Oh, Jeez, not poetry again

A Used Textbook
2007 09

Thirty years ago
My mother recommended to me
An old anthology
Of poetry: A.J.M. Smith's
Seven Centuries of Verse.

Being poor, I bought a used copy,
And it was full
Of the worst struggling notes
In someone's hand
Trying to understand
Yeats and Hopkins
On a public school education.

"Poet is split into two
This separates him from animal part"
Whatever this meant
To some poor sod
Copying down blindly the phrase
Of a bored TA in Humanities
Nothing does it impart
Of the first two lines
Of Sailing to Byzantium.

And apparently
There was nothing to be said
(no notes appear)
Of Byzantium's first two lines
That end, "The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed."

Big 9?

By the way, in case any of you missed it, the University of Michigan Wolverines lost their opener to fabled football powerhouse, Appalachian State University. The Mountaineers left the field singing their fight song, "An Appalachian State of Mind," specially written for them by alumnus, Billy-Bob Joel.

Some folks like to get away
Take a holiday from civilization
Hop a flight to Boone
Or to Bumpus Mills, TN
But I'm taking an old pickup truck
With six coonhounds in behind ...
I'm in an Appalachian state of mind

I've seen all the movie stars
In their fancy cars and their limousines
(well, not actually, 'cause they seldom come down here)
But I can imagine what they look like,
'cause I watch "American Idol,"
In an Appalachian state of mind

It was so easy living day by day
Out of touch with the rhythm and blues
No reason to change that, far as I can see
The Slippery Rock Times, The Dirt Farmer's Journal

It comes down to reality (or not)
And it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide
Don't care if it's Front Royal or Chattanooga
Long as there's a Walmart to plug inta
I've left them all behind
I'm in an Appalachian state of mind

I'm just taking my old pickup truck up I-95
With a case of PBR in behind
'Cause I'm in an Appalachian state of mind

Meanwhile, the Michigan State University Spartans beat the Kyrgyzstan National Agrikultural Kollege Komrades 174 to 3, ushering in the era of MSU's new head coach, ex-President Jimmy Carter ... oh, hell, I give up. College football is so crushingly boring, not even a vastly embarassing loss to a school with an even funnier name than Slippery Rock or Shippensberg can help me spice it up.

An end-of-summer medley

Because nothing much new or interesting has happened the last week or so (except every Republican in sight resigning from something or other -- Gonzales and Craig are actually resigning and, even more importantly, Sen John Warner of VA announced that he wouldn't run again in 2008. Now if only that Hoonyack from Kentucky who sullies my surname would hang up his squirrel gun ...), here's a contextless melange' of stuff from the old WCA archives. I thought it was funny, back then, and I still sort of think so now.

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From 2000:
Ann Arbor: Recently, WCA Facilities staff purchased two new smoke detectors for HQ. Like the lazy, featherbedding weasels I am -- that is, they are, they failed to install them, and the two units were left sitting on a credenza in the executive dining room. Last night, one of the executive staff, namely a large black cat, jumped up on the credenza and sat down on the detectors, one of which promptly went off. After I picked myself up off the floor, laughing, the question I had was: what did it detect?

---

From 2000:
OH, WHAT AN HONOR!

Ann Arbor: There's this person, Judy Rose, who writes about Detroit-area real estate in the Free Press (not unlike being the quality of life Editor at a concentration camp). Her column in a recent paper was headed, "St. Clair Shores looks like the next Royal Oak." And as if that wasn't enough, the lead points out that, in past years, Berkley and Ferndale have also been the next Royal Oaks.

Ok, I see how the game is played. Pick a depressing near-in suburb with one or two early buildings left in what can be described only geographically as a downtown. Pick another one nearby, where someone has recently opened -- say -- a new restaurant, and write 250 words on "X is the new Y." Ok, I predict that in the next 10 years, Inkster will be the new Taylor. How's that? Or Wyandotte is well on its way to becoming the next Ecorse? Warren the next Sterling Heights? Gore the next Clinton?

Folks, these are not cities we're talking about. They're either small towns that were swamped, devastated, and destroyed wholesale by urban sprawl, or they're development-driven accretions of the fifties, refugee camps for white folks fleeing the big bad city. And Ms. Rose, it takes more than (and I quote from your encomium to St. Clair Shores), "... brick pavers, trees, flowers, a park with a pond and bridge, and a trolley to transport visitors from one Nautical Mile site to another" to make them anything but a hellish endorsement of rigid urban planning policies.

Meanwhile and much more existentially, Ann Arbor is all set to be the next Ann Arbor.

---

From 1999:

WHAT?!?
Ann Arbor: By now, your WCA Food Editorial staff have heard pretty much everything out of new, ill-trained, and/or just plain young wait personnel. Our long time favorite was the response from an employee of a now-defunct Ann Arbor brunch venue, when our son asked if he could have hard boiled eggs: "We just don't have the facilities for that." However, two new instances have just recently come to hand, and we thought we'd share them with you.

First, from a waitress at that new place out in Saline, Mac's Acadian: she brought a bottle of wine, uncorked it with at least a reasonable degree of ability, poured it around, and then asked, "Now, should I let it breathe, or should I put the top back on?"

And not a week later, 1500 miles away, a young man in a Santa Fe restaurant took our order, noted our wine request, and was turning around when Linda said, "... and we'd all like water, too, please."

"Oh," he said, "Um, Ok. The water will be a few minutes. We're out."