, two doors down from where Musser lived. Horst Arts of Manheim painted it with support from the Lancaster Marimba Ensemble.

The marimba bars curving through space show Musser’s music career. The rocket shows NASA. “Reach for the Stars” is for the preschoolers who walk past it every day and for the rest of us grown-up kids who need reminders to play.

Here’s your homework: Horst Arts hid 10 rockets in the mural. Stop past with a neighbor. Bring the kids. Grab a coffee. Enjoy art.

Fantastic First Friday tie-in: Horst Arts is opening a new Makers Space in downtown Lancaster. Resident artist spaces are available, so if you’re a maker looking for a home base, go say hi and ask about it. Maybe you’ll help paint the next Lancaster mural.

The Festival: 50+ marimbists here to jam.

The Heartland Marimba International Festival brings more than 50 marimba players from around the country and the world to Lancaster County. It’s presented with the Lancaster Marimba Ensemble.

Events:

The History | Wednesday 630p
FREE: Marimba historian David Harvey tells Pennsylvania’s marimba story at the Manheim Historical Society (the old train station, 210 S. Charlotte St.). You’ll be a few blocks from the mural. Rocket hunt first?

The Road Tripper | Thursday 730p
FREE: A marimba orchestra concert at Lebanon Valley College in Annville.

The First Friday Double Feature | Friday 12-9p
FREE: Catch me at hte Ware Center at noon, hit the Horst Makers Space opening, then walk back to the Ware Center for Heartland Marimba at 7p. Art, then the music it celebrates.

The Date Night | Saturday 730p
The “Jukebox” Concert at the Ware Center with Heartland Marimba, a handbell choir, a retired Air Force Band percussionist, and the Lancaster Marimba Ensemble.

The Grand Finale | Sunday 230p
The full festival orchestra at Millersville’s Winter Center, with Stravinsky, Florence Price, and Kreisler all played on marimba.

Find a good spot to listen. Then go find the rockets.

The Lancaster Marimba Ensemble is giving away a pair of tickets to one of this weekend’s paid shows, Saturday or Sunday. Big thank you to Stephanie Smith of LME for the gift.

Here’s how it works:

📍 Make your guess below.
📍 I’ll pull 20 names and email them tonight at 8p.
📍 First to reply wins both tickets.

FREE TICKETS:

Last week Kerry and Ryan of Barn Boy Games asked the Loop for one more push: 300 backers before the clock ran out.

Lancaster said hold my wet-bottomed shoofly pie.

Their Kickstarter wrapped Sunday with 320 backers and $23,796 raised, almost 160% of their original goal. If you backed it, you helped make that happen. Email high five!

play this week’s height fight

I only like to introduce you to people I’ve broken bacon with and trust. Brandon Stanchock checks both boxes. By day he’s CEO of SWF Industrial. But his one-on-one conversations kept him in a doom loop. People weren’t short on potential. They were short on a place to think out loud without judgment.

So he started Growth-ish. Not to “coach,” but to give folks a place to breathe, think, and get clear.

For leaders and teams there’s the Growth-ish Insight Experience: three assessments that shine a flashlight on blind spots in culture, purpose, and accountability. Less guessing, more fixing. For individuals, whether you’re stepping intoyour first leadership roles or a seasoned exec ready to LEVEL UP (🎮).

His motto? “Stay weird. Grow anyway.”
Scroll back up to his pic. He’s literally the motto.

That’s why he’s also backing Sieggy’s launch week. Every crash is feedback, and every run you get a little further. Clearly, Brandon is also a gamer.

connect with brandon

The Loop is nearing our one-year anniversary…hello next week’s edition is #52!?!
The first edition, on November 18th, 2025, landed in exactly six inboxes. (hiya, Mom!) Each week it’s researched, written, and sent by one local human (👋).

I find all the good of L🌹nc🌹ster and share it with you.
Always free, always local.

If the Loop has earned your weekly read, make a contribution of any size and receive my eternal gratitude and a high-five or hug at a future IRL event. Every dollar goes back into growing our community. Can’t or don’t want to? I still ❤️🤍 you.

contribute to the loop

Here are some clues: For years, these locations kept me running, one medium black hot at a time. But as a self-respecting police officer, I refused to touch their circular treats. A cop eating donuts? No me gusta.

Which location am I in front of here?

Name the Lancaster County town to win.