I Thought It Was Edible
I missed Juneteenth again!!! Some of you may be familiar with the primarily African-American holiday celebrating the end of slavery, which is supposed to take place June 18 (commemorating the declaration of the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, Texas, one of the last places to be reached by Union troops at the end of the Civil War). Every year there's a big shindig at Wheeler Park in Kerrytown, and I meant to go last year, and forgot, and did the exact same thing this year. Third time'll be the charm, I hope.

I did have a fun Juneteenth, though. I decided not to hike out to Gallup, instead just walking through the city and doing some intense comparison-shopping at the Farmer's Market and Sparrow's. I got enough ingredients to try mushroom, barley, and spinach soup this evening, so we'll see how that goes. I made a "Dutch farmer's soup" last week which was all right, but probably would have been better if I'd made a bigger batch--the veggies I used for the stock still taste great as a stew, though.

While walking along Catherine Street, I had an odd encounter with a cute girl sitting on her porch and eating an apricot. I nodded and smiled to her just as she dropped a freshly-gnawed apricot pit. We both watched as it tumbled in seeming slow motion down the steps and landing at my feet, and then started laughing in unison. I asked her if I could get it for her--I thought it was an unopened walnut until I inspected it more closely. She found this hilarious.

A very pleasant surprise awaited me at the WRAP office as I found that my friend Meredith from Planned Parenthood (who's also on the WRAP board) was running a garage sale. We talked for a while, and I spent $1.00 for about eight old shelves (to be donated to the Madison House for backyard seating purposes), two CDs of assorted orchestral music (one Saint-Saens and one just random stuff about sailing that included some Delius--I've never heard any of his stuff and have been meaning to give it a try), Meredith's old social policy textbook, a copy of The Hobbit, and a vintage 1982 cardboard poster featuring what looks like a raccoon straddling open water between a wharf and a rowboat that implores "hang in there, baby!" in weird second-grade textbook-style lettering. It was great to see her again.

This morning was glorious. I had breakfast at the Fleetwood, of course, which is always a good time (Sunday mornings being my favorite time to go). I sat on the Diag, the main concourse of the central Michigan campus, for the first time--and I've lived here for almost three years--reading Paris Babylon, Rupert Christensen's hugely entertaining book about Second Empire Paris and the resulting Commune. This afternoon? A Georges Franju film at Cinema Guild, maybe call my dad, and then a dogged attempt to make mushroom, barley, and spinach soup.

Have a nice day.

Building the Perfect Potato Chip
Two nights ago, I had a rather disturbing dream. I was waiting to catch the #5 (Packard) bus home from somewhere between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. The driver sternly informed me that my Go!Pass was hereto invalid and that my place aboard depended on my success at an arcade game freshly installed at the stop which asked questions concerning The Wild Bunch. I remember I did surprisingly well on it, but he still wouldn't let me on. "They're men! And, by God, I wish I was with them!" Bastard. I also remember that the tinkling of quarters as I dropped them into the machine was curiously loud.

Last night, however, I did end up picking paper potato chips off the floor of a small performance space in Ypsilanti, sharing a bag of real ones with a very attractive sketch artist while watching a trio of marionette plays concerning the individual's relationship with society. You should all be so lucky.

Yes, it was Dreamland Theater time again for your indefatigable correspondent. The place, along with the Blind Pig, the Fleetwood Diner, and possibly the Old Town or the Eight-Ball (or the Earle on Friday evenings), has become one of my favorite places anywhere in Washtenaw County (and by extension Michigan, although then I should include Tom's Oyster Bar on Lafayette Street in Detroit). If there's one thing that cheers me up (and probably creeps a lot of other people out), it's watching marionettes or puppets prance around a stage.

All the plays were by San Francisco-based writer Jess Rowland. "Satisfaction Guaranteed" tells of a Jobbish schlub named Bob who tries to kill himself, but is prevented by a very special bag of potato chips (hence my activities mentioned earlier). "Reality Incorporated" looks at reality's call center, where a new temp named Jessica struggles to change the system. "Dirt" is... about dirt, and how it loves an imperiled lass by the name of Marianne. The plays incorporated music and video projection in a very fresh way, and made for an incredibly entertaining evening (evenings there usually are). A number of audio problems occurred, and in the resulting intermission, I was able to tell everyone how odd it was for someone from Louisiana to see Zapp's potato chips marketed as a "gourmet" item at Zingerman's (whence I actually got a rejection letter this week in response to my application in early May, incidentally). There are usually about five, maybe six people in the audience, but everyone has a smashing time.

The last buses from Ypsi to Ann Arbor leave from 9:30 to 10:00, so I had to hoof it back to the transit center immediately after the plays ended, catching a gorgeous, cloud-shrouded twilight on the way over Riverside Park, where the Huron River cuts through downtown Ypsi. I always mean to stay and tell the puppeteers and musicians--head honcho Naia Venturi, Misha Grey, and Tom Barton, among others, how much I love what they do, but there's rarely enough time. It's too bad that more people don't know about the place.

Before the show, I stopped in at the Ann Arbor "Green Fair". I recycle and don't have a car, so the whole "environmental responsibility" thing is preachin' to the converted as far as I'm concerned (I do need to stop using styrofoam cups, though). It's good to see people trying to fight the good fight (even if I'm convinced that they, and the species in general, are bound to lose by this point). I wish them the best (except the "Friends of the Greenway," who stand for environmental irresponsibility ).

Underwear Is For The Weak
Yeah, that's right--no matter what "they" do to me, "they" can never take this away from me.

Again, frequent depression impels me to learn (as do the requirements of my job). I've learned a great deal about baking this week, having made a dozen scones from scratch and several quiche crusts. So huzza! for me. Before long, I'll be baking bread and everything.

I'm beginning to find that cooking does a lot to keep my mind occupied (I recently started writing and studying for the GRE again, so that helps, too). For the past several months, I've been in a bit of a funk and haven't been able to write (the fata morgana that was Emily's split-second presence in my life I write off to celestial mockery), but it's gotten a lot better.

Sunday Cinema Guild showed Michael Reeves' masterpiece, The Witchfinder General (1968), with perhaps Vincent Price's greatest performance as real life "witchfinder" Matthew Hopkins, well matched by the always terrific Ian Ogilvy and the gorgeous Hilary Dwyer as a pair of ill-fated lovers during the English Civil War. It looked fantastic on DVD, and the sumptuous Ralph Vaughan Williams-y score by Paul Ferris helped matters considerably (not that they really needed helping). Less a horror movie, really, than an "English Western," everyone should see it; it's fantastic.

I went swimming again yesterday and the pool seemed to kick my ass less than it has the past two weeks. Getting back in the water after you've swum a couple of laps and rested for the same number of minutes (it's been a long time since I swam regularly) is deceptively helpful for the limbs--only after you've swum the next lap do you realize you're in for trouble. I usually do a mole-like breaststroke, like I'm Angus Lennie or Steve McQueen in The Great Escape scooping dirt from the earth and shoving it behind me. I do a couple of freestyle laps every visit, but they're much more tiring. It's exhilarating nevertheless; I forgot how much fun it was to be in the water.

The weather has been remarkably cool and mutable recently--it's supposed to get down to 54 Fahrenheit this evening, but it'll be back up in the 80s for next week. I take what I can get, personally.

Mouse Haters
I stopped into Espresso Royale on Main this morning to have a lemonade before work. As usual, two out of the three computers didn't work and an early customer got to the operational unit before me. I sat at one of the other terminals and waited for her to finish while reading Vanity Fair (funny, but it's hard going--Thackeray is so intrusive with his narration--he makes Dickens look like Raymond Carver). All the while she was doing whatever the hell she was doing, she moved the mouse around in an unusually savage manner. I mean, she was jabbing the thing, slamming it against the countertop like she wanted it dead. It was weird, it was bizarre, it was the perfect start to my day.

I saw a rainbow Monday morning, which was nice. Tonight I'm going to try and make a soup. We'll see what happens, but apparently I'm really good at making quiche crust.

One of these days I'm going to have some kind of interesting experience and y'all will think I'm lying. I did get a hilariously flattering mention in someone else's blog, but I'm holding back on linking to it because it's... well, really flattering.

Cthulhu With 2 Hs
Now Playing: The gnomes in my head--STOP IT!!!
Someone said once (I forget who) that the best cure for sadness or depression is to learn something. I think that's why I seem to be having such a good weekend. I started relearning geometry in preparation for the GRE, and I successfully made four cups worth of a savory vegetable stock for a soup I'm going to make this week. Tiffany suggested that I should try some different soups at home, and I confess I'm rather excited by the idea. I've got enough for two separate soups, which should be interesting.

While making my stock last night, I also watched Thunderball (1965) and found myself giggling uncontrollably during the scene where poor Q (Desmond Llewellyn) shows Bond the gadgets in the Bahamas, as he takes off to destroy Emilio Largo (the great Adolfo Celi) with the help of Domino (the stunning Claudine Auger). I guess the Bond movies really always were that ridiculous--I probably hadn't been looking that closely.

I had a good brunch at the Fleetwood, too, noticing some bathroom graffiti of which I hadn't before been aware (?). The graffiti there ranges from the profoundly idiotic ("New York will always be my primary home, but Ann Arbor will always be second"--I mean, who the hell writes that shit??) to the personally sublime ("Gerbils for Satan" really can't be topped). Today's discovery was the conclusion of a "graffiti thread"--a series of scrawls responding to the most recent one before it (if there's a hipper term out there, somebody let me know). Someone who thinks H.P. Lovecraft was inconceivably greater than a pretty decent writer of 20s and 30s supernatural fiction (translation: "someone who's wrong") wrote some crap about "Cthulhu", his fictional deity, on the walls. Someone wrote underneath "Cthulhu's got 2 H's dumass!" And then the finale--"Yeah, and 'dumbass' has a 'b'." It takes so little, it really does.

Free Clowns At Sparrow Market
Now Playing: Van Morrison--"Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Heaven When You Smile)"
An interesting weekend already, not as depressing as I'd feared. I gave Sam Peckinpah's blood-letting classic The Wild Bunch (1969) another chance and found I liked it a lot more this time around. I still don't get what the big deal is, but it was a pretty good movie, and Robert Ryan was fantastic. I also watched Yentl (1983--that's right; I watched it and I don't give a shit who knows). It wasn't that bad; I was surprised to find Mandy Patinkin and Amy Irving much more irritating than Babs.

This morning, I was up at six and out walking by six-thirty, doing pretty much the length of the Huron River from Gallup to Argo Park (for non-residents, a fair ways). It was a gorgeous morning (stormed much of the rest of the day), and I wished I could go swimming in the river. I've begun swimming again, once a week, and I was surprised at how exhausted I felt when I finished. I managed six laps last week, and eight this week, which may seem kind of sad, but I really haven't done this sort of thing in four years.

All in all, I walked for about ten miles and then stopped in at the Farmer's Market to get ingredients for vegetable stock (envy my exciting life, you poor bastards). The Farmer's Market shows up at the Kerrytown Shopping Center every Wednesday and Saturday morning. A wide swath of the citizenry appears to pick up some organic veggies or the kind of artsy crap that usually gets sold at these things (many, I suspect, driving one or two miles in their SUVs to "buy organic"--it's like demanding there be no cream in your soup and then stuffing a huge butter cookie in your face, and I've seen that entirely too often). I found most of what I needed at Sparrow Market next door. There was an oblivious old woman in front of me affably yelling at the cashier, and a grim-looking, post-doctoral-type character in sneakers and carrying a New York Times behind me. The old woman suddenly lurched back, shoving me into the guy and my boot on top of his sneaker. "Ow!" he said. I felt bad for him until the cashier said "who's next?" and he bitched "somebody!" Then I felt better. Right outside, too, was a booth advertising the Ann Arbor Greenway, which I oppose (as do many other people--see most of the blogs listed in the "Athens of Washtenaw County" section at the side). I briefly contemplated looking through the literature and then saying in a loud voice "screw that!" but decided against it.

So I'm actually feeling pretty good now, which is odd.

Melt Your Silver Linings Into Plowshares
Now Playing: Saturday Looks Good To Me--"No Point To Continue"
I've been getting a little antsy at work lately, and I should really stop. I nearly snapped at a co-worker, which is not who I am. Part of this is due to life's disappointing nature over the past week, but I need to learn to put things in perspective; I need to remember that it's society telling me that I'm worthless and that it's not the truth. It's not as if the past month was really that awful--I restored contact with some old friends, made some new ones, and heard some really good music. I also finally began studying for the GRE. Yeah, I guess I'm disappointed about certain topics discussed on this blog in the recent past, but... life's too short, really.

Have a nice day.

Please don't say you love me, 'cause you know I'll only kick you out the door...
Now Playing: The Faces--"Borstal Boys"
I recently established contact with my friend Alasha, which is cool. We used to hang out in Akron a lot--one of my favorite memories of the era is of myself, her, and our friend Matt lolling around all night in my apartment listening to the Velvet Underground ("White Light/White Heat"), Television, and the Modern Lovers, all very proto-punk and witty, I imagined. Matt had a crush on me and I had a crush on Alasha. All that needed to complete the cycle of twisted glee would be if Alasha had been hot for Matt, which she wasn't. It doesn't need to be entirely untouched by sorrow to be a favorite memory. Anyway, I'm glad we're back in touch.

I am, however, going to begin studying for the GRE this weekend so I can retake it in July or maybe August. I took it a while back to get into grad school, obviously, but I've naturally gotten dumber since then, so it's all probably for the best.

And I got a little sniffly this morning, but it'll definitely be hard to resist this.

Balm in Gilead? Nah. We got paczkis, though...
Now Playing: Pere Ubu--"Chinese Radiation"
Last night saw a remarkably torrid afternoon in downtown Ann Arbor as I finally got to hear the Great Lakes Myth Society, formerly the Original Brothers and Sisters of Love. They are indeed excellent. I found it a little hard to place their sound, myself. Reading what other people have written and said about them, I was a little surprised at how hard they rocked, maybe expecting introspective little ballads of heartbreak and loss, etc., etc. It was cool, whatever it was. I think that any band with an accordion has a sort of base-level of cool that can't be taken away--that's one of the reasons I like the Decemberists so much (and klezmer music, now that I think about it).

We saw Michael Reeves' The Sorcerers (1967) for Cinema Guild, once more aptly described in British Horror Films as "angry young man made angrier by angry old people" (namely, Boris Karloff and Catherine Lacey). Simply put, an old couple take control of the mind of a young man (the always awesome Ian Ogilvy) and make him do things they "can't allow themselves to do"--kill people, drive really fast on motorcycles, beat people up, etc. It's a lot more fun than it sounds, and the scenes in a nightclub made me think of the Blind Pig the night before. So it was relevant somehow, I guess.

I finished Barnaby Rudge, too. How this book isn't better known is beyond me. The plot's a little weird, and rather simplistic for Dickens, but the characterization and grotesque descriptions of some of the people and events are world-class. The standout is probably the central character of Barnaby, the childlike, mentally disturbed young man with a talking raven who gets caught up in Britain's anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780, where a parliamentary attempt to take away some of the restrictions on Catholics meets with horrifying mob violence. Great stuff, and it reminded me of how awesome Dickens could be (and how much of two minds he was regarding the "common people").

Ships Passing In The Night
Now Playing: Beth Orton--"Stars All Seem To Weep"
"He bade farewell to his friend the locksmith, and hastened to take horse at the Black Lion, thinking as he turned towards home, as many another Joe has thought before or since, that here was an end to all his hopes--that the thing was impossible and never could be--that she didn't care for him--that he was wretched for life--and that the only congenial prospect left him, was to go for a soldier or a sailor, and get some obliging enemy to knock his brains out as soon as possible."

--Barnaby Rudge (1841), by Charles Dickens

I don't actually feel like that, but I have in the past, and was struck by how beautifully Dickens captured the feeling. Barnaby Rudge is cool--I read it in college and didn't quite realize its excellence.

More communications problems between myself and Emily--my phone died yesterday somehow and the phone guy at the Diag is on vacation until tomorrow. I called her to let her know that I'd be at the Great Lakes Myth Society show downtown today if she wanted to join me, so we'll see how that turns out.

I hate it, too, when I get a CD and there's only one song I like on it--but I really like it, and can't stop listening to it. Such is "Saturday Afternoon" off Outrageous Cherry's "Supernatural Equinox" album. I barely managed to stop to listen to Beth Orton. They were really good last night, in a criminally underattended Blind Pig show. It didn't help that I was perched on a stool by the partition wall nursing a Bud and imagining that reading a fictional narrative of the 1780 Gordon anti-Catholic riots in London (such is Barnaby) would keep the black dog away. Fortunately, all the bands, Cherry, the Fondas, who I'd never heard, and the Coronados from No Fun Records were all superb. The show was well worth it. The album wasn't.

Thinking of the beginning quote, I wonder how I'd find an "obliging enemy" in Ann Arbor. I guess I could just walk into the Firefly Club and inform everyone, "jazz and blues are both overrated examples of slave music that only guilty white liberals listen to anymore." I don't believe that for a second, of course, but it'd be fun to see the looks on a few faces.

Whether Emily shows up or not (there may have been an emergency or she may have to work for all I know), I'm looking forward to the GLMS show. Brandon and others rave about them incessantly, and indeed, it's hard to see where marrying Appalachian music and prog-rock could possibly go wrong.