(A painting by our friend Dan Gillotte.)
Connect
sorry, pluto
Posted in Other 6 Comments
the tuesday farmers market
I just got home from a meeting with Amanda Edmonds, the President of the non-profit, pro-gardening group Growing Hope. At some point during the course of our long, extremely unfocused discussion (on the future of YpsiVotes.com), either I, or someone else in our group, asked her how things were going at the Tuesday afternoon Michigan Avenue farmers market, which she and her organization are responsible for. Always one prepared for such questions, Amanda was quick to pull out a spreadsheet and tell us that, over the course of the past 10 weeks, the Tuesday afternoon vendors had reported sales in excess of $11,000… While that’s only a little over $1,000 a week changing hands, divided between approximately ten vendors, it’s still a significant amount, given the fact that the venue is just getting off the ground and several days were impacted by rain.
Amanda also mentioned that on July 5th alone, 425 people made their way through the market. While not in any way conclusive, this indicates to me at least that there’s at least potential for this project to be successful. And, as Amanda pointed out, with over 30,000 cars traveling down Hamilton each weekday, there’s still a lot of room for growth.
So, if you don’t mind my asking, what’s your experience been at the Tuesday afternoon farmers market? And what kinds of vendors would you like to see there that aren’t there already?
On a related note, Amanda mentioned that one of the big signs that Linette had designed for the farmers market (the one featuring the large asparagus spears) was missing. If you know where the sign is, please let me know so that we can hunt down the evil-doer responsible and bring him or her to justice. (My guess is that it’s on Ebay, but I can’t bring myself to check.)
Posted in Ypsilanti 9 Comments
the return of the shadow art fair
I probably shouldn’t leak this, especially as we don’t yet have a confirmed venue, but it looks as though the next Shadow Art Fair will be taking place in Ypsi on December 2nd. So, you’d better start saving your money.
Posted in Special Projects 3 Comments
stupor recall
If you attended last month’s Shadow Art Fair and bought a copy of the magazine “Stupor” from my friend Steve Hughes, please pay very close attention… If you have in your possession the most recent issue of “Stupor,” the fifty-cent mini-issue entitled “Pooped and Plundered: Jellyfish and Their Amazing Sting,” it should be destroyed immediately! If you think that it’s in your house, but don’t know exactly where, you must immediately get your family out and then set your house on fire. And, in the unfortunate event that you have read this issue, it’s been recommended that dig your eyes out with a fork and have the first quarter-inch of your brain sliced off.
It’s just come to Steve’s attention that what he had in good faith sold as a piece of well-written entertainment, was in fact terribly bad, and he feels just horrible about it. In fact, Steve has offered to replace every issue sold with a brand new, much improved issue — making him, I think, the first zine publisher in the history of the world to care about such things. Anyway, if you bought an issue from the man pictured here, please tear it up, burn it, and drop the remains (once cool) into an envelope. Then mail it to: Crimewave USA, PO Box 980301, Ypsilanti, MI 48198 along with your address. Steve assures me that all returns will eventually be replaced. So, for God’s sake, get the hell out of your chair, find that shit, and destroy it… Seriously, please find them and destroy them. Steve says he can’t sleep knowing that they’re out there.
“a stupor in the house is worse than a snake on a plane.” — Mark Maynard
Posted in Art and Culture 8 Comments
condomless progressive orgies are our only hope
I know I’ve said it before, but we REALLY need to start having those condomless progressive orgies… Here’s a clip from today’s Wall Street Journal:
…Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They’re not having enough of them, they haven’t for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That’s a “fertility gap” of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%–explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today…
Hmmmm…. I guess that’s what you get for being responsible and only having the number of kids that you feel you can effectively nurture.
Anway, as for my Condomless Progressive Orgies idea, I don’t know that I necessarily want to take it on as my new project, but, if someone out there has the time to make a logo, I’d be happy to float the idea around for a while and see if someone bites. I could see it maybe getting some traction on the west coast. (Or, assuming this doesn’t catch on, Howard Dean could always start sending Mothers Crosses out from the DNC.)
Posted in Special Projects 6 Comments
