Bookmole’s Neighborhood

Citing the inspirational Detroit forces that have fueled creators from Albert Kahn to Iggy Pop, he sets the scene: "The following poem is the Detroit from my mind. The Detroit that is in my heart. The home that encapsulates and envelops those who are truly blessed with the experience of living within its boundaries."

I have driven slow,
three miles an hour or so,
through Highland Park, Heidelberg, and the
Cass Corridor.
I've hopped on the Michigan,
and transferred to the Woodward,
and heard the good word blaring from an
a.m. radio.
I love the worn-through tracks of trolley
trains breaking through their
concrete vaults,
As I ride the Fort Street or the Baker,
just making my way home.

I sneak through an iron gate, and fish
rock bass out of the strait,
watching the mail boat with
its tugboat gait,
hauling words I'll never know.
The water letter carrier,
bringing prose to lonely sailors,
treading the big lakes with their trailers,
floats in blue green chopping waters,
above long-lost sunken failures,
awaiting exhumation iron whalers,
holding gold we'll never know.

I've slid on Belle Isle,
and rowed inside of it for miles.
Seeing white deer running alongside
While I glide, in a canoe.
I've walked down Caniff holding a glass
Atlas root beer bottle in my hands
And I've entered closets of coney islands
early in the morning too.
I've taken malt from Stroh's and Sanders,
felt the black powder of abandoned
embers,
And smelled the sawdust from wood cut
to rehabilitate the fallen edifice.
I've walked to the rhythm of mariachis,
down junctions and back alleys,
Breathing fresh-baked fumes of culture
nurtured of the Latin and the
Middle East.
I've fallen down on public ice,
and skated in my own delight,
and slid again on metal crutches
into trafficked avenues.

Three motors moved us forward,
Leaving smaller engines to wither,
the aluminum, and torpedo,
Monuments to unclaimed dreaming.
Foundry's piston tempest captured,
Forward pushing workers raptured,
Frescoed families strife fractured,
Encased by factory's glass ceiling.

Detroit, you hold what one's been seeking,
Holding off the coward-armies weakling,
Always rising from the ashes
not returning to the earth.

I so love your heart that burns
That in your people's body yearns
To perpetuate,
and permeate,
the lonely dream that does encapsulate,
Your spirit, that God insulates,
With courageous dream's concern.

Further Tales of the City (Tales of the City Series, V. 3)

Armistead Maupin

This series just keeps getting better and better.  Now they are in the eighties so he talks about Walkmans and whatnot.  Lucky for me, Maupin is a Southern author so I could read one of these and count it in the "Southern Writers" category for ASRP. 

In this novel, one of the characters gets involved in the Jonestown Massacre, which made for a really good story.  I found this one to be pretty suspenseful in addition to being hilarious like the other two so far.

#14 of 2008

I was doing some yard work and there it was. I was about to touch it. That is how close I got to it and it never moved. I had to keep my eye on it till Animal Control came in case it moved. If it crawled away I was to call them back and tell them not to come. Thank God it never moved. Bertha, That's what I called her. Bertha got here, scooped up the rattlesnake like it was nothing and was on her way.

What do you find interesting or unique about your family history?

I'm not the family historian, Ericka is. I bet she could tell you all kinds of interesting or unique things about our family history. I went through a brief bit of family tree mania when I was in fourth grade, but after that it blinked out of existence. I feel oddly detached from the family genealogy, though I am intensely attached to my sisters. I think it has a lot to do with not knowing my biological father. It's as though if I can't know the whole story of my history, I don't even want to know about half. It makes sense in my head.

I've lived more than two-thirds of my life inside the Capital Beltway. My first memories of Independence Day are of the National Mall, big crowds and loud, scary explosions. When Washington celebrates the birth of our country, it does it big. If you're going to grow up with a healthy respect for the 4th of July, this is the place to do it.

So I hope I've established my bona fides for the following statement: I hate the 4th of July.

I should say, rather, that I hate one specific aspect of the 4th. I quite like long weekends, potato salad, indolence, grilling with friends and playing frisbee in the park. I'm even mildly pro-fireworks, especially if they're illegal, and dangerous, and I'm setting them off myself while paying dubious attention to my own safety.

What I hate about the 4th is the compulsive drive it elicits amongst great segments of unwashed humanity to descend on public places typically used for other purposes, like driving. I will never, ever understand what motivates people to leave the comfort of their homes and friends to voluntarily join hundreds of thousands of strangers waiting in the mud for a colored light display. It is to me the most singularly perverse aspect of human nature, like the thousands of happy idiots in Times Square every New Years Eve, pretending they don't have to pee. Totally perplexing, and more than a little disheartening, for those of us who care about the future of the species.

What elevates this from a sad anthropological curiosity to something worthy of my burning hatred, is when I have to pass through this gauntlet of idiots to get somewhere enjoyable, like a small party with a few good friends. Washington goes into full-on terrorist lockdown mode on the 4th, leaving one path of egress out of the city, and giving the rest of it over to the throngs.

The only thing that made driving through it remotely palatable was the wholly predictable storm that had them all huddling under trees and canopies like refugees. Whoever poetically asked the rest of the world for their "huddled masses," never saw them hiding under a tree, trying to keep their fucking sparklers dry.

Waiting for coupons...due tomorrow. Wasn't going to, but I found all my slides. There are nearly 2000 of them. And I have all the negatives from every picture I took. Ever. We're talking many many pix, since I bracketed everything and took some wild and crazy shots that I never bothered to have developed. It's an entire graphics library, if I can get the images back into a useful format. Cool.  

What do you find interesting or unique about your family history?

My family history? Interesting? Nearly everything. Both sides.

Saw a dude at the Bluesfest last night wearing this t-shirt:

Arr

Laurie, you have to get it!