propositions press... 2.0

reflections on the dry pool that is LA

What are they going to do about the water?

We had a great time in LA. It was a straight family production, our summer vacation, and thanks to some lucky online booking, we made it weirdly hip rich in style. In advance the social media brain returned me with a long list of recommended taquerias, city hikes, art places, beach tips, and cultural happenings. We got our samplings of perfectly ripe avocado on everything, great Korean BBQ and chicken wings, soul food on Crenshaw, moles and campechana, greasy breakfasts and fresh squeezed juices, and a couple of In-N-Out burgers. (Not the Midwest.) I saw a delicious show of 18th century French drawings and a Minor White survey at the Getty, the Watts Towers, and a brilliant Sam Durant installation at LACMA. We got our star spotting done with no effort (BJ Novak in the hotel lobby! John Mayer waiting for the elevator!). We were in the Valley for two days and then in Koreatown for six more—long enough to soak in an atmosphere. We made two trips to the beach, including for an evening stroll complete with surf rock at dusk. 

Over the course of the week there were a few times when the three of us said to each other, gawd, we could live out here. But then I'd think, what are they going to do about the water?

Some scientists who have studied tree rings and sediment cores say decade-long droughts have occurred regularly over the last couple of millenia, and that the twentieth century was by comparison a mildly wet period. Especially as exacerbated by human-caused warming, the current three-year drought is possibly the beginning of an extended dry cycle. Which aligns strangely with what I saw. There is no evident panic and drought seems to have become normal, at least in urban Cali, which uses only 9% of the stat’s total water supplies (as compared to 41% for agriculture). I spotted a couple of small lawns being watered and the traditional unbelievably many swimming pools. There were no conservation measures in the hotel that I could see. At ground level the drought was only visible through the newsmedia, same as when I am at home. Without spectacles like wildfires engulfing mansions, long term catastrophes are not easy to see up close.

What are we going to do about the water? Because their water problems are our water problems.

We who live in the land of freshwater aplenty, where I generally do not need to think about how much water I consume on a personal basis beyond turning off the tap while I brush my teeth—what is our role in all this? The question presupposes a stake because, for one thing, even living between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River does not guarantee access to water. This has been made clear by the controversies and political struggles in Detroit, where shut-offs of water service have left thousands of people dry and thirsty though they live within what was once one of the country’s great municipal water systems, in a city on the banks of a river that channels water from three Great Lakes towards the Atlantic. Closer to home, the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha has made the first claim on Great Lakes water after the signing of the Great Lakes Compact, with access not guaranteed. Thus, water access in our time is a universal concern even where the supplies are abundant. For another, the western states drought will drive up the costs of living, growing food, and manufacturing in California and elsewhere. Though the reclamation nut fantasies of diverting Great Lakes water across the high West are impossible for many reasons, what is likely to happen is that years of drought will force people to relocate to water-rich regions, or remove California from the list of destinations for would-be migrants. The Great Lakes region will probably grow in population as more and more places around the world experience dire water shortages, perhaps reversing the multi-decade trend of depopulation. Attempted land and water grabs will probably follow.

Who can say how things will play out if meaningful numbers of people move into a region that’s been deindustrialized but is stuck with the political institutions of the mid-twentieth century? What resistant political cultures new arrivals bring with them—and with what cultures of resistance we who are already here welcome them—will help determine our shared path.

detroit journals, 2012

10/30/2012: As of last Sunday and for the two evenings before that, this little frame house long abandoned and brought back to the world of warm bodies by the artist couple Jon Brumit and Sarah Wagner, was full of voices, movements, spirits. It was a Compass gathering. Now it is Tuesday and in the house are just I and the spiders. Even they are not much for company, static as they are for the cold season.

This latest of Detroit excursions started with my attentions on family at the beginning of the weekend and then shifted over to Compass by noon on Sunday, except for a short overlap on Saturday night. It was a bit stressful because there was no place near the D*Flux house for my family to stay, and no affordable vacancies in the downtown area because of the World Series, forcing me into driving between the city and Southfield, where the three of us stayed.

Helpfully, on this trip Rozalinda shared with me a few of her further thoughts on the social construct of nuclear parenting as it remains unaddressed in practice by the better part of the left movement spectrum. Her critique rings true, I must say especially in relation to parenting teenagers, who require very imaginative solutions to the problems posed by their needs. I never thought about it deeply before I became a parent myself, partly because frankly I never had to, and partly because the people closest to me with the divided attention problem mostly deal with small children. For better or worse, there is a popular starting point for the conversation about family-inclusive practices in relation to small children, and that is childcare (and how to best provide it, how to ensure its quality, how to pay for it, etc). I never did think about it much beyond that, even though childcare as conventionally imagined is ultimately on many levels a stop-gap. But for adolescents it is even harder because the conversation has no obvious starting point.

In any case, there were plenty of reasons for my time-segregated weekend having to do simply with scheduling and the aforementioned distances. So I only enjoyed about an hour of the full Compass effect on Friday night. It is wonderful to be with Compass collaborators in any situation, including the institutional setting of MOCAD for our screening of the Monsanto Hearings and book release, especially while the exhibition Vision in a Cornfield is up. On Sunday afternoon, after the second of the two lightly attended but invigorating public events, the group began to disperse. I missed not only the full group in its nighttime form of deep, joyful discussion lubricated by love, but also in its daytime form of group drift. In this instance the outing was conceived, researched, and scouted by Rozalinda B, in keeping with her work around Foreign Trade Zones and migrant labor justice in the Chicago area. Early Sunday morning the group ventured out to view selected Detroit FTZs, evidently containing the faceless warehouses in which is parked a considerable fraction of the world’s aluminum stocks. Who knew? Well, according to Compass research, Goldman Sachs knows this well. The London Metal Exchange is where the prices are set and the futures traded, but Detroit is where tons of the actual material is held.

By Sunday evening the group of nine melted down to five, with five leaving and one (me) rejoining. We were smaller but charged up fresh from an appearance by Cheri Honkala, the Green Party VP candidate, only about nine days before the election. Ms. Honkala, who described the Green Party ticket as "Jill Stein from Harvard, and Cheri Honkala from the School of Hard Knocks," laid into the System. She was not there to discuss the Green Party program, but rather to critique directly the deadliness of the status quo. She had as openers our Detroit acquaintences Maureen Taylor and Elena Herrada, and a special warm-up by the Rev. Pinckney of Benton Harbor. We couldn't pass up a photo op with Cheri.    

After that it was another freewheeling late night Compass gab-fest. Brian and Claire burned the threads brightly as usual. Such a pleasure, although I tend to get a little lost when the property rights discussion takes off. That is because unlike responsible intellectuals Claire and Brian, I never bothered to read John Locke. And I do not plan to, not after Nick S, a grad student from southern Illinois who joined us for the weekend, briefed us on what Locke says in his three applications of the Digger Winstanley's argument for autonomy to the argument for private property rights. Got it. Sort of.

*

10/31/2012: More powerful for me is what I am reading, a D*Flux house copy of The Algiers Motel Incident by John Hersey. The event as Hersey reports it is gripping by itself, but that he could not have known in 1967 what Detroit would become decades later makes reading it alone on cold rainy nights in Detroit in 2012—in fact, on both Devil’s Night and Halloween, still notorious nights in Detroit for the long shadow cast from the bad old days—feel especially elegiac. It is as if the Rebellion wrenched open a new set of historical possibilities, but none of them were taken, and I am visiting the city that grew from the default path that ensued. The New Left proved unable to avail itself of the new or refreshed opportunities due to unresolved contradictions within the movement. Big labor certainly could not either, bound in partnership as it was to the industrial capitalism that it ostensibly resisted. The forces of Black liberation failed in the same as well, due to their unresolved contradictions. Instead, the rot of corruption, dysfunction, and disinvestment set in, hollowing out the pride that once existed in the word public. The economic and physical void left when capital flees now moves into the last of the vulture stages: the late return of speculators, this time would-be emergency management profiteers.

Because Detroit has evolved into such a visually sublime city, with evidence of a once-dense urban terrain confirmed only through absence and fade, I cannot help but read the book with massive visualizations and curiosities about what Detroit looked like in 1967. Not the famous sights of Belle Isle, Tiger Stadium, or the flagship Hudson's department store, but the seedy stretches of Woodward, the commercial strips along Grand River and Gratiot, and the small machine shops and parts factories that dotted the city by the hundreds—the cityscapes that probably nobody bothered to record. All that remain are decaying fragments here and there. The moving imagery of the Prelinger compilation Lost Landscapes of Detroit helps, but much of it is in black & white, or very grainy and degraded color. Very beautiful in its aging, but I want images that are better preserved, still and not moving. The neon palm-decorated motel sign featuring the “Africa-whispering name” as described by Hersey, sits in my head tugging at retronaut pleasures, in full color. Thanks to the wonders of the Web and a vintage motel postcard, here it is, an answer to one of my desires: to have a picture of the Algiers Motel, which even by 1969 had been renamed, two years after the police killings of the Incident.

Today the corner of Woodward and Virginia Park bear the trace of previous decades in the negative, through empty spaces. The car wash behind the motel mentioned by Hersey is still there, but there is nothing but a lawn where the motel once stood.
In 1967 that and most other spaces were full I am guessing, but how healthy did they appear then? It says a lot about the illusions of our world today if Detroit entered its terminal crisis 45 years ago despite having visually apparent vitality.

The racism of the policemen involved in the incident is made evident particularly in the words of Robert Paille and David Senak. Theirs is a racism built of neither a pointed prejudice nor a self-aware loathing, but rather a pervasive and personally-felt negativity in attitude toward whole groups of people. It is a negativity that precludes any benefit of the doubt and any true witholding of judgment, not to mention forgiveness. On the contrary, it is a glacial racism of slowly accumulating resentments. Paille on the Negroes: “It just seems that the more you give these people, the more they want.” This again resonates deeply with this moment. It is a few days before the general election of 2012. The hard right hatred of Barack Obama exceeds anything that was directed at George W. Bush. The rich-poor white coalition of rural conservatives, suburban elites, and disappearing white workers is rabid. The feeling comes from resentment: the Obamas are living like kings while the rest of us are struggling, and they only got in there because of their race! Indeed the putrid slogan belies a constituency. 

Hersey draws a clear picture of the troubled entry into adulthood of directionless working class black urban young males–a latent force of talented, brutalized, traumatized beings now three generations lost. For example, from all the descriptions of him, one of the three youths killed, Auburey Pollard, comes across as too quick to fisticuffs and way more intense than was good for him. He is described as a promising draughtsman and generous guy, but he also clearly did not care to consider the consequences of playing the role of muscle. These none-too-flattering leanings are conveyed through the words of his own family and friends, not Hersey's imaginary rendition. But Hersey reports contradictions and reversals as they occur. For example, one of the witnesses and a friend of the deceased, Michael Clark, comes across as arrogant and uncooperative in court, to the point of dislikeability, even by most of the other young men. 

Presenting his unvarnished findings with regard to the flawed characters he found in researching this tale, Hersey's writing strangely hints at an age to come, in which the post-traumatic moral impurities, real or fabricated, of individuals are exploited expertly by the Right. The absolute injustice of the slayings–Pollard's clearly being a confessed police killing–is in no way lessened by the sometimes unsavory profiles of the young men. Hersey's research presents the criminal policemen, Officers Senak, August, and especially Paille, as surpassing the mediocrity of the victims in one chilling respect, at least: an insensitivity to their own violence. 

*

11/01/2012: I imagined coming to Detroit to think about and travel Cass Corridor and University Research Corridor. That was the ostensible starting point for my research residency at MOCAD, but my focus quickly devolved. By noon Monday, my first day alone, I fell into the general poking around that I often do when traveling solo. That day was spent waiting for messages to get to people I hoped to see (did I bother to arrange any of that beforehand? No, that would be way too organized), so I let myself get side-tracked by the products, the interiors, and the people of Hello Records, John King Books, Dabl’s African Bead Museum, Source Booksellers, Lo & Behold in Hamtramck, the food at the Yemeni Café, and the coffee and sweet rolls at Avalon. Those are the places I spent my money, and if the opportunity presented, time in conversation with shopkeepers and acquaintences.

I recommend a leisurely browsing of all the places named above, and eating at the Yemeni Café, a Hamtramck hang-out for Yemeni dudes (but warmly welcoming to all) that serves an excellent combination platter of lamb, vegetable gallaba, and fragrant rice. I cannot judge the food for its authenticity, but it was so tasty I went there three nights in a row. 

A big part of the week's equation was the crummy weather. The days forming the heart of my visit were dominated by storms, rains, and chilly winds blown through the interior by Hurricane Sandy. For three days I'd leave the house at about ten and not return until I holed up for the night starting at around eight o'clock. I stayed indoors during the day, just not in the house, but rather in stores, coffeeshops, and libraries, and driving around town. Instead of taking the walks I had hoped, I opted to stay warm, dry, and more or less sedentary. Staying warm meant leaving the house because it is heated by wood stove. The warmth is terrific, but it takes over an hour for the fire to attain a charcoaled state, and thereafter requires the constant feeding of wood. Being the sole occupant and therefore the only one working the stove, it was easier to only have to start and tend the fire at night and then let it die as I went to sleep, instead of having to keep it going during the day.

Hurricane Sandy was only one of the events that made this particular week memorable. There was also the aforementioned World Series and Devil's Night. The Tigers home games took place on Saturday and Sunday, losing both, and with that the Series. On Tuesday and Wednesday, for Devil's Night and Halloween, the city imposed an early curfew for youth.
 And  there was the imminent election, featuring a scion of Michigan royalty challenging the centrist African-American president, as well as a number of interesting ballot initiatives. On Monday I dropped by the Teamsters hall on Trumbull and picked up a yard sign.
I may not be a Michigan resident but the collective bargaining amendment put in front of the voters under Proposal 2 contained more than an echo of the WI Uprising.

To sum up the historic week: the Tigers lost, the storms of Sandy kept most people in and washed out the expected Devil's Night fires, and the Romney campaign pretty much threw in the towel on the candidate's home state. But rain or no rain, these were no ordinary days to be visiting Detroit.

 11/02/2012: My final night in Detroit was enlivened by the appearance of the artist Åsa Sonjasdotter. We met some years ago in New York. At that time she was just beginning a new job in Tromsø, in the far north of Norway, helping to establish an art department at the university there. She was back in the States to take part in a show in Cincinnati and had a week or two for traveling around the region. She'd made her way from New York to Ohio, from there to Chicago, and then back eastbound. Being a food activist and an artist of critical engagement, she had intense curiosity about Detroit. As well, she has experience traveling and working in some of the desolate urban industrial landscapes of the post-Soviet cities of northern Russia. 

We went to Windsor for Chinese food, confused the Homeland Security man upon re-entry with our convoluted stories in response to the question "how do you two know each other," and lingered into the night with discussions about art, politics, and of course Detroit. Jon gave us a tour of the D*Flux Sound House–a house around the corner from their homestead as of now entirely given over to sound installation/recording/performance experiments. The house itself is an instrument, set up currently with deep looping bass rumbles triggered by the opening of the front door. The interior paint job was executed by two visiting artists from L.A.

The next day, Friday, I left for family visits in Ann Arbor. Åsa stayed for another day or two, courtesy of Jon and Sarah, and continued her solo drift from there. In Ann Arbor I made a last acquisition in my research residency book hunting: a hardcover edition of Lewis Mumford's The Myth of the Machine. I skipped the Port Huron at 50 conference, napped at my uncle's house, and drove home with a mobile library of Detroit-related, -relevant, and/or Detroit-found titles. I resisted the urge to lift Jon's ratty copy of the Hersey book, partly because I knew I could find it in Madison. The next week, it might have even been on Election Day, I called Paul's. They had a copy for three dollars. Who really needs Amazon when you live in the mrcc?

 

 

 

 

 

 

a book, from cell 29 to room 458 (with an ocean view)

Steamed clams for dinner and a marion berry cobbler for dessert. Sideways rain and a cozy fire in the hotel room. Hot tubs, a movie, and a book. A view of waves pounding, the tide coming in, and a jigsaw puzzle on the table. 

For a short two days we are doing what winter vacationers do on the Oregon coast every year, plus enjoying this year’s speciality: Santorum jokes. 

Vacations are about getting away, but like all our Oregon trips, this one is the yearly homecoming. Our household has Oregon roots on both sides, so our trips fall under the heading of our travel corridors: back and forth, once a year, Portland/Salem/the coast to Madison/Chicago/the Midwest. But on this trip out the book I have before me takes me back the way I came, back to the places where a lot of it started for me, namely Detroit and Chicago.

I found this volume in the anarchism section at Powell’s in Portland. I was about to pass on it because $40 is a lot to pay for an old book that has seen better days.
The spine is damaged and the copyright page is torn. The corners are turned and overall, despite its lasting beauty and impressive durability–appreciate the lettering on the cover: gilded and feathered elegance in anarchism!–it is a book that clearly has been through many hands. (I wish I could perform a Josh MacPhee-style interpretation of the cover, but I cannot find later editions against which to compare.) But this isn’t just any title or any volume. This is a book of writings by Albert Parsons (aka husband of Lucy Parsons), one of the Haymarket martyrs and an anarchist printer, published posthumously. I cannot say for sure if it is a first edition, but it is copyright dated 1887 with no other dates, and the book has the look, feel, and construction of an object 125 years old. So, really, it would have been difficult to forgo even without this clincher: upon examination I noticed that it bears a stamp from the Wayne State University Libraries.

Therefore it is entirely conceivable that this very object passed through the hands of the Detroit anarchists who made up the radical world that influenced a good number of us young people back in the 1980s in the suburbs of Oakland County. Maybe the Detroit printer Fredy Perlman, who helped to usher into the English-speaking world the theories of Debord and the Situationists, held this very book in his hands. Maybe the activist lawyer Kenneth Cockrel, who did so much work for the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and who had earned a degree in political science from Wayne State, had racked up overdue fines on this book. Mine is not as good a story as my bibliophile friend Kevin Connolly’s tale for the ages, but in terms of a single book tracing a personal and social history generations after its publication, and the possiblities of connections we can now dream about, it is the best I have had.

But what does the journey of this volume say about the corridors of time and space that a strain of radicalism may travel? The book took shape in the cell of a wrongly condemned anarchist in the Cook County Jail,

 became a published reality shortly after the state-sanctioned murder of the author, landed for who knows how many years in the collection at Wayne State, which for many decades was one of the most accessible of America’s public urban universities. And then the book was returned to commercial circulation via Powell’s Books. Between those steps there were undoubtedly other stops—circulation through private collections, sales and re-sales, years on the shelves belonging to now unknown shops, libraries, owners, or borrowers--maybe in Michigan, maybe in Oregon, and who knows where else. In early 2012 it comes into my hands, slightly callused from guitar and presswork but mostly soft like an intellectual’s, suffering invisibly from carpal tunnel, to take back to the Midwest. Is it the completion of a circle or just another returned book in the great cosmic radical library? 

Given the battles being fought in Wisconsin, the Rahm Emanuel mayoral disaster unfolding in Chicago, and the ongoing contested destruction and reconstruction of Detroit, it feels good to be returning home with a book that others used in their midwestern-global struggles from earlier times. Maybe the timing puts a digestible veneer on my hydrocarbon privileges. If it were only about collecting this would be just another instance of radical nostalgia. To safeguard against that, who, in my turn, can I influence? Anybody out there want to borrow this book?

 

selections for homeshop, may 19, 2011: listening, learning, and...rocking

The text that follows is a modifed version of the handout distributed at the event. Will post Chinese translation when I have it, plus pics of the event afterward.

Selections for HomeShop: Music from Detroit and Michigan

A group of us are starting out on about twenty days of travel and research through different parts of China, beginning with a week in and around Beijing. Four of us come from current homes in the midwestern part of America, specifically the states of Wisconsin and Illinois. Together and separately, we have been writing and making art about the many ways that the economies, social movements, and institutions based or begun in the Midwest gave birth and remain tethered to the global systems of exchange that now bind humanity in a single flow of information, capital, biology, and cultural forms. This event helps to serve the purpose of introducing ourselves to you, of telling you where we are coming from, and of describing through music another of our place obsessions, Detroit.

The music history of Detroit and lower Michigan is as rich as that of any other American region. But unlike the older musical traditions of regional America—for example, the Delta, Appalachia, or New England—the musical culture for which Michigan is known is newer. Michigan artists did not make a collective impact nationally and internationally until the 1960s. But beginning in that decade and continuing ever since, a steady stream of artists with Michigan origins have put out sounds across genres that have entertained and influenced millions of listeners far and wide, in contradistinction to the very specific and provincial characteristics of Michigan society. Obviously I can only deliver a very limited introduction in one evening, leaving scores of important artists and hundreds of outstanding songs and albums not even mentioned, much less heard. A comprehensive introduction is hopeless, and, I must emphasize, my knowledge is pretty superficial. Instead, I have brought along seven long-playing records and suggest we go deep into them. The playlist emphasizes rock but includes a significant chunk of soul. It is through these records that I can give you some idea of the culture of Michigan—a culture that is now emerging as a post-industrial present from which other places all around the world can and must learn.

The musical culture of lower Michigan was fertile in the 1960s because of several factors. First of all at the material level, the state was by then an established economic engine, creating the conditions of marketplace, education, and leisure time. The postwar generation of autoworkers, due to the long growth phase of mid-century America and to the political power of the unions, became probably the best paid working class the world had ever seen. The management and owner classes, for their part, enjoyed an overflowing affluence akin to the tech fortune amassed on the West Coast a generation later. This was the consumer/producer society in a kind of temporary and relatively stable balance, at least regionally. There were good jobs for the working kids and good universities for the bookish ones. Individual workers had not yet been deskilled but also performed the part of the mass consumer. The conditions were ripe for hugely increased local consumption and production of media in general, and of popular music in particular.

Then there was the mix of cultures, races, ethnicities, and nationalities. The massive influx of economic migrant communities over the decades of industrial expansion created in lower Michigan a northern stew unlike in any other place, especially when the proximity of Ontario is recalled. With the longtime presence of both Canadians and Mexicans, vast numbers of southern blacks and southern whites, small but intense Chinese and Korean communities, big Polish, German, Greek, Jewish, and Arab communities, the mix of cultures contributed to the trading of influences evident in the work of, for example from the 60s Mitch Ryder or the Funk Brothers, and in the 80s with the innovations of the Belleville Three. In particular, black owned media was strong early and consistently in Detroit, including in radio. In recent times the tradition of artists upholding a musical multiverse continues in the Detroit scene. For example, for those who understand southeastern Michigan it probably was not a surprise that the first white rapper to earn a large and hard-won black fanbase, Eminem, came out of the Detroit area. Similarly, African American musicians like Mick Collins keep race-based genre-definition unbalanced now, as did Question Mark and Mysterians forty years ago (in the years before the lead singer legally changed his name to “?”).

It must also be said that while the mixing took place constructively at the level of cultural innovation, on the political and economic levels there was a constant low level of class-defined strife even when times were good. Add to the primary class division the intra-class fault line between blacks and whites, plus the many lines of separation between different ethnic communities, and you see the complicated tensions present. The Detroit rebellion of 1967 was only the most dramatic and violent uprising in a social landscape made up of everyday inequalities of power, economic and political, that are being played out in the present-day politics of austerity even as we speak. So while the industrial strength and wealth of lower Michigan did not fashion a conflict-free society at all, the musical output as a whole was and is, truly, the sound of a polyrhythmic, multi-vocal, politically clued-in family of subcultures. Formally innovative, sonically seductive, bodily pulsating, emotionally uninhibited, and artistically committed, in the musical realm this was and is a literally unofficial harmonious society. And a loud one.

As a native of the state, I declare the places that I lived, Saginaw in the mid-1970s and then the suburbs of Oakland County north of Detroit in the mid-1980s, amazing places to grow up with musical sounds in the air, for kids like me, grade school and then teeanage consumers of popular culture. My generation went from grooving to the national AM hits on the transistor radio—everything from Afternoon Delight to Abba and the Ohio Players—to hearing harder stuff on Detroit’s legendary free-form radio station in its late years, WABX. Lots of stations mixed local and regional acts like Grand Funk Railroad, Martha and the Vandellas, and Alice Cooper in with the national stuff, thereby launching a great many careers. Even as we studied the soul and psychedelic sounds from the earlier generation, in my young memory disco wasn’t so bad and the synth-pop/indie/alternative/punk mix that dominated the suburban 1980s also made sense. Not everybody liked everything, but in that place and in those years we were exposed to it all, and had artists we could believe who represented where we were from.

The Selections

Artist—Album

track title

Please note! This is a sequence of tracks delivered pretty much in the order that they appear on the records. That is how we will listen to them, just like I would do at home. This whole exercise is about listening to records, not deejaying or play-list writing. 

Laughing Hyenas—Life of Crime 

Here We Go Again

Wild Heart

Outlaw

Life Of Crime

The Stooges—Fun House

Down On The Street

Loose

Fun House

MC5—High Time

Future/Now

Skunk

100 Proof Aged In Soul—Somebody’s Been Sleeping In My Bed

Somebody’s Been Sleeping

Love Is Sweeter (The Second Time Around)

I’ve Come To Save You

Ain’t That Lovin’ You (For More Reasons Than One)

Martha Reeves—eponymous first solo LP

Power of Love

Sweet Misery

Question Mark And The Mysterians—Action

Don’t Hold It Against Me

Just Like A Rose

Do You Feel It

The Paybacks—Harder and Harder

Bright Side

Me

Can You Drive

Scotch Love

The Guide: A Random Selection of Twenty-Five Artists and Entities with Michigan and Detroit Connections 

This is laughably basic list. No geeking out here. Hopefully there is a name or a factoid that my music geek friends had not known of before. But, really, this is a guide for people who have no context, no experience with the broad outlines of Michigan music history, and possibly no working knowledge of rock history in general. And yet there is a thriving rock scene in Beijing, with lots of kids going for the image, the look. Let's help them get deeper into the spirit of the thing. Dylan just played Beijing like a month ago; how is anybody supposed to get Dylan without a bit of context? It is important that we make the info available, beginning with the basics that we who grew up in America tend to take for granted. So:

1. Hank, Thad, and Elvin Jones

One of the great families of jazz, spanning pianist Hank’s mastery of the 40s and 50s styles to trumpeter Thad’s big band arranging to Elvin’s landmark work with John Coltrane and and his own groups after.

2. Mitch Ryder

One of the original rock and soul voices of Detroit, blending black soul styles and harder white rock, who came up in the mid-60s with his group the Detroit Wheels. He still performs in clubs.

3. Crucifucks

A 1980s punk band from the Lansing scene whose lyrics and sound were harshly anti-authoritarian, perfect for the Reagan-era America, or, for that matter, right now. Founding singer Doc Corbin Dart remains vocally radical and antiwar.

4. Carolyn Franklin

Talented sister of Queen of Soul Aretha and daughter of the Rev. C.L. Franklin, a black preacher widely renowned for his oratorical performances from the pulpit. Along with sister Erma, Carolyn performed backing vocals for Aretha on a number of different recordings and also wrote songs for her.

5. Bob Seger System

Led by the raspy-voiced singer who came out of the Ann Arbor youth scene, the band is remembered for a hard rocking antiwar single “2+2=?” Seger later recorded the album Live Bullet at Detroit’s Cobo Arena, the last of his rock efforts before going on to mainstream success.

6. Grand Funk Railroad

A rock outfit from Flint that became one of the country’s biggest selling arena acts of the early 70s. After the group’s demise, a bunch of the alumni formed a short-lived band called FLINT.

7. Mabel John

The first female vocalist to be signed to the Tamla label, the label Berry Gordy founded before he reincorporated it as Motown. The lesser known but equally talented sister of rhythm ‘n’ blues legend Little Willie John.

8. Death

Recently rediscovered proto-punk/hard rock band, with reissued lost demos and studio cuts for a mid-70s record that never happened.

9. Eminem

Starting from the D12 crew to becoming one of the biggest selling musical artists of our time, he also starred in the 2002 movie 8 Mile, which put Detroit back into the popular consciousness as a post-industrial society and culture.

10. Detroit Cobras

For more than fifteen years Rachel Nagy and Mary Ramirez have lead a group in performing garage rock covers of obscure soul singles.

11. Rodriguez

A late 60s-early 70s lost folk-soul legend who somehow gained a cult following first in Australia and then in South Africa and Latin America, in all cases years after he’d first recorded and been consigned to obscurity in the US, including in Michigan.

12. Mary Wells

The song My Guy was one of Motown’s biggest early hits and helped to establish the label. Mary Wells had record company disputes and health problems for years after that kept her career limited, passing away at age 49.

13. Sun City Girls

Though the experimental and avant garde Sun City Girls formed in Phoenix, the Bishop brothers grew up in Saginaw. Their Middle Eastern musical influences came to them through their Lebanese relatives, part of a large lower Michigan Lebanese community.

14. Jackie Wilson

Wilson was one of the most amazing singer/dancers of his generation. Even though other artists named him as an inspiration, by the time of his death in 1984 he had been largely forgotten on the popular level as an outstanding talent. Michael Jackson kept his memory alive by often citing Wilson as a key influence.

15. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles

One of the Motown label’s earliest and longest-represented artists. His career with the Miracles, and as solo artist and record company executive, was celebrated with a National Medal of the Arts lifetime achievement award in 2002.

16. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen

A country rock outfit from Ann Arbor with a honky-tonk barroom sound unusual for the time, and that went completely against the grain of the hard rock psychedelia of the local countercultural scene.

17. The Go

Part of the same late 90s scene that produced the White Stripes, but with a touch of psychedelia, helping to bring honest, dirty, loud guitar riff-based rock music back onto the national scene in the early 2000s.

18. The Layabouts

Originating out of the Cass Corridor scene of early 1980s Detroit, inspired by Crass, the Clash, and the new political music of that time, the Layabouts are still together today. Over the years they have played their fun but acerbic radical songs at continental anarchist gatherings, all kinds of political rallies, and countless benefits. 

19. Dennis Coffey

Session guitarist from the Upper Peninsula who played as a member of the Funk Brothers on many of the Motown tracks from the labels second phase, when many of the artists were turning to a harder, acid-influenced sound. He regained critical appreciation with a new record in 2011.

20. The Up

Along with the MC5, The Up played as a house band at the Grande Ballroom, the performance space around which the late 60s Detroit counterculture centered. Unlike the MC5, they never recorded for a national label. Until a compilation of their singles was released in 1995, the band was hardly remembered and even less heard.

21. Big Mack label

A Detroit label from the 60s and 70s golden age that pressed many singles by casual semi-pro local talents over its twenty years, scoring no more than a few very minor local hits. The label’s catalogue was given the Numero Group Eccentric Soul treatment in 2006.

22. Insane Clown Posse­

Using a carnival/horror concept for a tasteless hip hop act that many have never understood or taken seriously, this group with Detroit origins somehow manages to sell multiple millions of records.

23. Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival

If you see a car bumper sticker reading “See you in August!” they’re talking about this festival held on private rural land on the state’s west side, the largest and most complete of its kind. Womyn-built, womyn-sponsored, womyn-consumed, the festival has been a kind of long term practical project in constructing a temporary but perennial womyn’s world.

24. The Belleville Three

Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May, and Juan Atkins were three teenagers in the early 80s living in Belleville, a suburb between Detroit and Ann Arbor, often credited with inventing the sounds that become Detroit techno. The culture born partly out of the innovations of these three lead to the establishment of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival as the first and still biggest event of its kind in the US, beginning in 2000. May and Saunderson both took a turn managing the festival.

25. Tempermill

Suburban Ferndale studio founded by musicians where dozens of Detroit artists and groups have recorded some of their most important work over the past twenty years. 

YouTube Sampler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsQ0rDnlhNM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjZ5ECKC8do&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwqL3ENO4sA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RchoabH5fhg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7eTOnNBwYU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_OHry9Nf0Y

 

Books

John Hersey—The Algiers Motel Incident

John Sinclair—Guitar Army

Angela Jimenez—Welcome Home: Building the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival

Donald Goines—Dopefiend

Craig Werner—Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul

 

 

china drift, initial itinerary!

Pasted below is the schedule of events for our China Drift, with plenty of middle dates yet to be filled in. They will be; we'll be having some announced events in both Wuhan and Chongqing. Many thanks to the HomeShop crew for their fabulous organizing and networking skills. Stay tuned!

*

大陆漂流 . 中国 Continental Drift China

2011年5月18日至2011年6月5日
18 May �C 5 June 2011

“大陆漂流.中国”活动将众多的艺术家，策展人，理论家，与活动家召集到一起，共同探索当 代地理政治转化对于公共框架与亲密生存 空间的影响。在一周的时间里，本活动将“漂”在北京，尝试将抽象分析（经济，社会学，都市生活研究，美学等等）直接导入不同的艺术实践当中。通过报告，工 作坊，讨论会与实地考察等方式，我们希望自己能在闹市与乡间的穿梭中构建一个充满欢乐，感觉试验，偶遇与思考的游历方式。

The Continental Drift China brings together artists, curators, theorists, and activists to explore the impacts that current geopolitical transformations are having on the public frameworks and intimate environments of existence. For one week, the roving seminar will drift through Beijing, endeavouring to bring abstract analysis (economics, sociology, urbanism, aesthetics, etc.) into direct contact with situated projects. By way of presentations, a workshop, discussion sessions and site visits, the project provides a movement through space thriving on conviviality, perceptual experimentation, unexpected encounters and informed travel in both metropolitan and rural settings. 
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本次大陆漂流活动由 "我们家” 青年自治中心，“家作坊”，“哪里哪里”策展联盟，与“罗盘”（美国中西部激进 文化走廊）等组织共同合作举办。

The Continental Drift China is developed by Desireè Youth Autonomy Center, HomeShop and the Where Where Curatorial Collective, in conjunction with Compass (of the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor).

活动安排 SCHEDULE
欲知所列每项活动的细节，请看本安排表下的具体内容。请注意不是所有的活动都在同一 场所，活动地址安排如下：
For detailed descriptions of each of the events listed, please see below. Note that not all events are at the same location; addresses are listed accordingly.

星期一 monday	星期二 tuesday	星期三 wednesday	星期四 thursday	星期五 friday	星期六 saturday	星期天 sunday
			19 “合辑”，底特律音乐人类学赏析，王念华主讲 “Selections”, an evening of musical anthropology led by Dan S. WANG 晚上7点开始 地点：家作坊，东城区交道口北二条8号 Thursday, 19 May, 19.00 HomeShop; Dongcheng District,Jiaodaokou Beiertiao 8	20 “大陆漂流”漂去天津Continental Drift to Tianjin	21 杨先让（艺术家， 曾任中央美术学院民间美术系主任）讲座 a Talk with Professor YANG Xianrang, artist and former head of the Central Academy of Fine Arts Folk Arts and Crafts department 具体时间待定 地点：家作坊，东城区交道口北二条8号 Exact time to be confirmed HomeShop;Jiaodaokou Beiertiao 8 “西�[计划”艺术假扮旅行社简单开张 “Journey West” Travel Agency performative soft opening 5下午4点开始  钟楼湾胡同41号  Saturday, 21 May, 16.00 41Zhonglouwan Hutong (next door to The Drum and Bell Bar)	22 《北二条小报》自办出版工作坊 Beiertiao Leaksself-publishing workshop 5月22－23日，周六到周一，早上10点开始直到印刷完毕 10.00 until the presses are hot HomeShop;Jiaodaokou Beiertiao 8
23 《北二 条小报》自办出版工作坊 Beiertiao Leaks self-publishing workshop 5月22－23日，周六到周一，早上10点开始直到印刷完毕 10.00 until the presses are hot HomeShop;Jiaodaokou Beiertiao 8	24 从5月23日“大陆漂流”继续向武汉与重庆漂流，6月4日返回北京。如果你对我们下一步的旅行感兴 趣，请e- mail垂询： [email protected]。 From the 23rd of May until the 4th of June, the Drift continues on to Wuhan and Chongqing before rounding back up in Beijing. If you are interested to continue with us on this leg of the journey, please inquire:[email protected].	25	26	27	28	29
30	31	1	2	3	4	5 “哪里哪里” 艺术空间将与大陆漂流参加者联合举办一个开放总结论坛。更多的详情稍候发布。 The Where Where Exhibition Space in Caochangdi will host a final forum with China Drift participants open to the public. More details to be announced. 下午3点开始 15.00 “哪里哪里” 艺术空间 朝阳区草场地村319-1艺术东区A区内 Where Where Exhibition Space No. 319-1, East End Art Zone A, Caochangdi

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关于“大陆漂流”About the Continental Drift project

漂流是一个开放性的实践研究项目，由布赖恩・赫姆斯与克莱尔・潘迪科斯特所发起。项目基于这样一个观察可得的事实，即全球化是根据政治和经济 力量的大陆性 区隔构成的。大陆漂流以自组织的研讨小组的形式，在纽约与萨格勒布进行，合作者包括了雷内・加布里，艾林・阿纳斯塔斯以及策展人集体WHW (What, How for Whom)。2008年，漂流以移动的形式，在中西部进行了为期十天的考察，自此以后，常有定期的短期旅行。 今年4月，克莱尔与布赖恩与阿根廷同志一道从罗萨里奥旅行到巴利亚・布兰卡，追踪南半球之后新自由主义弧的区域范围。现在我们与“罗盘”的同 志、以北京为 基地的合作者以及受邀的朋友们一起，将进行为期20天的讨论与交会，中国漂流会令大陆漂流项目将在全球化大潮中进一步做杯水车薪的努力。

更多关于“大陆漂流.中国”的参加者信息在：www.douban.com/group/topic/19783008/

The Drift is an open practice research project initiated by Brian HOLMES and Claire PENTECOST that begins with the observed fact of globalization structured along continental blocs of political and economic power. Continental Drift has taken the form of self-organized seminars in New York and Zagreb, with the collaboration of Rene GABRI, Ayreen ANASTAS, and the curatorial collective WHW (What, How and for Whom). The Drift took mobile form for a ten-day expedition around the Midwest in 2008 with regular short trips afterward. In April of this year Claire and Brian traveled with Argentine comrades from Rosario to Bahia Blanca, tracing at regional scale the post-neoliberal arc of the global south. With Compass comrades, Beijing-based collaborators, and invited friends on board for twenty days of discussions and encounters, the China Drift will bring the Continental Drift project one step closer to squaring the circle of global society.

For more information about the participants of the Continental Drift China, please visit:www.homeshopbeijing.org/blog/?p=2482

合辑 Selections

5月19日，周四，晚上7点开始
地点：家作坊，交道口北二条8号
Thursday, 19 May, 19.00
location: HomeShop, Jiaodaokou Beiertiao 8

“合辑”是 一个聆听系列活动，2003年产生于芝加哥，目的是为满足音乐爱好者在学术界和吵闹的俱乐部之间的中间地带上彼此分享他们最喜欢的或最感兴趣的录音。最初 开始于芝加哥的一个实验文化空间“膳房（Mess Hall)”， 这一系列至少包括九个活动。在家作坊这期的“合辑”是第一次在美国本土之外举办。过去的主持人包括批评家Mike O’FLAHERTY，谈论关于 1984年的地下摇滚、艺术家Marc FISCHER表演音乐中的叫喊，作曲家Janice MISURELL-MITCHELL谈论关于先锋-古典传统、以及实验音乐家Gabriel SALOMAN谈论关于Crass的无政府主义朋克。通过适 当的音量和友好的讨论，“合辑”是另一种乐迷悦耳的完美去处。在今天晚上的节目中，艺术家兼作家王念华将播放两小时来自底特律和密西根的强烈 摇滚和真正黑人灵歌，在音乐方面，最具创造力的原创之一。

Selections is a listening event series born in Chicago in 2003 in answer to the need among music fans to share their best-loved or most intriguing recordings with each other, in the terrain between uptight academia and too-loud clubs. Beginning at Chicago's experimental cultural space Mess Hall, the series has included at least nine events. Selections at HomeShop will be the first in the series to take place outside the US. Past presenters have included the critic Mike O'FLAHERTY on the underground rock of the year 1984, artist Marc FISCHER on screaming in music, composer Janice MISURELL-MITCHELLl on the avant-classical tradition, and experimental musician Gabriel SALOMAN on the anarcho punk of CRASS. With moderate volume levels and friendly discussion, Selections is the perfect place to treat your ears to the fandom of another. For this evening's program, artist and writer Dan S. WANG plays two hours of intense rock and true soul from Detroit and Michigan, one of America's most musically creative regions.

西�[计划 The Journey West

5月21日，周六下午4点 
地点：钟楼湾胡同41号（钟鼓楼酒吧隔壁）
Saturday, 21 May, 16.00
location:  41 Zhonglouwan Hutong (next door to The Drum and Bell Bar)

作为“大陆漂移项目”的一部分，丝特芬妮・若芬堡和王念华将为他们那个名为“西�[计划”的合作旅行社项目开一个张。这个旅行社位于钟楼和鼓楼 之间， 将提供一个你连梦都没梦见过的“美国梦”一条龙服务。

As part of the Continental Drift program, Stephanie ROTHENBERG and Dan WANG will present a soft opening of their collaborative travel agency project entitled "The Journey West".  Located between the Drum and Bell towers, the travel agency will offer full service package tours of an "American Dream" that you haven't even dreamed of yet. 

《北二条小报》Beiertiao Leaks
5月22－23日，周六到周一，早上10点到印刷完
地点：家作坊，交道口北二条8号
Sunday & Monday, 22-23 May, 10.00 until the presses are hot
location:  HomeShop, Jiaodaokou Beiertiao 8

北二条小报将于2001年5月22日至23日着手进行第二版的筹划及发行工作。以日报的形式为模板， 我们将再次把注意力集中在日常生活中的某一天。胡同里的新鲜事，天气状况，转瞬即逝的交易等等都是我们探索并试图记录的对象。 由于本次活动 与大陆漂流艺术项目正好同时举行，我们的记者需在运动中记录下自己所背负的种种。报道作为一种投射或敏锐感知的前提是它必须对读者的反应有某 种预判，通过模糊性，虚拟性与可能性达到对事件即时性的超越。
 
具体事宜：
从2011年5月22日开始，我们将相聚在家作坊北二条新闻/设计/印刷室，在此参与者们将各就各位，在实践中面对文本交织的瓶颈并探索隐匿 其中的突破口。 在活动结束前，小报将以丝网印刷的方式出版并准备好投放到读者手中。 我们欢迎您在这两天中随时到访，为《北二条小报》提供 文本，图像，信息，周边新闻，设计，工作，点心或灵感。 至于我们每个字的稿酬，你可以向任何记者打听：写作赚不来钱，但我们的工作是出于对 新闻事业的热爱，对吧？

Beiertiao Leaks continues with its second edition for a two-day workshop from 22-23 May 2011. In the tradition of the daily paper, we will again address the content of a single day. The local news, the weather, fleeting bargains and other phenomena are still to be sought out and documented. But in this edition, coinciding with the Continental Drift in Beijing, we must also record the baggage we bring with us as our correspondents go mobile. Reporting is a form of projection as much as of sharp perception, insofar as it organizes reception. Insofar as it follows stories beyond their immediacy, through ambiguity, virtuality and possibility. 

The Facts: 
Starting at 10am on 22.05.11, we will gather at the Beiertiao newsroom/design department/printing press in HomeShop, where participants will take their positions and weave together the unweavable. By the end of the two days, the edition will be silkscreen printed on-site and ready for distribution. You are welcome to come at any point over the weekend to contribute text, image, information, local rumors, design, labor, refreshments and/or inspiration. As for our rate-per-character, ask any journalist: writing doesn't pay. But we're in it for the lifestyle, right?
-- 

 家作坊 HomeShop 
 北京市东城区交道口北二条8号，邮编：100007 
 Beijing 100007 Dongcheng District 
 Jiaodaokou Beiertiao, Number 8 

 T /// +86 010 8403 0952 
 W /// www.homeshop.org.cn  
       www.homeshopbeijing.org/blog 
       www.weibo.com/jiazuofang 
       www.douban.com/group/HomeShop/ 
 E /// [email protected] 
       [email protected] 

 

detroit scouting trip: labadie and the people's movement assembly

Not much time to rest after KC. The next week we were off to Detroit. For me, it was the third time in nine months. The “we” were Brian Holmes, Sarah Lewison, Claire Pentecost, Rozalinda Borcila, Amy Partridge, and myself. The trip proper started from Chicago. Sarah came up all the way from Carbondale and I from Madison, of course.

We traveled in two cars. Claire, Brian, Sarah, and Rozlinda in one. Amy and I in my car. We departed on Friday morning at around 9:30 AM, after a quick check to make sure everybody had their passports with them. We didn’t use them, but you never know when you might want to scoot across the border to Windsor. For dim sum, if nothing else.

Coming from the west, stopping by the Labadie Collection was the obvious first thing to do. I have said this before: for any leftist or radical researcher or history buff (and what radical isn’t a student of history), this place really is a must-visit. The thing is, you must go with some idea of what to request, otherwise there is just too much, especially on a first go ‘round. Well, I certainly had some ideas. I wanted to see Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (D.R.U.M.)-related publications and ephemera and a late Sixties/early Seventies radical black paper from Detroit called Inner City Voice. Inner City Voice and D.R.U.M. were contemporaneous expressions, and I was curious about how D.R.U.M. and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers were covered in the local radical press of the time.

Julie Herrada, the gracious and super knowledgeable curator of the collection, took the time to introduce all the others (this was their first visit) to the Labadie and how it works. Claire and Sarah ended up studying original copies of Mother Earth, while Amy delved into a portfolio of daily newsletters called The Punch Press, produced by and for the striking laborers of the 1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike. Those were amazing. Apparently produced everyday or nearly so, they are a moving document of organized and creative working class culture. Not only are there strike news items told in the language of outrage skewering the Fisher Body management, but also notices for union dinners complete with menus, reminders for social events like dances, and funny little hand drawn graphics. Judging by The Punch Press, the striking workers had some joyful experiences in their togetherness, even as they engaged in militant struggle and took life-changing risks.

You may enjoy excellent scans of what appears to be the full run of The Punch Press right here.

 

punch press, flint sit-down strike bulletin

 

strike bulleting, menu, 1937

 

strike bulletin graphics, 1937

Julie hooked me up with all the materials I could possibly digest. Particularly interesting was a D.R.U.M. publication titled “The Midwest and the League.” The opening article was about the black revolutionary workers movement and the regional particularities of the industrial midwest, from an early Seventies perspective. There was also an interview with one Mike Hamlin, evidently one of the founders of the League and a main activist in D.R.U.M., and, furthermore, one of the editors or main writers for Inner City Voice. The design is subtle but clear, with a minimum of graphic elements, very readable layouts, and a choice of display text that maintained a uniformly militant tone. Designers of radical publications today could certainly take a lesson from this pamphlet.

the midwest and the league

 

early seventies interview with Mike Hamlin

 

fredy perlman's not the only detroit-paris connection!

Then, the serendipitous began.

vintage issues of inner city voice

Julie, who kept checking in with us because of her curiosity about our impressions (and seeming to like having the opportunity to reacquaint herself with some of the holdings through our fresh eyes), mentioned that there happened to be a conference going on that day and the next, and that Mike Hamlin was scheduled to speak. Wow. We printed out the conference schedule and decided it was too good to pass up, especially since it was free and held right there on the Michigan campus. We resolved to attend the Friday evening panels, of which there were two.

 

julie @ the labadie

So after a cheap dinner in the student ghetto, we made it to the Labor and Economics Panel and, after that, the Movement Panel: What Is “IT”?, the “it” being the “it” in the conference title: Take It Back, Bring It….

Mike Hamlin was on the first panel and he was intense and excellent. I could sum up his fifteen minutes by simply quoting him: “I was a revolutionary then, and I am a revolutionary now.” Yup. Dean Baker was pretty good, too. Arturo Rodriguez spoke about farmworker organzing back in the day, but was mostly quiet during the discussion segment. The drag of the panel was, unfortunately, the youngest participant, a Michigan student named Yousef Rahbi. He was introduced as an experienced student activist, but most of his exhortations fell into a category of sentimental idealism that bordered on the embarassing. For example, he urged those in the audience to dispense with ideological thinking and keep utopic visions in mind when acting in the day to day by remembering “the beautiful scenes…of dogs and frisbees, people really living.” I kid you not. Where are the young radical lions I have known, the Emily Formans and Daniel Tuckers of today, when you really need them? Because Mr. Rahbi wasn’t it.

mike hamlin @ take it back, bring it forward conference

The second panel was much better. Al Haber, from the original first generation SDS cohort, presided. Rich Feldman from the Boggs Center sat on the panel and was awesome. His longtime friend and our Chicago pal Bill Ayers was on it, too. Ron Scott, former Panther and now doing Peace Zones for Life activism in Detroit, kicked butt. He put on a clinic for how to stay rad while embracing new complications that blur the old lines of antagonism, say for example, between cops and inner-city residents. Bob Zellner, who was active in SNCC, gave an inspired presentation. I really hate to say it, but again, the weakest presence was the youngest person, a woman who had done much for Michigan Peaceworks, Laura Russello. She chose to speak about therapy and wellness for activists. Yes, important, but not all that relevant on a panel about movement lineage, inheritences, and innovation. It could have been analytical, with something to say about how movement work can be disfiguring, but her treatment was rather superficial, I thought. As well–maybe we got a skewed sampling since we only attended the one evening session, but the panel composition was awfully male. Out of ten contributors there were only two women. What is up with that?

But it was worth attending. It was fun to see Bill Ayers in a non-neighborhood context, and Julie ended up going, too. And Sarah Lewison recognized Peter Linebaugh sitting in the row behind us. He is a radical historian who teaches in Toledo but lives in Ann Arbor. Our colleague Brett Bloom met him at some event in Europe and turned on the rest of us to his lectures online. So we got to make his acquaintence, though I’m not sure he knew what to make of four of us mobbing him all at once. All I can say is, it could have been six.

 

Interview - Peter Linebaugh - The Magna Carta Manifesto

Anyway, we were off to Detroit after that, for a late night arrival.

The main feature of the next day was the Detroit People’s Movement Assembly, held at the Central United Methodist Church. There were probably about forty-five or more people there. Maureen Taylor kicked things off with a rousing welcome, an impassioned and downright furious condemnation of the latest DTE disaster, in which a family whose heat had been cut off by the utility suffered a deadly fire when they were forced to turn to space heaters for warmth.

There was some general USSF stuff discussed, but mostly it was very Detroit-centric. What I mean is, most of the time was spent on short presentations by four activist initiatives already underway with actions timed to coincide with the influx of USSF activists in June. After the presentations, we broke into small work groups around each of the four campaigns. There were worksheets provided that had outlines and blank lines for strategy, target, message, action, etc. This part of the PMA was clearly an organizing session, but which was open to anybody who came to the PMA, not only including but especially welcome to the out-of-towners. Here is some footage from the PMA, this bit featuring Steph Guilloud of Project South.

Stephanie Guilloud at PMA, 3/13/2010, Detroit from Dan S Wang on Vimeo.