What happens when you put an archives librarian together
with a retired professor to give a lecture on the Myth of Biddle City? You get
a well-research topic told in such a way that it was hard to follow and
somewhat boring for anyone except those with a connection to our state’s
capital city---Lansing, Michigan. At least that was the consensus of myself and
two of my seatmates at the Life Learning Lecture series down at the senior
hall. I’ve been going to these lectures for six years and this is only the
second one that didn’t live up to the hype. But the cookies were good, the
crowd was friendly and the price of admission was free so I’m not mourning the afternoon
not spent at home playing with my toes. I hate to say this, being in the same
age bracket as the professor but even with a microphone her voice had that old
person, wavy and shaky quality that made her hard to understand. My voice is
starting to do that, too. I think I’m saying stuff clearly but syllables here
and there don’t come out. Vocal chords dry up and get too stringy for normal
vibrations. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Growing older sucks. If aliens from outer
space came down, snatched a septuagenarian off the streets to use to decode our
language they would have a big surprise when the next person they snatched is
young and has a well-modulated and strong voice. But I disagree.
As a Michigander, I did find it interesting that when our
state capital ended up in Lansing in 1847 the place only had nineteen houses
and no roads. (The provisional capital was in Detroit but it was deemed to be too close
to foreign soil to stay there.) A year later with the help of investment
capitalists an entire town sprung up and they were paying a $6 bounty for
killing wolves within the city limits. And when they had conventions in the early
1850s, the records show they averaged 5-6 ‘soiled doves’ locked up in their
jail each year. The men who bought their favorites, of course, were not
mentioned and presumably roamed as free as the four-legged wolves.
The next day was my monthly book club. I was a bad,
disinterested participant because half way through the book I quit reading. The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore is a
true story of two black boys who grew up in the same, drug infested neighborhood
but one ended up serving a life sentence and the other became a Rhodes Scholar,
decorated veteran and worked at the White House. When the latter Wes heard
about his “name twin” he got curious and started visiting him in prison. They
became friends and the bottom line message of the story is that by the grace of
God their life paths could have easily gone the way the other person’s did. My
reasons for not finishing the book were twofold: 1) The download of Bob Woodward’s
book, Fear, came on my Kindle, distracting me, and 2) The book club selection was confusing as the story transitioned
back and forth between being told in the first and third person. I blame the publisher for that more than the author. Those transitions needed clear cut visual queues in the way it was printed. No one in club gave the book a high rating.
It’s been a busy week. Our Sculpture Park also had a lecture,
this one titled: Contemporary Disability Sculpture. I had no idea what to
expect even after reading the description of the show: “This exhibition
emphasizes the relationship between disability and the fundamental human
experiences of change and embodiment.” Who writes that double talk? Over 600
people usually attend these quarterly lectures and they draw people in from all
over the country to hear a panel of critically acclaimed artists talk about
their work. They also serve fancy schmancy desserts and you get to hob-knob with a bunch
of creative types and eavesdrop while mingling with the crowd after the lecture
when the exhibit is unveiled. Walking around trying to figure out why corporate
leaders are willing to pay thousands of dollars to own some of that
stuff, is fun. What makes a giant blob of orange string more arty-farty than, say, the world's largest ball of twine in Kansas? The curators of our Sculpture Park are too contemporary for my tastes.
If I had my way the place would be filled with Michelangelo’s naked men and
armless Venus de Milo-like marble statues.
Have I ever mentioned that I spent a semester in college
carving marble? Back in those days our marble slabs came from monument
companies who’d occasionally misspell a decease’s name on a tombstone.
I managed to get all the writing off the stone and I got a set of B cup breasts
rough-cut into the headless piece before the semester ended but it was far from
finished. For some reason the professor took pity on me and gave me an ‘A’
anyway. To this day, I see a granite countertop and I think, “What a waste!” I'm just sayin' beware if you ever invite me over to see your new countertops because I still have my stone chisels and mallet. ©
Photo from the sculpture exhibit.
