Back at home after a little gallop through the addresses of my life. Fort Wayne, Columbus, then back up I-75, a chunk of it with Kate at the wheel. We spun through the Ohio State area on the pretense of a college visit. As usual, the whole place seemed to be under construction. As long as I lived in Columbus, the OSU campus was under some sort of construction. That’s good, I guess — a place needs to grow, and living in the land that progress forgot, sometimes it’s easy to forget that. But there’s nothing like a few orange plastic fences to make you say, “Eh, well, that’s the place right over there. You think you might want to go here, we’ll make a formal visit later.”

We went to Magnolia Thunderpussy, a record store, aka the Place That Could Not Be Named in the Columbus Dispatch. Every time the football team had a big win or loss, reporters would head down to High Street to interview business owners. If you chatted up the clerks or managers there, the copy desk always changed the name of the business to “a High Street record store.”

Good times.

Kate got a Sublime CD, a Wavves LP, and I got a De La Soul CD. And then the mother/daughter team trundled out for Sally’s Hillbilly Cheeseburger.

I will say this: Columbus looks like a thrive-o-polis. The Tea Party should stop disparaging government, because show me a place where government is the foundation of the economy, and I’ll show you a place where things aren’t so bad. At least better than, say, Fort Wayne, where all my old landmarks are now spouting weeds and FOR LEASE and AVAILABLE signs. The cheese and onion enchiladas at La Margarita are still the platonic ideal, however, so there’s that. To be sure, it’s not so much that things are collapsing as changing — Dupont Road and West Jefferson seem to be hanging in there.

Alex lives closer to Dupont, and we spent some time wondering when the real estate wave would reach the shores of his little sliver of a lake, which has the advantage of being a little sliver, which means no ski boats, which — to me, anyway — spells D-E-S-I-R-A-B-L-E.

And that was my long weekend. The next two days I plan to exercise without worrying about when I get home, clean closets and then heading to Stratford for some theatuh.

You?

Bloggage:

Olympic swimming fanfic. Wonderful.

Friend-of-NN.c Laura Lippman has a new book out. Here’s how she came up with the main character.

Why, Fareed Zakaria, why? Why?

Vacation continues. I’m enjoying it.

Just because it was Sunday, I threw my bike in the car and took my lard ass off to Belle Isle. Yes, yes, I could have ridden there, but it’s early in the year, the weather wasn’t quite right and I just didn’t want to face that feeling of being very far from home and not willing to pedal another 50 feet.

Good thing, too. The wind was wicked, a stiff 25 miles or so out of the northeast, which meant the windward side of the island was pretty fierce. Even more than cold, I hate riding in a strong wind, and I think I know why — it’s the closest actual cycling comes to spinning class, that sense of pedaling with an anchor. Bleh. But I made my two loops, and then noodled off here and there to see the parts of the island I see less often. The consent agreement between the city and state will call for Belle Isle to be run by the state for a while, and I can hardly see a downside to that, starting with the phase-in of an entry fee. It won’t be steep, and if it discourages the sort of people who’ve treated the island as an after-dark partying stop, so be it. It’s too nice a place to squander.

So around I went, twice, seeing what there is to see. Waterfowl, mostly. Everyone must still be nesting, because there were only two goslings in evidence, but lots of jumpy geese and — ack — swans. You want to see a bird that can make you wish you were dead? Say hi to a swan protecting a nest. I went out on a deserted fishing pier, checked out the boats that were already in the water at the Detroit Yacht Club and watched a men’s eight launch from the Boat Club. Rowing is a sport that’s always attracted me, but never enough to do more than dabble. Watching those guys blow away from the dock, inches above the waterline, made me think there are other ways to get your exercise. Like pedaling against a tough headwind.

Otherwise? Eh, a nice weekend. Eastern Market, laundry, a Saturday-night show in a second-floor performance space, which convened as the ball game was letting out. The Tigers won; you could tell by the facial expressions, but it might have been the elation over getting back to the nice warm car. That wind couldn’t have been fun to sit in.

Bloggage? A little:

The blessing of the purses. Because, that’s why.

A fireball and explosion seen across much of Nevada? Be not alarmed! Probably just a meteor.

And was that a freaky “Mad Men,” or what?

Happy Monday.

Detroitblogger John, aka John Carlisle, spoke to my feature-writing class today. A joy. He talked about starting his blog as a way to keep his writing skills sharp, which morphed into his Metro Times column (down on the DL), which morphed into being named Detroit’s Journalist of the Year, and a reconciliation of sorts with his current employer, a suburban chain where he doesn’t write anything other than headlines.

I was struck, once again, by how far we’ve fallen as a business and how much we’ve changed as a craft, that a writer as talented as he is has to literally hide it away, and this in a town where the newspapers once stood in national company as places where a writer could really flex. I wanted to work at the Detroit Free Press once, and no, it wasn’t the Gannett sale that wrecked the place. Some great writers passed through that newsroom, a tiny few might still be there, but when I look for good examples of the craft to share with my students, I almost always go to the big four or five — WSJ, NYT, WashPost, St. Petersburg Times, et al.

And that’s a crime.

I should be out riding my bike or something, but I’m not. I skipped lunch today, and just broke the fast with some pasta with cannellini beans, rosemary and onions. It made me feel so warm and happy I just want to enjoy the feeling for a while. How do people who live forever on zero-carb diets do it? How can one feel warm and happy without beans and pasta? No wonder they’re so nasty all the time.

I wonder if anyone has done that research before — correlating one’s diet with their politics. I follow a few blogs not listed on the sidebar, and it’s so strange how often a switch to paleo eating is followed by aggressive assertion of right-wing political views. They eat a few steaks and start thinking they actually went out and slaughtered the beef themselves, using only their stone-tipped spears that they sharpened themselves. No government program for them, no sir!

Maybe it’s the growth hormones talking.

Not that I have ever turned down a nice steak. But then, I’m a moderate.

My head has been immersed in politics and policy all day, and I’m craving a palate-cleanser. When I do, I pop in on T&L and see who they’re taking apart (or not). I’m totally with them on Jennifer Lawrence and Beyonce, ditto Emma Stone and Shelley O. I LOVE that dress, hate the brooch. Maybe it’s part of her security equipment.

And when I’m done palate-cleansin’, I may take us out to see “The Hunger Games” this weekend, but only if I have two signed affidavits that it doesn’t suck. I just sampled some pages from the book online, and I’m not sure if I’m up for two hours of dystopia, but on the upside? Jennifer Lawrence. She seems to be playing the same character she did in “Winter’s Bone,” only with more sci-fi and Elizabeth Banks, and no meth. And she looks so cute in that black dress, right T&L?

Is this book any good? Anyone?

Late afternoon brought a phone call: Lance Mannion, telling me that Mrs. Mannion was the college classmate of the Romney aide who made the Etch-a-Sketch faux pas today. For the record, I loved it. Romney, and his staff, have such a tin ear for this sort of thing that it will make for a truly entertaining campaign season. One step forward, two gaffes back. If nothing else, it will be more entertaining than the escalating spiral of the-world-is-ending campaign speechifying, which Eric Zorn has been dutifully cataloging.

What else? Here’s a Gawker rant on fabrications by This American Life contributors who aren’t named Mike Daisey.

And with that, I’m off to Lansing. Happy Thursday, all.

Can’t lie — my mind is rather full of personal stuff at the moment, and not focused at all on blogfodder. It’ll pass, but it makes for slim pickin’s here. The next couple of weeks are going to be busy-like-crazy. The start of classes at Wayne, the North American International Auto Show, a new job — our little co-prosperity sphere will be full up with things-that-aren’t-this. Oh, and the cherry on the sundae? We’re going to the Charity Preview next Friday, courtesy of the paper. And that is? A night of black-tie swellishness, the biggest benefit of the year, when everybody in town welcomes the auto show and raises jillions for children’s charities. My feet hurt just thinking about it.

I went to the dress department at one of the department stores after Christmas. Everything was on sale and the racks looked like they’d been looted. I tried on four dresses and hated them all — I didn’t wear a floor-length dress to my own wedding, for crying out loud. So I guess it’ll be a cocktail dress and I’ll spend a lot of time standing behind Cadillacs so no one knows I’m cheating.

Eh, it’ll be fine. Alan’s not wearing a tux. And once Aretha arrives, all eyes will be on her. That photo caption is wrong, by the way — that’s her longtime boyfriend, not her husband, although she announced this week they’re finally getting married this summer. A few years ago, they rolled into the Charity Preview in his-and-her white mink.

(A friend saw her shopping at Kroger a few years ago, in sable. Sable and a baseball cap.)

Oh, and guess what she said in the press release about the engagement? “No, I’m not pregnant.” Ha.

So, a quick skip to the bloggage?

I can’t stand shows like “Wife Swap,” but I’m sort of sorry I missed this one.

Newt Gingrich: Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds. Maybe.

Eric Zorn echoes my call of a year or so back — leave the lights for a while after the holidays — although I gotta tell you, everything in and outside the house came down on Jan. 1. It was either take them down then, or they’d stay up until February. And I have to tell you, by February? You’re definitely in the lazy-bum camp.

And that’s it for me. Enjoy Thursday, when the world starts to smell distinctly of? Weekend!

I’m a big believer in food therapy, although the older I get the less often it takes the form of eating a bowl of raw cookie dough. One of the new activities I spoke of yesterday requires me to drop Kate off downtown at 6 p.m. on Wednesdays, which is a strange time. If I head back out to the ‘burbs I run into after-work traffic, and so I look for stupid little errands to burn time until it thins out. Check out a possible bike route, buy a dozen tamales in Mexicantown, whatever. Yesterday I popped into a venerable downtown bar/restaurant called Cliff Bell’s.

Mmm, happy hour. (But I can’t drink on weeknights.) Not too crowded. Lovely venue, restored in 2006 to its full Art Deco glory. Framed newspaper articles in the foyer outside the ladies’ describe it as a former speakeasy, or “blind pig” in the local jargon. It also says it opened in 1935, two years after Repeal. Well, I guess it could have been a blind pig before that — there were certainly enough of them. More fascinating fact: Blind pigs were the source of 50,000 jobs at their peak during Prohibition. Fifty thousand! That earns them a place at any economic-development table in my world.

But today is 2011, and the drinks are considerably more expensive. I saw complaining on Yelp about $12 martinis but as I said, I wasn’t drinking. I looked over the menu and saw just what the doctor ordered: Steak and eggs. It came in the form of a petite filet on a small potato cake, topped with a runny one sunny side up, napped with bernaise. It was raining and chilly outside, and all that warm protein just hit the spot.

On the way home, I took a few side streets to the freeway and watched a lone cyclist cross my path — no lights, dark clothing, with what appeared to be half a dozen hula hoops carried crosswise across his body, but a closer look revealed them to be insulated cable of some sort. A scrapper taking his treasure to the yard. I bet he won’t be enjoying the steak and eggs at Cliff Bell’s anytime soon.

How did the morning slip away again? I’ll tell you how: Editing copy. My reporters are young, they’re inexperienced, and they don’t always deploy their adjectives with care. May I also add that their only role models in pop culture are TV types, and every time one of these show ponies asks, “And how did that make you feel?” before tipping the mic in the subject’s direction, God kills a kitten. At the very least He gives me another story to fix, written by someone who thinks that’s how you do journalism.

I shouldn’t talk. My students teach me something every day, and seeing them grow over time is genuinely rewarding. One I would have written off a year ago called me a couple weeks back, shaking with excitement over being sent to New York to cover Occupy Wall Street. The story he filed was better than anything he ever wrote for me. I hope I had something to do with it.

But now I must away, and I will not be in my regular place tomorrow. I’m off for a weekend of R&R in an undisclosed location, although I’m sure there’ll be photos. But tomorrow at 10:30 a.m., I hope to be looking at Detroit from a rapidly ascending airplane.

Meanwhile, here was the most eye-opening story from last night’s health beat:

Expectant mothers are more likely to die from murder or suicide than from several of the most common pregnancy-related medical problems, a U.S. study said.

You don’t say.

One of my Facebook friends posted this video two days ago, on the birthday of Father Charles Coughlin. Remarkable in many ways, but perhaps mostly for the casual use of “voluble” in a newsreel script. But how did he feel? Also note the use of dramatic reenactment.

I have to go. I hope it’s not raining where you are, because it sure is here.

…has gone Hollywood.

I’ve never watched an episode of “Two and a Half Men” in my life and my interest in the second generation of the Actin’ Sheens is pretty much nil, but I gather Charlie Sheen’s public meltdowns are the best thing to happen to guerrilla humor since Sarah Palin.

No sooner had I chuckled through the Sheen Family Circus yesterday than I was alerted to Charlie Sheen in New Yorker cartoons. This story has developed quickly enough — sorry, you couldn’t pay me enough to watch him on “20/20” — that half the lines are going over my head. There are people who have the industrial-strength new-media skilz to monitor two dozen websites and Twitter feeds, but I’m not among them. Not if I’m going to have time to browse Cute Overload once in a while.

But I did take a few minutes and watch most of the clip at this Salon link, mainly because the headline irritated me; whatever else Charlie Sheen is, he’s not “frightening.” The haggard face, the cigarette in the teeth — he reminds me of the guys I used to meet in those summers during college, when my friends and I would go to different apartment-complex pools during the day. (We didn’t know anyone who lived there. That was sort of the point.) I bet he has a funny name for his penis. I bet he calls it “little Elvis” or “the Highlander.”

Back to the humor. This is sort of second-rate, but it contains at least one new fact (to me) — the Plaza Hotel has an Eloise suite. Of course they would, but the thought of Charlie and his goddesses partying there is rahther sobering, as Eloise might say. This who-said-it quiz provided one of my rare humiliations in the area of online quiz-taking (I am an Oxford don of online quizzes. Go on, Pew Center, try to stump me!).

Is this sort of bad behavior really so different from previous episodes of bad behavior? Then why are so many people who clearly have better things to write about writing about it? Why am I writing about it?

I liked this comment at Walter Kirn’s blog:

Like Hugh Hefner. Sheen’s flashing, haunted eyes, the nodding head, the sidelong, you-better-believe-it-pal, meaningful looks at his interviewers, all remind the spectator of the panhandler, the street hustler, the drunk tank cell mate, the it’s-reeeally-heavy-maa-an tedium of the Dennis Hopper character in “Apocalypse Now.” And finally, the drunk ranter in every bar in every town. Yeah, pal, you’re brilliant. You’re really special. And you know things ordinary mortals don’t. I gotta go now. We see our reduced selves and recoil.

He left out the way he rattles a rocks glass before he tries to drain it of the last few drops. That’s another thing those guys would do on their poolside chaises.

And Ken Levine’s post isn’t hugely insightful, but kudos for this shoutout to “A Face in the Crowd,” the closest thing to a literary reference you find in showbiz, most days.

My word counter says we’re at 500 on the nose, so let’s skip to the bloggage:

This story was done by one of my students. I pass it along because until I moved to Michigan, I’d never seen a hookah lounge before, let alone one in a strip mall called Off the Hookah. This one sounds like a sports bar for Arab men.

Clint Eastwood is directing a script about J. Edgar Hoover, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. So there. Soooo. Theerrrre.

Oh, and note the lead in that story, which admittedly is from E! Online and not the New Yorker. I think Hank Stuever once noted that stories about movies featuring gay characters always feature a passage about kissing — what was it like to kiss another man, Leo? Was it difficult? How did you prepare? As though a simple kiss is the equivalent of losing 60 pounds and shooting a lengthy scene in which one swims a river of shit. No one ever asks that of the hookers who bang Charlie Sheen.

If you’re not reading the NYT’s Disunion blog, you should be. We’re only a few weeks away from the attack on Fort Sumter.

And is that it? I think it is. Off to the gymnasium.

Finally, the Midwest is getting its very own snowpocalypse. The word went out over the weekend, prompting a stampede to groceries and liquor stores, so as to be fully stocked for the forecast foot of snow. Yes, a foot. Accuweather says it could be more. But Accuweather — feh. Scary maps, but two feet of snow? I’ll believe it when I see it.

Less hysterical forecasts say it will top out at eight inches. Eight inches or 12, we’re in for a screwin’. I plan to retain my equanimity. The snow will be followed by bitter cold and high winds. Yay, a blizzard. It’s times like this I’m glad I live in a city. Less panic buying in the groceries, for one thing, although I’m running low on bread and chances are, when I stop to get some today, all that will be left is Hillbilly brand high-fiber.

A forecaster — an actual meteorologist, not one of those TV guys, but someone who works for the National Weather Service — told me that forecasting is never more than an educated guess, and all the fancy technology has done is lengthen the guessing window, not improve accuracy. A three-day forecast then, a 10-day forecast now, but it’s still just a guess. I find that oddly comforting. In the meantime, I liked this map from the comments thread of that Gawker link, above:

How was your weekend? Mine was some work, some play, but I still feel like a dull girl today. Watched “The Wicker Man,” the original, not the Neil LaBute remake, and friends? That was some freaky shit. Full of ’70s hair, ’70s filmmaking technique, ’70s attitudes and, just for you gentlemen, a lengthy Britt Ekland nude scene. Photo at the link; I think that woman had the most perfect breasts in Christendom. Or pagandom. Or wherever. If you read past Britt’s boobs at that link, you’ll come across some plot spoilers. I had the advantage of knowing basically nothing about the film going in, beyond that it was remade by LaBute, Mr. Happy, and that the original had a cult following. I see why.

I wish I could see more movies that way — before I’d read a word about them. But if you have to parcel out your time, you really have to rely on reviews to decide what’s worth it. Roger Ebert’s review of “Monster” notes that he had no idea who was playing the lead until he saw her name in the credits. Oh, to have that sort of virginal experience with anything in pop culture these days. Can’t do it. Thanks in no small part to bloggers like me.

OK, so let’s get some bloggage down, so I can commence the week. We have a car theme going on today, what with Gene Weingarten’s cover story in the WashPost Sunday magazine yesterday. He took the Chevy Volt out for a several-thousand-word test drive. Because it’s Weingarten, and because it’s several thousand words, it’s about a lot more than the car, and worth a read.

And I hope the Wall Street Journal has left this link on the free side of the paywall, because it’s pretty doggone amusing, a review of the new Cadillac station wagon. I used to subscribe to Car & Driver for writing like this:

Let’s say you bought this car, a Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon, with a 6.2-liter, 556-horsepower Corvette V8, six-speed manual transmission, magnetorheological dampers (I’ll get to that), Michelin SP2 gumballs, 15-inch front Brembo brakes with six-pot calipers, and microsuede wrapping on the steering wheel and shifter. Well, first of all, you’d be one strange cat, which is to say, unusual. Notwithstanding any nitro-burning ice-cream trucks or flying boattail Rollses in your neighborhood, this wagon is about as esoteric an automobile as you’re likely to find. Statistically speaking, General Motors will sell exactly none of these cars, the Detroit equivalent of Zoroastrianism.

It gets better from there. But when you’re writing about a car that has a freakin’ G-meter in the instrument cluster, you better.

And with that, I must fly. Monday, etc. So we commence a snowy week. Let’s hope it lives up to the billing.

Yeesh, what a morning. I decided to take time to absorb the morning newspapers in all their deceased-tree glory, really pay attention and be-here-now and all that, and what did it get me? Behind. That’ll teach me.

And now, since I have about a million edits to do before 1 p.m., let’s toss up some links and let you guys get the party started, eh?

This story flapped around like a dying carp for a few hours yesterday, and I still cannot believe it: The American Spectator calls Shirley Sherrod a liar for saying one of her relatives was lynched. I simply refuse to link to the original material; you can find it elsewhere. But Josh Marshall captures it succinctly:

This one’s really one for the history books under the subheading of right-wing #outragefail, as the young folks might put it. (Writer Jeffrey) Lord starts off vaguely sympathetic and works up into a crescendo of high-dudgeon because Sherrod says her relative was lynched when in fact he was arrested by a sheriff and then beaten to death on the courthouse steps while allegedly resisting arrest even though he remained handcuffed through the fatal beating.

I am shocked, shocked that anyone would think any part of the right wing has racist elements.

Haven’t checked in on Sweet Juniper for a while; apparently he’s been canning and camping and — Jesus Christ, Jim — making a homemade sleeping bag? But there’s always interesting action over there if you check the sidebars. And whaddaya know? This photo is evidently not Photoshopped. But this was the week’s show-stopper for me:

We are the annoying people who come to your kid’s birthday party with homemade presents. It’s okay for now I guess, but in a few years, when your kid wants Legos and we bring hand-sewn madras shorts or something, it’s going to be really embarrassing for our own children.

No, Jim. It’s embarrassing for the other parents at the party who didn’t give, along with the homemade present, a custom photo book of a story featuring the homemade present and the birthday boy and all the rest of it. Damn overachievers.

Do you have Planet Money bookmarked, and do you listen to their podcasts? If not, you should. By the way, when Mitt Romney said “liberal policies” destroyed his family home in Detroit, recently leveled by bulldozers? I think this is a far more likely narrative.

Richard Cohen sort of embarrassed himself today, regarding the Wikileaks doc dump. Mitch Albom sounds a lot like this, too, when he dismisses “internet blogging,” as he did in his own recent cane-shake, at Andrew Breitbart. And Bob Greene is still sitting in a hotel room, still trying to draw grand conclusions from trivial observations. This has been your edition of Print Dinosaurs at Play in the Tar Pits for today.

And I’m off to spin straw into… if not gold, at least something readable. Later.

Can’t decide whether to ride my bike to this morning’s meeting. Sun is out, skies are clear after a bangin’ thunderstorm last night, but the temperature’s going right back to 90 again today. Which means I’ll arrive a sweaty mess, but? It’s summer, and it already feels too short. I’m going.

Maybe I’ll swing by Grosse Pointe South High School on my way home, see if any movie trucks are there. They’re shooting something called “LOL” with Demi Moore and Miley Cyrus. “Scream 4” is shooting nights somewhere in the Farms, at some rich person’s giant house. And there have been Hugh Jackman sightings here and there; he’s making “Real Steel” in the neighborhood, as well.

“Real Steel” with Hugh Jackman — it only sounds like a porno movie. It’s sci-fi, something about robots. The dirty version will star Jack Hugeman. It’s one crazy Hollywood summer here for sure.

Since I have to leave early, a boring vacation slide show. I finally got around to uploading our Montreal pictures.

This is the Basilique Notre Dame de Montreal. We enforced a rule that no one was permitted to call it “the church where Celine Dion got married.” You are similarly forbidden:

One afternoon drenching rains drove us into the contemporary art museum. They were hosting some sort of avant-garde film exhibit, empty room after empty room showing stupid film loops. I was far more interested in the atmospherics of the dark rooms than anything else. Kate contemplates Art:

A bike ride out to the islands took us past Habitat 67. If Stalin had a sense of humor, this is the sort of concrete housing he’d have built in the Soviet Union:

The Jazz festival was just getting under way when we were there. There are guidebooks:

“Pour les nuls.” Doesn’t “dummy” cross all languages? I guess not.

Some bloggage for the table? Sure:

Has the leak really stopped? I’m skeptical. Extremely.

Is Mark Williams for real? This guy is taken seriously? Are you kidding me?

Kwame Kilpatrick finally cops a feel on the woman he’s supposed to be touching — and gets written up for it.

Time to slurp coffee and run out the door. Have a great weekend, all.