ann arbor is overrated.

From the most recent “Biz Buzz” column in the Electric Current:

We had an intern once from the East Coast who, in a conversation with another editor, insisted indignantly that Ann Arbor is nothing like a big city. It was an interesting exchange to witness between a Bostonian who couldn’t get past the small-town aspects of the city, and a former suburbanite who stopped for a cappuccino everyday on her walk to work through the downtown business district.

Yes, those small-town aspects of the city. Sometimes they can be hard to get past. The whole thing about it being a town, and small, for example, can be a near-insurmountable obstacle for the veteran city-dweller.

The column goes on to point out that Ann Arbor has bubble tea now (that’s the tea with tapioca balls). Mmmm, tapioca balls. I tried one as soon as the place opened, which was about a year after bubble tea came to Boston and, I am told, a couple years after it came to San Francisco. (And, to be fair, probably five years before it comes to South Bend or Iowa City.)

Still, I don’t know what they put in those cappuccinos in the business district, but I’m up for trying one if they make you think you’re living in a big city.

This of-late Ann Arborite missed Boston as much as I do, and her observations made me even more homesick. She already seems to have gone back, though.

From The Ann Arbor News this week:

“Writer weaves melancholy into ranging short story collection.”

And, superfluously, later in the story:

“Kane grew up in Ann Arbor and refers to the city in her stories.”

The Busch’s grocery store at the corner of South Main Street and South Main Street (why come up with new street names when you can just use some variation on Main, Fuller or Huron?) has aisles that are labeled with the names of Ann Arbor streets. So you can peruse soups while imagining yourself amid the hustle of Liberty Street, or frozen vegetables while pretending to step out of the way of drunk undergrads on South University.

It’s like New York-themed establishments that try to appropriate some of the city’s glamour by naming things after 42nd Street or the Bowery. Except the glamour chased after here is Ann Arbor’s. It’s hard to maintain my extreme negativity in the face of this kind of pure, guileless civic pride.

Oh, and the Ypsilanti Busch’s does not label its aisles. I’m not sure what that says about either city.

I have been described as “a very unhappy man.” This is not necessarily true. However, it’s fair to question the mental state of someone who has created an entire website to mock a Michigan town and its media.

Also, I’m told that, in my rush to condemn, I overlooked Ann Arbor’s preeminence as a source of hallucinogenics. I’ll defer to my correspondent here. To be fair, said reader made a good case for A^2 as a great place to hang out if you’re stuck in the state anyway.

This week in The Ann Arbor News, business columnist Mary Morgan takes on the white-hot Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti rivalry that prevents the two towns from merging their respective convention bureaus. Doing so, she writes, would be the best way to “promote the county’s offerings, from Elvisfest to the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, from Dexter Daze to the Manchester Chicken Broil.” Yet there are tensions that preclude such a happy solution: “Many in Ypsilanti feel a rightful pride in their community, but so strong that it often twists into a defensive, righteous anger against slights - both real and perceived - by their neighbors in Ann Arbor. In contrast, many in Ann Arbor don’t even give much thought to Ypsilanti.”

She goes on to argue that “Ypsilanti is not well-known outside of this region,” which is clearly wrongheaded; as my old boss out East once said, “Isn’t that the place that’s spelled with a ‘y’ in the wrong place?”

So the obvious solution is not, as Morgan suggests, to “leverage [Ann Arbor’s] recognition to promote Ypsilanti,” which would serve only to put more Cosi sandwich shops on Michigan Avenue. It is to use the latter’s bizarre spelling and rolls-off-the-tongue pronunciation to achieve a Kalamazoo-esque fame. As Slate recently pointed out, and Noam Chomsky agreed, Kalamazoo is a “one-word joke.” But it’s played out, having been mentioned in Dr. Seuss’ I Can Read With My Eyes Shut, for example, years ago. Ypsilanti could be the new answer to Kalamazoo, the fresh choice when you need a comical-sounding Michigan town reference to liven up a dreary essay. Take note, snotty Eastern alternative-weekly writers.

With all the local-paper-bashing lately, maybe this blog should be retitled “Ann Arbor News Sucks.” A recent editorial of theirs carries the headline “Voters should rejectapprove sinking fund.” Ann Arbor residents have many diverse perspectives that any local newspaper must seek to accommodate, but this is a little much.

I was listening to ‘CBN the other night, and they were playing some kind of experimental electronica that seemed to consist of single tones, each for ten to fifteen minutes. “All right, that was B flat. Coming up, we’ve got A sharp, D and E.”

By the way, I am not as miserable as the last entry suggests.

“No one has pride in South Bend,” a certain Notre Dame graduate told me, “and it doesn’t deserve it.” Why, then, does Ann Arbor inspire such gushing slogans as “[some number of] square miles surrounded by reality”? There is a good deal wrong with this. First of all, if Saline, Michigan (which is apparently pronounced “sa-LEEN” rather than “SAY-leen” - can anyone help me out here?) is reality, then I am content to live in a dream world. But the main problem is the inflated sense of civic pride that the citizens of this town seem to have. Why can’t they wake up to the fact that this is a cow town with a crepe-thin boho veneer?

Why, in short, can’t everyone be as miserable here as I am?

Today The Ann Arbor News‘ “Talk About Town” column explores a small but hilarious typo on a sign on Ann Street. “SPINNING YOGA,” reads the sign, in the window of Bodies in Balance. It is, of course, meant to refer to two different classes, spinning and yoga. But the lack of punctuation has created misunderstandings that reach comic heights, culminating in one Ann Arbor resident’s impression that “there was some new kind of yoga out there.” There’s nothing like these kind of amusing incidents to remind us that, as Bodies in Balance owner Susan Morales puts it, “it’s a good thing when you can laugh at yourself.”

The item finishes with a trenchant inquiry: “Who was the joker who named the Technology Center? With tenants like Bodies in Balance, the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and Clancy’s Fancy hot sauce, what exactly was so technological about it?” Ann Arbor Sucks is thrilled to welcome Larry King as the latest columnist at The Ann Arbor News.