What Happens If I Want to Eat at Red Hawk? – July 16, 2003

Oh, yuck.  Art Fair begins today.  Here’s a rant from two years ago in which I lament the arrival of Art Fair.  The below still holds true today – it’s also been edited for web consumption.  But yes, go to hell, Art Fair.

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Ranting on.

Well, today it starts.  Yesterday was set-up, but today is the first full day of the event.  It’ll last for four days, until Saturday afternoon, and then they’ll be gone for another year.  Another year in which they’ll bombard front desks with requests for accommodation, declaring snottily that they’re artisans and deserve an accommodation.  Another year in which to forget how crowded the streets can get, to forget the sickening smells that permeate the air during four days in July.  Another year in which I can actually park in the parking structure. Another year in which to not live in fear.

I speak, of course, of the Ann Arbor Art Fairs.  Cue deep shudder from me and a lot of sensible Ann Arbor residents.  Honestly, I don’t even know the proper name for this thing.  Ann Arbor Summer Art Fairs? Summer Arts Fairs of Ann Arbor? There are four participating art associations (two of them, the youngest and the oldest, each trying to claim the title of “Original”), four associations who swallow up a good deal of downtown Ann Arbor and Michigan’s central campus for the next four days.  I don’t know their official title, but when these four days roll around, the two most dreaded words in the English language become Art Fair

And oh yes, I avoid it like the plague.  When I lived in Ann Arbor during the summer, these were four days in which you’d find me locked up in my dorm room or find me at my parents’ house, hiding.  When I lived in downtown Ann Arbor, on State and East Washington, the intersection where they set up their band, I avoided going home until the Art Fair was over for the night, then scurrying back to get some shut-eye.  When I worked on Madison and had to walk down State (past all the tents) to get to work, my step would be quick and furious, anxious to avoid the crowds and the artisans.  When I met IP and we both discovered that we shared a mutual loathing of the Art Fair, we went on day trips and spent our time outside the Ann Arbor area, coming back into town until it was absolutely necessary.  Last night, during set-up, IP and I headed out of Ann Arbor again, eating at an outlying restaurant, not coming back into
town until we had to.

I hate it for multiple reasons (and these reasons, I’m sure, extend beyond me).  Here’s a list for your viewing pleasure.

The crowds:  Once again, Ann Arbor is flooded with people in the middle of the summer, a crowding matched only by the first few days of fall term. However, fall term crowding is limited to campus and can be readily dismissed.  Art Fair crowding extends from Church Street until Main Street, an area encompassing far too many square miles than is really necessary.  Each of the streets used are packed with white booths, artisans describing the inspiration for their overpriced works, and people wandering around trying to decide whether to buy the do-dad or stick to the obsidian sculpture of Lee Bollinger.  Both cost about $2,000.00, by the way.

The parking:  Parking in Ann Arbor is bad to begin with – meter maids follow you like a faithful pet and City Council has given the police force ample permission to write hefty tickets (the city needs funds) – and Art Fair only exacerbates the situation.  By using various streets (lots of streets in Ann Arbor’s downtown are one-way), the artisans effectively block access to some parking structures.  Luckily, I have a parking permit for a university lot courtesy my mother, so I’m not that affected (I just have to walk a bit more if I want to meet up with a friend).  I do pity the working persons who have to contend with Art Fair severing access to their favorite parking spots.

The smells: Ah, the sickly sweet smell of Art Fair.  Start with a 90 degree day, throw in a dash
of B.O., blend in fried foods, then add a dash of rainwater to stir up the smell of earth.  Ah.  Summer in Ann Arbor.

The artisans: These people rank second among Ann Arbor’s most annoying visitors, superseded only by alumni and running ahead of the yoga convention people. In terms of accommodation, I have had extensive experience with these people – even though they know accommodation is tight and reserved a year in advance, they still call all year trying to sneak themselves in somehow.  They’ll first deny that they’re artisans, a mistake because that throws them down even lower on the waitlist.  Then they’ll pick up their artisan credentials, claiming preference because of their status.  However, once the rooms are taken, they’re taken.  We’ll call you if we have a cancellation, ma’am.  The artisan will then call you incompetent, ask to speak to a supervisor, and then get the same answer.  She continues to call, hoping to
get another person on the line gullible enough to sneak her into a room.  It never works.  And the fact that we’re always completely pleasant ticks them off to no end.

Before anyone accuses me of being sexist towards my own gender by labeling the artisan as a “she” halfway down the paragraph and ruining my pronoun usage, I speak from experience: The majority of the artisans are women and they are really mean. In fact, women attending any kind of conference tend to be meaner than the men. I don’t know if they’re trying to assert
themselves as women in control or they just like pushing people around, but I hate working conferences where the majority of the participants are women because they can be evil with a capital E.  It’s really disturbing to be yelled at by a social worker at a conference on infant mental health just because they ordered a beef dish and decided they’d rather go with the veggie dish and the veggie dishes are gone.  Quite.  Disturbing.

It’s all easy to avoid if you decide to get away from Ann Arbor.  However, when people tell me to stay away if I don’t like it, I get furious.  I can whine and groan and bitch about it as much as I want:  My personal space and delicate sensibilities are being impinged upon, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to complain.

Because complaining is one of the things I do best.