Detroit Bittersweet

I sway

Crossing cracked streets and crushing glass beneath my feet.

I sway

In this southern city built so far to the north I can touch the border, on a coast less than a mile wide;

With barbeque, jazz, and moon pie’s on sale now for a dollar ninety five;

Where boys as black as pitch and pale as ash cut their teeth on race relations I can never hope to understand as a recent traveler to this antique zombieland.

I sway

Catcalls and comments washing over my grungy jeans and laundry day shirt.

The motion of my hips moving more men than all the water in the ocean with the selfsame notion that someday I might turn to you. Talk to you. Smile at you. Laugh with you.

This is poetry in motion, you think.

This is the place where violence begins, I know, with the shouts and the winks and the slowing your car down to call out to some strange woman that you have never met. That you will never meet in this fallen city still desperately hanging on to its Motown beat.

But the only way to change the future is one step at a time. Legs stretching out in one long line. Hips swaying as I go about my business, trying not to listen to the sounds of a city that I would so dearly love to love.

Pop Up Detroit

Sushi Sunday and Taco Tuesday.

All the opportunity of a major modern city, here today and gone tomorrow.

Hipsters and handshake deals transforming empty café kitchens into foodie fantasy—

Offer good while supplies last.

Storefronts exclusively open during events giving rise to vents of anger from a populace hungry for glass bottled sodas and screen-printed t-shirts, the opportunity to spend hard earned money more important than the goods you see—

For a limited time only.

 Books and bags replaced with terraforming florists forming a shifting bedrock of society. Rotating concessions making it impossible to plan ahead.

Leaving instead a sense of dread:

The city you wake up to may be not where you said goodnight.

Act now before it’s gone.

 Marvel at a world of maker vision and opportunity—a righteous renaissance constantly anchored by the next bright idea—never thinking of the opportunity cost of investments unmade, buildings unmortgaged, and dues unpaid in a permanent city left to fade away.

Like a Patient Etherized Upon the Table... With Apologies to My DearCousin

So, here I am at the MOCAD art opening... Which is completely fabulous... And I have once again come to the same conclusion I always come to.

First, this sort of event is better with someone else. When every piece is a discussion point you can spend many happy hours perusing any collection. And, while I like art, that's not something I can necessarily do by myself.

Unless we're talking impressionists... Or colorists... Or any hundreds of other things that aren't this. Some of the pieces make me laugh and while it is an exhibit on perception and interpretation I get the feeling that some of the other patrons want to hit me...

Second, if every single piece has to be explained then you're over curating. And if you're over curating then there might be one or two pieces that could be cut. Art should stand on its own, evoking a response (primal or otherwise) without the use of little cards.

In conclusion, I had fun. It was like something out of Tennyson ("the ladies come and go talking of Michelangelo"). I will probably be back, I think there are some pieces that deserve a closer look when there are fewer people around, and if you're looking for something to do in Detroit than I recommend it. If you're looking to move to Detroit and want to know what kind of scene there is then this is just further proof that there's every kind of scene.

Now, should I go across the street to the super schmancy restaurant or go back to my neighborhood and eat pub food?