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The Great Lakes have always loomed Mt. Rushmore-like in my life. I grew up in Michigan and my dad is a sailor, so from a young age I knew to be ashamed if I couldn’t rattle off the stats: “They-contain-1/5-of-the-world’s-fresh-surface-water!” and “Lake-Superior-is-larger-than-South-Carolina!” or “Michigan-has-more-coastline-than-any-other-state-but-Alaska!”
And even though I might–on a good day and safely outside state lines–have passed for a marine savant, the world is lucky I never blossomed into a maritime professional. I don’t so do well on boats. Instead, I shadowbox with agents, trying to convince them why the show I’m casting isn’t another Surreal Life. And sometimes, while waiting for a good yes or two, my mind wanders and I start to extrapolate my daydreams into a parallel universe in which they turn into reality shows.
Hence! If I had to make a show out of the marriage between my formative years (tugboats, barges, straights, the Midwest) and my current waking, functional life (spreadsheets, offers out, IMDB pro), I’d want to do a Great Lakes stand-off show: One week, one peninsula, five great lakes. I’m not so solid on all the plot points (a zebra mussels challenge, a shoreline comb), but I wouldn’t mind being stuck in the casting phase for a bit. That’s the fun part. Here are my pitches so far:
- Lake Huron: Mary Tyler Moore. Attractive to the resort community. Bird-loving (its shores boast the most fish-eating birds).
- Lake Ontario: Gerard Depardieu. Remote. Peace-loving. Easily appropriated.
- Lake Michigan: Lauren Bush. Popular. Clean. Connected (…to Huron, technically).
- Lake Erie: Marie Osmond. Afflicted. Vulnerable. Most biologically productive.
- Lake Superior: Dita Von Teese. Inscrutable, fathomless.
If there are mitten-lovers out there with other casting ideas, please do share.
I don’t know. Superior always seemed so cold and bitter to me.
posted by steven on 5-23-2007 at 5:59 pm
Oh, I fully agree. I just meant if Marilyn Manson were going to date any of the lakes, it’d be Superior.
posted by Becky on 5-23-2007 at 6:11 pm
If the great lakes were in a reality show, I would refuse to fish on them, and secretly hope someone cancelled the lakes… maybe fill ‘em in with cement.
If they were in a reality show, I would proclaim that I believed them to be vapid mindless bodies of water created to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the masses, and would wish for a lake of true substance and meaning…
… if they were in a reality show.
posted by Jason! on 5-23-2007 at 6:27 pm
Do you think Jeff Daniels will host?
posted by Jason Rehmus on 5-23-2007 at 6:41 pm
I would lobby hard for the Nuge.
posted by Becky on 5-23-2007 at 7:28 pm
Superior would be a much cooler lake if they still called it Gitchegumee.
Okay, everyone turn to page 452, and join along as we sing “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
posted by Sandy on 5-24-2007 at 5:36 am
hard to believe that Michigan has more
coastline than Florida…..r u sur?????
posted by allen h on 5-24-2007 at 8:45 am
Ironically, Lauren Bush isn’t even listed in IMDb.
posted by Dan on 5-24-2007 at 10:22 am
touche! she is not. guess page six is her imdb. but: she will be, once she debuts as lake michigan.
posted by becky on 5-24-2007 at 11:36 am
Who would play Mackinaw Island… speaking in the ever distinctive upper MI accent?
posted by micx on 5-24-2007 at 11:55 am
Michigan has more SHORELINE, not coastline, than any other state. Coastline is used to reference proximity to an ocean, not a lake. Yes, the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” home version got it wrong.
posted by Brian on 5-24-2007 at 1:16 pm
allen h: You have to consider the coastlines of both the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. Most people forget that Michigan has two parts.
posted by Maggie on 5-24-2007 at 2:41 pm
The only thing I know about the Great Lakes is the acronym used to remember their names in grammer school
HOMES
Oh, and Blue created them.
posted by Tim on 5-24-2007 at 3:28 pm
Thank you so much for this post. Having grown up in the mitten and also lived at Isle Royale (in Superior) but now living in the extreme southern Midwest, I find myself missing those lakes.
I’ve always seen the lakes being more like the women from their bordering states. Michigan would be Chicago/Wisconsin/Lower Michigan type. Huron would be more Detroit or Ontario. Erie is a Buckeye. Ontario would be a north-eastern type…New yorker? With Superior being either Yupper or Norther Minnesotan with the accent and all.
PS: Superior is cold but it is also the cleanest. Also, worlds largest LAKE (by surface area…not volume)
Go HOMES!
posted by MidwestMedic on 5-24-2007 at 11:08 pm
found at www.michigan.gov:
There is a comparative table of state shorelines on the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality’s site that gives the measurements for states touching the Great Lakes. See [link removed, sorry] World Book Encyclopedia (v.13, p.500 of the 2000 edition) states that Michigan’s shoreline, at 3,288 miles is “more than any other state except Alaska. This includes 1,056 miles (1,699 kilometers) of island shoreline.” In v.1 (p.284 and 294) of the same edition it states that Alaska has 6,640 miles or 10,686 kilometers of coastline.
posted by MidwestMedic on 5-24-2007 at 11:15 pm
made me think of another Michigander quirk:
Now that I live out-of-state. How many trolls (lower peninsula) people have ever used their hand to show someone the location of a city or where they live?
Almost every Michigan I’ve met has done this at least once to show a non-Michigan person a location.
Also, why does every non-Michigander think every Michigan city is near Detroit or like Detroit?
posted by MidwestMedic on 5-24-2007 at 11:33 pm
Who would play Isle Royale? And as I am a Yooper and live on Lake Superior, I have to say that whoever plays Lake Superior needs to be far more cold and bitchy than Dita Von Teese.
posted by Leah on 5-25-2007 at 6:51 am
Born and raised in MI and now transplanted to NC, I DO show where I’m from using my hand, and I find it annoying there is no similarly easy way to show where I’m at in my new state. It is a little easier for me than some, however, seeing as how I’m from the Detroit suburbs and now live in the Raleigh area.
I have to agree with Sandy that Gitchegumee is a much cooler name than Superior. I guess it just doesn’t fit in the “HOMES” pattern.
posted by Sara on 5-28-2007 at 10:57 am
Frankly, I’ve always thought Gitchegumee sounded like an STD. No offense to native speakers; plenty of English words sound icky too. Pubescent, for example.
I only use my hand to show other Michiganders where I’m from, or where some other place is. People from elsewhere have no frame of reference and look at you funny. Especially if you are in England. ;) If you are from the UP (upper peninsula), you can always turn your left hand sideways, using your thumb for the Keewenaw Peninsula. If you are a geographical stickler, you’ll want to curl up your index finger to make the point more, um, pointy.
I’ve been trying and I’m just not up to the original challenge. The best I can do is Ricardo Montalban for Superior and the wife from Everybody Loves Raymond for Michigan. Erie is the neglected stepchild of the Great Lakes as far as Michigan is concerned, as it’s too far away and we’re slightly ashamed of it for being famously dirty, so maybe Madonna? That’s it. :)
posted by robin on 5-28-2007 at 4:09 pm