Dot Dash Dot Dash Dot Dash
The Washington Post breaks the fairy door story to a national audience. “Ann Arbor is the ideal canvas for such a quirky display of art and imagination; its population skews young, liberal and bohemian, and one of its biggest annual events is the Hash Dash [sic], which celebrates the liberation of pot.” Yeah, those wacky Hash Dashers, protesting America’s unjust drug laws while getting in shape at the same time.
Sounds like they are mixing it up with the Nude Mile.
posted by OFWinsurgent on April 21st, 2006 at 4:19 pmThat’s pretty inexcusable — the Hash Bash, silly as it is if you’ve experienced it, is nonetheless pretty well-known, right?
(Also, I think you’ve got an extra quote in the Post URL you’re linking)
posted by Dan Ray on April 21st, 2006 at 5:01 pmI thought Hash Bash was mostly attended by non-AnnArborians who drive in just for the event. It seems like a strange event to pick as iconic of this town.
posted by dcwp on April 21st, 2006 at 6:25 pmI think they only drive because it’s too hard to carry bongos long distance.
posted by David on April 21st, 2006 at 6:47 pmJudging by the numbers of Great Unwashed who used to wander by my Division St. house on Hash Bash weekend, Amtrak is also a popular option. I’m not sure what Amtrak’s bongo policy is.
posted by Jen on April 21st, 2006 at 11:43 pmIn my experience, Amtrak will let you pack pretty much anything you want. As long as you can get it through the doors onto the train, you’re in good shape.
Someday I want to try boarding with livestock…
posted by Murph on April 22nd, 2006 at 9:15 amnote the past tense everyone uses when talking about hash bash. it seems like no one comes in for it or cares now, not even dumb teenagers.
posted by guest on April 23rd, 2006 at 1:01 amHash bash makes no sense in the conservative ulta-wealthy town that Ann Arbor has become. Folks come in for it because it is a historical event, FROM ELSEWHERE. How can Ann Arbor be ‘bohemian,’ ‘artsy’ or whatever, when rents/mortagages are out of the sky high and smarmy corps like Phizer live there? Professors live elsewhere, and the artists have moved to Hamtramck (Detroit) a LONG LONG time ago. Besides, Ann Arborites wouldn’t deem to get their dainty feet dirty in Detroit, the way Detroiters sometimes visit Ann Arbor (but drive speedily back home, eager to wash their hands clean of that place).
posted by guest on April 23rd, 2006 at 7:25 pmann arbor…a conservative mecca…sure, like all the other conservative towns with daily anti-bush protests at the local post office. socio-economically elitist, maybe, but people here do not conserve their politics. rather, they’re quite liberal with them. ha ha.
posted by tim on April 23rd, 2006 at 8:18 pmAss Arbor’s population skews fat-ass and terminally dull.
posted by Morbidly Midwestern on April 23rd, 2006 at 11:00 pmIf you think Ann Arbor is conservative, where do you hang out, Zingermans? Starbucks? Briarwood?
Try going to Exotic Cuisine and Bakery in the little shopping center on Plymouth Road near Upland. Donate $0.50 and get yourself a NO BLANK CHECK FOR ENDLESS WAR bumper sticker and put it on your bike — you bike, don’t you?
The only reason things are expensive in Ann Arbor is b/c of the systematic price fixing in the student ghetto and b/c of Main Street Ventures little monopoly.
posted by This Blog is Overrated on April 24th, 2006 at 12:06 am“Donate $0.50 and get yourself a NO BLANK CHECK FOR ENDLESS WAR bumper sticker”
and one of those oh-so-stylish “Impeach Bush” yard signs while you’re at it. Impress your friends and prove that you’re still a radical!
posted by Brandon on April 24th, 2006 at 2:53 amBumper-sticker liberalism is by no means a new phenomenon.
I agree about Hash Bash being rather insignificant. Ages ago when I was still in school, it was sort of a big deal and was well attended by the NORML types. By contrast, the Hash Bash party I accidentally attended this year was a smattering of aging hippies and some young folks happy to drink from a keg of free beer.
posted by Dave on April 24th, 2006 at 1:53 pmAs a Texan might say, Ann Arbor progressivism is all hat and no cattle. For all the liberal/Democrat/progressive posturing, local public policy is driven largely by conservative goals. And as far as the liberal ideal of welcoming diverse perspectives and ideas, Ann Arborites are almost comically intolerant of any opinion that isn’t their own.
posted by Nick on April 24th, 2006 at 1:57 pmP.S. It’s cool the Post has a link back to AAIO under the “Who’s Blogging?” subhead.
posted by Dave on April 24th, 2006 at 1:59 pmI don’t think it’s a shout out, but rather an automated trackback feature to those who link to their articles.
posted by Dale on April 24th, 2006 at 2:34 pmI know. Still cool though.
posted by Dave on April 24th, 2006 at 2:39 pmHey! Hash Bash is on Channel 17 right now. This is so awesome, now I can watch it on a grainy VHS rerun from my couch.
posted by dcwp on April 24th, 2006 at 10:32 pmAnn Arbor is very conservative. But all the nice people who own the expensive houses think they are big-time liberals. They hate Bush, are pro-choice, but send little Suzy to white-white Greenhills School, at about $16K a year. They pay huge taxes for transportation they don’t use, and would like to reroute away from their homes.
posted by AAMOM on April 26th, 2006 at 2:48 pmThank goodness I live next to not so nice pro-life people who love Bush and send their kids to public school while paying no taxes for the mass transit that they would like to use, if only it were rerouted closer to their homes.
posted by JCP2 on April 26th, 2006 at 3:24 pmNon U of M Ann Arbor isn’t terribly liberal anymore. It’s just full of ex-liberal/hippies who think smoking pot once in awhile and paying top-price for new-age meditation and yoga accessories is keeping to their roots. They’ll protest against the Iraq war, but somehow in local situations, the “liberalism” tends to get overwhelmed with “get off of my damn lawn, you kids” mentalities.
What was that word… oh, yes. Hypocrites.
Most of the older people I’ve met who have aged and kept true to their 60s liberal ideals even after becoming homeowners and parents seem to keep to the Ferndale area.
posted by Anonymous on April 26th, 2006 at 9:41 pmI don’t think too many of you have much experience out in red-state America. Try, say, the affluent right-wing northern suburbs of Dallas for a real taste of “get off my damn lawn you kids” sensibilities.
I certainly know plenty of Ann Arbor and East Lansing parents and homeowners who have kept just as true to their 60s liberal ideas as my friends in Ferndale or Ypsilanti.
Yes, affluent homeowners everywhere tend to have certain traits in common, some of which are annoying. And they have access to influence in local politics, which can be frustrating if you’re on the other side of some local issue. But to say that all of them are politically conservative in the George W. Bush manner is to abuse the word. It would be just as misleading to say that poor people are automatically liberal.
I would suggest that the most dedicated “NIMBYs” in local politics everwhere are likely to be working class homeowners, who fight fiercely to protect their neighborhood turf because their options for relocating are limited. For examples, the New London and Poletown cases (strenuous but unsuccessful fights against forced relocation) were not brought by sophisticated upper middle class suburbanites.
In general I don’t like to dismiss neighborhood activists with the NIMBY put-down, because a neighborhood that doesn’t have people advocating on its behalf will decay into a worse place to live. When a neighborhood has a name and an identity and an organization, that affects every decision made about the area, everything from policing to utilities to landlords to street maintenance to people choosing where to live.
Random pieces of urban territory can be unthinkingly abused; organized neighborhoods (even when poor) are treated with greater deference. Look at Detroit: the organized neighborhoods are the areas in best shape.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on April 27th, 2006 at 10:47 amabout that word … “hypocrites”? it does not mean what you seem to think it means, unless you think that liberalism trumps self-interest (in which case may i please i have your ipod, young liberal? no? bah! get off my lawn (if i had a lawn)! go back to fashionable ferndale (which, by the way, is _way_ overrated)!)
posted by peter honeyman on April 27th, 2006 at 1:58 pmI have to agree with Larry, it is oh so very blue here (and thank goddess for that!)
posted by eileenie on April 27th, 2006 at 3:50 pmFor an example of the kind of conservatism (in a Marxist sense) that Ann Arbor embodies, rent the movie “Roger and Me”.
By Marx’s definition, anyone who doesn’t favor revolutionary socialism is conservative. Thus, any property owner is conservative, as is anyone with any extra spending money.
Thus, the criticisms of “conservatism” above are somewhat absurd. Are the people referred to in Ypsi or Ferndale in favor of revolutionary socialism?
Probably not. They’re probably just continuing to pay homage to Big Labor, one of the most anti-revolutionary (in both the Marxist and the Schumpeterian senses) special interest groups in the US.
If liberalism is driving a 10 year old Honda and being happy with the public schools, there are probably a lot of liberals in Ann Arbor. Sadly, though, those people will fight to protect THEIR schools and would not be happy if people from the surrounding communities with inferior schools (Chelsea, Jackson, Ypsi, Detroit, etc.) started taking their kids’ slots in school or if they started lowering academic standards to accomodate those kids. Such behavior is CONSERVATIVE.
I doubt there are any true liberals in the US. We all have too much to lose.
posted by This Blog is Overrated on April 27th, 2006 at 5:54 pmDude, the fairy doors were on NPR today. Lord.
posted by Brandon on May 9th, 2006 at 4:25 pmthere’s a running club in dc called hash harriers or something … perhaps they’re mixing it up.
i don’t know: I was in Amsterdam the other week and still haven’t recovered…
posted by daniel on May 13th, 2006 at 9:22 am