Angry Robot

Set Out-of-Blog Response to "On"

You know, whenever I post one of these “I won’t be posting a lot” posts, I wind up posting a lot. But be prepared for a lack of such ironies – for a cold, hard, earnest absence of posts. Milady and I have purchased a house, and there are a lot of house-related-type-stuff things to do, and I don’t think they will be particularly fascinating to write about. (Also, the internets aren’t hooked up in the house yet.)

See y’all in a bit.

SRSI, the Final Week

So, a lot has happened. Perhaps I won’t try and record everything here – I have 500 gigs of video that serves that purpose – but start talking about the overall feeling, as there are only a few short days left and then SRSI is over.

I haven’t mentioned The Department of Unusual Certainties in a manner that befits them. They are doing a project called Storefront Success Stories that is fairly fascinating – sort of an attempt to do urban design consultation properly, from the ground up. It’s a tricky project to pin down, in part because there is little visible about it yet (their process looks like regular office work mostly), and in part because the boys like to prevent easy explanations of things. But suffice it to say that I’ve had many fascinating conversations with them.

Lee Rodney has decamped her Border Bookmobile and set up a temporary position in the storefront. The contents of the bookmobile (besides the beautiful Chrysler Crimson seating) are a collection of books about Windsor, Detroit, borders, and more. Among the books was a volume of Shrinking Cities which Chris of The Department had mentioned to me, so I was excited to check it out of Lee’s library and get right into.

That’s the thing, those two words: shrinking cities. Cities that are getting smaller, but also cities plural. You might think at first it’s Detroit that’s this stunning historical phenomenon, then you might realize the problems are shared across the rust belt (Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Baltimore), and then you might realize the problem spans the goddamned world. East Germany after reunification was a particular hotbed, but it’s happened many times before and will happen again. Your city could shrink. Perhaps it already is. You can’t help but look at the outsourcing of manufacturing to China and the outsourcing of knowledge work to India as harbingers of a whole lot more shrinkage to come.

So it’s important to look at these cities, not just for the sake of the residents of these cities (good enough reason right there of course), but also for everyone else. It’s important to look at the cities as distinct places each with their own set of intersecting problems, but also to find out about the common issues, and about the solutions that have already been attempted. Some have worked. Some have not.

I’m not going to pretend to have any answers myself, so I want to switch gears and think about Windsor. It’s a strange place. We went on a bike ride last night and Michelle took us to the west side, past the ancient Sandwich Town, through slums, past a quick succession of naturalized field / apartment building / giant heaps of salt / school. It’s not a landscape as desolate as Detroit by a long shot, but it’s unlike anything in my Toronto world. It’s beautiful, lively, friendly, diverse. You get the impression that it is a tough town populated exclusively by grumpy auto workers. But the other day I enjoyed Pho at one of many Vietnamese restaurants as I listened to the enormous family seated near me speak Spanish. The pho was a bit greasy but very flavourful.

SRSI: Goals, Pasta, Casino

Originally my goals for this project were to complete a short documentary, post small segments online, daily blog posts, do workshops etc. etc. Best laid plans and suchlike. There is no way I will get this thing edited by the end of the residency in 10 days. The problem is I am shooting too much. You can’t just go in like a news crew and say, I need an interview and 5 minutes of b-roll and I’m out. A lot of the best stuff comes from hanging around with the camera, sort of like a hunter. You capture the little details, the surprises, you get to know people, and you earn trust. But it takes a ton of time. And there are always a few artists here simultaneously, so I’ve already missed a lot because I was shooting somewhere else.

So, revised goals. Some segments before the end of the project. Some blog posts. No finished film, that will come months later. Luckily Michelle will help with the editing, which is a huge, huge help.

What’s happened since saturday? It’s all a blur.

Sunday I mentioned, here’s Chris and Michelle making pasta.

Here’s Norman monitoring some dweeb filming his camera.

I followed Lea as she gathered plants for her project, the garden party. She goes up to houses with nice gardens and chats with the owners about Windsor, and asks if they’d like to contribute a plant. The plants get set up as a garden in the storefront. She invites the contributors to the garden party. Here’s her with Nadia, who is an amazing woman.

Went to the casino with Robin.

I gambled for the first time, on slots. I lost $9.90. I loved all the bizarre themes to the slot machines – there are Star Trek and Jaws machines, plus off brands like Pirates and Wild Panda. You can’t shoot anywhere near them though.

And you got to love the Walker Power Building, it’s hard not to take pictures of it.

SRSI: To Detroit

So yeah. Went to Detroit. Let me take a step back. Came back to Windsor on thursday night, was immediately whisked off to karaoke at Billy’s bar in Sandwich Town, which was excellent. Friday was a tour of Windsor’s forgotten suburbs, relics of ambitious overexpansion in the past. We were led by the incredible Lee Rodney in the border bookmobile.

These are houses on Chappas street, a whole neighbourhood that stands vacant because the land has been bought up for the proposed Detroit River International Crossing, a new bridge that the Ontario and federal governments are planning.

Here is an old sidewalk running through a park:

I stopped by the storefronts a little on friday. On Saturday, Thea and I went to Detroit. I had a million places I wanted to see in Detroit but we didn’t want to be gone all day so we kept it to two spots:

Number one was the train station, Michigan Central Station, which was built in the early 20th century but has stood vacant since 1988. Sure, it’s classic tourist ruin porn, but it also has to be seen to be believed.

Number two was the Heidelberg Project.

It’s named after the street it’s on, and – well, let me quote their site:

The Heidelberg Project, bearing the name of the street on which it exists, was started in 1986 by Tyree Guyton. He was assisted by his grandfather, Sam (Grandpa) Mackey (deceased), and his former wife, Karen Guyton. Tyree was raised on Heidelberg Street and, at the age of 12, witnessed the tragic effect of the Detroit riots – from which he claims the City of Detroit never recovered. Though once racially integrated, many neighborhoods have become segregated urban ghettos characterized by poverty, abandonment, and despair.

Armed with a paintbrush, a broom, and neighborhood children, Guyton, Karen, and Grandpa began by cleaning up vacant lots on Heidelberg and Elba Streets. From the refuse they collected, Guyton began to transform the street into a massive art environment. Vacant lots literally became “lots of art” and abandoned houses became “gigantic art sculptures.” Guyton not only transformed vacant houses and lots, he integrated the street, sidewalks, and trees into his mammoth installation and called his work, “The Heidelberg Project”, after its location on Heidelberg Street.

Here are some pics:

Like I said, I was only in Detroit half the day. But even such cursory driving about the city gave me some slightly better understanding of a city that has fascinated me for some time. Just as a few pictures of riots and vandals could give you the impression that G20 protesters in general were a bunch of hooligans, the ruin porn and the breathless tales of desolation could give you the impression that Detroit is a hopeless hellhole. Now, this was a landscape unlike any I’ve seen – not just the ruins and the urban prairies but also the 10-lane arterial roads downtown, the monorail (Monorail!), the trip over the bridge, etc. etc. But there are pockets downtown of much activity, pedestrian and otherwise. And the mere presence of something like Heidelberg (which was a hive of activity when we went, because of the US Social Forum) has got to be reason for hope.

We returned to Windsor and went out that night to the Loop which was good times, and then I was back to shooting around the SRSI storefronts on sunday and monday, getting lots of insane footage. News of the G20 disaster made me feel distressed and strangely homesick sunday, but reading about that march sunday aft. made me feel better.

I’ll post more about the documentary process by tomorrow.

Oh Toronto

I got really upset last night looking at images of the G20 ‘riots’ but of course taking stock today it doesn’t seem so bad. Four cop cars torched, smashed windows, some police brutality perhaps… that ridiculous arrest law, and too many arrests. Yet no bombs, deaths, and not too much tear gas (?). I’m out of town in Windsor, but if the vibe of this writeup is to be believed, it sure could have been worse. Pictures of masked people smashing shit, burning cars, and rows of menacing riot cops are always disturbing, but when the backdrop is the city you live in and love – or even the building you work in, in my case – it can be horrifying. And you assume the pictures are representational of widespread similar activity, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

I was happy to hear that street crews were busy cleaning up Queen St. by late last night. Back to business, kids.

I also loved this image:

(photo by Martin Reis, courtesy Torontoist)

Good to know.

In other news, I went to Detroit yesterday for the first time. I’ll have more about that later.