You probably expect me to name Jerry Falwell for the celebrity death of the week, but I prefer to focus on people who made more positive contributions to society. So let me honor Lloyd Alexander, author of several fantasy novels for children. The Prydain series is notable for some interesting gender dynamics, as well as best (okay, only) use of Welsh in a children's series.
I also have a bit of left-over trivia I jotted down the other week. Namely, I only just read that the lion costume used in "The Wizard of Oz" was made from actual lion pelts. That's sort of cool and sort of creepy at the same time.
As for what I've actually been doing, work is hectic, but balanced by baseball. I went to two games this week. Monday night was Stitch and Pitch, an event sponsored by The National Needlework Association. I still dislike RFK Stadium's steep rise, which makes it an arduous climb to the upper level seats. But the concessions are better than I remembered, which is important since going to a weekday evening game means dinner at the ballpark. The ticket was quite a good deal as it cost $10 and the stuff the TNNA gave away was probably worth that much. The tote bag had a book about needlework shops throughout the country, as well as several patterns, a pair of wooden knitting needles, and some yarn. There was a certain amount of publicity involved and it was sort of weird not being self-concious about crocheting afghan squares while a photographer snapped away at my work. The game was better than I expected, too, with Jason Bergmann pitching very well, leading to the Nats defeating the Braves. I have to admit I was also pleased that the game went remarkably quickly, at something like 2 hours and 10 minutes. That meant I wasn't out all that absurdly late on a weeknight.
The weekend involved a quick trip out of town to add a ballpark to my collection. Namely, Comerica Park, which replaced Tiger Stadium. While in Detroit, I also went to the Henry Ford complex in Dearborn, where I did a Volksmarch through Greenfield Village. This is a living history complex, with a lot of things associated with Henry Ford, Thomas Alva Edison, and Harvey Firestone (among others) relocated there. Parts of it are interesting, but I've been to enough living history museums that nothing really blew me away. The highlights were a demonstration of Edison's tin foil phonograph, a beautiful carousel, and the glass-blowing studio, which has a program allowing visitors to work with the staff to create a glass flower. I didn't really feel like I had to the time to do it, but it was interesting to watch somebody else at it. I also liked Noah Webster's house, but largely because it solved a minor mystery for me. Namely, I had been told several years ago that the Connecticut accent was the standard for American English, which is good since it's reasonably close to the Long Island accent. What I hadn't realized is that the reason for that is simply that Noah Webster was from Connecticut.
Anyway, after the walk, I drove to downtown Detroit and checked into the Marriott at the Renaissance Center. This is pretty fancy, but you can get decent rates on the weekend at hotels which cater primarily to the business crowd. It was convenient to take the Detroit People Mover, a sort of monorail, to the ballpark. The glimpses of the city from the elevated tracks suggest that Detroit still has some nice architecture left from the days before everybody moved to suburbia, abandoning the downtown core.
The ballpark is a decent enough one, more or less a standard modern design down to the fountains that go off when a Tiger hits a home run, to the view of downtown skyscrapers. The unique features include two amusement park rides - a carousel (in which all the animals are tigers, of course) and a ferris wheel with the cars shaped like baseballs. The concessions are nothing special and one doesn't get much local flavor. There is a pretty good set of historical hall-of-fame displays. Fans were low-key but interested and involved. This may have been a particularly good game to go to in that respect, since it was versus the Saint Louis Cardinals, who the Tigers played in last year's World Series. Since neither team is one I care about, I was free to enjoy the action on its own terms. (I should explain that, yes, I still detest Tony LaRussa on the grounds that is unnatural for a baseball manager to drink wine and patronize the ballet. But Saint Louis has the balance provided by Albert Pujols, who seems to be a top player in an old-fashioned good guy style, sort of the anti-Barry Bonds.) The Tigers do have a mascot, but it's a tolerable one since: a) tigers are inherently cute and b) it confined it's activities to leading the crowd in singing "Take Me Out to the Ballpark." At any rate, neither team played particularly well, but the Tigers managed to win 8-7.
I should also mention another event going on in downtown Detroit. Namely, a large free country music show. No, I didn't go to the hoe-down, but I could hear part of it from my hotel room, sigh. Detroit actually produced good music but I suppose one runs the risk of country music nearly anywhere in the U.S. nowadays. Fortunately, it didn't go very very late, so didn't inhibit my ability to get to sleep. I was still tired when I got home, but that just meant the usual Sunday afternoon nap. I really do need to do some housework, though.
Copyright 2007 Miriam H. Nadel