Caught!

©matt chase via Getty images

Urban Tourists

©tom stoye

A rant for the day.

Today they imploded the historic Park Hotel in Cass Corridor. Although I'm not sure what qualifies anymore for something being "historic." If it's half-dead, is it worthy of saving?  A rhetorical question, because it could have (and should have) been spared 40 years ago.

I love architecture, and I am a proponent of municipalities doing what is necessary to preserve a building, but Detroit has a pathetic legacy of waiting till the last minute to give a damn.

In Detroit, we let shit rot... and then we destroy it.  That's what we do. Maybe not everything, because there has been some great examples of buildings being brought back from the dead, but more than not, we let buildings go until there's barely anything left, and then then the preservationists cry about saving it when someone rich enough can foot the bill. Where were those voices when it sat dormant for the last 12 years? And the Ilitch's, well…the Ilitches needed a loading dock for there new arena. A sad day.

The New Yorker-Cartoonist Liam Walsh

©liam walsh

Where are the Black People?

I just read this article by Nolan Finley from the Detroit News, and it addresses some issues I think will play an important role in Detroit's recovery, if it is to proceed forward in the aftermath of the bankruptcy. 
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Near the top of the list of the challenges Detroit faces as it starts its post-bankruptcy era is avoiding becoming two cities-one for the upwardly mobile young and white denizens of an increasingly happening downtown, and the other for the struggling and frustrated black residents trapped in neighborhoods that are crumbling around them.

Nobody wants to inject race into the marvelous story of downtown's rebound, driven largely by young creatives who grew up in the suburbs and are now fiercely Detroiters. I don't either. It's a downer, and the last thing I want to be involved in is another conversation about race. I'd rather have a stick in my eye.

But with racial tensions simmering across the country, Detroit must heed obvious warning signs.

It's a clear red flag when you sit in a hot new restaraunt and 9 out of 10 tables are filled with white diners, a proportion almost exactly opposite of the city's racial make-up.

It's a warning when you go to holiday events for major Detroit cultural institutions and charities, and you can count the number of African-American revelers on both hands.

It should stop us in our tracks-as it did me the other day- when a group of 50 young professionals being groomed for future leadership shows up to hear advice from a senior executive, and there's only one black member among them.

Pay attention to the stories about the cool kids who are leading the Detroit revival by starting businesses, social groups and nonprofits. Overwhelmingly, the subjects are white.

I'm not disparaging the newcomers. Detroit was an opportunity sitting there for the taking, and they seized it. And what they're doing is miraculous. We can talk all day about why more African-Americans didn't do the same thing. It doesn't matter. We have to understand that we're buying trouble if wee don't encourage more black participation.

This isn't about hand-outs or set-asides or affirmative action. Nor is it about gentrification, an absolutely ridiculous concern in a city that needs so much rebuilding. I don't even believe it's about racism.

Rather, it's about downtown employers making sure they're truly cognizant of the diversity of their workforces, and stretching a bit more to recruit and train native Detroiters, who will then help fill the lofts and nightspots.

It's about encouraging black entrepreneurs to come to or stay in the city, and recognizing there are cultural and opportunity gaps  that have to be closed to create a vibrant base of small business started by people drawn from the city's neighborhoods.

And it's about the African Americans who've already made it showing up in Detroit, putting their money and time into the city's civic, cultural and charitable organizations. Drawing from affluent blacks back from the suburbs is also a key step.

Detroit is now the city of opportunity. Fairness demands that those who where here when no one else wanted to be, share in the fruits of the comeback.

It's like playing with dynamite to have black Detroiters looking out of devastated neighborhoods at a downtown bustling with hope and hopeful young people, and not seeing their own children among the hip crowd.

Nolan Finley/Detroit News/ December 14, 2014

nfinley@detroitnews.com (313) 222-2064 / follow Nolan Finley at detroitnews.com/finley, on twitter at nolanfinleydn, on Facebook at nolanfinleydetnews and watch him at 730pm Thursdays on "MIWEEK" on Detroit Public TV, Channel 56.

Choosing between Shit or Shinola

On Shinola, Detroit's Misguided White Knight
Written by John Moy for fourpins.com

I wanted to like Shinola. I wanted to so badly. A Detroit "design firm" manufacturing products in the United States that's not another car company? I was ready to ride or die. But, like anything in this world that sounds too good to be true, Shinola's press kit is full of asterisks:

*Shinola isn't really a Detroit company. Bedrock Brands owns Shinola. There is no website for Bedrock, but the privately held conglomerate was created by the co-founder of Fossil watches, and owns other brands like Filson. It is based in Texas.

*The watches aren’t manufactured in Detroit, but they are assembled here from parts made overseas from their partner, Swiss-based watch manufacturer Ronda AG.

*The bikes aren't manufactured in Detroit either. Again, they are assembled here with parts made elsewhere. Although the frames are welded in Wisconsin.

All of these asterisks wouldn't be necessary except that Shinola's entire presence is predicated on its ties to the City of Detroit. The justification for the cheapest men's watch being $550? For bicycles that cost a minimum of $1,950? American manufacturing costs more. Quality materials cost more. American products are inherently worth more. Like buying a pair of Toms helps some poor Third World kid, by buying a two thousand dollar bike you're doing your part to help rebuild a fallen American city. In this way, Shinola reminds us what the American dream actually is: a selling point, nothing more than a sales pitch.

To paint this Rockwellian picture Shinola has spared no expense. They brought in Sky Yaeger, the designer of Bianchi's Pista model, among others, to design their bikes. They spent $14.5 million on their NYC TriBeCa flagship. (I wonder how much they invested in the real estate they occupy in Detroit? The details of the company's agreement to lease 30,000 square feet in the old GM Argonaut building have not been released.) They have filled out their retail stores with products from HICKOREE'S, Steven Alan, Archival Clothing and Common Projects. They even hired Bruce Weber for an ad campaign. Instead of starting in his parent’s garage, Shinola is a trust fund kid that decided one day he wanted to start a company and had his dad buy him all the cool stuff. And much to my chagrin, all this money seems to paying off. Shinola's roster of stockists is impressive. Their initial offering of watches sold out before they were even assembled.

Shinola is using my city as its shill, pushing a manufactured, outdated and unrealistic ideal of America.

The most irksome thing about Shinola and its opportunistic promotional campaign? While they've mastered opportunistic marketing, they get the most important aspects of being a "design firm" all wrong. See, the products just aren't that great.

The brand sells denim produced by a Detroit company. Again, on its surface, not such a bad move. Yet, in an interview on their blog, the owner of the Detroit Denim Co. (and Shinola by proxy) perpetuates selling points about selvedge denim that are simply not true. The selvedge aspect of denim does not make it wear better. It's not inherently better than non-selvedge denim. They say not to wash your jeans. Going so far as to suggest putting your jeans in a freezer and washing them in the ocean or even in vinegar, all of which is complete bullshit and if you don’t believe me check out this video where denim lords Andrew Chen and Kiya Babzani completely ether these myths in less than three minutes.

The watches? As the New York Times' Jon Caramanica aptly put it, the watches "…[suggest] timepieces of six decades ago, or public school wall clocks." They are made with quartz movements, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing, especially when attempting to build a watch manufacturing company from the ground up. But Shinola's emphasis is supposedly on quality, on craftsmanship, on unique goods handmade by hardworking American hands. Most mechanical movements are unique and proprietary. They are marvels of craftsmanship that seem to embody the mechanical prowess Shinola attempts to glom onto by positioning itself inside the former General Motors Design Laboratory. Currently, I doubt American manufacturing is capable of crafting mechanical movements. In that way, Shinola's watches belie the notion that American manufacturing is simply better than the rest of the world's. Granted, a mechanical movement would significantly raise the price of Shinola’s watches, but when you're introducing $2,000 bikes and simultaneously offering $5,000 Rolexes and vintage American flags that range in price from fifteen to fifty thousand dollars, price can't really be that much of an issue, can it? The thought of a company selling such luxuriously priced goods in a city that, according to the 2010 Census, has a per capita income of $14,000 is downright laughable.

Even their social media campaign are insulting:

"For every #SayNiceThings post on social media, we will write those intentions on paper embedded with seeds. The seed paper will later be planted throughout Detroit, specifically for use in the beautification of a dog park near our Detroit store."

This is Shinola's "Say Nice Things" campaign. A take on a '70s movement designed to combat the negative press Detroit was generating. This Pollyanna outlook on Detroit simply glosses over details about the city that don't conveniently fit Shinola’s narrative.

Listen, I can stomach hipsters planting flowers written with nice things about Detroit for a dog park one day. I can take $500 quartz watches and a section on their webshop entitled "Curated" that offers American flags that cost more than a brand new car. I can even take ten dollar cold-pressed juices when the city lacks grocery stores. Even those aren't too much of an affront. What I can't take is the white knighting of Shinola's promotional campaigns. The company insists that "Detroit isn’t as bad as it seems"—that there are happy and proud people here too. To demonstrate just how optimistic and amazing Detroiters are, Shinola enlisted Bruce Weber and Carolyn Murphy—both out of towners, both white—to shoot the company’s latest ad campaign. The accompanying video, subtitled "A snapshot of life in the Motor City," features photogenic models pedaling two thousand dollar bikes through the city. Photos of adorable black kids with a beautiful, benevolent white woman seem to be the centerpiece of Weber's campaign for the company. They even have a video of one of the little girls rapping. Bruce Weber is quoted as saying, "People were really friendly. They looked you in the eye when they said hello on the street, and they greeted you with a smile." Detroit may be bankrupt, but that doesn't mean its citizens aren't normal, functioning human beings, Bruce.

This idea that people would be surprised by how human and artistic and talented Detroit's citizens are if they just came and visited is ludicrous and emblematic of a new type of gentrification, one that seems even more insidious than what has occurred in, say, Brooklyn. Shinola and other entrepreneurs market themselves as white knights, swooping in to save the noble savages. They help assuage the guilt associated with gentrification and consumerism by pointing out how strong and proud and culturally important the natives truly are—that simply by choosing to be in Detroit, Shinola is somehow better than other companies selling similar products. Shinola is using my city as its shill, pushing a manufactured, outdated and unrealistic ideal of America. And, in that way, the company’s slogan—"Where American is Made"—is more accurate than its owners could have ever hoped.

Are Brick & Mortar Galleries Still Relevant?

In the not so distant past, you would sift through a stack of mail, to find a flyer for an upcoming gallery opening.

The flyer would have the artists name, followed by the pertinent information about the show, which usually would list the galleries address, telephone number, and gallery hours, followed by the opening night date and so forth. On the flyer, there was usually a solitary photograph of the artists work. That photograph was as a teaser of sorts: a sample of what would follow if you made your way to the opening. One photograph was enough though, because galleries knew what sold, and more importantly, they knew who their audience was.

Fast forward to the present, and you'll see a trend where gallery openings are becoming something of an afterthought for nervous gallery owners, who are relying on internet pre-sales that kill any anticipation or excitement for local collectors. Some galleries are posting photographs of the entire show (with prices included), as well as online shopping-cart-checkouts, for those wanting to buy ahead of time, before one patron so much as walks through the front door. Talk about anti-climatic! This is creating a "Amazonesque" environment that shows little confidence in creating a healthy brick and mortar art scene for local markets.

The mutual respect between the the artist, the gallery and the buyer, is built on long lasting relationships that benefit all parties. It takes patience on the part of the gallery to develop these relationships, but with  technology creating opportunities to broaden their audience, it's understandable how galleries are tempted by the chance to create a global audience. That being said, it would admirable if galleries could  hold off with online sales, if only for a night, so cities (like Detroit) can develop self-sustainable art markets that are around for the long haul. It would create a win-win scenario for both the galleries and their audience.

Republican Jesus

Remembering 9/11

I know this is a day late (if you're counting, a couple of days) and a dollar short, but I've been pondering the effect of 9/11 on my life, and of course the bigger picture, the effect on us as a society.

The weekend before the planes crashed into the twin towers, I had driven my car to New York City to see a friends photography exhibit at a gallery in Chelsea. The original plan was to stay a few days longer and spend some time taking pictures around the city....something I had been doing since college days.

Uninspired for some reason, and called back for work, I drove home the morning of September 10th. The next morning all hell broke loose, and till this day I wonder about the big "what if"? What if I had stayed, what if I had been there to document it, and experience the unfathomable events that unfolded on a clear sunny morning in September?

There are so many stories from that day that have become a part of the collective conscience of our country. Some narratives are horrific and sensational, others speak to the randomness of an ordinary day, interrupted by an extraordinary event. Below is one such story,written by photographer/educator Vincent Cianni, who was on his way to work at Parsons The New School for Design the morning of September 11th.

© tom stoye

On September 11, 2001, I remember going into the subway at Bedford Ave on a beautiful fall day, sun shining, heading to Manhattan to teach my Senior Seminar at Parsons School of Design at 9am. It was 8:30. When I came above ground at 8:50, people were standing around in shock, looking south with a direct view of the first tower billowing smoke, wondering what happened. I ran up to my classroom, ushered my students back down to the street, thinking that a small twin engine plane accidentally hit the WTC. As we stood there in disbelief, the second plane hit a little after 9am and our lives were changed forever. Confusion, fear, disorientation, shock and a need to be close by each other.

I had four exchange students from London in my class. I had facilitated them coming over to study. They had just gotten an apartment 2 blocks from the towers the week before. 3 of the 4 students were came to class that morning, the fourth remained at home not feeling well. The three stood shaking, not knowing what may have happened to her and not able to contact their parents via cell phone. As a matter of fact no one could make calls. It was as though we were cut off from the world in a surreal movie. By that time, people who had been at the WTC when the first plane hit were running past us at Union Square, three miles north of the Financial District, covered with white ash like ghosts running out of middle earth. They didn't look at anyone, they didn't stop, and their faces were frozen in a silent scream, much like Edvard Munch's The Scream. Some of the students ran into the subway with intentions of getting as close as possible, cameras in tow. Others ran south on foot. From 5th Avenue and also from University Place the towers always stood in view, seemingly like a school crossing guard. We stood watching the first tower silently crumble in slow motion. Nothing we had experienced before helped in understanding what was going on.

It took 8 hours to get across the Williamsburg Bridge back to Brooklyn because we didn’t want to leave Manhattan. A sense of community and commitment, yet powerlessness set in. The rest of the day and for days afterwards the images of people falling from the towers played relentlessly on television, were printed in newspapers and magazines and were seared into our memories. I couldn't help but think how brave they were to choose dying in that way rather than being consumed by fire or buried in rubble. Not to say that those decisions were any less heroic. Many stories of heroism surfaced and continue to do so.

I now had three homeless, scared and somewhat manic students from London that were now my complete responsibility for the next three weeks. They camped out at my loft and we tried for days to contact their friend. She ended up being ok.

Life was turned upside down for months but certainly for the next three weeks as hundreds of people took turns standing vigil and communing with each other at Grand Street Park on the East River. It offered no answers, no purpose for what had happened, but a slight feeling of safety being with each other as we were watching the smoke rise from the ruins. Everything had shut down. People supported each other. I volunteered at the rescue center on the West Side Highway.

I was teaching a class today and we were talking about the essay Sense of Place, in a book called 10 Geographic Ideas that Changed the World. It discusses how we relate to our environment and identify with its ecology, how we find our place in the world and in the community. I also brought up Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, where he describes how a nation’s identity is embodied in its buildings and institutions, books and culture, and photographs. The two most distinguishing symbols of American identity - capitalism and military might - were attacked that day. The people who flew the planes were well aware of this. Our memories were wiped clean. But our resilience endured. New buildings replaced the towers. And even though they are gone, they will never be forgotten.

Some of us were not so lucky. This became painfully clear when I was walking up Park Avenue near 22nd Street a few weeks later still in a daze, still disoriented. I unknowingly walked into an area cordoned off by police. I heard people yelling across the street, but wasn't aware they were yelling at me. As I reached the middle of the block, a woman's body landed on the pavement with a thud six feet in front of me. Police ran up, grabbed me and ushered me away. She had jumped because she was despondent losing someone in the towers. I realized it was not only people in the towers who died that day. A piece of us died. A piece of me died again.

Vincent Cianni

Guided Tour of the Packard Motor Car Co.

© tom stoye

The abandoned  Packard Motor Car Company plant on East Grand Blvd, along with the Michigan Central Depot on Michigan Avenue, are two iconic Detroit buildings whose legacy will forever be linked to the downfall of Detroit as a once prosperous city. Sad as this might be, what's more depressing, is the celebration of so-called "ruins" as a tourist trade.

Driving past the Packard plant a couple weeks ago, I came upon a tour bus loaded with people who were taking a tour of the ruins of Detroit. The one lady I talked to informed me that they were from the Toledo Art Museum, and they were hear to study urban spaces and the re-purposing of that space in the present. Sound familiar? It should, it's the mantra of the white-savior industrial complex, which is steadily becoming one of the more popular sports of the "haves," at the expense of those who make up the "have-nots." The response I would loved to have heard was, "Holy crap, the ruins in Toledo pale by comparison. I can't wait to go home and show these pictures to the rest of the family." That response would've fallen into the category of what my son refers to as "real-talk."

One of the ironies of the moment, was what appeared to be a group of homeless men who were hanging out across the street on the north side of Grand Boulevard, watching in confused amazement, as well-dressed tourists exited the bus in single file. Imagine for a moment, if this were you. You're hanging out on the corner, gripped by poverty and hunger, you're out of work, with little or no prospects, when out of nowhere, a tour bus pulls up to your neighborhood.

If this isn't an Orwellian moment, what is?

Michigan Film Initiative, Going, Going...Gone?

© tom stoye

Recently, local grip house Mid America Cine Support, closed its doors for good; falling prey to a weakened economy and the all-but-dead Michigan Film Initiative. This is another sad chapter of how the failed initiative has deeply affected the lives of family-run businesses and individuals that were once a viable part of the Detroit film community. A staple of the Detroit area, Mid America was founded by Doug Wandrie in 1977. Since his passing in 1998, his daughter Cheryl had taken over the popular grip house, that had been servicing the Detroit area for as long as I can remember. Like many local companies, Mid America became fully invested in feature films, once filming began in earnest, somewhere around 2008.

Hot off the heals of the housing bubble crash, the Michigan film initiative was ramping-up efforts to escort Hollywood to its doorstep. Its purpose was to lure cost-conscious movie producers to the state, in hopes of creating a Michigan-based film industry to offset a crumbling economy.

Governor Granholm thought it appropriate at the time of its inception, to give production companies an overly-generous 40% tax incentive to film in Michigan. The taxpayers were left with the bill, but it seemed like a smart gamble on the future of the states economy.

Once the bait was taken, Michigan became star struck, as production companies rolled their trucks into town. Because of this, a cottage industry was born.  Gullible locals were chompin' at the bit to trade in their Carhartts for a chance to learn a new trade, that would offer them the opportunity to punch-in at a sound stage rather than the factory floor. Exciting as it was, it was clouded by the reality of whether or not it could be kept alive, given the politics surrounding the incentives.

Eager for work, thousands of laid-off autoworkers with dwindling resources, enrolled in Mom n' Pop seminars that offered the promise of jobs in the film trade. When Republican businessman Rick Snyder replaced Granholm as governor in 2011, he sharpened his pencil, and in one fell swoop killed the initiative, thus dimming the hopes of unemployed workers looking to re-tool themselves for a new economy. Compared to the buzz of 2009 when feature films were setting up shop in droves, we are now left with the carcass of what was once promising industry.

While Granholm was overly eager in offering 40% tax incentives, Governor Snyder has been reactionary with his response in dealing with Granholm's idealistic generosity. Instead of drafting a new incentive that would of sustained a scaled down version of the industry, he has managed to all but kill it. Since then, many of the over-invested studios, grip houses, production companies, location scouts, and the like, have closed up shop as work dried up. We're now left with the aftertaste of a state government who lacked the foresight to figure out creative ways to sustain it.

A New Landscape

photo by Alex Brandon AP

One thing is becoming increasingly clear after watching Barrack Obama's reelection on Tuesday night. The fog has lifted, and the scales of the political landscape are tipping towards the disenfranchised and previously disengaged voters. There was much ado about Barrack Obama being the first African American president in 2008 (as there should of been) but what's equally remarkable is that it seems to have lit a fire under the collective asses of a new voting demographic. Non-voters have discovered that voting can actually make a difference. Previously, low voter turnout by blacks, hispanics, and younger voters was dismal at best. The disconnect between the haves and the have-nots created a "ah fuck it" attitude amongst the have-nots, whose political aloofness was connected to the futility of the growing gap between the two. The rising star of this years election demographic seems to be the hispanic voter in particular, whose numbers are continually rising. Issues regarding poverty, immigration, taxes and so on, once in the hands of the power elite, are now the fodder of a growing political underclass, who have figured out that the accumulative voice of the disenfranchised is a political entity worth listening to. Are you listening Washington? Time will tell.

Do it...Vote!

San Francisco's "Joyful Mayhem"

photo by Noah Berger AP (2012)

Last night, immediately following the defeat of the Detroit Tigers to the San Francisco Giants in the 2012 World Series, live video feeds showed a city bus on fire, lit by rowdy fans celebrating in the aftermath of the Giants victory in Detroit. A video from KTVU in San Francisco shows a mob of people attacking a car, and then pulling people out of the car, and proceeding to beat the hell of them till riot police intervened. When I revisited the site were the video had been posted, it was removed from the site. WTF?  So much for freedom of the press.

The larger media outlets were late to report the mayhem, and when they finally got around to doing so, they served it up light, with a cherry on top. USA Today, in a small three paragraph article, referred to it as a "gleeful throng," while the San Francisco Chronicle showed riot photos, while referring to it as "joyful mayhem." You know, the type of joy that involves looting, and setting bonfires in the middle of the street, and pelting police in riot gear with glass bottles; that type of joyful mayhem is what I believe they were referring to.

photo by Susana Bates/San Francisco Chronicle (2012)

Which gets me to my point; What would have happened if  this had occurred in Detroit? Would the press have been so gleeful? Would they have minimized it with a fluffy piece defending the  mob mentality, by saying that most of them were just "having a good time." Remember when the Tigers won the World Series in 1984? There was a dramatic image of Kenneth Holms, a Detroit Tigers fan who is shown holding a pennant above his head, with a overturned cop car set afire directly behind him (look at the bottom of this post to see the image). This image was singled out, and distributed to every news agency around the world, and was held up as a metaphor of how the media looked at Detroit, and how we were to be viewed by the rest of the world. Never mind that we've managed to make it peacefully through six major championships, and two World Series losses, along with a couple of Stanley Cup losses, without any full-blown incidences. Despite this, media types from around the world will line up in droves, hoping to catch a Detroiter so much as cutting a fart, to uphold their "Rolodex" approach to journalism, which locks in stories based on perception, while using tired old sources, and go-to approaches that guarantee a story, regardless of its authenticity.

1984 World Series, photo by Robert Kozloff AP

A Beginners Guide to Propaganda

Propaganda, once the love- child of career politicians and media, is now the go-to weapon for any voter with internet access. With the luxury of social media and blogosphere's (like this one) at their disposal, political rhetoric has been amped up to unprecedented levels.  We are now plagued by the incessant chatter of millions of "Monday morning quarterbacks," more than willing to add to the piss pot of American politics.

By rallying the troops into a frenzy of half-truths, politicians effectively persuade ill-informed voters to focus on the folly of the absurd. We end up with stories about Mitt Romney's dog, and President Obama's birth certificate, both worthy distractions that lower the bar when trying to make important decisions that will get America back where it belongs, which is in the hands of the people. An idealistic premise, that seems unlikely at the moment.

You wonder how undecided voters make choices when the political landscape is littered with so much propaganda and factoids. Technology now makes it possible for every man, woman, and child to disseminate information without being held accountable for the accuracy of the content. Of course, that can be said about the internet in broader terms, where all information is, and should be suspect.

The minority of concerned voters willing to go the extra mile, are forced to sort through an insurmountable pile of bullshit to somehow stay informed.  Others, content with distancing themselves, remain hypnotized by the allure of political and moral ideologies that match their own pedigree, regardless of where their moral compass might point to.

Ignorance is bliss I suppose.

Stay informed. Vote!

America Had Talent

Just read this piece in the New York Times about Mitt Romney.  I was entertaining the idea of blogging about it myself, but after reading this I decided, why bother.  Right to the point, and spot on regarding my feelings about not only Mitt Romney, but all politicians.

The RNC further hammered home my belief that politicians have discovered that the formula for success is to talk about nothing and put on a good show while you're doing it. Thankfully I was paying attention.  Had I not, I would surely have been hoodwinked into thinking I was watching America's Got Talent.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/humanize-this/?hp

The Death of the Written Word

The upstairs bedroom of my house is loaded with books I've collected since my youth. They reflect the scope of my life's interests.  Books on photography, art, cinema, street art, and fiction, are just a few of the books that take up space on my shelves. Jim Harrison, Carson McCullers, Phillip Roth, Charles Bukowski, and Norman Mailer, are some of the authors whose written words have taken me away to imaginary places, places I never dreamed of going, were it not for the talented wordsmiths whose books I have read.


















In the postmodern world, written words are becoming the enemy of time. Patience is becoming a human quality for those that have been left behind. The idea now, is to get the message across in the least amount of time, without the hassle of the English language getting in the way of the process. Spelling, punctuation, grammar, and the overall eloquence of a beautifully constructed sentence, are becoming less useful in a society concerned with the speed of everything. Even the content itself is under attack.  Factoids are becoming our reality. Are we getting closer to the dystopian society of Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel, Fahrenheit 451?

Below are a couple "passages" I found surfing Facebook, that show what I'm referencing. These were copied verbatim.

WATS GUD BRO U DONT NO A BROTHER NO MORE WATS UP WIT DAT

You are a got getta Bitches and niggas need to take notes!! kind of turn me ;)

Mural in Hamtramck Petitioned for Removal

What do you get when you mix a world renowned artist's mural with the city of Hamtramck, MI? You get a petition asking for its removal, to also include the arrest of the artist. Tonight, there will be a city council meeting to discuss the mural and its future.  A mural that isn't a week old yet. This town (the greater Detroit area) just doesn't get it. The possibilities for public art in this area, are limitless.  We have a crumbling economy that has created an unlimited amount of unused land and property, that includes thousands of dilapidated buildings with wall space galore, and this is what we want to direct our energy towards? Really? Get with it Detroit.

Mural by SEVER

The Dequindre Cut Greenway off Gratiot, is another area of wasted opportunities for public art in Detroit. After doing four murals at a minimal cost to the city, that initiative has run into a dead end in so far as any future initiatives. I helped create those murals, and the public response was incredible at the time of their creation.  People love being surrounded by art in public spaces, no matter what the art form. In every situation where I have been present during the creation of a public mural, the random foot traffic that day has been comprised of people who are 99% positive when seeing a new piece of art work spring up. They might not fully understand art, but art in public spaces creates a feeling of universal community pride.

What the hell is happening in Detroit?

http://www.foundmichigan.org/wp/2012/04/18/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-detroit/

A great article and Q&A with Detroiter John Gallagher.

Murder City?

I remember as far back as the 1970's Detroit being tagged withthe moniker "Murder City". It's hard not to wince when reading national publications and media outlets who consistently portray Detroit and the surrounding area and the surrounding area as a lawless region, with little or no hope for recovery.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR's) consistently rank Detroit as one of the most violent cities in the country, but the data is riddled with inconsistencies in so far as how the data is collected, with little or no consideration for the long term affects on a region, based on public perception of the rankings. The FBI continues to report yearly rankings despite the opposition  of the American Society of Criminology (ASC), who site the limitations of the data that determine whether or not a city is safe or not. Even the FBI itself posts a disclaimer on their website, that alludes to the inconsistencies present in their findings. The FBI refers to its own data as "leading to simplistic and/or incomplete analysis that will often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents." WTF???

Detroit is far from being perfect, but misperceptions and sensationalistic reportage have had the accumulative effect of making Detroit a caricature of itself.

Enough already!

Continuous Partial Attention

Status updates, texting, posting, tweeting, downloading, uploading, recording, and gaming, are a few of the activities now available in the palm of your hand. Since the advent of smart phones, the human race is mesmerized by it all.  I embrace what technology has to offer, but I fear what it has taken away. I've seen couples dining together with lit up faces focused on their smart phones, completely oblivious to each other company.  I've been to movie theaters and noticed the same faces, under lit by the glow of mobil devices, to resemble what many cinematographers refer to as "Frankenstein lighting." Oh the horror! If only we knew what we are missing.  We're all in a state of continuous partial attention.  Snap out of it!  Please.