Weeknotes: September 20 – October 3, 2025
Monday, September 29
I'm in a blue jeans drought. I have a couple pairs I feel okay in, but neither of them is my favorite. When the world is in chaos, you have to have at least one pair of jeans you love.
After work I carve a soap dish from a hunk of cedar fence plank in my shed. I've obsessed over buying a soap dish for weeks, but keep putting it off. I blame the specific dimensions of my sink, but really I'm just indecisive and spend too much time deliberating over small stuff in order to avoid the big stuff. Once again, a bit of DIY effort saves the day.
Weeknotes: August 18–22, 2025
In my dream I'm a volunteer on a space station. I can't believe I got to go to space for free — I'll be the envy of all my friends. I move to one of the thick glass portholes and look out at the dark expanse. As my eyes adjust I see a large object resembling a human skull, obsidian black and tinted purple and green like the aurora. It's heading toward us and I immediately sense it's an alien spacecraft. I back away from the window and about a minute later feel the impact as it collides with us.
The next part of the dream is more benevolent, though bittersweet. I'm back on earth, trying to insert a folded wool blanket into a cupboard. My cat Briggs is in there, alive and seemingly in full health, though I somehow know there is a terminal illness within him. I pull him out and try to hold him, but he's not having it. Classic grumpy Briggs. While he lays on the rug cleaning himself, I marvel at his appearance. It's the younger, well-fed Briggs of feline middle age, not the haggard cat of his final days.
I wake with a co-mingling of fear and wistfulness. An alien encounter and a visit from my late cat. What a way to start the week.
Weeknotes: July 21–25, 2025
I love it when the teller sends your check for a little ride on the scanner. Watching it loop around the bend is my favorite part of visiting the bank. So many transactions happen invisibly, I think I'm just excited when I see something happen in front of me. Like the satisfying thump of a rubber stamp.
Twenty minutes later I'm at Barnes & Noble buying yet another copy of Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice for a friend's birthday. I was like this with Becky Chambers' The Long Way To a Small, Angry Planet — every book lover I knew got a copy on their birthday or at Christmas. At the top of the escalator, I take a few hasty steps down, then realize I'd rather enjoy the free ride. The breadth of the store comes into focus around me and I feel some nostalgia for the pre-digital world when a big chain book store felt like the gateway to possibility.
My next stop is less inspiring — Dick's Sporting Goods, another box store in a strip mall. I've been here three times this summer and whenever I walk through the door Aerosmith's "Dream On" is playing. That can't be a coincidence. But why would this gritty 52-year-old rock ballad be a cornerstone of the Dick's playlist? Aren't there other more appropriate jock jams, even within the Aerosmith catalog? What about "Walk This Way" or even "Sweet Emotion." Does "Dream On" sell more tennis rackets?
In Saline I help K hang a couple shelves and we share a pizza. Across the street working in her garden is my old neighbor Kay. She lost her husband in the fall of 2020 while I was still living there. We all loved Doug. He was one of those affable small town neighbors — friendly, helpful, funny, a reliable presence on our street. I still send Kay a Christmas card every year, but haven't talked to her in ages. I walk over and we catch up for a while. She says she's turning 87 on Friday. I make a mental note to send her a birthday card too.
A2XA2
Although I intend to create a larger archive of posters on this website, there’s no reason I shouldn’t also include various design ephemera here in the blog. This is the full 11" x 17" poster for my upcoming show at the North Star Lounge in Ann Arbor. You might remember that I immortalized this cozy little venue in song on my last project. I have made a handful of appearances there over the past few years, always accompanied by CC. She’s sitting this one out because she’s about to become a mother — her due date is mere days after the gig . This will be my first time playing North Star on my own.
A Story About a River
I live just a couple blocks from the Huron River. If you’re a regular reader, you may know something about my fondness for it. I cross it almost every day either on foot or by car or bicycle. I paddle my kayak on it. I like to stand in the middle of the Forest Street bridge and watch the river’s progress through Frog Island Park. I was born on a bluff overlooking the Huron at old St. Joe’s in Ann Arbor, and for most of my life have lived within a few miles of some segment of it. It’s my home river.
Earlier this year I was asked to compose a piece of music for the Huron River Watershed Council, Southeast Michigan’s oldest environmental group. I’ve worked with them before, many years ago, when Great Lakes Myth Society was hired to play at a couple of their fundraisers. They’ve been stewards of the river for over half a century. My friend Donald Harrison was hired to film a short video celebrating HRWC’s 60th anniversary, and he collected hours of gorgeous river footage which was whittled down into this succinct three-minute piece for which I provided the soundtrack. Donald’s wife, Jeanne Hodesh, came onboard to do the voice-over which we recorded in a makeshift vocal booth at my house. It’s a collaboration with people I love, made sweeter by the fact that it promotes a cause very close to my heart. We need the HRWC and groups like them now, more than ever.
Last Known Address
No Weeknotes this week. My heart wears the black armband of mourning, yet it’s for a tragedy shared by less than half of my country. I don’t really know how to process that, so that’s all I’m going to say for now. Instead, please allow me to direct you to something that brings me a great sense of pride.
Weeknotes: October 28 – November 1, 2024
Monday, October 28
I had a good hair day yesterday. Even better, I was at a party and friends witnessed it. You hate to waste a good hair day. Today, my second cup of coffee tastes like spring, though it's not even November yet. A lot of seasons still to cycle through. On WCBN it's clearly spooky season. Shriekback, Bauhaus, 45 Grave. It's a nice little commute and I pull into campus with Peter Murphy hurling Latin incantations out my windows.
Later I light a fire and start triaging which potted plants will come inside for the winter. Wearing leather work gloves, I use tweezers to carefully extract dead leaves that have blown into my mess of cacti. I like winterizing a yard, it's satisfying work. I say goodbye to RR who moves out Apt. 2 tomorrow, taking Pretzel with her. I've become very fond of that little three-legged cat.
Weeknotes: June 10–14, 2024
Monday, June 10
Morning Glory Report
This year’s varieties:
Heavenly Blue
Celestial Mixed
Flying Saucers
Scarlet O'Hara
Seeds Sown (Indoors): April 10
Seedlings Planted (Outdoors): April 30
Notes:
Flying Saucers are this year's overachiever, the first to reach the fencetop summit. The plant is split between two vertical trainers with one vine about 4" ahead of the other. The Celestials are in hot pursuit with thicker, hairier vines that are maybe 6" from the summit. Heavenly Blues' slender vines are about ⅔ up the twine with Scarlet O'Hara having only just begun her climb.
I say it's not a contest, but I go out and check their progress every morning, a favorite summer ritual that's about to be paired with A.M. raspberry picking. With nowhere to else go, the Saucers are about to become airborn, flaunting their windblown freedom. I spend an hour stringing up aerial trainers from the fencetop to eye hooks on the side of the nearby shed. If they continue to grow well, it will create a woven green trellis above the evolving Fronds Lounge.
An Anniversary
This festive, distorted video was shot exactly 20 years ago at Jacoby’s, a German bar in Detroit’s Bricktown neighborhood. Back then, in the thick of our artistic heyday, we would never have used the term "rebrand," but that's what it was. February 21, 2004 marked the first gig by Great Lakes Myth Society, the band who for seven years prior had operated as the Original Brothers and Sisters of Love (TOBASOL, colloquially).