The Capitol Building--Lansing, MI

Just two years ago, I decided to attend Kalamazoo College, a small liberal arts school with big opportunities and a big price tag to go with it. While the average cost of attendance hovered just below $40,000 these past two years, grants from the college and my Michigan Promise scholarship have allowed me to attend “K” with minimal student loans.

With my stepbrother headed to school soon and a new baby brother at home, financial aid isn’t a luxury. It’s a lifesaver. Unfortunately, the state Senate failed to recognize the burdens facing me and many other Michigan students when they voted to eliminate the “Promise.”

The fact of the matter is that nearly 100,000 Michigan students rely on the “Promise” to defray the rising cost of tuition, room and board, textbooks and other fees. The state of Michigan created the “Promise” in 2006 to emphasize the need to increase the number of college graduates, and as of the last time I looked, that need has not gone away. In fact, one of the messages that resonated from the recent National Summit at the Renaissance Center was the need for a highly skilled and educated workforce. As Michigan continues to work toward a diversified economic base, education is the centerpiece of the 21st century economy we need to pull us out of the current recession and toward a prosperous future.

Cutting the “Promise” is not only cruel to those who rely on it most, it is shortsighted. If Michigan is going to move forward, the state must foster educational programs that produce the best minds in the world. We cannot hold on to our young people if we provide no incentive for them to stay in Michigan.

As students, we are always told that we are the future. Our state legislators need to reflect on what they are doing and realize they are putting Michigan’s future at risk.

The fight to “Keep Our Promises” has continued well into the summer. On July 15, the MSU College Democrats hosted a rally with Lieutenant Governor John Cherry, and in just a few days the SVSU Dems will host a similar event. If you could not make it up to Lansing for the MSU event, there is some great video footage posted on YouTube. If you’re on facebook, be sure to follow the developments of the “Keep Our Promises” campaign by visiting http://facebook.com/keepourpromises.

Alexander Morgan blogs regularly at http://abmichigan.blogspot.com/.

A post-modern introduction

I was pacing Kalamazoo’s many clean grey sidewalks today when a statement struck me most vehemently. It was a casual greeting which I said to another: “What’s up?” to which they replied, “Nothing.” This exchange happens 100000000000000 times over, every day, between a diverse swath of anonymous chit-chatters. It is the proverbial greeting of our age, the signature call and response of our niche in the historical march.

Orient yourself, to EVERYTHING. Ready? Go.

You and I are subjects uniquely referable to as post-modern. We have pretentiously, in all senses of the word, prefixed our way into the future. We are post-present, post-now—post-modern.

The impetus behind such linguistic tomfoolery is a historical age with people that can be characterized as nihilistic. When times were good, lets say all the way back to the infancy of Western Civilization in ancient Greece, we knew our place in the cosmos, and could let Zeus know with some flashy blood sacrifices that really got the maidens going. Hell, there was a time when we knew how to get into heaven. Just dial up the Jesus and act like you got some selflessness.

Oh those nostalgic, woebegone days when things were right and good—when there was a right and good—when we still swallowed transcendental pills and all got high on Destiny.

This kind of talk is for the moderns and pre-moderns. Scoff at them ye children of secularized, disillusioned, capitalist society. We believe in nothing!

So we are post-modern, huh? You just missed it! Now we’re over that, too! Over being over it to boot! We are the cosmic hipster! It happened and now we are Post! If we are going to call ourselves post-modern we have to acknowledge the leap into empty space. We are in the hangover of history, the products of that prefix, “post”. So what’s next?

As a civilization we are in uncharted historical territory, searching for the Big Idea. Love? Money? Freedom?

No, silly. Those fancy words can’t boss you around anymore. All those big nouns went down in history. Now, Latin roots shall have their day! Post- it! POST- IT ALL! Do you really want post-love? How about some post-money to post-spend? Win post-freedom? We got over it, and now its over. This is all a moot point. Post-moot. Post-Modern.

Zeus, come back and end this! Nothing makes sense anymore!

Sure, we could all run off to Oregon and become neo-pagans. Howl at the moon, praise the earth, fear Tree Spirit retribution. That prefix, neo-, however, is really an avoidance of what’s really going on here, my fellow post-pagans. I talked to Zeus, he said he’d LOVE to come back but it’s just not possible. To quote, “Aren’t you guys, like, over the whole Olympic Pantheon thing?” Yes we are! And God, Democracy, Truth, America, Environmentalism and even the Beatles, too.

The Ancient Gods had a polite way of providing a unified gestalt life-view

OK, I lied. A lot of people are still into these things. Especially the God thing. I’m just saying, what if the post- prefix were to spread like an epidemic and infect of us all with a radical deconstruction of what we had previously cherished in our heart of hearts and real of reals? It just takes a little doubt, a little uncertainty, a little scientific distance, and suddenly, the Beatles may not be the greatest band ever. We could be post-Beatles soon. In fact, we already are. Do you often feel jaded, cynical, or lost? Relax. Its not you—you can pin it all on historical machinations and our contemporary zeitgeist.

And as for human beings as a whole, I am pretty sure we are the same as we have always been, but now we’re living in a convoluted footnote. What’s next?

Nothing. I say “What’s up?” and you say, “Nothing.”

So what’s up with this gesture? Is it really “nothing”?

The “nothing” is clearly not nothing, and when someone says it they don’t mean that they are being swallowed by a void of vacuous non-being. That would be terrifying. Then people would be saying, “NOTHING!” as they dissolved into horrific non-existence.

Though realistically this would not happen in our 21st century world where such metaphysical calamities rest solely on a few particle accelerators that may or may not at some point generate a miniature black hole in California. No cause for alarm though—most of us remain faithful that the world will in fact still be here next week. We have to think so—we Made Plans insisting that next month, next year and onward there will be something. Don’t panic. Keep calm and carry on—they don’t literally mean nothing.

JK–don’t do this.Realistically its possible that what is meant by “nothing” is, “I’m not really doing anything, but I am existing regularly,” You say “what’s up,” and there is your friend, chillin’. Ok, good for them. What’s meant here is that they are hanging out, respirating, maintaining homeostasis, digesting lunch, firing a few synapses in between the ears, but by and large committed to nothing out of the ordinary, that is, “nothing” for convenience’s sake.

But why not simply say, “nothing special,” or “nothing superfly”? Why leave room for so much interpretation? For a minute there, I thought you had evaporated.

Where did this traditional dialogue routine come from? Did people always respond with a simple, “nothing”? To this I say “Doubtful indeed!” Think of the French Revolution. If you were to say to some Frenchman, “How’s it going?” they would say “Revolution! Three Estates! The Guillotine! Starvation! The beginnings of the modern state!” There was seriously something going on then. This, however, is post-modernity, this is the age of the indefinite.

Search your cultural, historical and social context. There is no clear answer to the question “What’s up?” You could say, “Studying!” “Internet!” “Gee, it is a nice day!” “Trouble in the world; hope our new Prez is better than the old one!” “Science discovered some stuff!” “When you die it’s just like blacking out at party but you never wake up!”

Where is the unifying gestalt to galvanize the soul? What are we all doing out here in 2009? Nothing! We are post-Greater Meaning.

It says “Do Nothing” really, really small.This is dead space; the apocalypse already happened and the worst part is that nothing ended and we just have to live without any transcendental purpose. Is our “nothing” a nothing of acceptance or resignation? This is where it gets to be a Choose Your Own Adventure.

A friend says, “What’s up?”

Turn to page 73 if you want to respond, “Nothing, just wasting space in the universe.”

Turn to page 37 if you want to respond, “Nothing, just open to all life’s horizonless possibilities!”

Coda

I greet a friend, and they inform me that their current status is, “Nothing.” I freak out, accost them, and shout, “What do you really mean?” The friend turns to me and says, “As a product of our post-modern age I have no guiding spiritual light and I wander this century without existential impetus. Right now I am walking the sidewalk, absorbing vitamin D from the bright sun today while thinking of the movie I saw last night, but due to the lack of a functioning faith, myth, or metaphysics in my cultural/historical context I cannot make any higher sense out of the things I am doing. So nothing is a reference point for my indeterminate state and I assume an open attitude toward the possibilities without a transcendentally prejudiced destiny. I say ‘nothing’ to signify that I am aware of the present and open to it, but I have no idea what is really happening and what I should do about it.”

To which I reply, “Oh. Good.”

Post-it. This is over.

Kalamazoo, MI– Home to one of the most diverse music scenes in Michigan, Kalamazoo now has
another band to add to the mix: The Parts of Speech.  Made up of Tim
Tapper belting vocals and guitar, Joe Veld switching between keyboard
and guitar, James Duke specializing in percussion, and bassist Jonathan
Takish, they have found their place amongst the eclectic local bands in this old industrial town brimming with new surprises.

The P.O.S. actually started out as a solo act of
Tapper’s that needed a backup band. He had formulated Tim Tapper and
the Terribles after recruiting Duke at a show at
Rocketstar, a local coffee shop/music venue. “After I saw [Duke] play
he had booked my solo show at Rocketstar,” Tapper said. Later Tapper,
knowing that he played bass, recruited Takish. The final member, Veld,
joined after a fated meeting between him and Tapper. “Tim heard that I
played a little and asked if I wanted to be in the band. He gave me
some samples to listen to and I just came up with some stuff I thought
sounded good with it. I just gave the whole thing a try,” Veld said.

Only
days before their first show in October of 2008, The Terribles had
decided to change their name to make the band sound more collaborative
rather than just a solo act with a backup band. “We were talking about
the songs. We listed off a few names and eventually Jonathan said
something about how our song names follow a pattern of ‘a noun and a
noun’ and Joe said ‘The Parts of Speech.’ It just fit,” said Tapper.

The POS have no particular musical syntax.
After discussing how much they hate labeling their style, they finally
agreed upon the delightfully ambiguous decision of not selecting a genre. Tapper said, “I
don’t want to pick a genre,” followed by Veld saying, “It’s too
limiting.”

Then again, with influences such as Yo la Tengo,
Pedro the Lion, Sigur Ròs, and Mineral it would be hard to narrow down
their sound to one specific genre.

While the band is enjoying
playing local venues for the time being, they have no real intention of
touring. “We’re going to record an EP pretty soon but we don’t plan on
forcing ourselves to stay together. We’re just doing this for the sake
of writing music and performing,” Tapper said. Veld followed with, “We
are doing this because we enjoy it and we like it when other people
enjoy it.

Catch them January 10th at Kalamazoo’s corner record shop.

Photo Credit David Doss