Sufjan Stevens: Michigan is the only state that is blessed with having TWO peninsulas. The upper peninsula is filled with unemployed people living trailers and driving snow mobiles. Audience: (Laughter)
Hello Rebel Swede. I was totally going to buy the Sufjan CD online today. You just made me change my mind. I don't think Sufjan has ever heard of Seaborg (of whom the element Seaborgium is named after) or the author John Voelker. Perhaps he is unaware that Thomas Edison and Henry Ford made some of their most important inventions in the UP. Not to mention the workers' strikes of 1913 that helped shape this county's labor movement
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I never thought about it before but I guess Sufjan's song about the UP is about living in a trailer and meeting his wife at K-Mart. But it's all kind of a strange joke to make since he actually both lived as young in a trailer and in the UP.
Oh and please, don't get me started on finish people.
Yes, I have heard there is quite the rivalry across the pond between the Swedes and Finns, so I won't get you started. Perhaps we can meet some day at my cousin's reindeer farm in Taivalkoski.
On the one hand, one could easily come away from the Sufjan song with a bad impression of my homeland. On the other hand, I think "its just a song" so there is no reason to be uptight about it. The fact is there really are a lot of unemployed people living in trailers where I am from. There is also a lot of people working dead-end K-Mart like jobs. It is just that I don't let these things define who I am as a person or what I take away from the UP.
Isn't the UP in its entirety a dead end? Thats what I thought was so great about it. So lets keep this under wraps or else...you know. Non-UP people will wanna come there.
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Audience: (Laughter)
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But it's all kind of a strange joke to make since he actually both lived as young in a trailer and in the UP.
Oh and please, don't get me started on finish people.
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On the one hand, one could easily come away from the Sufjan song with a bad impression of my homeland. On the other hand, I think "its just a song" so there is no reason to be uptight about it. The fact is there really are a lot of unemployed people living in trailers where I am from. There is also a lot of people working dead-end K-Mart like jobs. It is just that I don't let these things define who I am as a person or what I take away from the UP.
But man, Sufjan does make some beautiful music.
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