I'm excited and filled with anticipation ... but ...

But will we learn anything from it?

I've spent much of the past two weeks preparing for the onslaught of weekend events in New Albany. The starting gun fires later today, and in truth, a stranger might accidentally breeze into town this afternoon without knowing about any of it, and find sufficient cultural, degustational, recreational and fermentational activities to occupy his or her time all the way through Sunday.

It's going to be hot, taxing, tiring and fun.

Also, profitable for NABC and other downtown businesses? That would help, as would a more consistent effort on all of our parts -- business owners, City Hall and Develop New Albany spring to mind -- to implement what Andy Terrell pointed to in his Wednesday letter to the Tribune, and which was the point of one of my recent columns: "An organized and sustained 'shop local' campaign."

As Andy observed:

Students of local high schools are required to read books for a summer reading program. A number of parents from one of those schools brought the notice they received from the school about the book their child was to read. The notice specifically advised parents where they could find these books. All of the named places were either in Louisville or online.

The phrase "other local book retailers" was added at the end. With sales taxes playing a significant part of funding for schools, wouldn't it make sense for schools to encourage students to make purchases locally instead of sending them across the river or to their computer?

Granted, it's the very same school corporation that nonchalantly closes neighborhood schools; it may be too much to expect it to possess "buy local first" consciousness when it seems unable to connect other grassroots community dots. At least we can be grateful that Don Sakel lost. There needed to be others.

I know.

It's easy to blame such entities as the school board, and politicians, and DNA, and so on. Easy, and largely misdirected.

The simple recurring fact of the matter is that business owners and merchants whose livelihoods depend on locals buying locally need to see the nature of things and lead this particular "shop local" charge.

Regrettably, heretofore in the grand dysfunctional tradition of this strange city where almost nothing is taboo except principled, non-partisan cooperation to achieve a greater good, they have not. I'm not sure what can be done to change hearts and minds to veer away from grimly swimming alone against the tide to encouraging tides that lift all boats. Of all the crazed weirdness I've seen during the past six years, this inexplicable inability to grasp self-interest is tops. I wonder how many of them do all their personal buying at chains and big boxes, and never se the connection?

How is that possible?

Maybe the weekend to come will cause an epiphany somewhere. Perhaps the BeerMats have a song about it.

That perpetually stopped clock is bound to be right again, very soon. Right?