Clementine said this to me earlier this evening at the Sidetrack, where we were taking advantage of the MarkMaynard.com two-for-one burger deal and discussing the absurdity of human existence. Maybe it just struck me because she used the word “shall,” but I thought that it was profound. We’d been talking about the head of the dusty, yet fierce, old bear that was hanging precariously over her. She asked me if it was likely to fall on her, and I told her that, over the two decades that I’d been eating at the Sidetrack, I’d never seen it fall on anyone before. She seemed to take some comfort in that, and dug into her fries as we continued to talk of taxidermy and other things. At some point I noted that the person who had stuffed the head of the bear, and swapped its real eyes out for glass ones, was probably long dead himself. She thought about it for a moment, I guess reflecting on the transience of life, and then offered the above quote.
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For what it’s worth, I assured her that things do change. I told her, for instance, that there used to be another building right next to where we were sitting, but that, a long time ago, a train jumped the tracks and destroyed it… Just then, a train rolled by, and she jumped. And it occurred to me that I’m probably going to make her just as fearful and neurotic as I am.
And I like how her second sentence sounds kind of like a royal decree.
She certainly is totally quotable!!
I wholeheartedly agree with Clementine.
Also, how long before the t-shirts bearing this phrase will be available at the Rocket?
When she says that Ypsi shall stay the way that it is, she means that no one will ever develop Water Street or move into the Thompson Block.
I also did the two for one burger yesterday–noticed that Beal has a for rent sign on the front of the Thompson block–I can’t imagine anyone moving in before Kircher gets out of prison–in 2015 I think. At which point in time he will begin legal proceedings stopping any one from moving in–and thus Clementines edict will be met.
For what it’s worth, things do change at Sidetrack. The weird smell, for instance, that I’d grown so accustomed to over the past decade, is no longer there. I hear that it went away once they brought in a construction crew to address some structural things in the basement.
I enjoy how the couple sitting at the table is smiling. I assume they must have seen the camera, because as anyone knows, they are sitting at the worst fucking table in Sidetrack. Whenever I am sat there on a weekend night, I immediately throw my jacket on the floor, stomp on it, and spill my own beer all over my head. Just to soften the blows to come…
Spot on, Burt. As much as I love the old Sidetrack, you’re right about that table being a pain in the ass. On the whole, though, I think it’s a positive. Whenever your not sitting at it, you’re happy to have avoided it. And, whenever you are sitting at it, you’re probably happy because it probably means that you got the last table in the place. If I were in charge of marketing at the Sidetrack, I’d give the table a special name or something, so that people would seek it out. In LA there’s a Big Boy with a booth that the Beatles once ate in. I loved sitting there. Maybe Sidetrack could call that the Tom Arnold table.
[Does anyone else remember when Tom Arnold was dating that EMU student and spending time in town?]
That is cute. Your daughter is a conservative.