midwest - transplant: June 2005

Last night, Christian had a fireworks party over at his 16th floor, corner apartment in Lafeyette Towers (read: breathtaking view of the Detroit River, Windsor and downtown Detroit). Detroit doesn't have the resources to pay for its own fireworks, so Marshall Fields sponsored them until the Target Corporation sold Marshall Fields over the winter. So this year was the first year Target has sponsored the fireworks under their name. As some weird publicity stunt (I assume that's what it was, anyway) all the fireworks shot off during the entire 30-minute program were - you guessed it! - red.

MoPo

This morning, the Beeb had a really interesting report about Japanese who write and read literature, especially poetry, via their mobile phones. The most popular is tanka, a slightly longer ancestor of haiku. Chie Kato, who is 21, has already published three books of her mobile tanka. A Japanese network has even begun a show where viewers text-in poems to be broadcast and discussed. Not surprisingly, literary critics are skeptical (from an article profiling mobile tanka):

“Compared with traditional tanka, these are not literary pieces,” Mr Inose says. “It’s like the difference between a beautifully composed photograph of a landscape, and the kind of snapshot which young people take with a mobile phone camera.”

Nevertheless, to anyone who text-messages me with a haiku or tanka poem: I promise I'll publish it here.

Rhizome 101

Rhizome, a purveyor of "new media" and internet art and artists, is celebrating their tenth birthday by picking thier favorite 40 projects (10 categories, four projects each) stored in their online archive. A couple of winners: someone I knew at RPI, RTMark; and a remarkable hoax played on the city of Vienna.

Unless you decide to support Rhizome with a $25 donation, you won't be able to use the links provided on the page. Instead, googling the artists and project names will get you there, as almost all projects are available to view via other sites.

Disco Fever in Hyderabad

ABC

Cheap thrills.

I just bought the cutest book for myself - a how-to book about drawing trucks and trains from Ed Emberley.

Random Saturday fun.

Mr. Jago makes comic-book and hip-hop influenced "street" art, i.e. he started out doing graffiti, then moved his work from the alleys and subway stops and onto the canvas. I sometimes wish I grew up in some big metropolis, so I could have cultivated this sort of drawing style for myself.

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A sorta cool (almost music) video from Richard Fenwick

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Queen Bee makes great vinyl bags + wallets - I would buy one except that I know deep down that if put myself up to it and was willing to fail a couple of times trying, I could make one myself.

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And last but not least, it's time you started recycling your inkjet cartridges. Someone always puts these dispensers in the USPS offices here around town, so the postage-paid recycling envelopes are always available at home, but I'm going to try to convince the boys at the office call in for the free large-size envelope kit.

Eberwhite and Zion

I took another turn through Eberwhite Woods today, and saw the Zion community garden, one of a network of gardens around town. A few gardeners plant flowers; most plant vegetables. I took these one fall, when only the very hardiest plants were left in the plots.

Friday candy

A couple of happy, summery illustrators: Naho Ogawa (bottom) has an adorable, carefree site (yes, I want to learn more languages, too!); Stina Persson (top), who loves Mexican cut paper and watercolors, has a more jet-set but no less sunny portfolio.

Props.

One of my photos of the fire's remains has been listed on Loquor.

Rome / Detroit (Part II)

This afternoon, Jen and I drove down to the site of Sunday's five-alarm fire. It was incredible - huge. I wish I had access to the adjacent warehouses so I could look down on the site; streetside, the piles of debris alone were at least 10' tall. The smell was as potent as the scene: a combination of stale campfire and rotting vegetation. I could still smell it on myself an hour after I returned to the office. Here are a handful of pictures.

! ! - Kawaii - ! !

I hadn't been to this site in years. It was cute back then, and it's even cuter now. Don't miss the postcard office.

Warm-up.

This year's edition of the PS1 Warmup pavilion, Sur, by Hernan Diaz Alonso's Xefirotarch, continues the PS1's tradition of sponsoring technically and formally complex design. Installed in the gallery's front courtyard, the Warmup pavilion provides shade during the day and a venue for their Saturday evening electronic music concerts. Above is a construction photo; the pavilion opens to the public this Sunday, June 26. [A self-congratulating aside: I worked on a competition entry for the 2001 PS1 Warmup installation, which made it to the final round of votes.]

Athens, Rome, Ephesus, Detroit.

On Sunday night, a five-alarm fire began in a former Studebaker plant just up the street from where I work. As I write - almost three days later - fire crews are still hosing the place down. When the fire began, the five-story warehouse (as it is used now) was more than half empty, typical of most large buildings in Detroit (including the 2,000,000 [yes, million] square-foot complex I work in). Detroit is a void of a city - the city proper is populated densely by abandoned turn-of-the-century buildings. For those who haven't seen it for themselves, go here. And then take out the book Stalking Detroit.

...and Pond-sick.

Between watching the Thai music video show What's Up Thailand, (where I saw a song from Penguin Villa that reminded me of the old Pond-ster) and getting an email this morning from Jeremi with a link to all his photos of his trip through BKK, made me all nostalgic for my man Pond.

Homesick

I had the pleasure of jogging on the trails in Eberwhite Woods this morning, and made me wish I was home in amongst the Catskills.

I'm going for a movie a night.

Tonight, another interesting piece via azntv: Platform, directed by Jia Zhang-ke, a spare, quiet movie about the incremental but radical changes happening in the Shangxi province of 1980s China. The digital filming and remarkably long span between cuts enhances its beautiful, gritty scenery.

Looks like Teddy's peeps over at E-Ink have been busy playing around with watches, clocks, and "electronic paper" displays.

The freaking awesomest

big-budget movie of the year is Batman Begins. It's the least campy action flick I've seen in ages - I thought it was even better than Spiderman. But to make up for all that lack of camp, I came out with a crush on Christian Bale. That said, I couldn't stop thinking that they made up Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) to look exactly like Ned Flanders.

Hipster origami

I've always thought something like this aught to be out there. Someone has even set up a companion case generator: you input the tracklisting of your CD and it writes a pdf for you to print, complete with the origami fold marks. For Mac users, there's even a script for iTunes that auto-fills the tracklisting form with your playlist information. Why am I not surprised the pdf generator people are at U of M?

midwest - transplant

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

MoPo

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Rhizome 101

Monday, June 27, 2005

Disco Fever in Hyderabad

Sunday, June 26, 2005

ABC

Cheap thrills.

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Random Saturday fun.

Eberwhite and Zion

Friday, June 24, 2005

Friday candy

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Props.

Rome / Detroit (Part II)

! ! - Kawaii - ! !

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Warm-up.

Athens, Rome, Ephesus, Detroit.

...and Pond-sick.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Homesick

Monday, June 20, 2005

I'm going for a movie a night.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

The freaking awesomest

Hipster origami

Saturday, June 18, 2005

After lunch

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