It’s old news now that Ann Arbor legend Shaky Jake has died. Even older and less newsworthy - and perhaps just as sad - is the familiar chorus about the “death of Ann Arbor” that follows such a passing from our town. Witness the comments on the just-linked Ann Arbor News story:
The Del Rio is gone……..Mr. Flood’s Party is gone……..Discount Records is gone…………….and now Jake is gone. The time of the hippies is truly passed. All that remains is AppleBee’s and Buffalo Wild Wings. Time to leave….
No naked mile, no hash bash and now no Shakey Jake. What’s left in Ann Arbor?
Ann Arbor has lost its soul.
Ann Arbor certainly has lost something with the death of Shakey Jake. But what these people are talking about is something that was lost a long time ago, as soon as the “difference” that Shakey Jake represents became rare enough for us to have to celebrate it with such a cartoonish glorification of one singular person. But enough about that. What really interests me is the “time of the hippies” comment…
The shadow of the 60s looms large over younger generations everywhere in this country. Since then, every decade’s self-image has been shaped largely in relation to those heady days. As boomers continue to age and movements started in the 60s continue to play out, the definitive quality of that past time - its capacity to define the present - continues to be a journalistic cliche with some real truth behind it. And nowhere is it truer than here in Ann Arbor, where so many people and projects that came into their own in the 60s were born or have come to die.
The thing that bothers me most about people who were active in the 60s is the same thing that bothers me about people my own age: their nostalgic surrender to the inevitable decline of Ann Arbor. It’s something both groups - hippies and hipsters - might not want to admit they have in common. They love to remind you about the cool things they did here in the past, while one could still do those kinds of things.
I’ve done a few things that might be considered cool. But I’m looking forward to the cool things I might do in the future. Because of my mild social anxiety and hermetic recreational habits, it takes me a long time to get to know the place and the people around me. To make it feel like home. To feel invested in it and comfortable enough to try to influence it - and knowledgeable enough to feel like I have a right to do so. Just when I started to feel this way about Ann Arbor, I reached that age when all of my friends started leaving. To New York, Chicago, Portland. All of them displayed greater or lesser degrees of that universal malaise I’d like now to christen - with a nod to the pernicious local variety I know best - as “AnnArboredom”: a lack of enthusiasm for one’s current city of residence combined with a belief in the exceptional rate of that place’s current cultural decline.
AnnArboredom can lead to a sense of urgency bordering on real panic about getting out of town while one can still do so fashionably (or before other less fashionable people do the same thing and thereby make it less fashionable). The afflicted can start to get an almost apocalyptical feeling of entitlement in relation to their town’s cultural offerings, wanting to take as much as they can - and give nothing back - before it all goes up in flames.
So what is it about hipsters that links them in this way to hippies? My thesis is simple: Nostalgia for some better past stems from an inability or an unwillingness to affect the present. What we can’t or won’t change we imagine to be on some inevitable trajectory of decline.
But the more examples you hear each new generation of townies and students cite in support of Ann Arbor’s decline, the more you start to doubt the possibility of ever locating Ann Arbor’s Golden Age. And the more entrenched that sense of decline seems as the default attitude of anyone with hippie/hipster-ish leanings toward the place where they live.
To all the AnnArbored out there, I say resist that attitude. There is nothing exceptional about your town’s current cultural trajectory. People were whining about the same things before you were even born. And hey old person! Remember how when you were young there were things going on that old people didn’t know about or just couldn’t understand? Guess what? That’s still happening. There are still things like that going on. Only you’re the old person now. Upset with the direction Ann Arbor is going? Don’t leave or give up. Stay and fight. Work with what you have, with this town as it is and not how you remember it to be.
Let’s start with an experiment. I can think of lots of things that I loved about this town that are gone, and lots that are still here. But I want to hear from everyone else. So I’m asking any readers out there to please populate the comments of this post with two lists:
- Loved things from Ann Arbor’s ‘better’ past that are gone.
- Loved things from Ann Arbor’s embattled present that are still here.
And maybe from there, as we start this blog we hope will make us more invested in the place where we live, we can start to get a sense of what we have here to work with.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Anna Vitale // Oct 10, 2007 at 7:12 pm
1. I miss the 555 gallery on Third and the old Liberty St. Video.
2. I love WCBN-FM Ann Arbor. I love the new bike lanes on Packard.
I’ve been here since 1999. Does everyone want the city to stay the same as it always was, whenever that was? We have got to change with the times, and in turn, change the times, you know? It’s dynamic. It’s a smallish town, but there’s a lot of room to do what you want and make what you want.
2 Onna // Oct 11, 2007 at 10:45 am
1. I miss the tech center. I miss the writing on the stalls of the Angell Hall women’s bathroom (they paint over it now).
2. I love the river paths near the canoe livery. I love the new neighborhood arts conspiracy.
3 Davy // Oct 11, 2007 at 2:51 pm
1. I miss Buster’s at Packard and Platt! I miss Vinh Nguyen. I miss Shakey.
2. I love my Grandma who lives up the street. I love nighttime basketball at Wheeler Park. I love the Shopping Cart Race. I love the Elks’ Lodge parties. I love going to the barber and having my friend give me a shape-up. I love Kosmo. I love all the folks who keep keepin’ Ann Arbor real.
4 Scott T. // Oct 11, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I left simply because of work and lack of “professional opportunities” … and my girlfriend (now wife) was leaving for the same reason.
There’s an affliction to AnnArboredom in NY, where people of various identities (from hipster to yuppie) are always looking for the “next” neighborhood and always lamenting changes in their current hood. *sigh*
5 Mariah // Oct 11, 2007 at 8:58 pm
I feel like I could write a book on this topic.
1) I miss Drake’s, the Del, the Tech Center, affordable practice/studio space, and a long list of friends who have left. I miss that gallery space that was next to where Eastern Accents is now that used to have rock shows/wrestling matches when I was 16.
2. I love The Bang!, 826, the Above Ground crew, the Art Barn, Cafe Japon, The Elks Lodge parties (2nd ya, Davy!), bike rides, my front porch swing, and my friends who are still around.
6 Aric // Oct 11, 2007 at 10:51 pm
I miss Decker Drugs and that little old woman who worked there every day. And I miss Ann Arbor’s fucked up one-way streets.
I love Arbor Vitae, I love the weird dirty old student co-op houses, I love the cobblestone roads…
7 Edward Vielmetti // Oct 11, 2007 at 11:25 pm
1. I miss the Old German, the Continental, Mickey Rat’s, Main Street News, Afterwords, the original Borders store, Drake’s, and the Food and Drug Mart.
2. I love Eastern Accents, Primo Coffee, Le Dog, football parking on Saturdays, Farmers Market, the new Y’s pool, and especially the library.
8 map // Oct 12, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Loved things from Ann Arbor’s ‘better’ past that are gone.
good ipa at abc. that and most of their better brews appear to have left town with their former brew master doug.
mediterranean salad at old town. the new menu is whack, yo!
the carefree economy of the late 90’s. the roaring 90’s. i was a flapper.
stigma free protests.
stigma free unions.
drakes
dinersty (I know gross, but back in the day it was tasty greazy stuff)
Loved things from Ann Arbor’s embattled present that are still here.
jgarden
sam’s
noon skate at yost
poetry slams, maybe anti slams, more along the lines of bump or clumsy grope
rabbit breeder conventions at the fair ground
the mayor, mainly for all of his pro bicycle rhetoric
the nudist booth at the art fair, it always makes me laugh in the same way that fart jokes crack me up.
ann arbor fart jokes
the libraries
michigan theater
9 vinh! // Oct 12, 2007 at 7:56 pm
I swear I didn’t leave due to AnnArboredom. I mean, eight years is a good stint, no?
[1] I miss the Del, the old Liberty St. Video, tech center, twitch, Totally Awesome and the Bad Idea houses… I miss having access to a well funded university that had a lot of well funded facilities. I miss thinking a bike ride from the Frieze Bldg. to Black Elk was “almost too long to deal with.” I miss the Frieze Building. I miss living there.
[2] Mostly, I love all the current activity in Ann Arbor that I’m missing out on. Art Barn, BluishBarn, the new old “Bad Idea,” Elk’s Lodge parties! (Seriously, where were these two years ago?) I love you Timothy, GND, Davy, and Ben, the guy from Big Ten Burrito whom I am not. I love Gay Night at Buffalo Wild Wings, the big empty space that was the Frieze, and the pine tree in front of the church across the street with just enough room to stand under and not get wet.
10 andrea // Oct 13, 2007 at 4:08 pm
[1] I miss Henrietta Fahrenheit. I miss the days when I didn’t have to pay crappy taxes. I miss back when the “Media Union” was called the “Media Union.” I miss the small, beautiful houses on Fifth and Fourth that now have cancerous condogrowths (etc.) I miss Zack Denfeld and his soup. I miss Mike Lambie, and running on the trails behind Kellogg. I miss coding projects with map. I miss being the gnd. I miss living at Davy’s, seeing him stumble home from the bar when I was getting up to catch a morning videoconference. I miss the way Depot looked before the neon column appeared.
[2] I love the reading room at the law library. I love working downtown. I love perusing Encore Records. I love our neighbor, Frank, and the sweet music studio he built us (back in the day.) I love the co-op, the farmers market, Sparrows. I love Yost skates and the associated cast of champion skaters. I love listening to map tell fart jokes and “cruising” around town on bikes. I love kayaking with my Friend (s). I love how Main Street gets kind of quiet at night. I love having seasons, and having unique things to do with every season (hunt morels, full moon paddles, rake, snowshoe, tap sap, click at squirrels.) I love listening to traffic at Bandemer Park underneath the M14 overpass. I love the top of parking structures. I love Shalimar, the vegetable buns at Eastern Accents, Leopold Brother’s vodka, Almond Lassi at Earthen Jar, Totoro, $2 Latte Wednesdays. I love Kerrytown Concert House. I love being young enough to not have much to miss.
11 Michael Lambie // Oct 14, 2007 at 3:10 pm
big business killed shakey jake. the corporatization of ann arbor was just too much for his brittle little heart. god bless him. an ann arbor icon.
12 zcd // Oct 15, 2007 at 5:28 am
Stuff I recently loved about AA-
Amazing pies at Silvio’s. Harmonica guy on the diag. Finding interesting folks in every nook and cranny. 250 beers on tap. (Right now Bangalore has only ONE beer on tap in the whole city: Kingfisher). The little native planting park next to the monster YMCA, and all of the birds that swoop down trying to revisit the ‘old’ ann arbor.
Do you think birds are like hipsters?: “Man, I remember when Ann Arbor really WAS tree town. Green space, and native plants as far as the eye can see. And now what: rooftop gardens, and yuppies with their Thai basil on the windowsills. This town will never be as good as it was 30 migratory seasons ago…”
13 Patti // Oct 16, 2007 at 6:30 pm
I miss the Food and Drug Mart (was at the corner of Stadium/Packard), although the party store that is there now is pretty cool. I miss the office supply store that was on Main Street (gak! I forget the name!). While the new Firefly location is nice, I already miss the old Firefly location.
I love having three brewpubs (four including the Corner in Ypsi, which is our regular place) around. I love our libraries, our city pools, our Rec Center (even if the pool water is icky sometimes) and I love that we will have dog parks, even if my dog is too crazy to take to one.
What are the Elks’ Lodge parties? ( Sorry if that’s a stupid question)
14 Mark // Oct 28, 2007 at 5:29 am
Ann Arbor is a wonderful college town, a bubble of non reality in Michigan.
For the many years I have known the place, it has always been a passing through stop for many great and wonderful people, many of whom stay, but most leave.
The state of Michigan, adios - I heard you aren’t going to be kickin again till 2026.
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