Lunacy and Retail!

By Michael Black
Contributing Writer

On the night of the Lunar eclipse, lunacy awakens me. My sister Kathy and I park in the viewing area of Hector International Airport and begin viewing. The moon is being slowly blotted out by God’s finger. I resist the urge to strip naked, self-flagellate, beat on drums, and howl. We decide it would be cool if God were to, instead of the usual eclipse version of the “thumb over the lenses cap“ routine, do a little hand shadow work. Flip the bird, bunny heads, chicken combs, things like that. We guess he/she/God can do what ‘they’ damn well please, being God and all. We get some good pics with our point and shooters, wildly blurry and seemingly double-exposed. Art.

Now for some retailing. First stop, Zandbroz. I bathe in the new agey musk testers (Try Me!) and head for the book section. In the back, feeling a bit like Indiana Jones, I find a hidden gem of a room. I see why they have a ten-foot tall soldier guarding the entry. It is only for ‘special people’. I creep past him and a large rodent standing at attention eyeballs me suspiciously. The possum on the wall gazes warily at me. I begin to feel fight or flight responses kicking in. A sharp-tailed grouse glides silently on fixed wings in its white winter plumage. The bar running along the back of the room gives me flash backs to the Lloyd-the-Bartender-asking-Mr.-Torrance “…what it will be?…” scenes from “The Shining”.

Apparently the head potentate had not yet arrived. His chair, signified by an gold-embossed emblem of Grand Masonry on blue leather, sits empty bathed in the now bright morning sun slanting through the windows. Instinctively, I scan the room for fezzes. Or is it fezes? Fezi? No matter. The highly polished wooden floors reflect the light giving the room a brilliant illumination. I am the only one in the annex. I snap off a series of photos focusing on the rodents, the artwork on the wall, ceramics, etc. I notice atop the bookcase three large, old-timey photos. They are scenes from the past taken of the original occupiers of the space, Leeby’s Food Market. It was kind of a Whole Foods precursor where you could find exotic (for Fargo, circa 1960) things like fresh vegetables. No cans! Who knew? But what I really remember about Leeby’s were the freaking donuts! Dark, almost burnt brown and crusty on the outside, squishy and yellowish-white beneath and ever so tasty. My dad would buy ‘em by the sackful for his four kiddies and, I swear, they were still warm when he got them home. Or maybe it was because I would ride down there with him to get them in our ‘49 Jimmie (GMC) pick-up when it was nine-hundred below zero or something (without the wind chill) and the donuts were, relatively speaking, warm. Who cares? THEY RULED!!!

We dodge harried shoppers roaring up Broadway and cross the street to Northern Home Design. These being 15 year old ‘gurlz’ of the IKEA generation, I decide it is time for some education. I hold the door open for them, briefly muttering something about “mission style furniture” and “Stickley.” They ignore me and talk about which of their friends are cheating on whom. Priorities. I attempt to point out design features, workmanship, style, pointing to this piece and that. Trailing me I hear one of them say “…this is why I shop at Walmart…”. I guess the $3,500.00 maroon leather reading chair is outside of their gift budget parameters. A pleasant woman asks if we had any questions and I thank her, replying that we are on a field trip.

Now up the street to The Fargoan Hotel where I used to hang out some three odd decades back. One of my boyz at the time worked nights there, book keeping, etc. A good refuge for 18-year-olds drinking long neck PBRs. Now it is a pure girly store. Sigh… A $350 cluster of old-school light bulbs has apparently caught the eye of a matronly shopper and the clerk is putting the pedal to the metal. Bigger margin selling ONE of them than a whole bushel basket of plastic chop sticks, I imagine. I see enough and hit the street to snap off a few more pics.

Right next door is a trend-oid upscale store. I am immediately offered coffee by a pretty 20-something clerk teetering on five inch stilettos running half way up her calves. Perhaps a penny’s worth of colored water is thought to be a “commitment” by staff since the same offer was made the last time I ventured in. I decline and then, Colombo-like, rotate and ask her about beer and wine. Ha, ha…

Bags in hand, the four of us continue south, risking death by automobile once more, crossing to the Ecce gallery. More culture for the kiddies. Nice open space with pottery in the main room and art work hanging to the right and back. There is a table set with what appears to be hors d’ oeuvres. The girls dive right in and the proprietor gives the OK. I notice a broken glass or two sitting amongst a bunch of other dead soldiers and begin clicking away. “Looks like a wild night,” I comment. He concurs, mumbling something about “…opening and anniversary party last night…” An empty bottle of Moet-Chandon, a half-eaten piece of pumpkin cheesecake and other detritus dot the table. Cala Lilies trapped in tall, clear rectangular glass towers decorate. If only the lilies could talk… I snap some more pictures and notice that, this time, the culture is talking. The girls are actually looking at the art and evaluating. They are thinking. Appreciating? Only Gurlz Goddess knows…

One World is our next destination. Irie, mon. The pace is slowing as their retailing ebbs. I see a “wobbling finger” and am tempted. Having a life-sized hand stuck to your dash flipping EVERYONE off is just the thing for the misanthrope on your list. I climb up the stairs and find a chair to rest on. Suddenly eight people buzz around me. It is as if a bus stopped out front and everyone came directly up the stairs. Tight quarters. I decide it is TIME TO GO, feeling a bit like Evan in “Evan Almighty” at the fish tank. Shoo, go away!

We leave it up to destiny where we go next. Grasshopper has learned her lessons well. When in doubt, retail! Discontent is a short hop east and the incense wafts out the door as we enter. Damn, that’s a lot of tobacco piping. Glass cases run the length of the first room in a dazzling display of colored glass and workmanship. I wonder how many glass blowers (or however they make them) will be put out of business by the fascist fathers of Moorhead as they stomp out the cinder of recreational smoking. Plenty, I surmise. Rusty the pipe purveyor finishes selling some hookah charcoal and we strike up a conversation. We discuss the petition afoot to stop the city mothers from grounding the whole city because they smoke a natural herb. We agree that if they really were concerned about the health and welfare of the denizens of fair Moorhead they would grab demon alcohol by the neck, not quibble about some grass smoking, Dorito munching freaks. Booze kills, maims and incapacitates more people by logarithmic factors than the ganja, mon. It is stupid. I consider moving to Moorhead just so I can sign the grass roots petition to tell the “lawmakers” to shut the hell up and do something that is important for all the citizens of NoMoreHead (streets, lights, infrastructure, zoning), not hassling some damn hemp wearing hippies. I am getting worked up. I need to go. In the vestibule I scan the posters, messages, etc. Hmm… drag show at the I-Beam tonight. My attorney is in town from Phoenix and we need something to do. This may be the ticket…

By now the sun is slowly setting across the river silhouetting the Fargo skyline, such as it is. I have had a galactic day. Lunar eclipse. The rise of ‘ol Sol. And now the setting. One trip across the sky. I am tired. It’s time to go west, old man.

I watch the moon rise over the neighborhood and wonder about the lunacy I have witnessed today. Is this it? Is this our station in life? Staring at an eclipse millennia ago and going berserk because we could not “explain” it? And today, going berserk over a random day in the year? When distant, orbiting globes of god-knows-what (cheese?) make more sense and are more consistent than my compatriots riding this blue orb, I shudder. Luckily they have not taken away our beer, yet (wait for it…). I pick up my attorney and we repair to J.L. Beers. What do [italicize:we] talk about after 15 years incommunicado? How whacked out things are on this planet and how peculiar friends, family, and strangers behave. We have our suspicions but neither of us have an answer.

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