The Fredösphere

My, what a busy day we've had.  I took Der Drubermensch to downtown Detroit for a DSO kiddie koncert.  Some chick who supposedly anchors a local TV news broadcast (hey, how would I know if she does?  I don't watch TV) read the narration for Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony.  No wait, I mean Peter and the Wolf.  I get those two mixed up sometimes.  The 'Mensch's favorite part was driving past the giant tire on display next to I-94.  We're talkin' giant, as in maybe a 60 foot radius.

The DSO has a nice new lobby space with an atrium, and they were wise enough to take our money by selling us hot dogs and pizza before the concert.  Plan A was not for us to eat right at the concert venue; I had this vision of me and the 'Mensch finding some hole in the wall restaurant, maybe a diner, someplace with cheap and lousy food but with loads of character.  You know, authenticity.  We would be immersed in the urban environment.  What I forgot is how astonishingly barren much of Detroit is, even (especially even) that stretch of Woodward Ave., the main drag.  The emphasis is definitely on drag, since the street is populated by tiny, grungy businesses that sell nothing any sane person would want, sitting isolated in large windy asphalt expanses which would make convincing parking lots if anyone ever -- you know -- parked there.  Just to keep you off balance, the equilibrium of this bleak post-apocalyptic landscape is punctuated by the occasional impeccably maintained public building -- a museum or a church or a historic mansion.  Alas, Babylon.

The afternoon I took the 'Mensch and the Maharincess to our usual Saturday destination -- the Ann Arbor library.  I picked up a book waiting for me from inter-library loan, a text on Schenkerian music analysis by Carl Schachter.  The goodly folk at Jessica Duchen's pad (see the comments of this post) recommended it.  Also, I borrowed once again Pete Seeger's seminal Banjo book.  Thus I fan the dying embers of my ambitions to become an old-tyme claw hammer banjo player.