Bluish Barn

I’ll be pulling my pickup into the Farmer’s Market this Thursday, 5-8pm, to sell off some of the stuff that’s starting to pile up in our basement.  I’m not even sure what I’m going to sell yet, but I agreed to spend the $20 stall fee knowing that I can scrap together some things.  Besides, the proceeds go to charity.  It’s all part of the event known as Trunkapalooza being organized by the Kerrytown District Association.

Stop by to peruse my inventory or just to say hello.

I still don’t know whether or not the Duderstadt Center should be nicknamed “The Dude.” I don’t know the guy. But the whole debate - if it can be called that - reminds of me of something I do have an opinion about….

Even before Comerica Park first opened, a lot of Detroiters started calling it “Copa”. It’s natural for people to give their own nicknames to something they feel strongly about. It can makes something local seem like it really belongs to us. (Even something distinctly non-local, like Buffalo Wild Wings - aka “B-Dub’s”.) It wasn’t long before Detroit media outlets began using the nickname that the populace they’re supposed to serve had popularized.

But some people weren’t happy about the nicknaming of the ballpark, especially the people at Comerica, the corporation who had paid $66 million for naming rights to the park for 30 years. I can’t find the sources on this, but I seem to remember that Comerica actually sent some sort of letter to the papers and TV stations saying, in effect, “we paid a lot of money for this, so please use the full name ‘Comerica Park’ when referring to that place….” (What’s certain is that Comerica - aware of the potential backlash from die-hard Detroit fans against corporate-sounding names for Tiger Stadium’s replacement - went on what the Dallas Morning News called a “charm offensive”.)

At the time, I was tickled in that special place where linguists can be tickled by the hubris of what I thought was a futile attempt by a corporation to combat the natural force of language.

But I was wrong. Soon the papers stopped using the shortened nickname, and eventually it fell out of the wider use it had enjoyed in the beginning. It’s true that some fans never liked the nickname and campaigned against it on their own. But I think that the decisive factor in the declining usage of “Copa” was Comerica’s campaign and the Detroit media’s unsurprising obedience to corporate interests.

Now’s where it gets interesting. Recently Comerica delivered a blow to Detroit and the rest of the state by announcing plans to relocate its headquarters to Texas. The Grand Rapids Press’s Nancy Crawley sums it up best:

The angry reaction from civic leaders and average people around the state made it clear this was more than a business decision in their eyes. It was a repudiation of the Detroit auto industry, its Midwest suppliers and Michigan as a builder of wealth. The board, in effect, said ‘Who cares if we have been based here for nearly 150 years? We’re moving our headquarters where the population and economy are booming.’

Here’s what the “Community Involvement” section of Comerica’s website still says about Comerica Park:

“We see this as a great opportunity to associate the Comerica name with the hallowed traditions of baseball and the Detroit Tigers,” said Gene Miller, former chairman of Comerica. “The message is clear: Detroit is a great long-term investment.”

I think that it’s time to start reviving the old nickname “Copa” for Comerica Park. Journalists here in Michigan should atone and show their disapproval of Comerica’s move by using “Copa” every chance they get. And ordinary people should stop policing themselves and let their language show the symbolic power it can have against the attempts of corporations to control it. Maybe Comerica will sell off the naming rights to the ballpark and this will all be for naught. And maybe you find the politics of language uncompelling. In any case, it takes one third the amount of syllables to say “Copa” than it does to say “Comerica Park”. For the sake of brevity, if anything, please - let’s call it “Copa” again.

After folding up the chairs and picking up from the 24-hour theatre (which was GREAT, congrats!) we took a Sunday afternoon excursion through the woods: Morel season is here. 

While neither Tim or I are mushroom hunting experts, we are definitely enthusiatic about mushrooms, maybe even mushroom enthusiasts. 

Sunday’s outcome: We (where “we” means Tim)  actually found 2 morels, one of which I am positive is the real deal (kind of a runt, but we don’t discriminate) and the other questionable, maybe a black poison death morel? Anyway, this is one of those things we think we could be really good at, Tim as an experienced scavenger with strong instincts and a fantastic mental map of Metro Detroit, and me, a pretty good landscape-scanner who has logged hours of photohunt and also frequently prepares a variety of mushroom-based dishes…..we just need to identify good places to go. 

This brings me to my question.  Are you an experienced hunter?  Do you want to show us the ropes? Wikipedia  can’t enlighten us like a seasoned moreller would.  We realize it’s just poor form to ask you to disclose your morel hunting spots, but if you feel comfortable telling us about old apple orchards, moist mossy ferny shady woods (preferably with lots of old growth), we’d be thrilled to add to our location list.  A friend or acquaintance of yours has acres of lovely of wooded property and thinks mushrooms are gross, perhaps?  The scoutabout continues this week after work, through the weekend. Contact us if you want to come along.  girlnextdoor at bluishbarn dot com.  or timothy at the same 

Looks like girlnextdoor beat me to the punch [see below].  Here’s what I was going to post:

Friends and neighbors, it’s that special time of year again known here at our house as Moveout Stakeout. Me and my trusty companion GND will be getting in our truck and joining countless other scavengers in swarming the residence hall loading docks and trolling down campus streets at night looking for the reusable castoffs of hurried college students.

If you are a friend and I know where you live in downtown Ann Arbor, please let me know if there’s any kind of furniture or household items you need right now. Include approximate dimensions or preferred color if applicable. If we see anything like what you want, we might be able to pick it up for you. Post your wishlists in the comments below.

Many of you know that Mongo Deco (another one of Tim’s projects that he doesn’t take enough credit for) has found new opportunity in our neighborhood through our restoration of the house-venue-formerly-known-as the Bad Idea.

The basic idea is that the house will be completely restored, renovated, renewed with recycled materials –An all-recycled house.

This week is a big week for the project, a process we call “Moveout Stakeout:” as students move out of dorms, apartments, houses, we patrol the streets in our trusty red truck looking for those discarded box fans and neglected folding chairs, rescuing them and hoping to give them new life.

In addition, today we added a sub procedure, “Plant Roundup,” which involves adoption of unwanted houseplants for our planned greenhouse.

If you or anyone you know is moving out, we just might need your loft (we need plywood!), your plants, whatever. If we think you have something or a bunch of things we could use, you can email me at girlnextdoor at bluishbarn dot com. Or call us if you see something good sitting out. We’re really into this.

And beyond this semester’s moveout, we will always be on the prowl for miscellaneous stuff, and might be looking for additional skilled workers to co-house with us, so check mongodeco.com for updates and talk to us if you are interested.

I showed up with my sprained ankle at the recent woodland burn at Kuebler Langford, so they gave me a camera instead of a drip torch:

The complete set is here.

Find out more about volunteering for NAP here.

I was doing some research this week and stumbled across an interesting paper from in the June 2006 American Sociological Review: Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades. Using data from 1984 and 2004’s General Social Survey, the researchers look to prove something about the changing nature of social networks (“core discussion networks”) and make estimates about the number of social isolates.

Particularly stunning was the low number of survey respondents who listed a “neighbor” as a confidant. Only 7.9%, down from 18.5% in 1985. (The survey is sort of open ended, so, you could list your spouse/significant other, your neighbor, your mom, your friend and it all counts as a percentage point)

“Whatever the reason, it appears that Americans are connected far less tightly now than they were 19 years ago. Furthermore, ties with local neighborhoods…have suffered at a higher rate than others. Possibly, we will discover that it is not so much a matter of increasing isolation but a shift in the form and type of connection… the evidence that we present here may be an indicator of a shift in structures of affiliation.”

[from http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/June06ASRFeature.pdf]

Don’t make me go into the long “pro list” on befriending the neighbors. You don’t have to be creepy or watch them through your windows. But you should make an effort to talk to them, because clearly, there are lots of advantages many of folks out there are missing.

(Thanks for letting me still post here, Tim)

This is the official post about the 24 Hour Theater event that happens one month from today, Cinco de Mayo, at the Bluish Barn. You might have noticed the page I put up a few weeks ago on the sidebar. Since then, we’ve had about a dozen or so people volunteer, and the event is taking shape. But we still need one more writer, three more directors, and 7-11 more actors.

The nice thing about this project is that it all happens in one day, meaning there is very little time commitment. Everyone puts in a few hours that day until their part is ready, and at 8:30pm the show happens with whatever amount of roughness or polish it has. A recipe for fun. Interested people should contact the organizer Onna at onnalyn AT gmail DOT COM.

Here’s her writeup:

24 Hour Theater is an experimental performance piece in which the entire process of a theatrical production is condensed into one day. Between the hours of midnight and 9 a.m., four playwrights will each create a 10 to 15 minute play to be performed by three actors. The actors arrive at 10 a.m. to memorize and rehearse the scripts. By noon, costume and set designers, technicians and crew will be sewing, painting, wiring, as time gets short and the energy mounts. The curtain rises at 8:30 p.m. In this experiment, the product is secondary to the creative process. The time frame calls for a level of improvisation, collaboration, and resourcefulness that will encourage spontaneity and creativity in every step of production. All of the artists involved will push the limits of their imaginative and physical stamina to create a public performance of intensity, originality and perhaps mass chaos.

It all happens Saturday May 5th [changed from April 28th] here at the Bluish Barn. Any interested writers, directors, actors, costume and set designers, or general helpers should email onnalyn at gmail dot com.

Two days ago it was sunny and 68 degrees. People were wearing shorts and sandals. Housemate Michelle asked me if I’d help her switch out the screens for the storm windows. I asked her if she was sure, reminded her that this is Michigan, and said something like “maybe this weekend.” Today’s forecast:

I’d say that’s Michigan for you, but really, that’s everywhere for you. People in almost every US state regurgitate the old saying: “Don’t like the weather here? Just wait five minutes!”

So next time she asks to take off the storm windows, I’ll tell her sure, I’ll help - if she just waits five minutes.

Thesis Talk: 8 PM on Monday, April 2nd at the Bluish Barn. The talk will focus on the role of the artist as entrepreneur and uses for geolocative technologies other than finding a restaurant with good reviews. A guided walking tour will commence at the conclusion of the talk.

Exhibition: Online at Plugfinder.com, a website for ‘Finding & Using Open Electricity Outlets in Your Urban Environment’. A collaboration between Zack Denfeld and Hawker and Shill, this interactive mapping tool takes a look at the invisible infrastructure of the city, and turns the sidewalk into a place where things requiring electricity can happen.