Salamander Festival Announced
The recent discovery of a salamander migration that takes place annually in the spring at Presque Isle has provided the impetus for area salamander groupies to announce the inaugural Salamander Selebration.
The festival will take place on the west side of Presque Isle, near where the slimy amphibians make their yearly trek from the woods to the water in order to mate and procreate.
Festival officials say that the event will feature exhibits intended to educate the public about salamander life and their importance to our fragile ecosystem. “Salamanders play an important role in our lives. Our locals only know them from the need to close the road so we don’t squish them during their walk to the water.”
Salamander art and music, yet to be announced, will be a part of the festival as well as salamander themed food offerings. According to organizers, salamander dishes are a delicacy yet to be appreciated by “the pasty and beer crowd typically found in the U.P.” With that in mind, a local brewery will be serving a salamander infused pilsner about which one taste-tester said… “It slides down easy and leaves a real tickle in the tummy.” Yum!
There will also be a live salamander ‘petting zoo’ to go along with an orphaned salamander adoption corral.
More info about the festival will be released in the coming weeks.
A New Plan for Outdoor Entertainment
The old saying is, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Well, that’s what city officials are hoping is the result of a new plan that will offer food and drink discounts to residents negatively affected by late night noise and commotion coming from nearby bistros.
The tentative plan suggests discounts based on a universally accepted formula of ‘measurable decibel level divided by distance from the source.’ For example, a neighbor of an outdoor music venue who is exposed to amplitude levels of 80 decibels while living in a residence measured to be 300 yards from the source would be allowed a discount of 26% at said establishment.
The plan is being endorsed by community members and bistro owners alike. “I think it’s about time something was done to accommodate the people who pay the price for loud music in their neighborhood,” said one unnamed citizen. “Now if we could only get them to take our requests, we’d be all set.”
A local bar owner, who frequently books loud music, said he was initially skeptical of the plan, but, thinks that this creative approach could bring about the end of the incessant carping and complaining. “We’ll gladly offer the discount if it gets the uptight boomers off our backs.”
Looking forward to seeing… or hearing, how this works out.
City Fathers Identified
It has long been assumed that Marquette’s city fathers, the men responsible for the birth and advancement of our Queen City, was a loose-knit consortium of Louis Kaufman, James Longyear, and Peter White. Those familiar names are synonymous with Marquette’s early days, and are still ubiquitous today with numerous buildings, parks, and programs keeping their memories alive.
However, we now learn that recent improvements in DNA testing has allowed investigators to look deeper into the origins of the city and their results have been nothing less than surprising. It seems that the trio mentioned above, although critical to the evolution of Marquette, are not, in fact, our city fathers.
A check of local historical notes, confirmed by the nation’s DNA database, has revealed that the actual city father was more than likely a settler who could only be identified as Gerald. A panel has been established to determine how the city should proceed with this new information. Word on the Street will continue to follow this story.
Lunisolar Calendar Change
The “lunisolar calendar,” the document of days that guides us through time in an orderly and widely-accepted fashion, will apparently be going through some changes.
Due to the vagaries of orbits and planetary spin rates, it seems that the leap year adjustment is no longer enough to keep the world’s timepiece calibrated to a scientific certainty. With that, the World Calendary Federation has proposed that one full day be eliminated entirely from the yearly calendar.
The recommendation is that April 1st be expunged, due to its propensity for absurd proclamations and sophomoric practical jokes that serve no real purpose, other than to add some questionable levity to an otherwise predictable social landscape. Word on the Street is looking forward to the elimination of April Fools Day altogether… starting next year. 🙂