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Hope I don't dream about "the blob" tonight... ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-01-9:29 p.m.: NOW I'M GETTING THE NIGERIAN SCAM letters from Liberia. A clever ruse. Everybody knows about the Nigerian scam, so switching it to Liberia really threw me. I was seconds away from giving them my bank account #. This has been going on now for years, if I correctly remember the 2001 dates on Larry Kestenbaum's archive of Nigerian scam letters. Clearly people are buying into it, or they'd have stopped long ago.The email at right is a reply sent by a scammer to an organization fighting N. scam, from this site. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-01-1:11 a.m.: BOOKS READ: Isaac Bashevis Singer's "The King of the Fields."As if I have the chops to critique a Nobel winner. Still, a cat may look at a king, so here goes. I love Singer's works on the whole,* but this odd novel threw me. Only about halfway through does it become clear that he's describing a prehistoric stage of Poland, with hunter-gatherer societies running up against nascent Judaism and Christianity. The brutality of the lives drawn here is both gripping and unappealing. The representatives of both Judaism and Christianity come off as deluded fools babbling some mystical nonsense far removed from the simpler lives of the hunter-gatherer society. One hunter-gatherer character says of the Jewish and Christian emissaries visiting her camp, "They all seemed to Kosoka like members of one sick and deranged family that had become embroiled in bitter arguments and hatred for which there was no cure." Singer wrote this novel late in life, and it is said he was an atheist. With that in mind, one wonders if this novel is an examination of the legitimacy of Judaism and Christianity as opposed to a more direct relation to the earth, such as the hunter-gatherers that he here depicts have. In that vein, "King of the Fields" is thought-provoking. *my all-time favorite story of his is the sublime "Short Friday." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-29-5:01 p.m.: SHAKESPEARE FLUNKS THE NEW SAT: The University of California is the SAT's biggest customer. A year after the U of C's president Richard Atkinson threatened in 2001 to replace the SAT with a test that emphasized high-school math, dropped the verbal-analogies section, and included an essay, the SAT changed by emphasizing high-school math, dropping the verbal-analogies section, and included an essay. The Princeton Review applies the new SAT's essay-grading criteria to several notable writers and finds that Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage..." earns a meagre 2 out of 6 whereas the Unabomber gets a perfect score, according to this article in the Atlantic. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-28-10:30 p.m.: BOOKS READ: "Licks of Love" by John Updike. I bought this for the novella "Rabbit Remembered," a postscript chapter on the life of Harry Angstrom, called by one critic "the most fully realized character in American literature." Harry died in Updike's previous Rabbit novel, and "Rabbit Remembered" chronicles Rabbit's lasting influence, on the eve of the new millenium, on those he left behind: his son Nelson, who's ditched the coke habit and is separated from his wife and kids; Harry's wife Janice, now remarried to Ronnie, the former husband of Harry's onetime lover Thelma; and Annabelle, Harry's long-lost illegitimate daughter. As always with the Rabbit novels, Updike in "Rabbit Remembered" imperceptibly transforms the deceptively everyday subject matter into an elegiac and echoey and haunting story. Masterful.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-27-8:35 p.m.: WORLD'S MOST STUBBORN MAN DIES after refusing help after falling in his driveway and lying there for days. "Wife Fed, Covered Husband With Tarp During Storms."Umm..I'd say this lady is a couple doughnuts shy of a dozen. If my 83-year-old husband fell & told me not to get help, I'd call (via Metafilter) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-27-7:19 p.m.: EMOTIONS RAN HIGH at yesterday's packed Ypsilanti Twp library meeting, as people passionately argued for and against installing Internet filters.From the Mlive story: Isn't that an ugly thing to say? What other ugly things are in that mind of his? Doesn't seem to me he's thinking rationally. And Glenn is not to my knowledge a regular user of the library. Like me. I walk past the computer area all the time when I'm there. I haven't noticed anyone doing anything other than card catalog or Web research. Do these self-righteous concerned folks buy video games for their precious ones? Do they have cable? Do the kids' friends have these things? Get real. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-26-10:57 p.m.: YPSIDIXIT APPEARANCE NOTE: One reader emailed me to tell me that on his browser, Ypsidixit appears as black text on a green background--pretty much unreadable. I tried to pick html font colors that, to my understanding, were universal among various browsers, but if anyone has suggestions on how I can make Ypsidixit text appear as yellow and not black to this reader I would be grateful. Thanks in advance. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-26-10:21 p.m.: I AM LIGHTING AN INCENSE CONE in honor of this week's edition of the Ypsilanti Courier. Major kudos to you, O Courier! Not only did they do a giant, front-page, above-the-fold story of the wonderful local treasure Gallery 555, with 2 huge and interesting photos, they also published an opinion piece by Kathleen Conat headlined "Gays Aren't Threat to Marriage." The fact that I was surprised to see that headline in the Courier told me that I still have things to learn about my beloved "edgy blue-collar" community. Renewing my Courier subsciption now. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-26-8:13 p.m.: NO VACANCY AT THE HOGBACK HILTON: The county jail at Hogback and Washtenaw is so stuffed to the gills with criminals that from now on they'll only accept the hardest of the hardcore cases. Where will all the misdemeanor folks go? Parole?Considering that in Michigan, the first conviction for domestic violence is a misdemeanor, unlike convictions for assault between strangers and even in cases where the battered spouse goes to the hospital with a broken arm--this is very bad news for battered spouses of either sex. Excerpt from the Mlive story: "Jail officials issued a statement Wednesday saying only new offenders sentenced or charged with violent crimes, prison escape, controlled substances or weapons offenses will be accepted in the near future.  BOOKS READ: Tony Horwitz's "Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before."TWO-WORD REVIEW: Exhilarating wonder! From this review: Excerpt from the Mlive story: "Though he admits 265 is a lot of people to be waiting for a book, [AA library guy Tim] Grimes says he's not surprised. Books written by authors like John Grisham and Anne Tyler usually have sizable waiting lists, he says." I hate to burst Treetown's bubble as the Athens of the Midwest, but both Grisham and Tyler are decidedly and irredeemably low-to-middlebrow novelists. They're also, like John Irving, novelists who write the same damn book over and over and over. Let's get Thomas Aquinas's Summa on the list. Then I'd tip my hat. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-25-7:17 p.m.: "ONLY IN ANN ARBOR"...oops, um, I mean Ypsilanti...THE SICKNESS: A sophomore in Ypsi's Lincoln High School appeared in front of the school board to protest the school's no-piercings dress code. She wears an eyebrow barbell. She made copies of the First Amendment and passed it out to each board member. Now she's thinking of getting a lawyer--with Mommy and Daddy's $, I daresay--and the school is as a result being forced to seek advice from its own legal team. Here's the whole sorry story. THE PRESCRIPTION: Two years in military school would work wonders for this kid. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-25-12:17 p.m.: SHRILL FEMINIST Naomi Wolf has accused world-renowned Shakespeare scholar Harold Bloom of sexual harassment...20 years ago. Her story.Camille Paglia's take on this: My favorite observation on this from a Guardian article: Good discussion going on about this in the Independent Women's Forum. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-24-1:09 p.m.: AN OPEN LETTER TO PACKZI DICERS: I'm a patient person. But I have my limits. One of these is neurotic fiddling with food. At this moment, the box of packzi some kind soul brought in sits amid a war zone of crumbs, packzi fragments, and smears of filling. A mess. My advice: if you want a packzi, just take one. Don't cut it in quarters, thereby creating thousands of crumbs. Don't shave off one side to see what the filling is, thereby handling it and spreading God knows what germs. Don't halve it, touch it, fillet it, slice, dice, or mince it. Don't shine a flashlight into the filling hole. JUST TAKE ONE and eat it calmly and quietly. Is that so hard? ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-23-8:51 p.m.: AFTER A SICKNESS-FREE WINTER, I finally succumbed to some nasty bug or other last weekend, caused no doubt by the unwelcome news of Ralph Nader's deciding to throw his hat in the ring. On the one hand, I thought it out of line for various people, including our stellar governor Granholm, to ask him not to run--anyone has the right to run, for God's sake. On the other hand, I have some credence in the theory that Nader's running in 2000 siphoned off some possible Gore votes, so in this critical election I think we don't need any such possible siphoners. All in all, I don't see the point of Nader's running, and various chat boards I visit mostly view his choice as egoistic. He knows he won't be elected. Why on earth bother? What's the point? ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-23-7:04 p.m.: LETTER FROM FORT WORTH: A friend who is lucky enough to be traveling in Texas (envy) sends a description of the incredible amount of art in Fort Worth, which I certainly hadn't known about. "I'm sitting here in an uninspiring stretch of Dallas (there are many), waiting for my brakes to be fixed. So I'll tell you about the new Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Have you seen pictures of it? It's a large steel-beam structure that seems to be resting in a pool of water, and the reflections look different depending on the time of day and year. The razzle-dazzle factor is high. But it's one of those buildings that look better in pictures than in person. Inside, it keeps forcing you to walk around corridors to get to the views. The Kimbell Museum across the street, which many people think is America's most beautiful museum, is just there; it doesn't force itself on you.... (more in Comments). ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-22-11:21 a.m.: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC'S new Crittercam offers in-the-field looks at animals' private lives. The lions movie is worth watching--although perhaps not right before a meal. Watch penguins snatching up fish from under the deep blue ice. Other movies include seals, turtles, humpback whales, and more. I could do without the testosteroney voice-over and the synthesized reality-TV-style music soundtrack, but that's just me. Overall: fun and absorbing.(needs Realplayer or Windows Media Player). ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-21-11:30 p.m.: FERAL FAMILY DISCOVERED IN SOUTH AFRICA: A family of 6, five of whom could use no recognizable language and all of whom had had no human contact for 20 years, was found in South Africa.Excerpt: "The four children - aged 26, 22, 18 and 14 - have never had contact with the outside world and their behaviour is so animalistic they can't even communicate in an understandable language. One of them walks on all fours, almost like a monkey." The family was taken from their home, which seemed very traumatic for them, and people are trying to figure out how to integrate them into society. I don't know about that. The kids are way past the critical-language-learning age--it is doubtful they will be able to learn any language at all. I wonder if a place can be found for them. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-21-10:44 p.m.: THE ONLY PLACE WHERE YOU CAN SEE OUTSIDER ART IN ANN ARBOR is Art Oasis on Main just north of Catherine, which draws some of its students from the local mental health community, who use art as an apparently highly effective therapy. Many professional local artists also show there--I've seen some prints, in particular, that were first-rate. Worth checking out. The only other eruption of outsider art in the area is the annual March "Art from Michigan Prisoners"* exhibit at U-M. If you can't make it to either of these, you may like checking out Philadelphia's Tin Man Gallery, from which the image at right is drawn. There is also serial killer art online: (warning: some of the images are disturbing).I am still looking for suggestions on places around Ypsi to see art--even coffeehouses, &c., with small shows of local art would be appreciated. *From a previous show; they haven't posted a page for this year's show yet. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-21-3:08 p.m.: DIALECT MAPS:
1. The "first fat fiction anthology," "What Are You Looking At?" (Mother Jones) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-20-7:59 p.m.:
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-20-2:19 p.m.: ANOTHER ARGUMENT AGAINST GIVING YOUR KID AN UNUSUAL NAME is that he or she will be so scarred by the resulting teasing that they won't be able to hold a decent job and will slide into some scummy spam marketing company. Example: I just got an email from Deflate K. Backsliders. Man. What was goin' through Mr. and Mrs. Backsliders's heads? "Timmy?...Jonah?...no, wait--I got it--Deflate!" You have to wonder about some people. How does Deflate put up with the party introductions and the Viagra jokes? I'm amazed he hasn't ended it all. My heart goes out to him.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-20-11:19 a.m.: RUMOR HAS IT that the U-M Museum of Art is planning a big Georgia O'Keeffe show coming up. A friend remarks, "It's interesting that they're doing all these blockbuster-type shows. It's unusual for a university museum, but my (vague) impression is that some of the big ones, like Harvard's, do the same kind of thing. The director is a very ambitious guy and probably wants to get his name in the papers as often as possible..." And make a tidy profit on ticket sales to these hyped crowd-pleaser shows, like the recent St. Petersburg show.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-19-6:55 p.m.: HURON RIVER TRIVIA: Local pagans successfully contacted the "Spirit of the Huron River," who manifested to them as a woman with dark eyes, hair, and skin standing waist-deep in the water and named Ana. Native Americans called the river Cos-scut-e-nong sebee, Burnt District River. I can think of two stone sculptures associated with it, the damlike "sculpture" of rocks in the river in the Arb below the hospital complex and the pagoda-piles of balanced stones a bit downstream along a park trail near Parker Mill. You can monitor the water volume flow of the Huron in real time on the white chart halfway down this page. My favorite riverside spot is in Hudson Mills. Across the river is an old Potawatomie cornfield, and the space has a quiet, slightly melancholy air that creates a poetic frame of mind.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-19-3:35 p.m.:  "ONLY IN ANN ARBOR": RECENT POSTING FOUND ON AN ANN ARBOR PARENTING board (poster's name withheld): "I have a brand new Jeep Liberty Urban Terrain jogging stroller that is all put together but has never been used. Basically I ordered it online thinking all models had the "Music on the Move" system where you can plug your MP3/CD player into it and it plays music through the canopy - turns out this model doesn't have that feature and I didn't realize it until I had it all put together. Now if I send it back I have to spend $20 in shipping again...I'm hoping to sell it for what I paid for it ($115) and then get the one with the music system. I love this stroller in every other way - I did take it for a spin in my basement and it handles great! The Urban Assault Stroller at right may also be found on this site. Me: sanguine. "According to Galen's ancient theory of temperaments, people with sanguine temperaments are social, optimistic, and persuasive....[well, I'm about as social as a toenail, so that's off]...their fun-loving, curious nature naturally charms most people they interact with [what can I say]." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-16-7:07 p.m.: FIRST SIGN OF SPRING: Buds on a magnolia tree on Forest near Bagley are a fat 3/4 inch long. That's the first & only sign of Spring I've seen so far...but "the sap is rising." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-15-8:17 p.m.: I HAD THE PRIVILEGE of visiting Gallery 555 today. It's a nondescript grey warehouse at 200 Michigan Ave, on the south side of the street opposite a BP station, that conceals an art colony so vibrant and thriving that it's hard to imagine how the city can bear to demolish the building, as scheduled, next May, for townhouse construction.It's run by a 7-artist collective who, in all fairness, knew the warehouse was scheduled for demolition when they leased the place. But there was no other rentable space around--they used to be in the Tech Center before that closed. I saw Mark Maynard and Linette Lao's studio there, other interesting studios brimming with half-finished art and found objects, and just generally enjoyed the exhilerating feeling of being in such a lively, offbeat, art-filled spot. It's wonderful. Go look around before it's a pile of rubble. I don't know yet who in city government is responsible for X'ing 555 off the map, but I'm trying to find out, to beg them to reconsider. This is an oasis the city needs, and the last word in "cool cities" institutions. There were 150 people at the reception yesterday, for heaven's sake--far more than I've ever seen at any AA reception. Ypsi needs to keep Gallery 555. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-14-6:36 p.m.: YPSILANTI-RELATED ebay items are a mishmash of interesting historical jewels (Ypsi Dairy historical milk caps, Ypsi Manufacturing Co. old-timey iron trivet) and unsellable junk (1937 Cleary College yearbook).If you'll excuse me I'm gonna go put a bid on that trivet, in the interest of keeping such Ypsi items "in the family." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-14-5:38 p.m.: LINETTE LAO'S and Mark Maynard's small but good art show at Henrietta Fahrenheit offers 8 or so vibrant works. Two are semi-abstract paintings by Linette: large works about a yard square that intersperse blocks of energetic color with a nude figure and a view of part of what seems to be a kitchen. The overall feeling I get from the works is a buzzing jumble of vitality. Mark's contribution is a series of collages in which pieces of local maps keep popping up as backgrounds. I liked that--the inclusion of the maps lent a kind of depth to the works; maps are magical documents to me. Mark's works also featured numerous simply-drawn, cartoonish heads and figures. One work had two dancing pink snakes by a seaside. My favorite one bore the inscription "Fear kept falling off him like rain." Central to this work is a cartoon figure standing over a trio of women. In the upper left corner is a photo of a dapper gent with a helmet drawn over his head; in the diagonally opposite corner is a strange little clip of an alien. I liked the way these heterogenous figures played off each other. The feeling I got from his works in general was analytical alienation and a bemused and brooding introspection. Quite nice. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-13-2:48 a.m.: JACK KEROUAC created an elaborate fantasy baseball league in his youth, which came to light when his estate was donated to the New York Public Library. Excerpt from article:"Kerouac not only kept records of each player's performance, but compiled scorecards and box scores and even individual salaries and team fiscal data. *his parents were French Canadian immigrants. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-13-1:45 a.m.: THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS runs a personals ads section. For a December issue, it asked personals contributors to send in not written ads but drawn pictures. Results(click on the "personals" picture on the right, under "Multimedia".ANALYSIS: I like the one in which the guy's head is at the bottom of the picture, only the top half showing, with glowering/wary expression. And smoking Mona Lisa. (via NPR) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-12-9:52 p.m.: A FRIEND sends news of Michigan's only petroglyphs, a whole big slab of them on the ground in Sanilac. One Cranbrook archaeologist believes they're from Norse copper traders from 2,000 B.C. And some creationists weigh in with speculations that the pictures depict stegosauri. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-11-10:13 p.m.: Today, we�ll answer one of the questions sent to this blog�s weekly advice column, �ASK YPSIDIXIT.��Dear Ypsidixit, Dear Empty Mailbox: Please send questions for �ASK YPSIDIXIT� to [email protected]. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-11-7:55 p.m.: AMAZING MUSIC I would love to hear/own: a percussion piece created by postal workers in Ghana as they go about their normal work of cancelling stamps (and whistling). Wow. Here's a description of the 1975 field recording.I'm going to see if I can dig up the 4-CD set mentioned at the bottom. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-11-5:14 p.m.: A FRIEND sends an amazing page of the webcam-covered Granite Island, eleven miles out in Lake Superior. The webcam views show wild, frozen, beautiful Lake Superior scenes.
(via NPR) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-10-10:13 p.m.: TODAY my life abruptly became as exciting as the book I'm currently reading, one of my beloved polar exploration books, "The Ice Master," the agonizing tale of the doomed Arctic exploring ship the Karluk. Today the boys were packing their tea into soldered tins and making ready to leave ship, with the icepack booming and breaking up all around them and Wrangel Island, north of Siberia and west of Alaska, barely visible on the horizon...as the ship creaks and groans from blows from broken floes, it seems less and less likely they'll make it to the island...The excitement began when I ran into the plant people. These are people from a plant service that places decorative plants throughout our office--big beautiful ficus and bromeliads and such. Today they were putting new palms into the pots. I asked what they did with the old ones. We destroy them, said the plant lady. Destroy them? Those beautiful plants? Could I buy a couple? I asked. No, said the plant lady. I couldn't believe the wastefulness, and couldn't help but blurting out the conundrum to my boss, who suggested I call the building manager, who hired the plant people. Are you the vine lady? the manager asked--he has given me regular installments of ivy trimmings when pruning the ivy on the grounds, which I root in water. Yes, I said. Well, you can have them for free, he said. For FREE? I yanked on my coat and explained things to the grudging plant people, who let me climb up into the truck and poke around. I grabbed two giant schefflera, real trees as big as me, and lugged them upstairs into my cubicle, where the spectacle of two giant trees, one on the file cabinet and nearly brushing the ceiling, instantly inspired a million jokes from co-workers. "All you need is a parrot," said one. How I'll get these giants home I'm not sure--that's stage 2. At any rate, it was a major thrill for a plant lover (if not for readers, understandably)--two giant free schefflera, wow! I have a gift certificate floating around the house which I'll send with a letter of thanks to our wonderful building manager. After such pulse-pounding plant activism, the Arctic almost seemed dull as I read on the bus home. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-10-12:12 a.m.: MY 5 FAVORITE YPSI ARCHITECTURAL GEMS:1. St. John's Church: monolithic grace. March 31: �Cities as Sustainable Systems�: 3rd Annual Peter Wege Lecture (U-M Center for Sustainable Systems). Talk by Murdoch University (Perth) city policy professor Peter Newman, author of Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence and a onetime World Bank urban planning consultant. Followed by a reception. 4:30-5:45 p.m., Lydia Mendelssohn Theater. Free. 764-6453. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-09-12:00 a.m.: WHY DO YOU HATE THE ANN ARBOR NEWS? Dissing the "Snooze" is widespread and fashionable. Is it fair? Could the News better represent the area? Is it a decent paper? Or are there quantifiable areas in which they actually fall short? How could we have a better area paper?As for me, the News seems to have a subtle yet pervasive hometown boosterism which I think interferes with journalistic objectivity. I'd like to see that self-satisfied tone disappear. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-08-9:09 p.m.: "OLD-SKOOL MICHIGANDER" weighs in: Eric Weaver, the owner of the site mocking Michiganders' pronunciation and selling Michigan "gear," has weighed in, testily, in the "Michigan Accent" post of 1/22/04, below. I was wrong about him, I see. His spelling of "school" as "skool" and use of the term "homies" indicates he's cool. "My bad." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-08-8:23 p.m.: PROPERTY VALUES IN YPSI increased 9.5% last year, says an AA News story, outpacing all other spots in Washtenaw...including Ann Arbor.Incidentally I nominate the AA News's MLive webpage as one of the most cluttered, least navigable sites on the Web. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-07-4:44 p.m.: JOHNNY CASH'S SONG "RING OF FIRE" will soon appear in a Preparation H ad, says a news note in Rolling Stone. Lovely.Excerpt: "Of all the ways one could possibly choose to be remembered after shuffling off this mortal coil, we'd venture that "ass-cream hawker" wouldn't be at the top of the list. But apparently the folks who administer the musical legacy of Johnny and June Carter Cash aren't quite as picky..." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-06-7:44 p.m.: USUALLY, the folks on Metafilter spend their time 1. posting about a recently excavated collection of 12-century Laotian toe-pinky rings or equally obscure items 2. criticizing each other for lame posts or 3. posting links to exciting (yawn) new techie tidbits. So I was surprised to see a post on recollections of one's best kiss. No one, astonishingly, made the usual cutting remark about how lame the post was--instead, everyone chimed in with some rather touching and heartfelt recollections, which I'm linking to here in honor of the upcoming holiday.Guess those acerbic MeFites are really just a buncha softies... ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-06-7:30 p.m.: LADIES: Having one of those days? Add your rant to the Bitter Barren Spinster's Club rants page. I added one about double-wide strollers, but it's not posted yet. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-06-2:18 p.m.: U-M FOOTBALL PLAYER MARKUS CURRY zips around a stopped Ypsilanti schoolbus, with its flashers on, in a Hummer...and gets nabbed and now may be jailed. Curry is an undergrad who apparently lives on Waymarket St. in Ann Arbor...seems a tad odd that he'd be tooling around in Ypsi early on a Tuesday morning, instead of, say, going to class at U-M, but what do I know. Apparently he's one of the best players on the team, so one wonders about the impact on the team if he is jailed. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-06-12:35 p.m.: OPINIONATED NATIONALLY-KNOWN NEW YORK ARCHITECTURE CRITIC James Kunstler publishes an interesting "Eyesore of the Month" feature on his webpage, consisting of a photo of the offending building and a paragraph of critique. Hit the "previous month" link at the bottom for more examples. From reading his critiques I get the strong impression that architecture is a more potent force shaping society that I'd thought. From a previous month,a particularly biting comment. (thanks to boing boing) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-05-12:24 p.m.: IGGY POP ART: The Metro Times's lead story is about an exhibit, opening this weekend in Detroit, of art by 70s rock musicians, including paintings by Iggy Pop (at right), at CPOP gallery on Woodward in Detroit. The Stooges, and maybe some other musicians, will attend the opening reception on Feb. 7.Excerpt from article: �Art shows shouldn�t be staid and quiet,� laughs celebrated artist/singer Niagara, who also happens to be the show�s curator. �They [the patrons] should be drunk enough to buy the things!� ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-04-11:11 p.m.: YPSI ASKS RESIDENTS FOR IDEAS ON HOW TO SAVE MONEY: Ypsi is looking for input on how to save money. There are so many thoughtful readers of this small blog that have roots in the community and could contribute reasoned, practical suggestions.Excerpt from the Ann Arbor News article: "The City Council, which has canceled recreation programs and focused on core services such as police and fire protection, maintaining streets and collecting garbage, Tuesday approved forming a residents' group to help deal with finances." Send any ideas to the City Council here.  DRIVING FROM CUBA TO FLORIDA: Amazing. Moving. Beyond weird. A group of Cuban people fitted out a '59 Buick with a propeller and flotation devices and drove to Florida.Astoundingly, the same group of people tried the same thing earlier with a truck, pictured here.They got picked up by the Coast Guard both times. Can you imagine having a hand on the wheel in that '59 Buick and seeing endless ocean through the windshield? Driving over the roadless sea, a better life on the horizon? It reminds me of an amazing poem by our fabulous current U.S. poet laureate, Billy Collins. Here's the BBC Buick story. (thanks to NPR) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-04-8:45 p.m.: A QUESTION for wildlife experts. Does the elusive Smeet Frog hibernate in the winter? I haven't seen one in ages. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-03-8:39 p.m.: LOCAL LIVING WAGE ORDINANCE BREAKDOWN:Ypsi city: passed in June 1999 Ypsi Twp: passed in June 1999 Ann Arbor: passed in March 2001 In my thumbnail estimation, it's 25% more expensive, all told, to live in Ann Arbor than in Ypsi, having lived in A2 for over a decade and Ypsi for 6 years total (moved to present address 3 1/2 years ago but lived in Ypsi previously). I think this is a conservative estimate. Therefore, Ann Arbor's wage should be $11.33 (Ypsi's rate divided by 3=$2.83; $2.83 plus Ypsi's base rate of $8.50=$11.33) to have a comparable purchasing power to living in Ypsi. Ann Arbor workers who qualify for the living wage provision should definitely move to Ypsi, particularly if like me they work within Ann Arbor's "getDowntown" zone that nets them a free bus pass (woo!) Parting thought: Border's workers recently "won" an hourly starting wage rate of slightly over half of $11.33/hr. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-03-6:51 p.m.: READING H. L. MENCKEN with huge enjoyment when I came across this gem:MASTERS OF TONE Wagner---The rape of the Sabines...a kommers in Olympus. ANN ARBOR NEWS: "The rise, the fall and the rise again; the Riverside Arts Center has defied fires, neglect and state grant shortfalls to take its place of prominence on historic Huron Street row." Roundup and background info on the recent improvements to the Riverside Arts Center. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-03-12:39 p.m.: Jackson Outfit Reconstructed After 'Malfunction'Theatrical garment forensics experts from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) worked through the night, in an airplane hangar near Houston, to reconstruct Janet Jackson's Super Bowl halftime show costume which suffered a sudden "wardrobe malfunction" Sunday night. The unexpected, unplanned, accidental event which exposed part of Ms. Jackson's upper torso to 99 million American television viewers has sparked an FCC investigation which could result in millions of dollars in fines and new government regulations on the structural integrity of television costumes. "We should have a full report from the task force in about 10 months," said FCC Chairman Michael Powell. "Until our forensics team completes its preliminary investigation, this case is officially a UGF -- unexplained garment failure. Now that a federal agency is investigating this incident, the American people can feel safe knowing that their taxpayer dollars are invested well." --Scott Ott on Scrappleface ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-02-10:06 p.m.: CHEAP LOVE: Do the Valentine's Day gift thing for free, courtesy the Detroit News:1. "Make an "I Love You because..." jar. Decorate a recycled jar and fill it with slips of paper, each listing something you love about your sweetheart." 2. "Using your computer and scanner, write a book about the history of your relationship...take your masterpiece to a copy shop and have it attractively bound." 3. "Give your loved one an IOU for an evening of your undivided attention..." Ah, love. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-02-8:56 p.m.: YPSI FOOD COOP SURVEY: The Ypsi Food Coop is running a survey to get a handle on what customers want. Let your voice be heard!I voted for organic meat. The first question is a puzzler: "In a few words, I am..." Drifting towards a midlife crisis? Soon to be divorced, thank God? Apathetic? For a great rundown on what you can buy at the coop, please check Hillary's list. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-02-5:12 p.m.: LOCAL POET RUNNER-UP IN SPAM POETRY CONTEST: from SatireWire's 2001 "Poetry Spam" contest. The poems are made entirely of language bits from spam. I find this runner-up poem funny and cute."GOT DEBT???" by Victoria Neff, Ann Arbor, Mich. GOT DEBT??? Excerpt: "Even Barbara Walters proclaimed that husband-hunting bachelorettes are out, and quirkyalones are in." As usual I'm way ahead of the trend. Excerpt 2:"Cagen's cry to 'resist the tyranny of coupledom' has touched a nerve. Already in America, there are signs of dating fatigue as companies fight to outdo each other in putting on the newest, trendiest and weirdest event possible. 'Recently, I was contacted by The Today Show, asking whether I'd like to spend a day being followed around by a matchmaker,' says Meghann Curtis, 35, a legislator for the New York city government. 'I was like, "Absolutely not". I am the show's worst nightmare. I am entirely obstinate and unwilling. I can hardly meet someone in an organic way, let alone something as forced as that. I think my natural state is alone.'" Yep. I hear that. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-02-01-6:19 p.m.: THE RAMAYANA INDONESIAN DANCE DRAMA at Hill Auditorium was an ornate, hieratic saga-spectacle that slowly unrolled its splendor in front of a meandering, mellifluous, mesmerizing gamelan sweet clangour.Royal figures, demons, an evil king, and Hanuman, the monkey god danced in stylized, slow, sensuous movements, dressed in vivid layers of batik, scarves, and glittery headdreses. Battle transformed into a slow, rhythmic martial art as the gamelan drums boomed in time to the "blows." I note that PETA, like MoveOn, had an ad that was rejected. Good, practical move on PETA's part to be willing to blow big bucks on an ad whose no-doubt grim/preachy message won't resonate much with relaxing/partying Super Bowl watchers I daresay. Where did PETA get the cash for a Superbowl ad, anyways? I'm trying to figure out what kind of cultural statement the ads make, taken all together... ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-31-10:53 p.m.: MILITARY DRAFT IN THE WORKS? This Selective Service System 2004 budget report reveals that the agency is currently conducting extensive readiness exercises that sure sound to me as though they're gearing up for a draft. From the "How the Draft Has Changed Since Vietnam" section of the site: Another change is the conscription of civilian nurses and doctors aged 20-44, computer specialists, and linguists: check page 6 of the SSS's most recent newsletter. BBC story on possible reinstatement of a draft. Checking around on the web I keep seeing references to summer of 2005. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-30-8:04 p.m.: AIRLINES KNOW YOUR MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS: NPR is reporting that one of the databanks the airlines now have access to, due to the CAPS (Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening) system is magazine subscriptions. Hmm. How would I do? Mother Jones (uh-oh), National Geographic (the good maps might pose a problem), the Sun (ultraleftist), Free Inquiry (RED FLAG!), and apparently I'm on the list for every gardening catalog in the Midwest (benign).Guess I'll be taking the bus. Two MIT students wrote a paper on how terrorists can exploit the CAPS system to effectively conduct terrorist attacks. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-30-12:46 p.m.: THE ART OR CRAP QUIZ--fun! "Do you know your Dada from your Moma"?***Three guys photograph the station and find a pile of clothes (third row down, second from the right) and a pile of bullets (third row down, extreme right). Bonus: photos from the interior of the main building of Ypsi's Peninsular Paper Mill. (thanks to Hillary for the idea). ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-29-1:30 a.m.: URBAN RUINS EXPLORATION: A friend once coerced me into exploring a burned-out church in downtown Detroit. Imagine my delight when a neighbor to the spooky church came out swinging...an axe. He calmed down when we somehow convinced him we were just innocent urban-ruin explorers...thus ended my short-lived career as as urban-ruin explorer. Now I just do it online. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-28-7:29 p.m.: MYDOOM VIRUS is sweeping the world as you know (and apologies to the tech-savvy, to whom this is old news:)--NPR reports that 10 to 15% of *all* emails around the world now being sent are Mydoom-generated emails, and 30% in Europe! We did get a couple at work--luckily the virus software defanged it.The UPI reports that it's a probably a creation of anti-Microsoft "hacktivists." Quote from article: "It is only infecting machines that are running Windows as their operating system, not those that are running the Mac operating system or the Solaris operating system." Discussion of this topic on Metafilter. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-28-1:50 p.m.: LOCAL ARTIST'S BARBIE FASHION SHOW hosted by Frank Sinatra. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-28-8:40 a.m.: SUSPECT SURVEY: I came across the Ann Arbor District Library's future-planning survey online. I note that there's no provision for ensuring that the only voters are city residents, or that each voter votes only once. Anyone with an anti-library agenda, perhaps as a result of the recent mismanagement, could vote two or three hundred times if they wanted. In addition, some of the questions are poorly written; what does "stay ahead of the curve technologically" mean? Or "how important is the library to the community?" If everyone says "not at all," do they plan to close? Basing any decisions on such a survey is questionable. To top it off, I mentioned this to a colleague & he responded that the library has *already finished* making their future plans. Ah. No wonder they're not concerned about getting reliable data. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-27-10:24 p.m.: IRAQI BLOGGER SALAM PAX comments on a Rage Against The Machine song being broadcast on US armed forces radio in Baghdad and gives his take on armed forces radio commercials. He notes, "Now if there only was a way to convince them to stop playing all that Bruce Springsteen and AC/DC and play us some B.R.M.C. and Rapture." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-27-7:39 p.m.: GRANHOLM AIN'T TALKIN' ABOUT STEROIDS: Listening to the State of the State speech, and I'm impressed. Talk about a study in contrasts to last week's SOTU speech, as far as substantiality. Granholm's speech is packed to the rim with meaningful statistics, it lays out her succinct and realistic 7-point plan to grow Michigan, and it's dynamic as hell.She started with a moment of silence for fallen troops, which I found moving. And she then fired right into her speech with "The state of the State is one of Total Determination..." She projects the image of a powerful woman in firm control of the trillion reins of government. I don't think it's just political slickness. She appears to be an exceptionally capable governor, judging by what I've read about her thus far & this speech. I know she got a bit of flak from detractors who called her "cool cities" plan insubstantial when it was just getting going. Well, she's won me over. She's got big plans, she's saved the MI economy a ton of money, and she's full of energy. Go Granholm. Contact her here. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-26-9:38 p.m.: AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO FEELS LIKE A LOGY BEAR?: German scientist Gerhard Heldmaier, who also chairs the International Hibernation Society, discovered in 2000 that humans have the 2 genes necessary for hibernation. Although modern people don't hibernate, one scientist documented a society in Russia who did, as reported in 1900 in the British Medical Journal.From the latter article: It's first-rate folk. Songs about a potato-truck driver, snowmobiles, a bridge disaster, the k. d. lang song, and a haunting song about the wind blowing over Canada, rendered in Connors's unvarnished acoustic guitar and twangy voice. The integrity of the man comes through somehow...this CD will be on heavy rotation this weekend. Great stuff. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-24-1:59 a.m.: YPSI RESIDENTS DEMAND LIBRARY FILTERS: At a recent library meeting, Ypsi residents demanded that the library install Internet filters. I think this is misguided: 1. The library could install filters and give a code word to those over 18/21 who need to make an unfiltered search. 2. Filters are not 100% effective. Who chooses the key words to be filtered out? Aside from the fact that lots of online pornsters use the term "pr0n" to label their wares--because of filters. 3. At the Whittaker library, as at any library, there are books with nudity, crime, &c.; what about those? I know it's not the biggest deal in the world. I use the computers only for the card catalog. But I despise the thought of some subset of society telling everyone else what info they can access. If you have an opinion on this you can contact library director Jill Morey. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-23-11:32 p.m.: HUNTER THOMPSON on how to fix baseball.Excerpt: Archive of Hunter Thompson's recent ESPN "Hey Rube" columns. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-01-22-10:18 p.m.: MICHIGAN ACCENT PRONUNCIATION GUIDE: Well, I know I say "melk" instead of "milk," "Feb'wary" instead of "February," and turn "t"'s into "d"s--so hang me already.From the Guide: |
What do you call the night before Halloween?
