today is epically long. i wanted to discuss these things. i wrote most of it at cass cafe and i thought this hot chocolate and the light streaming in looked pretty sweet.
1. my 5 favorite things about detroit
2. what i did for the past week, Including halloween parties at the russell industrial.
3. why alleyways and powerlines are so romantic.
First thing this morning i was asked to list my 5 favorite things about detroit.
1. the streets. they breathe
2. the people. they live
3. the places. have history
4. the communities. they fight
5. all of those things together make this detroit, an incredible alive place to be.
here is a link to the rest of the thread.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/exposuredetroit/discuss/72157608577660937/
On saturday night my roommates boyfriend broke up with her through a text message. He said she was possesive and emotionally immature. However i wonder....what is more mature, her trying to get an answer out him for the past 2 months or his text message break up. It's another example of how technology has changed our interactions with one another, and what pisses me off about that. Technology is bad for relationships of any kind. Yes, we are more connected then ever before, but i feel like it is shrinking my amount of close friends because when you can be connected all the time, people don't take into consideration that life still happens. I'm equally to blame for the lack of people to people interaction in my life. I am connected through myspace, facebook, twittier, blogspot, ichat, virb, flickr, yayhooray and my phone, people have 24 hour access to creep stalk me if they want. However i'm pretty sure they are all busy upating thier status and creeping on the webs, just like i do.. for at least an hour a day. I blame the nets for the deterioration of friendships, romantic and not, also have had them used and have used them to piss me/other people off. I also find out about peoples relationships, and even define my own on the internets. Two of my friends were engaged tonight and i found out instantly, thanks to the webs. For some reason. there is something wrong with this to me. However i am a avid participant.
Anyways, my friend Andrew Davis curated an art show on Halloween night titled Recollect Dead. He ordered Vans slip-ons, and chuckas then sent them to artists across the counrty to create them with one rule, make the shoes about something that has passed away. He works under his clothing company SImplified, and is now more seriously pulling together the Aww.. Sweet group. He also curated the GoodWood shows that happened in Brooklyn and Detroit, produced the Art Battle Knives Out. His stable of artists spans the globe, he stays in Detroit to make it happen here.
So what do these things have to do with one another? The shoes i spent all week working on at russell are my pretend tombstone...to the death of technology. One shoe was painted with the sad mac face, and the other the pc blue screen of death. They accompanied a 12 x 18 piece of cardboard with the words, fatal error, the death of technology written in binary code using chalk. If i could i would walk to your house, unplug your computer and have a conversation.
The 29 other shoes were sahweet. Leo Espinosa's (botston) were a crowd favorite... along with Mike Burdick (New York), some were tragic others funny. Some Were direct references to the Mexican Holiday Dia de Los Muertos. Professors from College for Creative Studies also participated; David Chow and Don Kilpatrick.
Not only was it an art show it was a Halloween dance party with adult beverages and a DJ, the Cave Gallery a the Russell Industrial stayed packed untill about 2 in the morn when the rest of Detroit began to pour into Contemporary Art Institue of Detroit's produced Funk night.
Which brings me to the next point....
Halloween at the Russell Industrial Center
Was incredible. There were at least 3 large events going on in the Industrial complex on one night. All of them were promoted by independent sources, and took place in the artists studios. By 2am it seemed as if all of Detroit had come out, at least one thousand kids filled the halls dressed in costume, i couldn't recognize anyone and i wandered the halls from party to party. I spoke with my friend and one of the Hallow-palooza dj's, Robert-David Jones about what he thought of the event; He said he thought it was great espicially in a city like Detroit. That with such little promotion people came out in such great numbers to support our artists and Musicians. With such little promotion, and little to no media coverage how can people know that things like this happen in Detroit? How can people know we have such a vibrant culture? Lets change this.
Alleys and Power Lines
I went for a quick walk today. I looked down a familiar alley way and asked myself what i found so beautiful about it? The place i was standing was framed by the overgrown leaves and bushes, but i could still see for blocks behind the houses. Telephone poles were clumped together down the length and i thought about the power-lines they carried to each of the houses and business. How they sustained life to so many people in such small places. In a city we claim a small space, make it our own as much as possible using the same architecture used for many years... it becomes ours alone,
if you view it from the front. And only for the time we spend there.
Behind the walls and years of use, lofty ceilings and ancient woodwork, behind our back yards, urban gardens, patchy grass.... behind our safe fences, in our alleys, we are still all connected. Thats what i noticed... on this lazy grey sunday.
"There are powerlines in our bloodlines." - The Decemberists
Lastly. Please. Please vote on tuesday.
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