Someone poured large bags of sand into the Thomas Cooley Memorial Fountain at 875 N. University Ave. Sunday night, police reports said.
A witness called University of Michigan police after seeing a person put what they thought were four bags of concrete mix into the fountain at about 9:45 p.m.
Officers responded and removed the bags, which were filled with sand. No suspect description was available Monday morning.
And here’s the headline of the month:
How to find fellow meat-grinder collectors
I don’t care now
I’m laughing in my
Yellow snow shoes
God damn humanity
A mermaid in a wheelchair
Who could make this stuff up?
What’s the matter with matter
Just enjoy the waitress kneeling
In her French Maid costume
And don’t say a word
There’s supposedly some “movie stars” around town. Big deal – I probably wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them. I never go to mainstream Hollywood movies, only to low budget indie films or documentaries about fracking or the NSA.
They say these “stars” hang out at that bar on First. Who cares? I was there from six until closing practically all last week and didn’t catch a glimpse. It turns out the one time the three of them came in I was out at the Performance Closet in Ypsi watching my friend the brilliant Roxie Davenport, performance artist, piercing her nose and putting a hula hoop through it. Tell me that’s not better than seeing some “celebrity” and maybe being discovered and going to Hollywood or at least hanging out, doing some blow and telling them your great idea for a movie, because I’m not interested in “celebrities” at all, even though it IS, like the best idea for a movie ever, sort of based on my life, O.K., and that is not the reason I’m not talking to Roxie. It’s that blood she got on my Melvins shirt. I could also use an investor for my Ypsipanty clothing line and a new projector light bulb and maybe some Off, for the Movies in the Marsh series, but I seriously doubt I would even take one penny from such gross capitalists.
My neighbor said one of them was at the Dairy Queen, but by the time I got down there she was gone. Not that I really wanted to see her or anything, I would have let her lick her cone like everybody else probably, but I just got this sudden hankering for ice cream even though I never eat the stuff. I didn’t end up having anything because they didn’t have Zingerman’s organic frozen tofu there, if you can believe that!
Someone at the DQ said that this “star” had just broken up with her boyfriend who’s on television. Whatever. I wouldn’t know, because I don’t watch T.V. I’ve never even owned one, and probably wouldn’t even know how to turn one on if I did, much less recognize that guy from the computer commercial, or even give a fig if their love was rekindled right here in Ypsilanti.
I’d much rather see two blind 87-year-olds do a traditional clog dance to a lively jug band tune in an old windmill while a puppet cat spits up real hairballs. That’s entertainment to me. Let me know if you hear about anything like that going on. Or if you see one of those “celebrities,” so, you know, I can stay away from them because, really, who cares?
There’s a formulation that everybody seems to use these days when expressing condolences – "My thoughts and prayers go out to the family" it roughly goes, though often the thoughts and prayers "are with" the bereaved. What exactly is that supposed to mean, anyway? Do those who utter it actually think about what they’re saying for one second, or is it one of those cliches that are regurgitated undigested? Is it really supposed to be consoling that someone is thinking about you? What earthly good is that? In my view the idea of these thoughts "going out" of someone’s brain, traveling through the aether, and then landing to "be with" a mourning person’s grey matter is a little bit creepy. I guess it’s a sort of a new age telepathy type thing. And what are these thoughts? Beyond the usual euphemism of someone "passing," if the true thoughts were known they’d probably be along the lines of I’m glad it wasn’t me.
As for the "prayers" part of the formulation, shouldn’t the said prayers be going out to be with God rather than the bereaved? That notwithstanding, I know that there are people out there who pray regularly and would gain genuine comfort in knowing a fellow holy roller is working the Lord on their behalf, and God bless ‘em (presumably), but I’ve seen the prayer bit come out of hipsters who wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near a church, reprobates whose only connection to the Almighty should be on the other end of a thunderbolt, and various others who usually only say prayers when they scratch off their lottery tickets.
Sure, it’s nice to have something to say to someone who’s hurting, but meaningless boilerplate like this is just a shield against true feeling. To me it’s just another expression of the egotism of our age – it’s all about my thought and my prayers. What ever happened to sympathy? Now that’s a sublime concept, expressing some kind of communion, some kind of shared emotion, rather than the standard motive of today, i.e. I’m doing this so I’ll feel better about myself with no real benefit to anyone else. Sympathy is a connection between two people while thoughts and prayers come out of one head regardless of where they allegedly go.
Big deal, right? You’re making much ado about nothing, UBU, breaking a butterfly on a wheel, etc. Sorry, but some of us still think the authenticity of language is important. The modernist movement was galvanized when all those tired, rhetorical formulations about God and Valor and Homeland were exposed as bloody lies by the contrived madness of World War One. Guys like Hemingway insisted that words mean something again, that they be clear and exact and sincere, but it seems to me that we’re still being emotionally suffocated by stupid, meaningless, universally used expressions like "take care" or "have a nice day."
Go ahead, the next time you want to express yourself why don’t you try to be authentic instead of uttering a cliche without thinking – it won’t kill you. And if it does, well, my thoughts and prayers go out to your family.
I’m working my way through Knut Hamsun’s three books about his fictional small Norwegian town Segelfoss, and didn’t want to write anything about them until I was done with all three. However I found this passage in the third, The Road Leads On, and it’s really great and too long to fit into my essay so I’ll just inflict it on you now. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but you should know that Aase is an Lapp fortune teller/folk healer type, really one of the vestiges of the shamanistic culture. Hamsun’s protagonist August approaches her to find out about some money he’s been promised only to have her intuit what’s really bugging him:
Along about this time he happened one evening upon Aase and it was his thought at once to hear what she might have to say in regard to that money of his: would he get it, or could he kiss it goodbye? He halted her and asked her advice on a matter of great importance to him. She stared him hard in the eyes, then without uttering a word, she drew him to one side, spread her legs wide apart and lifted up her clothes, so that she stood there nude to the navel. Meanwhile she continued to stare into his eyes.
"Hey –! Well I never!" August managed to stammer.
"I just wanted to see!" she said and let her clothes drop back into place.
Now it may be that August’s face had momentarily beamed at what his eyes had witnessed and it is likewise possible that he had gone further and moistened his lips.
"You old swine!" said Aase. "That’s why you go there all the time. You want her!"
Hell and damnation! This was not what he hoped to hear from Aase, though he knew she had spoken the truth – unfortunately the words were all too true – night and day the girl had haunted his dreams.
– from The Road Leads On by Knut Hamsun
Car Attendant
See the cold fool
Trying to be hot stuff
And his lardass associates
Like many fascists they try
To prove they’re fun guys
By wearing shorts
Exposing hairy trotters
A few problems with your Ford?
Is this your first contact
With human intelligence?
Did Heraclitus have to
Put up with this crap?
But like that philosopher said
It’s funny how quickly it shifts
First life’s curses then her gifts
A Honda crammed with beauty
17 year old driver calm knockout
Laughing gasping what’s she
Trying to say? That’s for you
And hands me a joint
Grand Turismo
Chariot of the goddesses
Legs so slim in faded jeans
(apply universally)
BMW woman bracelet cracking up
With a leather mini 100% soul
Heart tightening tights
Pursed lips alligator purse
Singing to the car stereo
Three singles she croons
But I fear she’s destined
To fall into degraded hands
Like Delphi sacked by Celts
279 BC
Perhaps you’re aware of Stella’s SwimClub radio project. A bunch of us make CD’s of our favorite tunes of the moment, she copies them, and we all dig each others’ sounds. It’s as much fun to listen as to create (well, almost – you know me) and so here’s my second effort. It was harder than the first. I was going to do the part of the alphabet I didn’t get around to, but I wanted it to be more thematic. I had Rock, Cosmic, and Love – Rock was just too long and too obvious, I tried to combine Cosmic and Love, but when I road tested it, it didn’t hang together. So as usual I surrendered to Eros and that lovely Mom of his. Here it is a little bag I call BURN.
1.) Ballerina (Demo) – Van Morrison – Laughing In The Wind
A while ago I was lucky enough to get a few high quality Van Morrison bootlegs that some desperate soul had sold to Encore Records, including this one which had on it a dozen "studio demo’s," some of them from the sacred Astral Weeks period. To hear this classic stripped down to guitar and voice is a real trip, and there’s something so hypnotic about the beginning where Van says a monotone Ballerina, and then just starts Spread your wings/and come on fly a while…that I had to listen to it first thing in the morning for about a month.
2.) Maps (Live) – Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – Sessions@AOL
Honest, I really think the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs are one of the few contemporary groups that give me any hope for music. They go in for a lot of Sonic Youth style guitar noise, but this AOL thing is kind of like Unplugged was for Nirvana – a chance for the listener to really hear the strong songwriting and the ultra bitchin’ beauty of Karen’s voice.
3.) I Wish I was Your Mother – Mott The Hoople – Mott
When I used to do a radio show in college on the 10 watt WKCO radio station in Gambier, Ohio I’d do a little segment I called Modern Love, and this song got played all the time. It’s certainly part of the soundtrack to my adolescence and Ian Hunter’s voice, though technically not much, is such an expressive instrument. The mandolin player (credited as I remember on the LP as "that guy from Hawkwind" whose name they evidently can’t remember) adds a great texture and sort of leads to the next track.
4.) Please Read The Letter – Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand
I love both Plant and Krauss and this album is fantastic. This song is super spooky, right along the border of love and crazy. I think Jimmy Page is buried somewhere in the writing credits, too, which would make sense with the vague esoteric hints. I wrote a letter like this once. I’m sure she’ll answer it any day now.
5.) Diana – Skip Spence – Oar
Oar is, like, waaay over the border on the crazy side. Along with Syd Barrett, no one has ever mined madness so successfully, and brought tuneful nuggets back to us. Supposedly most of Oar was composed when Skip was being held in the psycho ward. This track is just so real and deeply felt. It’s no mistake that Diana is the name of a goddess, the naked sight of which was enough to destroy a man.
6.) Like Rain – Grin – Very Best Of
Another track that got played to death on my radio show. Nils Lofgren is one of the underappreciated geniuses of the rock era, a great singer, songwriter and guitar player. I’m glad he and Springsteen hooked up, but I’d rather see a Grin reunion.
7.) Burn – Rainer Maria – Catastrophe Keeps Us Together
A group named after Rilke can’t be all bad, and this one got less noisy and more tuneful on this album with fantastic results. It’s sort of the whole thing from a woman’s perspective which is amazing. Too bad they broke up after this.
8.) Riot Act – Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Get Happy!
I guess no one’s really had the emotional effect on me that Elvis has. Get Happy! Is the perfect album, with more songs, more emotions and more ideas on it that most "artists" produce in a lifetime. Elvis’s breaking voice on that final You can make me… will break your heart too…and I felt like I was living it at the time….
9.) You Keep Running Away – The Four Tops – Essential
This isn’t one of the Four Tops songs you hear on the radio, but it’s one of my favorites. Listen to the drumming! The lyrics! There’s a part in the middle where Levi goes Just look at me/I’m not the man I used to be where he spits out the words in magnificent syncopation.
10.) Through The Lonely Nights – The Rolling Stones – Rarities
This was the flip side of the 45 of "It’s Only Rock and Roll." In high school I used to leave that stacking arm thingie on my stereo open so it would play over and over again. I never thought I’d hear it again until it came out on that Starbuck’s rarities CD. I still think it’s a great song though I don’t remember it ending so abruptly. But it actually makes a good segue to…
11.) Radar – Morphine – Yes
What a wonderful band. It just drives me crazy when they stop the song and the late Mark Sandman says "If I am guilty…" and even names the date. Clever, ironic and yet deeply felt at the same time.
12.) Please Don’t Tell Me How The Story Ends – Joan Osborne – Pretty Little Stranger
I’ve written on here before about how I was idly channel surfing and came across a Grand Ole Opry performance that blew me away. It turned out it was Joan Osborne absolutely owning this classic Kris Kristofferson song. It’s an existential novel with steel guitars.
13.) Wrong To Love You – Chris Isaak – Baja Sessions
This was in and out and then back in again, beating out The Velvet Underground’s "Pale Blue Eyes" by a nose. I love "Pale Blue Eyes" but it wasn’t dynamic enough in context and I couldn’t resist the "there will be no song of love…" part which always breaks my heart. I liked this version better than the more produced Heart Shaped World version.
14.) Lost My Drivin’ Wheel – Cowboy Junkies – 200 More Miles
This is another one that I had to listen to every day for a long time. Margot’s voice is bone chilling and the way it rises slowly from a whisper to a wail and back again makes me feel like one of those lobsters slowly boiling. Yeah, you know how it is.
15.) My Only Love – Roxy Music – Heart Still Beating
Another high quality bootleg from Encore. It’s so sad and operatic – I don’t know when Bryan Ferry and Roxy went from ironic to sincere, but I bet it was just about the time Jerry Hall broke Bryan’s heart. Over time Roxy’s musicianship became pretty accomplished, too. This is one together band.
16.) Hymn To Her – Pretenders – The Isle Of View
This is the only holdover from the Cosmic set. It fits here as an expression of the eternal feminine. Chrissie Hynde’s voice is an absolute treasure and she can still come up with a great song every so often. I saw the Pretenders kick ass in Columbus in 1981, little knowing that within a short period of time two members of the band would be dead.
17.) A Dream Goes On Forever – Todd Rundgren – Anthology
Yeah. Here’s another one I pretty much wore out back in the day. Of course now the line "You’re so long ago and so far away…" has a little more meaning…
Ponytailed Erinys
The greyness when
It gets late brings
The challenge of reality
In the form of
The Washburn Cheerleader
Ponytailed Erinys returning
Erinys who walks in darkness
Who strips her clothes off
And hangs them in a tree
White socks and saddle shoes
Her strangely crystalline eyes
Rolling way back in her head
Giggling at what she’s doing
Drunken with human blood
Curse the heavy infatuation
The idolatrous cult of female energy
Which the hard-hitting goddess
Has laid on my understanding
Yet hail to thee Erinys
With pulled back hair for
You will convey me directly
To the end of my transmigration
