Maybe It Isn't Motown Anymore

What style of music best describes Detroit? WDET is having a summer-time fun program, asking listeners to call in and say what genre best characterizes the city. I’m driving along I-96 in my Subaru Outback, listening to the lively responses. The answers vary, and provoke passionate arguments: soul (Aretha), rock (Bob Seger, Iggy Pop, Kid Rock), jazz (Ed Love taught us everything about jazz), rap (Eminem), and of course Motown. It must be Motown, several callers insist. We always listened to it in the machine shop. That’s too old, others protest. We love it, its classic, but electronic/techno is what’s big now. Didn’t 40,000 people attend the Hart plaza festival in May?

Stopping at a light on Grand Boulevard, I watch a slim older black man as he crosses the street. His bright Hawaiian shirt and plaid bermuda shorts make me smile. He flashes a peace sign and I flash one back. “Yeah, sister,” he says. I pass the two houses of the Motown Museum and a similar building all burned out, with weedy trees growing up through the front porch. There are very few cars on the street.  I arrive at the Fisher Building before the call-in show is over, but I imagine there’s no consensus on one style of music. The last caller I heard suggested The Blues.

I’m early for my appointment, so I walk over to the bank (formerly NBD, then BankOne, now Chase) across the street. In the lobby of the old General Motors Building, a beautifully preserved dark green 1915 Cadillac Touring car is on display. I look at it closely, interested because I have a photo of my grandfather Henshaw driving a similar car, probably not a Cadillac. Judging from the age of my father sitting on the running board, it could be around 1915. Both are handsome vehicles, no doubt. I wonder what speed they could attain on the freeway. My father always said that his father owned the third automobile in Charlottesville.

In the Medical Tower of the Fisher Building, the long shiny bleak corridor leading to my dentist’s office makes me think of Guy Noir, Garrison Keillor’s fictional private eye with his office on the twelth floor of the Acme Building. If someone ever wants to make the movie, this is the location. There are big white globe lights reflected in polished travertine walls and a black and white diamond-patterned marble floor. Even though brightly lit, it’s somehow lugubrious. The heavy wooden doors have frosted glass windows with the doctor’s names lettered in gold capitals, outlined in black. Who does that kind of work anymore?

The dentist is an automobile afficianado, so he likes to talk cars. His dad worked for American Motors; mine sold Buicks. He is surely the only other person alive who remembers that I owned a 1950 Buick Woody station wagon and a ‘53 Roadmaster convertible, with power roof and windows, the coolest car by far that was ever mine.  I mention the 1915 Cadillac. He dismisses it, much preferring cars of the ‘20s, when the style moved away from the carriage looks and spoked wheels.  The dentist collects vintage Mercedes and drives a BMW. He also remembers that I bought a VW bug in 1965, much to my father’s chagrin.

Released from his ergonomically designed chair, I note the goldfish designs on the brass elevator doors, and take a little time to wander around the huge, three-storey barrel-vaulted lobby. It’s a 1920s cathedral to the auto industry (Body by Fisher) with its brightly painted turquoise, red, and orange Art Deco murals, enormous tiered glass chandeliers, mosaics, and multi-colored marble floors. I look in the quiet Detroit Contemporary Crafts shop, filled with tasteful objets suitable for gifts, then the busy City Knits yarn store, run by friendly black ladies. They always seem to be patiently soothing some customer who’s made a mistake a few rows back in the midst of a difficult pattern. The Pure Detroit shop, with its 313 tee-shirts, Sanders fudge toppings, Faygo pop, and Pewabic pottery, is curiously empty: no customers, no salesperson, but “Baby, I Need Your Loving” is playing softly.  Maybe someone is working in a back office. I prefer the tougher Made in Detroit line of merchandise anyhow. I slip out.

Back to the country. All along Six Mile Road rows and rows of bright orange daylilies are blooming. If they weren't so beautiful, we'd be ripping them out as the alien invasives that they are. I come to our field, I am happy to see an old-fashioned rural sight: Mr. Briggs, wearing a big straw hat, is driving his blue Ford tractor and his teenage grandson is standing on the wagon. They’re baling the first cutting of hay.

     

birth and death

Magruder family gathering at "Edgemont" June 2010

The Riggory 2010

Things were different early in the 20th century. My grandfather Frank Magruder wrote a journal entry at the end of every day and so did his cousin Sallie Minor. They were the same age and lived less than a mile apart, Frank at "Edgemont" and Sallie at "The Riggory" on the Stony Point Road outside of Charlottesville, Virginia.

The cousins shared a similar approach to writing: just the facts, the weather, the events of the day. They each wrote every evening, without fail and without reflection, with little emotion, no comment on the past or hopes for the future. Here, for example, is Frank’s entire entry for the day that my mother, was born:

July 25  1908  Richmond off—Richard not out. Bill & Simon hoed vineyard. Baby born half past seven in the evening. Dr. did not get here in time—named her Elizabeth Dunbar. Lucy & I helped. Henry & I had been to baseball game at Earlysville—no game as it rained. Uncle Rashe came over.

If hoeing the vineyards took precedence over the birth of a baby at Edgemont, consider this day as recorded by Sallie at The Riggory:

November 9 1910  We killed 8 hogs. Papa rode over to see Cousin Albert. Mr. Thurman came down to take him to Mr. Lynn Goss’s funeral. They got home about dinner. Peter went too & Mr. Lang with him. After dinner Papa walked around some in the yard and not long after he left the house we found him lying in the road dead near the straw stack. Peter came almost as soon as we found him & got Mr. Lang & Dabney Morris who had come in at the gate to help bring him into the house. It was a great shock to us all, as he seemed quite well all day.

            Papa was seventy-one.

more to come on the world of the stony point road, 1907-1912...

spring fauna at frog bog

on march first, i pulled into our garage and was startled to see what looked like a small owl perched inside the window. a stuffed toy? a joke?  these were my first reactions. next i thought 'a visit from athena'? the little screech owl was patient enough to let me go in the house and find my camera.

she or he seemed not at all afraid but when tired of posing, flew up into the rafters and disappeared.

then as ellie and i walked through the crusty snow in the field, we heard loud, insistent calls from several sandhill cranes back in our swamp. this is usually about the time they come back and we're always happy to know they've arrived.
but were they agitated because the gas pipeline people had come through in december and cleared out a large swathe of the wetland, exposing their favorite nesting spot?a natural gas pipeline runs under our hayfield from se to nw, and the roots of trees growing near it may rupture it (is it really so weak?) so they must be cleared, but about 50 feet by a couple of hundred yards of cattail swamp was cleared also.

coming back to the house, ellie spotted a young possum working through the detritus under the bird feeders. we've seen this critter before, and seen its act before, so i didn't try to call her off.

the possum closes its eyes, rolls on its side and plays possum. ellie takes a good sniff or two and walks away. here is the possum about fifteen minutes later.

the male redwing blackbirds have returned and visit the bird feeder and a male tufted titmouse is in a frenzy flying at the kitchen windows over and over again. he sees his reflection in the window, and thinks it's another bird in his territory. his mate stays demurely in the craapple tree, waiting for her hero to drive away the intruder. a bluebird was behaving the same way last spring.

thick snow still covers the ground but the signs of spring are clear.

more on vegas, all-american city

reflecting
 i would write more on this blog, i really would, if the  system wasn't so damn hard to figure out. i spend hours and hours and emails back and forth to live help and can have nothing to show for it.

suddenly now, it's back to blogger normal and another italian place to go: the venetian. the skies are always blue in st. mark's square, night and day, day and night.

deb, my lovely lissome yoga teacher in south lyon, suggested that i might like to go to the canyon ranch spa at the venetian. for $40 you can spend all day there and she did that for four whole days while her husband was at a convention. she loved every minute of it. in addition to yoga, deb took a foot reflexology class and a class called "strip fit" which may only be offered in vegas and might as well be called "stripper readiness." for me, she recommended the yoga teacher named angela, who would be teaching a "restore and relax" class at 1 p.m. on saturday. "and give her a hug for me," said deb. 

angela was thrilled that deb had sent me, and immediately gave me a big hug. she taught the class in the dark, with only a few scented candles at the front and offering aromatherapy scented towels (eucalyptus-mint or lavender) for our eyes. it was quite relaxing, mostly easy stretches, mostly done by slender young women in expensive yoga gear, but no worries, no one could see each other in any case, what with the dark and the towels. angela was very sweet, adding a neck massage, and sending a big hug back to deb. i've noticed that yoga teachers really like to hug.

then i began to understand how deb could spend days and days there. i wanted to check out as much as i could, but i only had two hours after the yoga class. here's what i did:

about 15 minutes in the "salt cave." you know how negative ions in the air make you feel better? here the semi-circular warmed ceramic tile benches face a wall where big chunks of warm salt crystals are diffused into the air, releasing negative ions. the light is low; the ceiling dark, with twinkling stars. soft, indeterminate music plays. i tried to feel purified.

another 15 in the wave room with zero gravity loungers. here you lie with your feet and legs higher than your head in comfortable loungers. the light is low; projected on the ceiling is a constantly changing sloshing of waves of clear blue-green water. more vague, restful music played. most people seemed to be asleep.

a short while in the steam room, followed by my first "rain experience." the pretty turquoise tiled showers outside the steam room and sauna have three controls: i chose "tropical jungle," gentle, cool water accompanied by various bird and mammal sounds, with some sweet scents thrown in for good measure.

longer in the sauna, which had changing pastel lights in the ceiling and more of that calming music, then another rain experience: "caribbean storm." this started with a nice steady rain and some sea breeze sorts of scents, which without warning suddenly turned into a torrent of freezing water, and some distant thunder.

"arctic mist" was a third choice; i skipped this one.

there were both single-sex and co-ed lounging areas with expensive fashionable magazines, a jacuzzi and an aromatherapy room and an ice cave, a snacks and coffee bar full of chatting women with wet hair in their robes, and more...but i had to leave.

throughout the spa were large glass urns filled with water, sometimes with sliced lemons or cucumbers or oranges or mint at the bottom. herb tea was also available in many flavors and bowls of apples and bananas. the robes were quite elegant, with beige cotton on the outside and smooth terry on the inside, while the slippers were "zen-dals" with bumpy insoles to stimulate your feet. the hair and skin products all were based on organic bamboo, of course.

i'd never been to a spa before and probably the canyon ranch is not the place to start, as surely any other will be tame by comparison. i'd plan on a whole day next time. you can visit their web page for some visuals, and some features i've no doubt forgotten.

relaxed, restored, and super clean, on my way out i asked a question on jm's behalf: how much is the hot stones massage? she's always wanted one and her birthday is coming up. answer: $280. i decided not to ask my question: how much is a pedicure? i'll wait til i get to india and go for one of those specials where fish nibble off the dead skin. i hear it tickles.

the venetian yielded one last photo op, from the window of an expensive gift shop offering fine italian crafts. here we see, all rendered in finest porcelain, the last supper (after leonardo, with some modifications) and above it, michelangelo in the process of carving a sensitive part his david. it's hard to see, but a sketch for the piece lies on the ground to the right, and an assortment of artist's tools are scattered about, adding a convincing realism. why didn't i ask the prices? more or less than a hot stones massage? more, probably, much more. and you would want both of these; they work well together to create a real renaissance feeling.

why bother with europe? 

jm does have a little gambling streak in her soul, so she signed up to join the player's club at the flamingo, where we were staying. it keeps track of your investments in the slots and other games, and you are rewarded with comps for the buffet, or even given free rooms and other amenities. on check-out, she asked the desk to read out her total points and found that she'd racked up fifteen cents in credits. i guess we aren't really vegas types after all.

Las Vegas Is America

it's come as a surprise to some of our friends that jm and i spent last weekend in las vegas ("you don't seem like vegas types" at least two people said). we were there to celebrate the birthday of ryan, jm's nephew, who turned 21 and finally could realize his long-standing dream of going to las vegas. he wore his xmas and birthday gift harley vest every day and had a great time and even a little luck playing the penny slots.

my observations of the scene are hardly original: it seems that many of the worst aspects of american culture are on display everywhere. but is there anything wrong with rendering the statue of liberty in jelly beans? at the casino new york new york, of course.

"chinese" or lunar new year is coming, and the fancier casinos had some sort of display associated with that. here's the god of wealth at the bellagio.

easy money, shopping: all very american. the high end casinos are full of high end stores which were very empty, except for a single employee chatting or playing games on a cell phone. prada, gucci, ferragamo, chanel, max mara, burberry, tiffany, barneys, and a purveyor of diamond jewelry at every turn.
"who buys all this stuff?" i asked a helpful security guard as i tried to find the spa at the venetian. "they'll be here next week," she answered, "the chinese."

caesar's palace goes all out for sculpture, fountains, decorative motifs in the style of ancient rome. but when they designed their colosseum, they copied the one in el jem, tunisia: three stories, not five as in rome. score another one for tunisia, trendy now. "vive la revolution!" emailed mamdouha, our suave guide to the country last spring.

i've had such trouble accesing this blog that i will post now but more to come...

Las Vegas is america

And it is veer annoying that I can,t log in to write my blog on my laptop only on this iPad which won,t allow photos so until I can figure this out, you,ll have to wait. My apologies.

an icon for our time

just to follow up in the question of the value of portraits, in this case the one of susan rossen painted in 1975 by alice neel (see previous blog entry from july, "problems with portraits"). on november 2, 2010, it was sold at auction by christie's london for 380,000 british pounds, or $614,000. too bad susan couldn't buy it at the time it was painted for $5,000.