statement

THE MICHIGAN DAILY | SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

Mark Schlissel gave me

writer’s block

P

resident
Mark
Schlissel

apparently lives in a beautiful
white
house
on
South

University and I was going
to see it. I was going to see it
because I emailed a professor

that I needed a building to write about,
and of the hundreds in Ann Arbor, not a
single one felt curious enough for a story.

“Break into Mark Schlissel’s house!” he

wrote.

“Will I be arrested?” I wondered.
“I’m just an Idea Guy!” he replied.
It was an idea, and one I needed, since I

signed on to write about buildings for The
Daily’s Statement magazine this semester:
To turn immobile structures into however
many
thousand
romantically-tainted

words on a semi-regular basis. When
I applied, I felt I had a lot to say on the
subject, and I wanted to force myself to
write.

The weather was awful the day I first

set out to see the President’s House. I left
around noon and faced the September mix
of warm humidity and cold wind that begs
both for shorts and a flannel, and doesn’t
blink an eye at the contradiction. I wore
neither, and downed a Claritin instead, as
September not only gifts split personality
weather but also searing and persistent
allergies.

See SCHLISSEL, Page 4B

BY MATT GALLATIN,
STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT