The Moral Cost of Horseradish
Now Playing: Kevin Ayers--"Song From The Bottom Of A Well"
Well, after three years or so of looking, I finally have a second job. I'll be working as a prep cook at the restaurant next door three nights a week, and just finished my trial shift two nights ago. The people seem friendly and so far there's hardly any of that bullied-at-school mentality so beloved of the country's more celebrated chefs (and, one would expect, the town's). "Chef" himself seems a reasonable fellow and is well-liked by his workers, who are quite likable themselves. While I know this view comes based on a mere night's experience, I do have a good feeling about the place that doesn't derive from a sickening gratitude that my paychecks will clear (which is what happened at the beginning of my "main" job). For my trial, I readied a ginger tamarind sauce for cooking, made horseradish, and tied strip steaks. The second was more than a little interesting; I was told that shredding horseradish is ten times worse than slicing onions, which is true to an extent. For those who don't know, horseradish comes from a tuber-like root that when peeled with a knife has a woody texture to it; it reminded me of whittling sticks when I was a boy. The acidity packs much more of a punch than with onions, but only at minute-spaced intervals or so, whereas onions hang in the air for a good half-minute. I suspect they were just telling me that as a form of hazing, and if that's all I can expect, I should probably be grateful. Here's hoping it turns out as enjoyable as my present job, minus the irritation factor of la jefa. 

Jungle Drums of Marquette
Now Playing: Moby Grape--"Bitter Wind"

I haven't taken an honest-to-God vacation in five years, ever since I went to visit my friend Karen in Santa Barbara for spring break back when I was teaching in Akron. A week of doing little but going to the beach and just hanging out, apart from a visit to Hearst's folly of San Simeon up the Pacific coast, was just what a needed, and I forgot how heavenly it could be. Fortunately, circumstances intervened this year to get me out of town during the Ann Arbor Art Fair, that annual plague that attracts a host of suckers from around the country to pay out the nose for what looks to my prejudiced eyes like overpriced crap. The streets are closed off and clogged with pedestrians flaunting the mobility, if not the charm, of tortoises, and I had already decided to try something drastic this year to avoid the Art Fair blues. Three years of this has taken much of the shine off people-watching. I had some vague idea of visiting another part of Michigan, as the only time I'd ever really broken the Detroit-Ann Arbor cordon except for a day trip to Lansing was my train trip to Chicago, and then I never got out in-state.

 I mentioned the plan to my friend and Planned Parenthood volunteer coordinator Jessica, as I usually while away this time of year helping to man their booth at some point in the non-profit section of the Fair, in which we're usually placed as entertainingly close to the "Right To Life" people (or whatever they call themselves these days) as possible. She countered byh inviting me to come along with her and her friends to the Hiawatha Music Festival in Marquette on the shores of Lake Superior, the unofficial capital of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. This was well beyond what I was thinking (Petoskey, maybe) and so I immediately agreed, despite the first impression (later confirmed) that Hiawatha was basically "hippie camp." So I drove up with her and our friend Ricardo a week ago.

 We camped out in Marquette Tourist Park, about ten or fifteen minutes' walk away from the lake. Ricardo and I shared an absent friend's tent, and from then on we basically just milled around, doing whatever. The music itself didn't particularly interest me that much, apart from the klezmer stylings of Yid Vicious, but that wasn't important as I spent just about every waking hour swimming. The park was on the shores of the Dead River, which until a few years ago had been dammed up to form a lake right on the park's edges. One day it spectacularly flooded, somehow bypassing the dam and washing around the side to continue on its regular course to the lake. This minor cataclysm left behind a wasteland of a valley, which by my visit had become quite beautiful, with a dozen different shades of shrubs and grasses, best seen at sunset, and plenty of deep stretches of water. God, it was good to swim again, and in a place where I could simply swim (roll around, do underwater handstands, etc.)  as opposed to the regimented laps demanded by Ann Arbor area pools. I found my present "happy place" at a stretch of river below the bridge, past the park, where the bottom was deep and sandy, as opposed to the shallower and rockier bits more accessible from the campsite. The lake itself was frequently too cold for any effective wallowing, apart from the soft beaches at Little Presque Isle and the puicturesque cliffs at Black Rocks on Grande Presque Isle, where the water was so clear and the bottom so rocky that it could have been a picture from some Caribbean resort brochure, had the water not been so fucking cold. I wasn't quite up to diving off the cliffs, ubt got plenty of time in the water regardless, and will hopefully regard the chill in Ann Arbor pools with a lolt less trepidation in future. We also stopped at the (much warmer) Lake Michigan on our way back to Ann Arbor, so that's two Great Lakes I got to swim on this trip.

 Sunday morning, I took advantage of my characteristically (and usually unwanted) early rising to walk into town (took about an hour) while everyone else was asleep. Marquette really is a nice little city, with an attractive downtown area set on hills rolling right down to Lake Superior, with the famous Ore Dock front and center. The latter took iron ore off the trains that came in from the interior and chucked them into the cargo holds of waiting freighters (like the ill-starred Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975), and still stands as one of the city's most prominent landmarks. I got a fantastic vantage point of Marquette Bay and the lake beyond from the hillside monument to the town's namesake, the famous Father Jacques, S.J. We'd eaten at the Vierling brewery downtown our first day, where I got to sample one of the local staples, the storied whitefish, eaten in grilled form on an open-faced sandwich (along with some delicious "Russian blue cheese" dressing that tastes a lot lke the apricot gorgonzola spread we make at the cafe). The people I met were friendly and not at all Ann Arbor-like, especially at the "Coffee Cup," where I stopped for a croissant, and the weather was nice and crisp. Particularly fun was checking out the outside of the old courthouse, where Otto Preminger's 1959 classic Anatomy of a Murder was filmed (featuring a hilarious reference to women's underwear, a fiery Ben Gazzara performance, and inspiring Tim Monger's Great Lakes Myth Society song "Marquette County, 1959"). Otherwise, it was basically drinking and huddling around the campfire listening to Mike Waite, John Churchville and others play guitar, and worrying about very little.

 After my trip, I now understand the intense Michigan loyalty that seems to drive many creative types I know, especially local musicians. Seeing the rest of the state as opposed to the often depressing environs of Detroit and the anything-but-progressive haughtiness of Ann Arbor gave me a new perspective on things--the Upper Peninsula's gorgeous, but much of the northern part of the Lower Peninsula, with its charming roadside flora (including some otherworldly-looking trees that reminded me of old watercolors of southern Australia) appealed as well, and riding the Mackinaw Bridge to GLMS' "Across the Bridge" gave me a sense of their music like few other things could.

It's not so bad here, really.

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007): I bought it as soon as I got back and read it that night. The whole thing. It took me about six to seven hours. This is somewhat bizarre as I'm by no means a Harry Potter fanatic. I rather enjoy the stories, but find it hard sometimes to get into Rowling's occasionally leaden, color-by-numbers prose. I've also never understood genuine "fandom"--Doctor Who's been my favorite TV show since before I was ten, but I've never been to a convention and have never felt the desire to go. As with Lord of the Rings, too, I think the movies are actually better (with the exception of the first two; I mean, Chris Columbus? Honestly). Fortunately, I found a lot to enjoy in this one, and thought it ended rather well. The plot isn't tied as tightly to the Hogwarts school schedule as in previous entries, and I think that frees up the characters and story to a positive degree. A fair number of characters die (someone else who'd read it already posted elsewhere that some people died who shouldn't have, and vice versa--draw yor own conclusions), but then this has been fairly common knowledge for some time. Severus Snape fulfils his destiny as one of the most interesting characters in fantasy fiction; I think Rowling's creation, with all its flaws, is redeemed pretty much by Snape's existence--the chapter entitled "The Prince's Tale" is a beaut (certain plot details, too, enable Rowling to use a more cinematic technique than usual, which helps). There were a few genuine disappointments. While most fantasy since Tolkien steals rather obviously from its primary forefather (fair enough, since Tolkien did it himself), the main idea was a little too reminiscent of other horror/fantasy stories and too blatantly telegraphed (to be sure, it crops up in my own stuff a lot, but if I may be vulgar, I'm not getting paid towers of gold to write it). I'd also made a personal prediction about the fate of a very minor character who I'd hoped would play a vital and unexpectedly sinister role towards the end, a prediction thwarted. Missed opportunity, I say. Overall, though, it's finally over, and on a relative high note. Hopefully there will be bucketloads of kids interested in reading when they mightn't have been otherwise (that did happen, right?), and at least it was a worthier reason to look forward to the summer than those lackluster Star Wars prequels.

Collecting Heads In Pillowcases
Now Playing: Soundtrack Of Our Lives--"Borderline"

A weird week, a weird season. I've come to accept what goes on at work through some form of ersatz Zen and the help of two very cool co-workers. Life itself seems to be going relatively well--for me, anyway; a number of my friends are going through rough times and I feel for them.

 Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion, From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005): During my time in Akron, I began to notice pop culture-fixated columns in the Akron Beacon-Journal written by one Chuck Klosterman, who I later encountered in the pages of SPIN and Esquire. Hearing overwhelmingly favorable reviews of his Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Pop Culture Manifesto, I was struck in a Google search to run across the most ad hominem diatribe I'd encountered in some time, delivered by one Mark Ames.  Ames had much the same problem as Christopher Hitchens did in Slate when reviewing Fahrenheit 9/11: a great many valid criticisms of the work (in one example from Hitchens' case, is it really legal for congressmen--or anyone, for that matter--to "sign up" their kids for military service?) slid beneath the sheer volume of vituperation. In Ames' case, I shared much of his irritation--though at modern pop culture, not Klosterman himself (until I read his book--it really did suck) and found myself intrigued at the kind of person who could write such a review. A co-founder of the eXile, a journal for American expatriates in Moscow (!), Ames' wrote one book that I could find, and that was Going Postal. It's a fairly straightforward analysis of "rage shootings" at workplaces and schools, identifying such patterns of behavior with earlier phenomena of American history and culture such as slave rebellions. In this reading, random violence is the only weapon the downtrodden and dispossessed of post-Reagan America have (the "rage killing" being a largely post-Reagan phenomenon is a fact with which Ames understandably comes close to obsessing, especially at the end). It's an original (and, one might hardly deign to mention, controversial) idea, which I'm surprised hasn't been raked over the coals on FOX NEWS--or, for that matter, NBC. I suspect the book didn't get much airtime (being originally completed before 9/11, almost not getting published at all). He examines the history of slave rebellions in America and then that of workplace/school shootings--based on newspaper reports and several of his own interviews--zeroing in on a number of specific cases in an admirably pacey manner--I never got the impression that much detail was being sacrificed, or that the discussion was too exhaustive. The study widens into an offhand condemnation of modern American society, as one can see the corrosive effects of the 24-hour media cycle, with its militant purges of the inconvenient (the lack of a useful profile for such shooters, the surprising sympathy shown by many of the actual and potential victims for the shooters, etc.), and the now decades-long national celebration of bullying as embodied in "heroes" like Jack Welch, Al Dunlap, and Donald Trump. Stylistically, Ames is a little schizophrenic, seesawing between slang and stately academic prose with distracting frequency. He can be a very fluent writer, and this probably helps his case more than it should (which, of course, in some ways would be fitting--Ames seems to regard the typically remote tone of most sociological or academic works as selling out their subjects). I'm not entirely sold on his fundamental thesis, but then maybe I'm just too scared of the idea. The very fact that he's brought it up makes me think, especially since other assertions are much more believable, in particular the similarity of modern American parents' and officials' faith in drugs like Ritalin, Zoloft and Prozac to control children and malcontents with the treatment of political dissidence as a psychiatric disorder in Soviet Russia. While many may not agree with Ames' arguments, they're undeniably compelling, and this is probably one of the most original and passionate books written on American history and culture in some time.

 Furstenberg Park Days (2007)--I've only been to one thus far, but it was a lot of fun. Furstenberg Park is probably the most diverse of the various Ann Arbor parks, taking in meadows, forests, and marshland, pretty much all of the natural palette this stretch of the Huron River valley has to offer. It's a lovely place, one I stumbled on almost by accident about a year ago while wandering through the much bigger and easier-seen Gallup Park. At Sara's birthday cleanup a month ago, our team leader Billy suggested these as a fun way to spend a Saturday, and I decided to check it out. For four hours about six or seven of us cleared invasive weeds and shrubs--sweet clover and glossy buckthorn ("the porn star shrub")--which was curiously relaxing. There's nothing to work off stress like sawing down shrubs which you can pretend are sassing you back. In the end, we managed to clear a view from the parking lot to the "lagoon"--which, with the increasing silt, has come to more resemble a cattail marsh--tour the park, and get down and dirty in the then-mild sunshine of June in Michigan.

 The Sweeney: First Series (1974-75):

"I don't think there's anything wrong... with harnessing revenge to justice."

 "Maybe not. But you're talking about harnessing it to Jack Regan!!!" 

There are some who would doubtless, given the use of a time machine or other such device, enjoy a frolic through the splendors of Augustan Rome, or perhaps Renaissance Florence. For me, it would be hard to avoid the grimy neon glory of post-Swinging 1970s Britain, as apparently enshrined in my love of vintage Doctor Who, British cinematic horror cheapies, the music of David Bowie, Roxy Music, Nick Drake, Family, T.Rex, Brian Eno, The Faces, Ronnie Lane... Part of it, I suspect, is the fascination with an imperial society having its appendages wither away and unsure what to do with the rest of itself. This may serve a cautionary tale for us, but still, the cultural stuff was and always will be the initial sell. The Sweeney is one particular grail I was never able to see until a couple of weeks ago, as the first series is out on Region 1. The adventures of the London police's elite "Flying Squad" (in the traditions of Cockney rhyming slang, dubbed "the Sweeney" after Sweeney Todd), The Sweeney was one of the most influential shows on British TV, bringing a new realism to the tired old police procedural (then as now, apparently, whichever side of the Atlantic you live on), with (relatively) extreme violence, (relatively) harsh language, and a terrific sense of the hilariously seedy place the UK had become by that time. "Don't you ever stop eating??" John Thaw and Dennis Waterman are fantastic as headman Jack Regan and sidekick George Carter, sniffing out bank robberies, mail thefts, prison breakouts, and tangling with a delectable assortment of sleazy villains. "The world doesn't revolve around your body, Iris--this bloke Galileo proved it, goes round the sun!" The chemistry between the two leads is palpable, and the series' realistic attitude towards issues like police brutality, corruption, and the plain fact that all too often the bad guys get away with it. "Yeah, she's got a good bit o' lunch on her, doesn't she?" I don't know what it is about me, but I just ate this stuff up and can't wait to see more. "I'm gonna drown you in your own sweat if I find out you were involved." Classic.

 Once (2006): A sweet, deceptively slight movie from director John Carney about two down-and-out musicians in Dublin--one a raffish type played by the Frames' Glen Hansard, and the other a squirrelly, breathtakingly adorable Czech immigrant played by Marketa Irglova. The two meet, begin to play music together, but never quite get together. An excellent little essay on the power of music and the impermanence of relationships, Once succeeds in bringing the kind of revelation that most indie flicks can only dream of--an unusually fulfilling choice by the Michigan theater. Hansard and Irglova are charming and believable, and the music is remarkable in that it dominates the movie to the extent that half an hour passes and really nothing much happens, but it doesn't matter. It almost seems to double as the plot, a brilliant marriage of music and cinema.

Is Your Dream Better Than Mine?
Now Playing: Ronnie Lane--"The Poacher"
So then, blogging. Hm.

In the midst of an awful work week (my boss is on crack) it helps to remember the good things--fronds, friends, hanging out with the latter at Cafe Felix over a couple of beers and flagrantly ogling the more attractive passersby, and the arts ain't bad either.

La Traviata: I went to see Carmen at the Baton Rouge Opera when I was a kid--yes, there is such a thing (not that I remembered much, the lot of us busily discussing the previous night's episode of V--remember V?--through most of Bizet's masterpiece*)--and that had been my sole exposure to live opera for many years, until I got interested in the form a year or two ago. Missing local productions of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and Smetana's The Bartered Bride, I resolved not to miss Giuseppe Verdi's perenially popular prophecy of emo. Think about it--the heroine's wasting away from pastiness and has to deal with lecherous, possessive "heroes." Ostentatiously coughing (I was put in mind way too many times of Paulie in The Godfather), she eventually succumbs preciously and artistically. Tosca's much more my style of heroine, but I did enjoy the show, and the supertitles broadcast above the stage were just about as distracting as subtitles in a movie (which is to say, not very). After listening to so many operas on CD, it was a revelation to see one on stage, when you get to see the set design and action as well (this being the Arbor Opera, the former was pretty minimal, but it wasn't exactly the Met or La Scala). Entertainingly enough, during the finale of the second act, the supertitles sped up to a breakneck degree, getting to the end of the opera in about a minute. They'd fixed it by the third act, but it was fun to see it "raw" for a few minutes. Unfortunately, it looks like they'll be showing La Boheme in the fall, so I guess this is the year to plug the consumptives. Still, it was a great evening out, and once I left the Mendelssohn Theatre, I even got to catch the last fifteen minutes or so of Nomo's set at Top of the Park. Thoroughly satisfying.

Ronnie Lane (1946-97): Legendary bassist, songwriter, and artistic inspiration, the cofounder of both the Small Faces and the Faces carried out his own beguiling projects in the 1970s before succumbing to the ravages of multiple sclerosis and dying of pneumonia in the late 90s. For the longest time I only knew the Small Faces as the British Invasion band responsible for the 1967 hit "Itchycoo Park." After running across a few other references, I got their CD compilation Darlings of Wapping Wharf Laundrette on a whim and found that "Itchycoo Park" came near to being the least of their achievements. These included a long string of near-perfect pop singles and an early concept album, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (1968). Lead singer Steve Marriott eventually left to form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, leaving Lane and bandmates Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan in the lurch until joined by Ron Wood and Rod Stewart to form the Faces. The Faces are probably famous these days more than anything for "Stay With Me," the Rushmore soundtrack mainstay "Ooh La La," and helping to propel Stewart to solo stardom, but were a magnificent group in their own right, with superb songs like "Three Button Hand Me Down," "Sweet Lady Mary," Lane's wonderful "Debris," the elegiac "Glad and Sorry," and the propulsive "Borstal Boys." Lane eventually left after the destabilizing effect Stewart's growing celebrity had on the group (eventually to lead to its dissolution in 1975). What happened next was the primary subject of The Passing Show: The Life and Music of Ronnie Lane (2006), a fascinating documentary made for BBC 4 in the UK. Featuring interviews with band members, friends and relatives, as well as luminaries like Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton, it looks at Lane's remarkable 70s band the Slim Chance, who toured around England as a modern-day gypsy caravan (and had as much financial success) in a back-to-earth style that reflected Lane's disillusionment with the rockstar way of life. Personal and financial pressures led to the band's evaporation by 1980, but not before leaving behind some wonderful music, much of it collected in the compilation Just For A Moment, highlights being "How Come," "32nd Street," "One For The Road," "Kuschty Rye," and the eponymous track. Lane's dogged (and occasionally harmful) determination to stick to his guns can inspire you no matter what art form you follow.

*Not that it was exactly unprofitable--I caught it again a few years ago when I first moved to Ann Arbor. We had a pretty exhaustive cable package and got the Action Network, which was showing the entire original miniseries. What looked to me in third grade like a cool alien-invasion epic with flying Winnebagos and evil lizard infiltrators turned out to be a surprisingly thought-provoking and daring (for Reagan-era America) class-based satire on fascism and conformity (They Live would make some of the same points, only much less subtly and with Rowdy Roddy "I have come to kick ass and chew bubblegum--and I'm all out of bubblegum" Piper). So we weren't really stinting on the cultural front even if we didn't actually pay much attention to Carmen.

Dishpan Fury
Now Playing: Curtis Mayfield--"Wild and Free"
Fluffy has taken to cutting me early on Mondays and Wednesdays so as to avoid overtime pay, which I perfectly understand, as the place has to make a profit. This past Wednesday, it was a positive blessing. Fluffy, you see, had chanced upon Hell's Kitchen, the show where the probably intensely-bullied-at-school Gordon Ramsay psychologically pulverizes people into puddles while they train as chefs in his kitchen so that they, too--one of them, anyway; the "lucky" one--can hock overpriced Tuscan or Provencal delicacies to vapid, bejeweled gluttons who should consider thamselves lucky to have enough to eat, let alone enough to pay for it. Fluffy gushed on and on about the "industry" and--obliquely--about the necessity of behaving in a mentally ill fashion therein to attain success. For the rest fo the day, she played a broader role of asshat than was the norm, turning her micromanagement on yours truly. The irritation is certainly nothing new, but it's really the inconsistency I can't stand. I've had thoroughly loathsome bosses before, but none of them ever turned that way just because they'd seen someone doing it on a goddamn TV show. It was a joy, then, to leave that day, and I tried, in the unexpectedly mild and pleasant afternoon, to protect myself against dark thoughts. These latter frequently feature in my life, but they're more honestly in the nature of mental exercises than anything else, to see what my brain's capable of doing. One thing I definitely don't want to do is want someone to have a nervous breakdown.

Fortunately, I'd planned to visit the Farmer's Market in Kerrytown to see what I could pick up for a dish I'm planning (basically a salad version of mushroom and barley soup), and stopped at the Tantre Farms stand. I'd seen it before on Saturday mornings, when I usually go to the Market (though rarely buying anything except the odd tomato or potato), but had never actually stopped there. The guy behind the table was good with the marketing, to be sure (assuming I was a chef because of the pants which I was too lazy to change and calling out across the walkway), and I was intrigued by some of the offerings, but they were sold out of asparagus, which was what I really needed. He asked, because of the pants, if I was shopping for a restaurant. It would have been nice to oblige him, buit I had to explain that though my position roughly correlated to that of sous-chef in (let's face it) a dinner restaurant, I had no purchasing authority. He must have been taken aback as I subsequently took over the ensuing conversation regarding the need for local restaurants to patronize local farmers and producers with fervent agreement and my equally vital need to shove Fluffy in the dishwasher (I wish I'd actually said that now). Our discussion did have the result of partially restoring my spirits and resolving me to visit the Tantre stand again and actually buy something. It shouldn't be too hard to find a recipe for garlic scape, I guess.

Karate Wafers
Now Playing: Feist--"My Moon My Man"
*Sigh* Only one of you will ever know what that means.

This afternoon I finished reading Jim Munroe's An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil (2004), a thoroughly enjoyable and unexpectedly redemptive read. Munroe's a Canadian novelist and zinester who's pretty much emerged as one of my favorite contemporary writers for several reasons. I first came across his debut novel, Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask (1998) by chance in the Akron public library and was dazzled in a pleasantly (and tellingly) lowkey way. So many of today's more prominent novelists and writers latched onto the possibilities afforded by postmodernism with bloated, excruciatingly pompous results (a friend's stalwart cajoling is still trying to get me to read David Foster Wallace again after I suffered through Broom of the System; Michael Chabon wasn't as bad, but I found The Mysteries of Pittsburgh decidedly underwhelming). Munroe's work manages the very difficult task of tackling the bohemian, seemingly sincerity-averse culture of young urban artists and intellectuals in a genuine, funny way without getting infected by all the poserdom. Speaking as someone who's haunted the fringes of this world for some time, it's hard enough to live like that, let along write like it. The Canadian-ness of his characters (Toronto-based, his work's often set there, too) gives them, for this American reader, an extra sense of dislocation; they seem very familiar and very strange all at once. I've often wondered, after all, what it must be like to live next door to us. Munroe's also self-published his last three novels--the present one, Everyone In Silico (a virtual reality epic that I found to be a rare misstep, a little too reminiscent of stuff by people like William Gibson) and Angry Young Spaceman (a funny, haunting account of a futuristic Peace Corps-type volunteer on an alien planet, mixing show business, romance and politics in a breathlessly seamless mix), thereby side-stepping the morass of corporate literature and providing a great example of an independent artist. He also takes the idea of the fantastic or what appears to be the fantastic seriously, at a time when many "serious" writers still consider all notions of genre beneath them, and when those interested in the idea seem to treat it more as some kind of exotic strain they can simply graft onto their own work (I speak of the McSweeney's people, but I may be being unfair as I've only read reviews of their "genre" anthologies). In Opening Act, there are elements of the fantastic and horrific, but the story itself is more a fable about coming to terms with one's thirties, something with which I obviously strongly relate. His "voice" also strongly reminds me of my own, and it's encouraging and inspiring to see that such a one has actually finished four novels, three of them excellent. I'm on a monthlong hiatus from writing after working straight for three months, but Opening Act's strongly encouraged me to start again, which I will at the beginning of June. Thanks for the work, Jim, and keep 'em comin'!

All Weeds Subject To Search And Detention
Now Playing: The Faces--"Too Bad"
My friend Sara's bithday was this past weekend, and she decided to invite her friends to spend it weed-pulling, to which we all enthusiastically assented. "Weed-pulling" sounds a little prosaic, I suppose. The actual event involved purging a variety of invasive species from the prairie and trailheads at the Leslie Science Center in northern Ann Arbor. This latter, where I'd never been before, is a very interesting multi-purpose educational facility, with nature walks, community garden plots, and even a disabled raptor care center. Invasive species are a pretty big deal, especially in the Great Lakes region ("taking our jobs and our women, etc.") where they crowd out native plant and animal life (most nastily in the lakes themselves, where the sea lamprey is cutting bloody swathes through the native fish population in general) and negatively impact the local environment. So they gotta go, basically.

The day opened misty, chill and rainy, and I was worried the whole thing might have been called off, but relaxed once the rain passed over and left the cool behind, which in turn made for a climatically gorgeous day. I'd somehow gotten it into my head that the event started at noon when in fact it was at two, and so killed an hour or so wandering the trails through tree-shrouded carpets of wild geraniums and fierce barricades of brambles and prairie grass. It's a great area, one I'll have to check out a lot more often. A healthy knot of people materialized, we all wished Sara a happy birthday, and then, aided by our trusty guides Bill and Billy, set to work. This had apparently been the first time anyone had ever wanted to do this for their birthday...

Our primary target was "dame's rocket", a long, leafy shoot with pleasant pinkish-violet flowers on the end. The course of my life had turned me forever away from flower gardening, and the few times I've ever tried to grow plants have been... unsuccessful, to say the least. Frankly, I'm not all that interested in them unless they're edible. It turned out, however, as Billy told us, that dame's rocket was. I, Laura, and Sara's friend Jen, working with Billy, effectively denuded the prairie of dame's rocket in a couple of hours, save for one stubborn patch protected by impenetrable brambles. Seeing all those plants lying in the back of the truck, however invasive they might have been, made me realize I need to find a way to use them by the next time I do this (which could be soon!). I'd been meaning since I first moved to town to go to the mustard garlic-pulling sessions at the Arb, so I need to do some more research on these and start putting some salads together.

Afterwards, we all did the stuff together I'd done when I first came (but this was with people who knew what they were talking about, which always helps). We did the trails, during which Billy showed us where to find trilliums, wild ginger, jack-in-the-pulpit, and the ever-pervasive geraniums, and Tracey gave me her inimitable take on Inland Empire ("Mary Steenburgen? How can I be afraid of her???"). Then it was over to the raptor area, where we got to see criminally adorable saw-whet and screech owls being fed dead mice, and barred and great horned owls just sort of sitting there like great feathered lumps. They did look a little forlorn, but I expect they probably get their fill of us whenever the kids show up on school trips (as I reckon they do).

By that time, everyone was famished, and I was pleased to find what an honest hunger I'd worked up simply through all that prairie maintenance. Margot and Adam dropped me off at my place so I could give them the quiche provencale I'd baked for Sara and take a badly needed shower. I rushed over to Leopold's, and the next five hours really put the finishing touch on a fantastic day. Beer was knocked back, board games were played, roleplaying games and their devotees were alternately mocked and celebrated, I finally tried the wonderful lime chicken quesadilla, great conversations (of both a comic and serious nature) were had... it was one of my favorite ever days in Ann Arbor (certainly the best one so far this year; I'm starting to collect these, I think, in my mind, so that they'll help me through the rough patches). For a week with so much relative disappointment, it had some fantastic bookends... Chicago, Katie's graduation, the Leslie Science Center, Sara's birthday, and Leopold's. You can maybe beat that, I suppose, but it beats a whole fuck of a lot else.

Thanks Sara, Margot, Adam, Tracey, Dan, Amy, Nicole, Jon, Laura, Dug, Jason, Billy, Bill, Greg, Brooke, Eric, Karen, Karen's Jason, Brian Marcus, David, and Sparky! Full table, that.

Making Lemonade
Now Playing: The Allman Brothers--"Midnight Rider"
I think I'm getting better at looking on the bright side, particularly with the allegedly positive developments in my working life last week. My raise turned out to be a dime*, and the second job doesn't in fact start until the end of August. That last rankled a bit, as I wasn't sent off with "we're having a few issues with our finances, so we can't start you until the end of August" but "see you Wednesday!" A similar issue with my former academic career helped drive me away from Akron. It's probably just as well, as the past week has revealed an unhealthy, semi-incestuous "professional" connection between my current workplace and the prospective other that makes me seriously wonder if I shouldn't look for something else (two something elses, which I'll begin doing Monday).

Happy birthday, Sara. My hands can already feel the invasive species struggling to escape.

*A dime. Don't get me wrong--I find it more hilarious than anything else at this point.

Puttin' on the Wacker
Now Playing: John Lennon and Elton John--"Whatever Gets You Through The Night"
My "relative" (technically speaking, my half-aunt, which actually sounds hilarious) graduated from Garrett Evangelical Seminary at Northwestern with a Master's in Divinity last weekend, and so I decided it was the perfect excuse to visit Chicago for a couple of days, and the announcement of my raise certainly helped me make the decision. As a result, part of this was written at the Harold Washington Library Center on the edge of the Loop.

The train: The train was arguably better that day than the one two years ago that I took partway to Karen's wedding reception in Shelby Township. This time, of course, we were heading west, with a larger load of people. The only time I've ever been west of the Ann Arbor area in Michigan was the Planned Parenthood lobbying day in East Lansing, a couple of years ago, and I wasn't sure what to expect, looking at the map. The route ran along the Huron in one way or another for a good while, letting me see some of the places I intend to find on foot one day. Once it left the river, the countryside started to become more consciously bucolic, with rolling hills, classic-style red barns, pleasantly old-fashioned residential small-town neighborhoods, and little rock-riddled streams, beginning to tend towards disused mills and derelict office buildings on our approach into the rather dingy Jackson. Wondering what was going to happen next, I found it didn't matter much as we ran into a wall of fog just west of Albion, and anything beyond the immediate horizon that wasn't a "repeat-and-alternate" version of what we'd seen before was pretty invisible. Then it lifted, and was an entirely repeat-and-alternate version of what we'd seen before, with a few interesting kinks, most notably the pretty red-brick train stations at some of the smaller stops (Niles' was especially well-kept, an entertaining contrast with Ann Arbor's station) and the existence of "live nude exotic showgirls" in Battle Creek (what kind of movie would that wacky situation make?--and at which point I also remembered I hadn't eaten cereal in something over a year). Passing through Indiana, we started with gorgeous bottomlands along the lake with wild fowl doing their thing among the reeds until we approached Gary, which really fulfilled my mental image of Soviet-era resorts in the Baltic or Caspian: the saurian spectacle of the U.S. Steel mill placed right next to a variety of casinos and marinas was pretty bizarre. Chicago loomed dimly through the fog, and it was exhilarating to arrive at the monumental Union Station and run into the Sears Tower right as I got out.

Hotel Wacker: Probably the cheapest hotel in downtown Chicago, very much akin to the Embassy in Ann Arbor, where I stayed on my first visit to my present home. It's definitely on the sketchy side, but once I got past the flophouse lobby and the mysterious smell in the ancient tenth-floor corridor, my room was rather nice and well-kept. I didn't have any problems and will probably stay there on my next visit.

The Shedd Aquarium: Worth every penny; I hadn't been to an aquarium in ages, and found this one utterly engrossing, not just the headliners, like the beluga whales swimming around in the oceanarium, but the less spectacular specimens also. Maybe it's a result of all the cooking (as well as the PR work done for nature, particularly of the watery variety, by a friend of mine--loved the invasive species exhibit!), but I paid attention to fish and aquatic wildlife I'd never have thought to do a year or so earlier. Best of all, I finally got to see a live octopus up close; it hid out in its "cave" the first time I passed, but spread itself out over the glass the next, and was utterly fascinating to watch. The beluga and the dolphins provided a dependably popular attraction (as did the penguins), but again, the place really did its job in getting me to think about how it all ties together.

The Field Museum: The Field is probably the most famous component of the Chicago "Museum Campus", and was actually something of a letdown. "Sue," the most complete reconstruction of a tyrannosaurus rex, was definitely worth seeing, but most everything else was the kind of thing you could see in a dozen museums across the country (two of the University of Michigan's museums included). The two lions featured in that goofball 1995 epic The Ghost and the Darkness are indeed in the museum, and failed to "still make me afraid," so whatever. Apart from an excellent exhibit on the history of Native Americans through crafts (including an assload of Moche ceramics--the only ceramics I really have any time for) the whole thing was vaguely shabby. It didn't help that the place was (a) getting hit with the same juvenile onslaught as at the Shedd, (b) getting ready in the main hall for some special event that involved a colossal effort of catering setup, and (c) still shackled by some of its 50s-era displays and exhibits, which might have had a funny "meta" effect if it wasn't so obviously unintentional.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra: I had joked to myself that I should go see them when I went, and then realized "why not?" The ticket was relatively cheap and it looked like an interesting program: Beethoven's Coriolan Overture, Witold Lutoslawski's 1986 quasi-violin concerto Chain 2, and Anton Bruckner's Seventh Symphony. Last year, conductor Daniel Barenboim made way for Bernard Haitink, who led the orchestra in this performance. It was a long way from Hill Auditorium, believe me. Orchestra Hall's a lovely old building on Michigan Avenue, right across from the Art Institute, and it was a really thrilling and weird experience being in a music-making venue that's seen so much history. It got rather more thrilling for the wrong reasons once I found out how high and narrow my seat was. Those who have been to the Hill will be able to, if not understand, then picture, my usual stance in the seats, which is pretty much as close as possible to splaying; they really invite this kind of informality. Not so at the CSO, I fear. The audience was an interesting one--a lot of teens, many of whom seemed to be part of some school trip (maybe the same ones who'd been at the Shedd and the Field earlier), and the old orchestral diehards. I wound up between two respective specimens of each. The old lady made a little small talk on learning I lived in Ann Arbor, the kid huffed at the temperature in the Hall and was probably worried that the 20% off keg rental somewhere in central Wisconsin would run out at midnight (too late!), and I steeled myself to avoid looking out over the railing and perhaps accidentally hurling on Maestro Haitink. Once the lights dimmed, it was cool, and the Chicago's really one of the world's great orchestras; the Bruckner almost didn't seem as long as it actually was. Lutoslawski's definitely worth checking out further, as I'm guessing is the Chicago Lyric Opera, which was doing Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle and Schoenberg's Erwartung on a double bill, the former with Samuel Ramey, who I've heard do the thing on CD (not a huge fan of that particular opera, but it's fun to say, anyhow).

The Art Institute: It should have been a disappointment, as I lost my ticket for both the general collection and the special exhibit--"Picasso to Cezanne", apparently organized around the life of Ambroise Vollard, their agent--and couldn't get in the latter once I was in the former, but there was so much to see that I simply wrote it off as a voluntary contribution (especially as it took me two hours to see the "regular" stuff). The AIC has a fantastic collection, with some of my personal faves very well-represented. I didn't expect to find Goya's "El Mauregato" series of small paintings (concerning a friar's real-life 1806 foiling of a bandit robbery in a tavern), and was impressed with their collection of post-Impressionists and Expressionists (which I usually take to mean any pre-1940s artists--Miro, of course, but also people like Max Beckmann and Pierre Bonnard, my own favorites in the collection). I passed up the ceramics, but then I generally do. The layout is rather confusing, so that I left after two hours, only realizing a few minutes later that I'd completely skipped the American paintings, and therefore Hopper's Nighthawks and Grant Wood's American Gothic. No big deal; just another thing to look forward to on my next trip.

The streets: I intentionally decided not to try and see or do too much, as I wanted to simply wander the streets of a truly big city a bit (and rode the Loop several times just to do so, marveling at the conglomeration of different neighborhoods--what a way to tour a city!), and wound up having lots of time to do so, waking up at 5:30 Friday and 6 Saturday. That Friday, I walked into downtown, along the river, past the Marina City of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot fame, along the beach, and then to Navy Pier, where I got my fill of Lake Michigan-watching. That very moment, the breeze picked up, and what seemed like a balmy late spring day turned into a whirlwind that pretty much lasted the rest of my trip. At the graduation ceremony in Evanston, I found many of my Louisiana relatives laid low by the intensity of the sudden weather. Welcome to spring in the Upper Midwest, I thought.

Thankfully, the trip back was nowhere near as depressing as the last comparable journey I took, flying back to Akron from visiting Karen in Santa Barbara five years ago. Chicago's always loomed large as my next possible move (it's in the right direction and it's a big city) and it was great to get a feel for the place, however fleeting. I'd advise it not to get too comfortable...

Bounder of Adventure
Now Playing: Adam and the Ants--"Xerox"
There was a Tom Tomorrow cartoon that came out (in the 90s, I think), looking at the occupational malaise of that generation born after 1963, in which "gosh darnit, young people can't find jobs they like!" "It's not fair!" whined one youth with the kind of 50s style so beloved of that particular commentator. Every time I get pissed off at work, I try and remember that cartoon, the billions of people around the world with worse problems, and remind myself that I'm not entitled to anything apart from certain fundamental rights, not including a pleasing job. The exercise took on a much more interesting twist in the past couple of days, as I (a) had my hours increased, (b) got a raise--how much I'm not sure yet, but it's something, and (c) was recommended by my boss--who, irritant that she is, can come through for us on rare occasions--to the restaurant next door as a possible prep cook candidate.

In the past week, our dishwasher and line cook both quit, apparently due to some probably groundless scare regarding la imigra.* I'm going to miss them, especially our line cook, who's been with us for over a year, but what's interesting is that the same thing happened next door; the terror cleaned out something over half the restaurant next door and now they're looking for people. I went there this afternoon and spoke to the chef; he's immediately looking for a dishwasher, and I almost just as immediately took that job, so anxious was I for something different, but caught myself just in time and told him I'd get back to him after this weekend. Even keeping my opening statements in mind, I've had enough of those, and I do enough of that already at my present prep job. I mean, this is what I've been looking for--an entry level cooking position at another restaurant (a real restaurant, that serves dinner and alcohol)--and I didn't even have to go searching for it, which is just as well, as if there's one thing in this world I hate almost above all else, it's looking for a job. With my hours increased at work, I just hope I'm able to heft what might be 16-hour days in succession. Of course, so many other people do it that it'd be a shame to wuss out on this, especially as I rather want to do it for a career.

Work today was pretty savage, although I'm starting to regard it as a circus, in which I'm the clown. I'm fine with that, as the ringmasters usually look more ridiculous anyhow. Two of my friends came by and got to enjoy the carnage, a nice way to celebrate what looks like the beginning of summer--we don't do spring anymore, right?

Army of Shadows (1969): Jean-Pierre Melville's moody, contemplative epic looks at the gritty reality behind the glamor of the French Resistance, with Lino Ventura, Jean-Pierre Cassel (just recently deceased, too), and Simone Signoret among others as Resistance fighters who try to maintain their humanity in the midst of anything but. Filmed with a bracing lack of ostentation and a skeptical sort of sympathy towards the characters, it was well worth a look, if the showing hadn't been fraught with so many problems. I went to see it at the Michigan Theater, and only belatedly realized that it was basically just a high-class DVD projection--which would have been fine, really, except that it kept skipping and freezing up, at one point stopping entirely and then replaying the entire previous ten minutes over again. The staff in general seemed to have little idea what was going on, but everything eventually righted itself, and we even got free passes after the show, which was nice of them.

*I'm predictably liberal when it comes to illegal immigration; I think it should be stopped when immediately found, but once people have worked at jobs for a while, I think rigorous enforcement is spiteful and counterproductive, especially as I've gotten to know quite a few of these people over the years (including, it seems, our former line cook and dishwasher, and practically everybody in the kitchen at the Mexican restaurant of my early Ann Arbor days). As for the "taking jobs away from Americans" meme, I'm of two minds. I think it really is true that many of the jobs illegal immigrants work are ones that native-born Americans find beneath them. That is, if they've already worked middle-class jobs or come from a middle-class background. It's an attitude, as I've said, that I constantly have to guard against, both from others and (especially) from myself. I mean, I'm a 32-year-old M.A. working a service sector job for $9.30 an hour (as of last week; not sure how much it is now), and that presumably leads many people to conclude I'm a failure. By certain standards, I am, but I don't think so at heart (though groupthink can be very, very persuasive at times), especially considering such standards are those of a failing society. I do confess to, on occasion, certain unworthy (and probably borderline racist) thoughts along the lines of "I'm too good for this," and I suspect these views to be pretty widespread. For others, though, these jobs are serious business. I remember reading an article, I think it was in The Nation or The American Prospect, about the plight of American service-worker unions and how illegal immigration has cut into their membership and power; people who don't mind doing working-class jobs (which these days can just as easily mean janitorial work as the classical stereotype of skilled mechanical labor) find themselves in competition with undocumented applicants willing to work for less and often without any of that pesky "human rights" stuff. It's a double-edged sword, I suppose, yet another fun thing about post-industrial capitalism.

Happy Trails, then.