20B -he Michigan Daily -, e. - Best of Ann Arbor - ursday, April 18, 1996
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The Michigan Dai-- Wu4e, 4. -
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The Best of Ann Arbor? Could it be the proletari
Best Records:
Tower Records
Corporate record companies die!
But they've sure got a lot records.
This place has more discs in its Cajun
section alone than most places have
in their entire store. Check out the
listening stations as well, because
there's nothing worse than buying a
record after hearing one song on the
radio - and finding out that the rest
of the album is crap.
Best Used Records:
Wazoo Records
They seem to have an abundance of
Poison and Damn Yankees records. I
wonder why. Wazoo Records hasAnn
Arbor written all over it - it's wild,
it's wacky, it's cool. Look at the vari-
ous wall decorations around the store.
Best Men's Clothes:
;- Urban Outfitters
But what about those shattered win-
dows? Someone probably attempted
a drive-by after hearing of all the red-
hot men's clothing. If it's new, trendy
and hip, you know Urban Outfitters
has it (probably before everyone else,
too).
Best Women's Clothes:
Urban Outfitters
Again, the shattered windows. But
what better place to buy used jeans at
new prices? They have neat-o plastic
and vinyl dresses in addition to the
usual stuff.
Best Thrift/Used Shop:
Value Village (Ypsilanti,
actually), Light Wraps
(Ann Arbor)
Bell-bottoms, corduroys, flannels,
etc. - you name it, they've got it.
Pretty inexpensive, too. Just goes to
show that looking chic is often cheap.
Pick up some vinyl Shaft-esque gar-
ments at low, low prices. If you can
leave the confines of Ann Arbor, make
the venture into Ypsi to see Value
Village.
Best Bike Sales:
Student Bikes
And they even will lend you tools
at a nominal fee. All right! Lots of
bikes, lots of parts, and helpful ser-
vice. You can even buy used bikes
there - if you've ever wondered
where your stolen bike ended up ...
Just kidding.
Best Books:
Border's Books and Mu-
sic
This place has claimed more lost
people than the Bermuda Triangle.
But if you love books, you'll love to
get lost here. They've got everything
from Asimov to Zola, as well as more
non-fiction than is known to man. Be
sure to look at the sale tables out in
front - where else can you get hard-
covers for $0.99?
Best Textbooks:
Ulrich's
By far the most competitive pric-
ing of the three major textbook stores
on campus. Honest. And, it sounds
like it's family-owned; how nice.
Let's hear it for that orange, can-
cerous glow. If you want to die of
cancer, however, why don't you just
drink, and smoke yourself to death?
That's much more fun than cooking
sunny-side up on some flourescent
light ridden bed.
Best Haircut:
Charisma
Just a little off the top, please. Wow,
what a name - very swanky. We
hear that RuPaul is a regular, along
with Bob Barker. Bob Barker? The
price must be right.
Best Tanning:
Supertan
I
For some reason, the flowers-in-
their-hair artsy types who put out
this section insist on calling it The
Best of Ann Arbor. To them, I
would ask this: What exactly is The
Best of Ann Arbor?
Oh, sure: They sport The Best of
This and The Best of That, The
Best Place to Take a Date and The
Best Place to Get an Overpriced
Pastrami Sandwich After Playing
Racquetball.
Conspicuously absent, you've
probably noted, is The Best of Ann
Arbor itself. I don't mean the
superlative specimen in some ill-
defined category; I mean the very
best thing in all of Ann Arbor.
Perhaps our artsy types have
excluded The Best of Ann Arbor
because such a category is a bit
broad, a tad abstract.
However, because I am a
political science major, and because
political science majors spend all
day thinking about difficult
questions like "How did Bill
Clinton get elected?" and "How can
the Republicans not find a candi-
date who will make me vote for
someone other than Bill Clinton?"
- because, frankly, poli-sci majors
are trained to think about Tough
Stuff, I have taken it upon myself to
divine just what it is that deserves
to be called The Best of Ann Arbor.
At first I fancied the wooden fire
escapes attached to most of our
houses as The Best of Ann Arbor,
but then I thought, um, duh, wood
burns, and I realized that wooden
fire escapes were indeed not The
Best of Ann Arbor.
For a while I thought my friend
Dave Fisch's dad (to whom I will
refer, in order to protect the innocent,
simply as "Dave Fisch's dad") was
The Best of Ann Arbor, simply
because he flew in from New Jersey
for two consecutive football games
and, when presented the choice
between the NCAA hockey finals
and Dave's graduation, chose
graduation only because it was being
held in Michigan Stadium. Alas,
though, "Dave Fisch's dad" is not
The Best of Ann Arbor.
Dave Fisch's only friend (besides
me; hereafter "Dave Fisch's other
friend") told me that The Best of Ann
Arbor was "women - wherever I go,
women are the best thing." I
considered this briefly, then
decided that "Dave Fisch's other
friend" was just being sexist, and
since I work for the Daily - which
is accused of racism, never sexism
- I should not consider women
The Best of Ann Arbor. Of course,
for saying women are not The Best
of Ann Arbor, the women of Ann
Arbor will probably say I am a
"misogynist." Fortunately, I am a
political scientist and not a sociolo-
gist, so I don't know what "misogy-
nist" means. So I guess it really
doesn't bother me.
Then I finally realized what it is
exactly that is The Best of Ann
Arbor. Without further ado, The
Best of Ann Arbor is ... student
seating practices at Michigan
Stadium football games.
Bear with me, 0 Sports Haters! I
know that right now thousands of
Sports Haters are turning to Page
14B, eagerly searching for some-
thing that doesn't relate to Barbaric
Sports. Relent, O Sports Haters!
For I shall soon show you that
student seating at football games is
not simply about choosing seats -
it is, at its most basic, a bald-faced
revolt against the capitalist super-
structure that is oppressing us
proletarians.
Students, you see, ignore the seat
designation inscribed on their
tickets. They sit where they choose
- a perfect example of commu-
nally shared property being
allocated harmoniously, as Com-
rade Marx predicted. There is rarely
an argument over seating, unless a
non-student - who bought some
student's ticket and doesn't
understand the system - intrudes.
Then chaos ensues. The non-
student (read "capitalist") usually
calls in the maize-jacketed guys
(read "representatives of The
Man"), who enforce reserved
seating (read "exploitationist
property rights"): And a confronta-
tion no doubt follows, like this one
I secretly recorded while Maize
Jacket Man tried to move my
younger sister out of the senior
enclave.
Maize Jacket: You're going to have
to go to your correct seat.
My Cool Sister: Sure, but can you
move afat guy out of my seat?
Me: While you're exploiting us,
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could you move afat guy for me too?
I could see the cogs turning in his
head: If I re-seat these two and
have to re-seat someone from each
of those seats, and someone from
each of those seats, and ... 84
repetitions later ... by God, I'll
have to re-seat every student, all
15,000 of the little rodents. And
that would take ... some math here
... a really long time, like longer
than it took me to get my
So he let us sit in our <
nally distributed seats an
capitalist to screw off. A
ended another gloriously
chapter in the chronicles
struggle against the bour
academia and snooty alu
Deep, huh? The Best c
Arbor?
It's probably the wom
Thank You Ann Arbor.
Voted Best nidiganilu
Readership Poll
Michigan
1993,
1994,
1995
Items
BEST OF
ANN A RBOR
1993
1994
1995
a 441%
I
..-I
STOP IN AND MEET
2 ADDITIONS TO
OUR "FAMILY":
U U
c 4'r'aw
s'
MARGARET MYERS/Daily
We've expanded into
our back room to give you
more... it's quality active wear
and it's exciting!
UAU
I
Urban Outfitters won big for men's and women's clothes.
~ORO
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cnt4 l 9 t
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