Everyone's a Critic

Near the close of the third quarter in Michigan's implausible victory over Notre Dame, a cadre of Fighting Irish fans chanted/taunted, "It-sucks, to-be, a Mich-i-gan Wolv-er-ine." At the moment Notre Dame held a seemingly unassailable (24-7) lead and their parody was immune to ridicule. ND had outplayed UM. ND had dominated. They game was in hand.

As the hour neared midnight a furious UM comeback wrested the game back with 1:12 remaining. The Wolverines then lost it (again, drat) at the 30 second mark and won-it-at-last with 2 seconds left on the clock. As Denard Robinson's last gasp toss was snagged in the southwest corner of the end zone by Roy Roundtree, the Notre Dame chant became something other than annoying; it seemed, rather, a gift to be savored.

An NCAA record crowd of 114,804 witnessed Michigan Stadium's first night game and Michigan fans, traditionally blase, morphed with the darkness into a specter-like wall-of-sound, the volume undiminished even as the game seemed lost. The atmosphere had texture and weight, its own dimensions.

Few bad things are all bad and, after three years of beat downs (even at home) Michigan fans now seem to appreciate that winning isn't axiomatic, that fans can energize a team and impact a game. Michigan fans, out of the blue and night, came to the collective realization that they didn't have to be merely reactive; they could put their own feet on the field.

Michigan isn't a very good football team right now though, who knows, they might get there. What seems more likely is that the ND victory isn't sustainable and that, at some point down the road (I might guess week 6), matters will begin to unravel and this season might not look a lot different than last. On the other hand, with a couple of exceptions the Big Ten looks like a cream puff right now and maybe, just maybe, Hoke can gain some traction this year.

In any event, nothing can diminish the indelibility of Michigan's first game in AA under the lights. As one fan told me, waiting with the tens of thousands who refused to leave the Stadium until well after the game's conclusion, "This game isn't coming again. Not ever."

It is with incredible sadness that I report to you that our dear friend and awesome saxophonist, composer and arranger, Scott E-Dog Petersen, died Friday, August 11, 2011. Scott passed away after a long fight with Cystic Fibrosis (CF), a double lung transplant and, in the last few weeks, trying to overcome an infection. Because of his chronic condition, Scott was expected to live only to 25 years of age but he made it to 55. He was one of the longest-living Cystic Fibrosis patients ever in history! His life was extended 3 years by his transplant.

Scott was one of my closest friends - more like a brother. He was an amazing multi-saxophonist and an incredible musical genius! But more importantly: he was a honorable man who was loved by everyone who knew him.

E-Dog loved fast cars (his email address was espeeddog@comcast.net), Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Larry Young, Thad Jones, parallel chord harmonies (lots of his compositions use parallel chord motion), the Blues, his Detroit and San Francisco friends, Dominic Dog, kids, his CD E-DOG-ORIKO (which in Japanese means: Good Guy) and most of all his beautiful mate Susan Zeitler (who cared for him and stood by him for the past 20 years).

The first time I met E-Dog was in 1982 in Grand Rapids, MI after he a Walt Szymanski played a Saturday night gig at the Intersection with the Usual Suspects. (He already had the nick-name E-Dog at that point) I showed up late to hear the band at the Intersection after my steady gig with drummer Bennie Carew. Walt, Scottie and I instantly became friends. We partied all night that night. After a night with no sleep, we went for Sunday breakfast at Gaia Restaurant and wound up jamming in the front window of that diner until we couldn't stand up anymore. What a great memory! Here's another one: When I was traveling in Europe somewhere (can't even remember where), I was in an electronics store and found a little electronic robotic dog called E Dog! I had to buy it. I saved it and it was a year before I was able to see Scott at my house on one of his Michigan visits. My little boy Nat gave him the E Dog and Scott roared laughing with pleasure when Nat gave it to him. Those are just two remembrances out of thousands of beautiful moments I spent with Scott.

Scott Petersen played in many Detroit jazz groups including the Motor City Jazz Quintet, The J. C. Heard Orchestra, the Paul Keller Orchestra (he was the lead alto saxophonist), the Sun Messengers, the Suspects, Johnny Bassett, and Bill Heid and the Blues Insurgents. He studied music at Oakland University with Marvin "Doc" Holliday, Sam Sanders and Herbie Williams. He was a beloved mainstay on the Detroit jazz scene for many years until his health issues forced him to move to the San Francisco Bay area where the climate was easier on his lungs. Not surprisingly, he had great success, as well, in San Francisco as a free-lance musician and steady member of the Mike Vax Big Band and Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums.

Scott fought all of his life just to stay alive but he never complained. Doctors say that playing the saxophone every day helped exercise Scott's lungs and extended his life by many years. Jazz and the saxophone certainly gave a deeper meaning to his life and his music gave great pleasure to many thousands of his friends and fans. Thankfully, we can remember Scott Petersen through several great recordings that he made including his own CD: E-DOG ORIKO, The Paul Keller Ensemble: TALL CORN, Bill Heid: WET STREETS and many others. Scott Petersen lived his life with grace, humor, humility, compassion and love. E-Dog was always trying to get good - to get better - to be the best he could be. I am comforted by the many fond memories of great musical experiences with E-Dog and laughing so hard that we could hardly move! I am a richer and better person for having known and loved Scott E-Dog Petersen!

My grandfather adapted easily to change, which may be why he lived to ninety-seven. He defied the usual expectations of age that companies use to rationalize hiring only people with pre-pubescent arteries.

Ernest was born in a tiny log cabin in Virginia before automobiles and electric power. He served in France during World War I. He taught high school and was a school principal before getting laid off during the Great Depression, because he wouldn't falsify school enrollment to get more state aid. He was a whiz at geometry. No matter how many people were at the party - eleven, thirteen, seventeen - he could cut a round birthday cake into prime-ly equal slices.

He retired at seventy-nine from his job as a clerk at a school supply company that is still in business today. In his eighties, Papa discovered Chinese food. In his nineties, I remember him asking me "Are you getting paid enough at work?" - a radical question to ask a woman at that time. When reading the classics got harder for him to do, he became an avid fan and statistical expert on ACC basketball. He was the guy you'd call as your quiz show telephone life line.

He was so flexible in mind and spirit that a few years ago I dreamed he'd done his Christmas shopping online. When I woke up, I realized he couldn't have done that. He died before the internet entered our homes, but if he'd lived another decade, he would have been the neighborhood geek.

So for some people, the singalong version of The Sound of Music, which is playing at the <a href="michtheater.org">Michigan Theater</a> at 7 p.m. Tuesday, is just some ancient, saccharine musical with corny, feel-good songs and children who adapt perfectly to their blended family.

But for me? This 1965 Best Film Oscar winner was the first film I remember seeing, and I saw it with Papa. We walked from his home in Cameron Village, Raleigh's version of the Old West Side, to the old movie palace on Hillsborough Street across from North Carolina State.

We went on a Sunday afternoon. It was cold. Papa wore his church suit and church coat, of course. My sisters and I wore our pastel Sunday school dresses, ankle socks and patent leather shoes.

Papa bought the tickets and turned to us. I can still remember that moment, that look of excitement on his face with those ticket stubs in his hand. He was taking his grand daughters to something splendid - a movie - today's equivalent of taking the grandkids to the moon or to Mars.

We sat in the worn burgundy velvet seats. Our petticoats rustled while we wiggled, waiting for the movie to start. I looked in awe at the gilded plaster ceiling and cornices.

When I was in college, I dated a guy who was a neighbor to the real Maria after the Von Trapp family moved to Vermont. My beau told me she was very different from the film Maria. He even used the b-word to describe her, but out of deference to Papa, I ignored his heresy.

To me, Maria is the rebellious, young novice nun who runs in alpine meadows, "is always late to everything except for every meal," who learned to look first before sitting down for dinner, finds her calling as a mother and a wife, and wears a knockout dress at her wedding in a cathedral that set the standard for my generation for what a royal wedding should be.

So on Tuesday evening, I will honor my Papa by taking my pierced, long-haired, twenty-one-year-old son to watch The Sound of Music at the Michigan Theater and see this film the way it is supposed to be seen.

I'll wear a flowered dress, perfume and heels, and ask my son to take a cell phone photo of me holding our ticket stubs in my hand as I stand on the sidewalk by the movie palace with the gilt ceiling.

In 2006 I wandered the streets on all four days of the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, soaking it in, sweating it out, and carrying, for the first time, my note book to record conversations with artists or comments overheard or anything else that might seem journal worthy, not realizing then, that those notes were not going to get overwritten with new memories of the Art Fairs any time soon. I had missed just one Art Fair since we moved to Ann Arbor in 1987 but I have been out of town every July from 2007 till 2010.

So on a wintery day in March, daydreaming about the warmth of July and my elusive twentieth Art Fair, I transcribed those now faded penciled notes and realized, once again, some of the reasons why I savor the experience each summer as a feast for all of my senses:

- Jim and Tori Mullan of Pompano Beach creatively crafted the perfect bulletin board for my kitchen wall with old found items like printing blocks and lantern slides from the early 1900s and cabochons from the 1940s.

- Met interesting artists like Judd (wood), Bataglia (old photos & car frames), Fagerty (glass turned paper artist), and Whalen, (photos of doors). I talked to Patrick Whalen at length. He used to be in the construction business in Michigan, and is now a photographer in Florida. "A door is full of symbolism," he told me, "it invites you in, yet protects most of the best parts." "Most of photography is in the seeing..." and his photographs reflect that. He told be about Ireland's annual contest for the prettiest towns. And in his opinion, Ann Arbor is getting greedier because too many artists are now being squeezed into the fairs.

- A lady paid $750 for an outdoor dandelion sculpture. I guess we were not exactly similar in our spending habits. While I have spent that much and more at the Art Fairs, I haven't missed the springtime dandelions enough to install a metal one in my yard.

- Got henna-tattooed by the art teacher married to a Lebanese man. She was practicing her art on a low wall in the Diag. No signs lead us there - just two of her former students peddling her services.

- Listened to Eric the Flute Maker in the King's Chosen play his flutes, interspersed as always with his wisecracking comments.

- Re-learned how to make a candy wrapper chain--a childhood skill that I had forgotten. Got this free lesson from a college student constantly eating candy and converting her wrappers into a garland on her shoulder bag.

- The craftsman from Kansas who created the 'spirit house' had no idea why he carved the Chinese symbols or the Om on the metal sculpture except that an earlier client had liked it. It now adorns my front stoop.

- Drummed with Paul Namkung, artist and owner of World Drums--an annual meditational routine.

- Found Champion House waiters offering a free napkin to anyone who bought a bottle of water from them.

- Number of docile husbands carrying garden poles for their wives on Friday: 4. Number of angry husbands: 2.

- "Ooh Raja Rani--your favorite! Remember our first apartment with the curry smell?"

- "How should we walk--back and forth or all in one line?"

- Saturday was CROWDED. Most people just walked through the middle of the road not necessarily looking at the art.

- Checked out the non-profits along Liberty: There was the usual mix of religion, schools, political parties, nude beaches; as well as organizations that supported parents without partners, aging greyhounds (the canine variety), co-housing, and opposed circumcision; but what kept me on that street the longest was the small stall of the Mars Society manned by an enthusiastic 10-year old Alex Hessler and his DTE engineer dad. Alex shared interesting facts like the differences in weights on Earth versus our moon versus Mars: 100/33/16. When his phone rang I asked him if it was from Mars and he earnestly answered no. He had books for sale. One that was a very serious 1997 publication with a red footprint on the cover that predicted a 2007 Mars landing. I liked another one better--a more recent (2003) book: William K. Hartmann's Traveler's Guide to Mars. Alex sold that to me at the special Art Fair price of $15--not a bad deal considering he agreed to sign it for me. When Alex is about his dad's age, he plans to be the second man on Mars, "in case the first attempt blows up". And I plan to be around to welcome him back to Earth.

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Way off Off Broadway came to Ann Arbor by way of the Carriage House Theatre, a new group that's presenting Chekhov'sUncle Vanyain a hundred-year-old barn on Third Street. The play opened June 23 and completes its run with shows at 8 p.m. June 30-July 2.

The theater began when nineteen-year-old impresario, director, and stage manager Forrest Hejkal, opened the door to his friend Jane Pollock's backyard barn one day last spring and was gripped by inspiration. This decrepit, filthy, junk-stuffed, two-story barn could be the summer theater setting of his dreams. His troupe would be gathered from the ashes of the late Lights Up Company of the Ann Arbor Young Actors Guild.

With Jane's initially dubious encouragement and the assistance of his father, Steve Hejkal, a skilled carpenter, Forrest set about restoring the barn. He carted away the junk, evicted critters, repaired the roof, restored the rutted floor to a smooth, level surface, propped up the foundation, and cleaned off decades of cobwebs and dirt. The final touches were installing lighting inside and creating an eight-foot fabric sign for the theater's entrance. Forrest's mother, who attended the second night's performance, confided that he'd stayed up until 3:00 a.m. making the sign, using large iron-on letters which he spaced perfectly in a graceful arch over the troupe's sunflower logo, Finished, and hanging on the front of the barn, it looked slickly professional.

The cheapest possible white plastic armchairs were arrayed around the perimeter of the barn's interior for audience seating. Actors entered and exited from a stairway at the back of the barn that led to the former hayloft.

Five-dollar donations contribute to expenses, which include printing a postcard announcement and a program with an arresting graphic on the cover. The company expects to present at least one more play this summer before the actors disperse to their various colleges.

Cast members Brooklyn Dimitrie, in the title role, Avery Koenig, Libby Masaracchia, Angie Feak, Robyn Taylor, Griffin Johnson, Jeff

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Crandall, Margaret Remboski, and Scott Crandall also double as sound and light crew.

As to why he chose this play, Hejkal says in his Program Notes, "Quite frankly, I didn't. The space chose it. I knew as soon as I began considering converting the carriage house into a theater that I wanted to make the building itself the set, and Uncle Vanya [which takes place in a rustic country house] presented itself as an excellent candidate."

The audience on the first weekend soon realized that this was no amateur production of Uncle Vanya, as the troupe performed as well as any professional group in town, or Off Broadway, for that matter. Blending several modern translations, director Hejkal managed to avoid the dated stiffness of earlier productions of Chekhov, and soon the audience was caught up in the characters' sometimes sorrowful, sometimes vociferous, regrets over wasted lives and impossible loves.

Late in the second act a black and white cat strolled through the side door of the theater and circled the room, seductively rubbing the shins of each audience member in turn, and then exited as she came, having solicited quietly amused smiles all around except from the actors, who were involved in discussing who was secretly in love with whom.

During intermission some of the audience sprinted to the Washtenaw Dairy for cones. Though this was solstice week, it was getting dark as they returned. Director Hejkal had appeared, having come from his actor's gig at Blackbird Theater's Shakespeare West. An animated, good looking, if slight man, his deep set eyes had dark circles, perhaps from many late nights preparing for the opening. Wearing jeans and a sport jacket, he looked exactly the part of a seasoned theater director.

During the last two acts the drama intensified, as Vanya's rage and envy at being unrecognized for his effort to maintain an oblivious professor's estate, as well as everyone's crisscrossed suppressed desires, were revealed, culminating in shots fired.

Then, stage right, entered a firefly. Even during the occasional blackout required to change a scene, the firefly maintained its slow, golden glimmer here and there.

After hearty applause when the play came to its unexpectedly quiet conclusion, the audience exited into the peaceful gloom of the Old West Side where more of the season's first fireflies helped celebrate one of Ann Arbor's most perfect evenings.

For more information visitfacebook.com/carriage.house.theatre

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins has topped the children's bestseller list for more than a year, a movie is now in the works, and Entertainment Weekly's recent spread on the casting clues the clueless that the brilliantly titled Games is poised to rush into the media void previously occupied by the likes of Twilight and Harry Potter. Plenty of adults are gobbling it down also, and recently I became one of them.

The Hunger Games is also the title of the first book in the sci fi trilogy (followed by Catching Fire and Mockingjay). It's set in "Panem," a nation carved out of what was once North America, ruled by evil, mostly unseen leaders from "the Capitol," who keep its near-starving and terrified inhabitants in a state of submission-- symbolized by the annual Hunger Games. The Capitol forces a boy and girl "tribute," between the ages of 12 and 18, representing each of Panem's twelve districts to fight each other until only one survives--the winner, who is feted and fawned on. The whole country is forced to watch the televised Games; a sinister Olympics, beautifully choreographed with ceremonies and special costumes.

When her gentle, 12-year-old sister, Primrose, is chosen, by a random draw, to represent District 12, Katniss Everdeen, 16, volunteers to take her place. A skilled archer and huntress, she appears to have as good or better a chance of anyone to survive the games, and since it is narrated in her voice, most readers probably assume that she indeed will. The suspense lies in how. Author Suzanne Collins does a yeoman's job in depicting Katniss's run-and-hide ordeal, fighting hunger, thirst, evil futuristic animals ("Muttuations"), and, above all, her fellow gladiators. A subtle romance between Katniss and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta evolves during quieter moments, complicated by Katniss's feelings about Gale, the guy she left behind.

The book has undisputable cinematic oomph: silver parachutes descend with gifts from "sponsors; cannons blast when a "tribute" dies; the faces of the murdered kids are ghoulishly superimposed on the sky. Collins follows the time-tested dictum of end-of-the-chapter cliffhangers; just as we think Katniss's travails are over, the second-to-last chapter's breathless last line tells us: "And right now, the most dangerous part of the Hunger Games is about to begin."

Collins has said the spark for TheHunger Games came when she was flipping channels and was disturbed by the contrast between a reality TV show and "a group of young people fighting an actual war." She talks about wanting to open portals to let her presumably middle-class young readers about the trauma of lives marked by poverty and war. But there's something disingenuous about Games. I turned the pages rapidly, wondering how Collins, via Katniss, would pull off the killings of 23 "tributes"--and still remain decent and likeable.

Collins largely evades this dilemma. Most of the kids kill each other off before Katniss must shoot a fatal arrow. As for the most riveting question--will Katniss be forced to kill her wanna-be-boyfriend, Peeta--Collins cleverly finds a way to defuse the dilemma. In so doing, she protects the innocence that, above all else, delineates the lines between adult and children's literature.

Even more cleverly, she makes the romantic triangle--Katniss and two appealing guys--at least as intriguing as the fight to survive. I'm curious about the two successive books (in which Katniss and supporters battle the evil Capitol), but I suspect most of Games' young, female readers are not discussing her moral dilemma. Instead, they'll be wondering: which of the two hot guys will Katniss end up with?

The right to bear arms gets a lot of press, but not the right to bear musical instruments. But on May 1st, more than sixty-five Ann Arbor musicians plan to exercise that right by simultaneously performing on their own porches or in front yards in a northwest neighborhood recently dubbed "Water Hill." Both the festival and its moniker are the brainchild of banjo player Paul Tinkerhess, who says he got the idea about ten years ago, when he noticed how many noted musicians live near his house on Miner. He came up with the name because the neighborhood is near the city's water treatment plant and has streets named Spring, Fountain, and Brooks--probably because a creek used to flow nearby until it was channeled underground.

Tinkerhess says the only requirement for participation is that performers must live inside the boundaries he defined as Miller, Brooks, Sunset, and the railroad tracks. Performances will last between 2-6 p.m., with a May 8th raindate. A map and schedule of the shows can be found online at waterhill.org, and printed schedules will be handed out as well. He says he's expecting "hundreds" of visitors to meander through the neighborhood and enjoy such big names as Khalid Hanifi, George Bedard, Dick Siegel, Accidentally Hip, Chris Buhalis and Dave Keeney, Los Gatos, Vincent York, and Enid Sutherland, an internationally renowned expert on the viola da gamba. Genres include country rock, big band jazz, celtic, rhythm and blues--even the accordian will be well-represented. While about half of the musicians are professionals, Tinkerhess says he's especially encouraging participation by people who aren't. "Hearing a rough performance can leave an audience feeling empowered. I'm hoping there will be a certain amount of anarchy, and people will be inspired by the courage of their neighbors and dust off an old instrument and play it."

Because people are performing on their own private property, no permit is required, and the city has generously offered to donate use of a porta potty. (Tinkerhess indicated that it probably helped that a city employee with some clout lives in Water Hill.) Tinkerhess' one concern is that someone could invoke the noise ordinance, but he has already begun to urge musicians to be considerate of their neighbors--especially an act that wants to play hard rock. Volunteers are delivering notices to every resident, Tinkerhess says, and "if anybody complains about noise, I will personally deliver a pair of earplugs to them."

Something of an iconoclast, Tinkerhess says his family are the only five people with that last name in the country. (The name combines his family name, Tinker, with his wife's, Hess.) Tinkerhess likes to do things his own way, and the Water Hill Music Fest is the latest in a series of bold projects that Tinkerhess has launched over the years. He and his wife Claire bought their house from the city for one dollar, but he says it cost them significantly more to move it from Ashley and set it on a foundation. (Tinkerhess says it was worth it to "recycle" a house that otherwise would have been torn down.) They co-own the Fourth Avenue Birkenstock shop near Kerrytown where they sell Tempur-Pedic mattresses as well as shoes, and Tinkerhess' latest passion--wooden kite reels, which are also available online at intothewind.com. Perhaps his boldest move was to sell battery-powered cars ten years ago. That effort was ahead of its time--he says many of the vehicles arrived at his store from the factory already needing repair.

But the Water Hill Music Fest has been golden from the start. "I have been astounded by the response I've gotten to this," says Tinkerhess. "I feel like I've found an accupuncture point on our culture, and just touching this one spot has released an enormous amount of positive energy."

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Previous Posts

• U-M vs ND: BLASE NO MORE, by Craig Ross
• Scott Petersen: RIP - A Remembrance by Paul Keller
• THE SOUND OF MEMORIES: PAPA, MARIA, AND ME, by Peggy Page
• ART FAIR JOURNAL, 2006 by Lakshmi Narayanan
• UNCLE VANYA ON THE OLD WEST SIDE, by Bertie Bonnell
• THE HUNGER GAMES: Romance in Dystopia, by Eve Silberman
• WATER HILL MUSIC FESTIVAL, by Madeline Strong Diehl
• FORGIVING JOHN LENNON, by Eve Silberman
• WHEN BORDERS WAS GREAT (EVEN IF I WASN'T), by Eve Silberman
• BAD THINGS HAPPEN, by Eve Silberman

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