Taking on the pavement again

You know, I was just thinking the other day that it'd been a while since I'd picked up any new scars from falling off my bike. Turns out I was overdue.

Rain came through Ann Arbor tonight, starting around sundown. I was just leaving Silvio's, having finished off a couple slices of arugula pizza, when I felt the first sporadic drops hitting my arms. Actually, the day had been hot, up into the high 80s, and the moisture felt nice.

By the time I got close to my apartment, the rain was coming down steady. I was having trouble seeing the road through wet glasses, and periodically I tried ducking my head to shake the water off. As a last resort I'd go a few seconds at a time with my eyes closed, trusting my own memory of the road home.

I nearly made it there laceration-free.

On the last turn -- the one into my apartment parking lot -- the old, familiar feeling came back: The tires slicked out from under me, and I felt my unsupported torso heading earthward. Automatically I put my arms out, and my elbows mashed into the pavement. Right afterward I picked myself up, looked in every direction, and just like the previous times, sighed relief to discover I hadn't been run over.

In the end, my butcher's bill turned out to be manageable: two scrapes on the right elbow.

Hours later, I've still got a sting in that arm, but I'm no less ready to head out on the bike again, hollering: "Bring it, pavement! Is that the best you can do?"

On the shores of Lake Erie (not me in the picture)

On a ferry in Lake Erie

Garden state

I'm a big fan of the University's Matthaei Botanical Gardens, especially during those times of year when you can actually feel the earth underfoot -- and not snow -- and breathe the air -- and not clouds of gnats and mosquitoes.

Right not we're having one of those times. Every plant or tree capable of blooming seems to be doing so, and the rest of the landscape is bursting verdant. The days are still getting longer, but even at night birds and animals chirp, buzz, or scuttle as you pass so you never feel the earth is completely asleep. In short, I can't think of a better time to be in Michigan. And if you're in Ann Arbor, it could be the best time of year to visit Matthaei.

I stopped by Matthaei last Sunday and checked out the Conservatory for the first time. I can't believe I've passed it up all these years. (In my defense, it closes at 4:30 pm every day of the week except Monday when it's closed and Wednesday when it stays open until 8.)

Among the wonders you can see there, this:


Sausage tree. Obviously. Anyone else feel like tea?

Worst product name ever

Walking through Kroger tonight, I passed a stack of dog food and did a double-take. Now, I liked Old Yeller as much as the next guy, but I think we've got a marketing mistake on our hands here. I mean, isn't it a tad ill-conceived to name dog food after a movie in which [WARNING: 1957 movie spoiler alert. Highlight to view:] the dog dies an agonizing, painful death? [End of spoiler] Just sayin'.

Stew Quixote

Last night I was biking home at sunset. I'd just left the State Street area where I'd met friend AB for coffee, and having doubled back to the Med Center, I was now well along my usual route home. All seemed completely familiar -- from the timed lights at Fuller Street to the bump coming off the curb at Maiden Lane Bridge -- until I beheld this sight:


A giraffe in Ann Arbor.

I could hardly believe it.

In my time here in Ann Arbor, all nearly six years of it, I'd never seen such a thing. I pulled on the brakes and quietly set a foot down.

The great beast raised on its haunches. Its neck telescoped to the top of the nearest tree, and with a slight and gentle oscillation its head bobbed back and forth as lips thieved the choicest leaves.

From where I was atop the bike, I heard not a sound, but in the fading twilight I discerned the movements of the jaw, the slow mastication of leaves that provided the displaced beast its nourishment.

The giraffe stopped chewing. Its head turned, its eyes trained on me. It looked left, right, then right at me again. I stopped. Had it heard something? Was a giraffe ever known to charge a man? A car passed behind it, and its head pivoted away. An ear flicked once, twice, and when nothing materialized, it turned again to the tree and resumed eating.

I snapped the picture, balanced myself on the bike, and with stealthy step pedaled the rest of the way home.

Use your illusion

Bruce Campbell (of Evil Dead fame) has this great, snarky line in Spider-Man 2 while playing a theater usher with a god complex: "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. No one will be seated after the doors are closed. It helps maintain the illusion." Hold that thought for a minute.

Yesterday I went to see the latest production of Hamlet to come through the area, one staged by the Ann Arbor Young Actors' Guild. That brings to seven the number of times I've seen Hamlet performed since I started grad school:

• Royal Shakespeare Company -- London, UK (2001)
• U of M Department of Theatre and Drama -- Ann Arbor, MI (2002)
• Great Lakes Theater Festival -- Cleveland, OH (2003)
• Zeitgeist Theatre (as Hamlet Machine Hamlet) -- Detroit, MI (2003)
• Actors' Theatre Company -- Columbus, OH (2004)
• Michigan Shakespeare Festival -- Jackson, MI (2006)
• Young Actors' Guild -- Ann Arbor, MI (2007)

Basically, if anyone puts on Hamlet within a couple hours' drive of Ann Arbor, I'm there. Some of these productions have been good, some not so good, and some downright awful. The best of the bunch was probably the RSC's -- big surprise, right? Samuel West -- who you might know from 2004's Van Helsing -- played a great Dane, though I never got over his resemblance to William Katt from Greatest American Hero. The one U of M staged in 2002 wasn't bad, either -- I'd never thought of Hamlet as a scrawny nerd, but I kind of connected with that.

The production yesterday wasn't bad at all, especially for high school kids. The guys who played the lead and Claudius were especially good. Except for this one scene...

At one point in the play, Hamlet writes something down. This might be it:

My tables, my tables, -- meet it is I set it down!
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain! (I.V.107-8)

In the YAG version, Hamlet sits down at the edge of the stage, takes out a piece of paper and a pen, clicks the end of the pen and starts writing. Did you get that? Hamlet clicks the end of the pen.

Hamlet uses a clickie pen?

Took me out of the moment, but it must be saying something about the production that I was in the moment to begin with. Mental note to self: If I ever play the Dane, no clickie pen! It helps maintain the illusion!

(For the record I'm still smarting over two productions that I missed in Illinois: one outside of Bloomington-Normal in 2004 and one in Chicago, 2006. But they were 5 1/2 and 4 hours away, respectively.)

A light appeared

And all of the answers were made clear to me.

But then aliens came down and zapped everyone.

Thank goodness Tom Cruise made it out.

Running, of course.

[Taken along Washtenaw last night, 7-ish.]

Little cat feet

Fog crept into the city last night, between the time I arrived at North Campus to do work and the time I left it. Walking out to the parking lot, I mistook the place for somewhere else. Things I'd seen a hundred times before were suddenly transformed. No longer the Midwest, now London Town. No longer electric lamps but gas.


The new Arthur Miller Theater, formerly a parking lot, seemed not the eyesore that I found it to be during the day. The suction cups behind the glass reminded me of water striders.


Through the rest of North Campus and down Plymouth Road, the rest of my drive home was like paddling through a ghost. A dream. Damp air came through the windows rolled down carrying the scent of trees. No students criss-crossed in front or behind. The car made its way softly, trying not to wake the nature that seemed now to breathe between the buildings. The hairs on my neck alerted me to the presence of things primeval.

The last part of my drive took me by Leslie Science Center. Looking up the hills, I saw the distant lights glow orange-red through the trees. The woods seemed afire, and the lights as eyes. I pushed gently on the accelerator.


I was glad to get home.

[The subject line, by the way, is from Carl Sandburg's famous poem, "Fog". "The fog comes / on little cat feet. / It sits looking / over harbor and city / on silent haunches / and then moves on."]

Phallic Chelsea

UPDATE (05/07): I was in Chelsea, Michigan yesterday and snapped this picture on my cell phone. I have no idea what this building is -- okay, it's a clock tower of some kind, I got it -- but I'd pit it against Ypsi's Water Tower for the title any day.

Stupid Golden State Warriors!

The Dallas Mavericks -- my Dallas Mavericks -- exited the NBA playoffs last night.

Depending on your point of view, you could describe last night's game as a "remarkable playoff immolation" (as SI's Chris Ballard did) or as a quiet and befuddling ending to an otherwise great season (as I do).

But I'm at peace.

I just happen to also be hoping that the Utah Jazz or the Houston Rockets -- whoever wins Saturday and advances -- hands Golden State's [fill in anatomical part] to them on a plate.

Triggers

This morning I thought I'd work on North Campus for a couple hours before heading to the Medical Center for the remainder of the day. The drab lighting and drone of the air conditioner at the Medical Center make the days over there run long, and I thought the change of scenery would do me some good.

So I've come to the Duderstadt Center which acts as a sort of library-on-steroids for North Campus where the University has sequestered its engineers and artists.

I'm sitting in Duderstadt's two-story foyer, a bright, airy space with lots of natural light and human activity. In one corner a coffee shop supplies the delicious brown to a continuous stream of people. The espresso maker heaves and haws like an asthmatic Aeolus.

The rest of the space is occupied by hexagonal tables where groups of students mull over projects during the school year. The year being over now, most of those tables are empty. Each has only its complement of atomically yellow plastic chairs which are amazingly comfortable on the rear. I'm parked at one of these tables now.

Behind me a glassed-in elevator shaft whirs away quietly. And behind the elevator shaft sits the information desk clerk who either (a) has the easiest job in the world or (b) acts as the guardian of all stored knowledge at the University. Depends on how you look at it.

The phone at the information desk just rang. It sounded like the buzzer from Family Feud.

[You might have thought I was going somewhere with that elaborate description of the Duderstadt Center, but I wasn't. I really just wanted to say that the phone sounded like the buzzer from Family Feud.]