Southeast Michigan seems to have missed most of the Brood X periodical cicada event, but the regular “dog day” Tibicen cicadas, which are apparently more of a loner species than the Magicicada, are now gracing us with their shrill hissing mating song. I’m sorry that we didn’t get to see much of the Magicicada, but Tibicen is the next-best thing.

On the afternoon of the so-called “Marriage Protection Sunday,” Steve and I went out to the Michigan Theater and saw Vincente Minnelli’s “An American in Paris“ (1951), which I’d never seen all the way through before and has got to be one of the all-time great musicals. Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Ira and George Gershwin, Vincente Minnelli, “I Got Rhythm,” and the Montmartre: all good antidotes to the hatemongers and the naysayers. Minnelli’s masterful use of color is almost hallucinatory; it’s absolutely unbelievable on the big screen, and it makes stuff like Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!” look like child’s play, no matter how much “better” the technology that modern filmmakers have access to.

It was also gratifying to see that while the screening room where the film was being shown wasn’t packed, it wasn’t empty either. There were plenty of people there, and they were of many different ages and backgrounds; it wasn’t just a bunch of stereotypical musical aficionados (i.e., gay men). A grandmother behind us in line had two girls with her about 11 or 12 years old; good for her for taking them on a Sunday afternoon to see a classic American movie instead of some teen-tween major-studio crowd-pleaser like “Sleepover” or “Garfield.”

I was over in Ypsilanti today, taking the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification at Willow Run High School, and had almost three hours between the morning and afternoon sessions. So I went to explore Ypsi, where I haven’t spent that much time since we moved here a year ago.

Driving down a street, I noticed a garage sale and a couple of bikes. On a whim, I stopped and saw a dark green Raleigh M30 mountain bike, dusty and a bit worn, but apparently in excellent shape and in the right size and everything.

I asked the nice lady how much and she said, ‘Fifteen dollars.’

I said, ‘Fifty?’

‘No, fifteen. One. Five.’

‘Will you hold it for my while I run to the ATM?’

‘Sure!’

Back in five minutes, I handed over the cash and took the front wheel off and loaded my find into the Jeep. I went to the afternoon session of my test, then went home to rest the arms.

I’ve now had a chance to look over the $15 special and am pleasantly surprised that it’s a pretty good bike. The seat was worn on the edges, but she had a new one in the original package that went with it, and it’s a very nice gel setup. I’ll need to swap it out and it’s ready.

But there is a problem with the crank; I’m not sure I can fix it, thanks to my weak arms. But I took it for a test drive and, with the exception of the wonky crank, it performed beautifully. Tires, brakes, shifters, pedals, chain—everything is good.

I spent the last hour fooling with it and cleaning it up. Other than the crank situation, it’s ready to hit the road. I’ll just have to figure out that problem and Frank and I can bike together, if the mood hits.

So, in the space of a week, we’ve gone from no bikes to two (plus one still marooned in San Francisco). Yay!

The other day I startled myself by referring to a carbonated beverage as “pop” without thinking about it.

Today the heat was in the 80s and the humidity was in the mid-to-high range, weather that would have made me whiny and irritable in California, but I actually said, out loud, “If this is the worst we’re going to get I’d say this is a pretty mild summer.”

The sheer exuberant number of souped-up loud-engined street racing cars, megalithic pickup trucks, SUVs, and other behemoth vehicles of all kinds all over the streets of Ann Arbor no longer surprises me. Michigan is the Motor State, after all. (Some Michiganders’ driving habits, though, I’ll never understand.)

Ignorant and/or moronic letters to the editor that appear in the Ann Arbor News that would have automatically inspired a fired-off scorched-earth acidic response when I was living in San Francisco no longer faze me. Live and let live. Or something like that.

I’ve lived longer in Michigan than I’ve lived anywhere outside of California: as of July 23, it’s now been almost eleven months. (The only other place I’ve lived outside California was England, but that ended after nine months.)

I honestly no longer miss California much. Most days, anyway.

The first commute ride with the new Marin Bobcat went absolutely great. Especially since I’m not in shape for it any more.

The only problem is that it was not only the first, but the last, commute ride to grad school. I had to defer my enrollment for a year (« see the entry on the Teach journal for the gory details ») due to my very-messed-up wrist tendons. Sounds minor, but the pain is major, as is the damage that I’m doing to them by continuing to use them in bad ways (like writing this entry instead of resting them).

For now, my biking will have to be confined to pleasure excursions around the neighborhood, making sure not to spend too much time or pressure on the wrists.

But oh, that first ride. It was a total joy to ride the Bobcat. I managed the route in about ten minutes (which is slow, of course, but hey, I haven’t done this in years). The weather was good and the best part was how I was able to ride right up to the front door of the School of Ed; no worrying about parking or paying, just lock the thing up and go inside. Even though it takes longer from door-to-door, the time to get in the door is much shorter, so the commute actually ends up being shorter and less stressful.

Going home was just as nice; no walking blocks to the car or paying $7 to the garage. Just downstairs, unlock it and go home.

The only problem was the fiery pain in my arms. The next morning, after weighing all the factors, I very reluctantly decided to defer grad school for a year and my bicycle commuting was nipped in the very expensive bud after a single day.

As they say, life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. It’s one of those things. I have a physical therapy session scheduled Wednesday and hope that they don’t ban me from the bike entirely.

In the meantime, I’ll still hit the road as often as I can. The Bobcat is just too beautiful and smooth (and expensive) to sit idly in the living room.

This one caught my eye for two reasons: First, and most importantly, it’s a ringing denunciation of the bloody Cabal over the body of a 19-year-old Scottish Fusilier from a true Man of God and Peace.

Second, it occurred in the historic ancestral Land of Pollok in Glasgow, which may (or may not) be whence we sprang.

But this is just awesome. « Shame on You! »

’”I want to believe that if there’s a God in heaven then there will be justice because I want someone to pay for Gordon’s death,” Dr. Mann told a hushed congregation. “But only God may judge who is ultimately responsible and I can only admonish—I’m just a preacher. And if I were to point them out, I would say to president George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, I have only three words of admonishment. “I pray that they may some day be inscribed on the tablets of your hearts—and those three words are ‘shame on you’.”
…
‘George McNeilage, a community campaigner and family friend, said that the teenager was an “economic conscript”, forced into the army because of a lack of prospects on the impoverished Pollok estate. The teenager had simply hoped to get a driving licence and a trade from a career in the service, he said.’

Almost a thousand American families can pretty much say the same of their dead too. But God bless and save and keep you, Dr. Mann; you’re a true man of courage and conviction.

With a great deal of sadness and regret, I withdrew from grad school classes yesterday morning, deferring my enrollment/involvement with the program until next June.

I’ve had tendonitis for 3-5 years now and had surgery on my left wrist in Sept-01. Things haven’t been too bad since, because I don’t hold/grip pens and write—I type. But the pain in my wrists/hands has been growing ever since I started taking undergrad courses to get ready for grad school and started writing things by hand extensively. At one point, during my summer math grad class in mid-June, the pain was so bad and distracting I almost hit a guardrail driving back from Ypsilanti on I-94.

I ignored it as much as possible and pretended things were fine. But they’re not. Truth is, I’m 40 and my tendons are shot and I don’t like it or want to admit it, but I have a problem. When grad school started full-bore last week, each day was more painful than the last. I also tripped and fell on my right arm and that certainly didn’t help. I ended up passing out in the middle of the night a week ago and then in the doctor’s office last Friday morning being pushed, prodded, pained and poked. Now, I’ll be starting physical therapy next Wednesday to try to get things back in order, as well as assessing what has to be done beyond therapy.

Read more »

Interesting Michigan developments …..

According to a story in Entertainment Weekly quoted by Daily Kos, the GKC Theatre chain, which owns 13 movie houses in Alpena, Traverse City, Battle Creek, Big Rapids, Fort Gratiot, Jackson, Ludington, Marquette, Saginaw, and Sault Ste. Marie, with a total of 268 screens, has booked “Fahrenheit 9/11” on only one of those screens (in Traverse City). Evidently the chain’s owners consider the film to be divisive leftist propaganda.

A law clerk at a firm in Okemos has sent out a letter on firm letterhead to 85 Michigan public libraries (under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, although FOIA exempts from disclosure “information of a personal nature if public disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual’s privacy” [Michigan Compiled Laws 15.243, Section 13(1)(a)], which would presumably include the information the law firm is looking for) demanding that “libraries hand over patron names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses,” according to an article in yesterday’s Detroit News linked at LISNews. The clerk says that “he’s trying to gather research to create a profile of library users,” according to the article. A profile for what? The article doesn’t go into it.

And then there’s the usual “Let’s ban gays from having visitation rights—oops, I mean gay marriage” hijinks, but I won’t go into that, except to say that a very depressing and predictably hate-filled opinion piece was published about the subject in the Other Voices section of the Ann Arbor News last Thursday. Suffice it to say that all the usual bugaboos were trotted out, including the ludicrous claim that gay men prefer short-term (average length 1.5 years) to long-term relationships (the fundies are getting fond of quoting a 2003 study from the Amsterdam Municipal Health service and misusing the statistics from it to further their aims), and thus are constitutionally unable to have stable relationships. Depressingly, though, I don’t see much in the way of the extremists getting their way in November, at least here in Michigan. They’ve got the signatures to put the measure on the ballot, and they’ll spend whatever it takes to advertise their message and to intimidate or hoodwink people into voting for it.

Crashing waves of anxiety, depression, nausea and panic. Not much else to report. Grad school is running better than expected, yet I’m not that happy with the program so far. More on that over in the ‘Teach’ section.

But the same old stuff that’s been going on for forty years is happening again: Adjustment Anxiety Disorder, which doesn’t do it or anyone justice. Doesn’t do the pain justice. Doesn’t do the impatience and frustration justice. It’s a clinical bullshit moniker that academics use to label things they can’t figure out.

It will pass, it always does. I’m getting by on a long holiday weekend, Vicodin, Xanax and, tonight, Ambien (although not all together, of course.) I have the first Ambien tonight and am looking forward to it. Will need to be fully knocked out until the alarm rings.

It’s just the usual ride this one out thing. And I really, really, really hate it. I don’t like when the elephant sits on my chest.

A little late this time …..

A glowing review by Larry McMurtry of the Bill Clinton memoir that covers the front page and two pages inside besides (“Some people don’t want Bill Clinton to have written a book that might be as good as dear, dying General Grant’s”). Not atonement for the scathing Michiko Kakutani review a few weeks ago (because it is running so late). But what is it? Very strange.

A full-page ad for the troubled Jonathan Demme remake of John Frankenheimer’s “Manchurian Candidate.” (Plus a half-page ad for “Fahrenheit 9/11.”)

A review of a new book by Franklin Foer that compares soccer and globalization.

A withering letter by the 80-year-old Ned Rorem that calls Bob Dylan “the singer charmless and rasping, Dylan the poet sophomoric and obvious, and Dylan the composer banal and unmemorable,” and derides the recent article about Dylan by Lucinda Williams as a “giggly postscript.”

Rick Perlstein, the writer of one of the best political histories of recent years, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, rips Josh Chafetz a new one for daring to compare Thomas Frank and Ann Coulter.

A review of a novel by Margaret Mazzantini says that “we expect unexpected reversals nowadays.” A review of Louise Erdrich’s new novel says that the book’s plot “feels natural and unforced, full of satisfying yet unexpected twists.” (One of the novel’s protagonists also “seems grasping yet is … unexpectedly selfless.”) So which is it?

A brand-spanking-new red Marin Bobcat Trail bike is in my living room and it’s a wonderful bike. I’ll write more and post some pics after tomorrow’s first commute with it.

It’s been amazingly temperate for at least the past week, if not the entire two weeks since summer began. There have been a few days of mid-80s temps with some high humidity, but those days have usually been followed in quick succession by days in the 70s with virtually mild humidity or (as was the case yesterday) overcast skies and bursts of rain. If this is Michigan summer, I like it. I have a feeling this is the lull before the real scorch-fest starts, though. I’m bracing myself, but that’s fairly futile. In the battle between my Anglo-Saxon/Swedish and Mexican genetic makeup, clearly the north has the upper hand in weather preference. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live in Mexico City or Ciudad Juárez during the summer months, let alone Tucson or El Paso (or Norman, for that matter, which was one of my early choices under consideration for library school). Nevertheless, since there are a lot of other great qualities about the Southwest (including, among other things, the incomparable, bewitching light during the end of the afternoon and dusk in Santa Fe, which you can instantly remember even by looking at a couple of not-so-great photographs in the newspaper, as I did yesterday), I may as well start getting used to the idea of warmer weather.

We finally saw “Fahrenheit 9/11” this afternoon. An amazing piece of work, in many ways, and also infuriating in other ways (as everything Michael Moore does is).

This isn’t going to be a review of the film, though. What happened as I was buying the tickets was almost more startling than anything in the film.

We went to the Showcase multiplex on Carpenter Road to see the movie. We went an hour or so early to get tickets; Steve waited out in the car while I ran in to get them. I got in a not-too-long line. There were two cashiers, a woman and a man — more accurately, a teenager, because he couldn’t have been older than 18.

I asked him whether the 4.10 show was sold out. “No, there’s plenty of seats left,” he said. I was getting my money out to hand to him and he gave me a strange look.

He said, “I don’t know. Personally, I think it’s a disgrace.”

He couldn’t have been talking about the lack of sold seats. He couldn’t have been talking about anything other than the movie. I was so startled I didn’t know what to say, but to keep the transaction moving along, and curious to see if he’d go on in this vein, I just said, “It is?”

“Yeah,” he said, then, seeming to realize he had stepped out of his bounds as a cinema employee, he sort of looked down sheepishly as I handed him the cash and got my change. He mumbled something else, but I was too shocked to hear what he’d said.

A guy who was supposed to be selling me a ticket had just told me that the movie he’d taken my cash to give me a ticket to watch was a “disgrace.”

He gave me my change. “Enjoy the show,” he said, incongruously.

The magical check arrived at 2:30 this afternoon, so I hotfooted it over to Ann Arbor Cyclery to make a certain purchase.

Curses. Foiled again. AAC closed today for the long holiday weekend. I’ll be bike-less for another three days.

Oh, the agony.

Oh well, I’m sick anyway and should be in bed (won’t bore you with details, but it involves an infection that would make riding a bike not so fun). I guess I must wait it all out, then.

Heavy sigh.

Best slogan for the Boy Emperor’s campaign I’ve seen yet:

‘Bush-Cheney ‘04: Don’t Change Horses in the Middle of an Apocalypse’

Still waiting on the magical check to fund my bike purchase. Feeling very under the weather with an infection, so it wouldn’t matter anyway. But looks like Wednesday might be the day!