Page 10-Wednesday, July 19, 1978-The Michigan Daily Abolish the million-dollar typo! By JEFFREY SELBST Ann Arbor cares passionately about art. Religiously. For ten minutes every day. After breakfast, like cod-liver oil. Once each year, in the manner of large noisy congregations who make a big deal out of Easter services, Ann Ar- bor has an art fair. That is, art of sorts. This event comes around the end of July, when the picnics of the fourth are packed away and Labor Day is not yet in sight. After all, people get bored. And Jeffrey Selbst, former Daily Arts Editor and almost University graduate, is now a free-lance critic andfull time crank. the panhandlers have nothing to do-it's a slack period for everyone. The Art Fair satisfies many of Ann Arbor's most aching needs. It can point to itself as that hotbed of intellectual ferment, toujours in the forefront of American art and creativity. Faugh. At least the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival had the good taste to disband itself some years ago when it became an anachronism. The Art Fair con- tinues its indecent existence. How can this be allowed to continue? At one time, back when this carnival, this parade began, the Art Fair con- fined its noise and its clatter to one street only, South University. And, to the surprise of everyone, art was exhibited therein. A practice, by the elipse AnnArborJazzFestival 1978 In Celebration of the Music of DUKE ELLINGTON way, long since abandoned. In any case, real artisans and craftspersons came to town and displayed their wares. Not strictly, you understand, to advance the state of the arts in this country, but honest-to-goodness Art goes for real bucks (and has for the past decade). Then the leeches, the vipers, the hangers-on of all true Happenings came along. About this time the event usually ceases to be a Happening and becomes a Happened. This happened. And by no peculiar happenstance. (This is fun. Shall I continue?) What happened, then, was the same thing as happens to everything in Ann Arbor. I dread using a word so completely overdone as over-commercialization (you know, the one everyone uses to describe the Yule season) but it's true. The schlock merchants set up shop in the wake of the roaring success of the Art Fairs of past years, and now the following palette is laid before the art- hungry as they troop to Ann Arbor: " East University. Perhaps the most mendacious. Claims to be art, but the closest it ever gets is Spin Art, that stupid thing where you squeeze paint out of a bottle onto a piece of whirling cardboard and the result is Art. I beg your pardon. Spin Art is to Art as Stouf- fer's Filet Mignon with freeze-dried Au Jus is to real food. There are lots of booths with nasty sandwiches made in the style of anywhere from twelve to forty different nationalities, all of whom ought to protest at such gross misrepresentation. Lemonade on East U is by and large poisonous and most of the portions have never even made the acquaintance of a lemon. But if you like stuffed animals, here is the place to buy them. Artistic ones, naturally. Except that the seams have this way of split- ting and all the stuffing comes tumbling out. Not even good sawdust. Little cheap shards of foam rubber. This is deserved, though, for these animals are bought mainly for little fat squalling despicable children. State St. A garage sale. maybe it will call itself a sidewalk sale, but no one sells or buys on the sidewalk and h p it's all bad. It's the stuff the retailers couldn't sell earlier in the summer. Marked up 100 percent and down 75 percent. A true bargain. Perhaps the most honest street in this pseudo-fair, as it makes no claims upon the over- worked three-letter word beginning with the first letterof the alphabet. Liberty/Maynard. Ugh. Kitties painted on velvet with that sparkly glit- ter glue applied liberally. Take in small doses. Had nudes and fake Whistler's mothers. Sweaty women who paint-by- number all year and come with arm- loads of canvasses to sell, all of which might have been put to better use carrying small oceangoing vessels lightly along the breeze. And collages, too. Jackson Pollack is the spiritual forebear of this drek. Anyone can save Burger King wrappers and pictures of starving children out of old magazines, paste them together on a canvas, and make a Social Statement. There are large oil portraits of clipper ships in abundance, bought mainly by those who consider joining the Elks Lodge the height of their social lives. And mobiles, too. No, not the kind that may have been influenced by Calder but the kind you hang over infant's cribs. One old guy hasa booth every year where he does chalk portraits of famous See ABOLISH, Page 25 Hill Auditorium September 21-241 THURS, 21st-8pm FRI,22nd-8pm VIARY LOU WILLIAMS JOHNNY GRIFFIN STAN GETZ DEXTER GORDON MAX ROACH Qt./ARCHIE SHEPP FREDDIE HUBBARD SAT,23rd8pm SUN,24th-ipm LARRY CORYELL II V I ORCHESTR KENNY BURRELL CHICO FREEMAN SUtI RA HUBERT LAWS SUN,24th-8pm MERCER MOSE ALLISON ELLI'GTON/ ART BLAKEY DUKE EWNGTON ORCHESTRA ra TICKETS: Tickets are available in one complete festival series ticket package and will also be sold as individual concert tickets. FESTIVAL SERIES TICKETS ARE PRICED $20, $25, $30 AND'ARE AVAILABLE: -nowthrough September 12 bymailorder -July 17-22 (Art Fair Week) mail orders may be dropped off at the Michigan Union Box Office --September7-24 over the counter at the Michigan Union Box Office -starting September at all Hudson's stores I) Limit 10per person 2.) Series tickets will NOT be available at any ticket outlets except Hudson's and the Michigan Union Box Office. 3.) For further information call (313) 763-1107. MAIL ORDERS: 1.) Only certified checks and money orders will be accepted. NO PER- SONAL CHECKS. 2.) Please include a self-addressed stamped envelope with each order (for orders of five or more,add anotherstmp). 3.) Tickets for Ann Arbor residents can be picked up at the Michigan Unien See Office starting September 7. 4.) Mail ardes with postmarks latethanSeptembert2will nt be accepted. SENDOMAIL ORDERS TO, ECLIPSE JAZZ FESTIVAL 1978 2ND FLOOR MICHIGAN UNION ANN ARBOR, MI49194 INDIVIDUAL CONCERT TICKETS: 1) Individual tickets will be available at the Michigan Union Box Office September 12, and at other ticketoutlets September 14. 2.) Mail orders for individual concert tickets will NOT be filled until after the first day of ticket sales at the Michigan Union Box Office (Sept. 12) MICHIGAN UNION BOX OFFICE 1st FLOOR MICHIGAN UNION STATE STREET AT SOUTH UNIVERSITY ANN ARBOR, MI 4819 (313) 763-2471 Hours: 11:30 om-5:30 pmMonday through Friday INDIVIDUAL CONCERT TICKET OUTLETS: Schoolkids Records, both Discount Records in Ann ArborD iscount Records in East Lansing, Cobbs Corners in Detroit, 8oogie Records in Toledoandat oil Hudson's stores. A GREAT' (r lc PERIODICAL SHOP Just Became Greater In David's Books, Albert's Copying, and Charing Cross, we have made available alter- native periodicals, and hard-to-find journals. We now have our own space at 336V2 S. State, above Ann Arbor Music Mart, on the second floor. Visit our expanded collection of periodi- cals, books, and posters. Check out our unique selection of craft periodicals. If you can't find us, call us at 663-0215.