William Matthews, Baseball, Detroit, Cities, continued

It’s been awhile since I used visitor comments as the basis for a post, so here we go.
From my responses yesterday:

AH, great! I hadn't been back to [the Matthews poem] in years--maybe I have some memory and judgment left after all.

Barbaro, you're probably on thin ice AND out on a limb [favoring Detroit over some others], but you know cities much better than I do. I certainly agree that Detroit gets a bum rap, but it's the only major city I've ever lived in, unless you count Memphis. I'm snowed by the presence of four major sports teams, the symphony, which I'm told is world class (just got back from a daytime Schumann, Haydn, R. Strauss, and it was fantastic), a fine art museum, a dandy river front, the Eastern market, and on and on.

I suspect the problem is that what's bad is now very bad indeed, from schools to infrastructure (esp. roads) to vacated buildings to corrupt politicians to economic jeopardy. It's a damn shame because what's good is very good indeed.

I think Mayor Dave Bing has some good ideas with urban gardens and forestry, but where's the money for tearing down the old, much less putting up the new?





And here again is William Matthews on fans and audiences, onlookers, those not heroes:

Cheap Seats - 94.12