Detroit Down & Up-7: Riverfront

Riverfront, Renaissance Center, world headquarters of General Motors

In photography, creation is a quick business — an instant, a gush, a response — putting  the camera up to the eye’s line of fire, snatching with that economical little box whatever it was that surprised you, catching it in midair, without tricks, without letting it get away. You make a painting at the same time that you take a photo.

—Henri Cartier-Bresson

PHOTOS

Excerpts from my journal while on the road for 3 weeks to the hinterland of the USA during summer 2011, with photos to show and photos to make.

June 28, 2011, Tuesday, Detroit, Karen’s house

Mild, lower 70s, partly cloudy with alto cumulus, breezy. After last evening’s strong easterly wind.

Learning yesterday morning [June 27, 2011] about the fireworks along the river last night, how late before they began, I changed plans. I’d intended to bike the riverfront anyway, now was the moment. Hastily I emailed K to invite her to join me, maybe an early evening dinner at the Cass Café. She declined—other things to do. Just as well. I biked in around 3 pm against a very strong head wind from the east. Then, as expected (I’d also mentioned my plan to G when I bumped into her as I set off. This gave me the opportunity to invite myself over this morning to try the internet and to photograph her, the latter request already broached by K in a previous phone conversation with G). I hit the even stronger head wind of a crowd. Couldn’t bike immediately in front of (or is it behind) the Renaissance Center so I scooted further north where I could enter. Barely because of the throng.

Biking nearly to the north end of the riverfront park, admiring the landscaping and view, the public access, I explored various clusters of mostly black families setting up for picnic, chat, play, and eventual fireworks viewing—hours later. It was now around 5 pm, fireworks at 10:08. What a torture: to have to wait that long. Unless with one’s most beloved family, or most beloved lover. Not for me. After sighting a silhouetted line of people on top of a hill, city in the background, I biked toward the city center, thinking I’d skirt past the police line and make it to the park’s other end, south. No luck—too crowded.

So, giving up my plan of a full circuit of the park and watching the fireworks, I stopped to simply view people filing past me. A colorful parade of black people, the large majority young, often traveling in clumps, males only, females only, as if on the promenade to see and be seen. And to find one’s mate for life. To express this momentous event, pre July 4^th, 2011, I put my Canon video mode camera on the ground, aimed it at a small family sitting on the opposite bench (both parents obese, a young man who I presumed to be the son sitting between them, seemingly with an affliction, maybe mental), turned it on, let it roll. I don’t believe anyone noticed. So, emboldened, I tried again, tilting the camera up slightly to show more faces. And then, fully practiced in this art of subterfuge, I strung the camera around my neck, aimed, and turned on, viewing in video mode one side and then the other of the passing parade.

I thank the muses for any success here. I’d not intended to be where I was nor do what I did. It surprised me as much as it might surprise an audience.

I then biked home, now with a strong tail wind—the wind blew me home. Many people waited at bus stops for that bus that so infrequently comes. Sometimes I feel embarrassed to experience such privilege: my bike. To shower, eat the delicious bean casserole I’d made all day (pinto with onions, garlic, dill, carrots on slow simmer to release the odors and scent the house), read, bed myself early, greatly fatigued.

G is amenable to photography. I’d discussed this with K, the idea of a neighborhood portrait series, first J, then G, then take leads from them. K called yesterday while I was home. A long chat. She seems to love these. They cost me 10 cents per minute, quite expensive when the minutes go into half hours. We discussed domestic matters, the house in particular, M and his perhaps demand to pick up the bike before I leave (She claims he’s insane.), and then the Allied Media Conference (AMC) which she was very interested in hearing about. Also about LH, whom she met last Sunday during the 75^th anniversary of Ann Arbor Friends Meeting. K agreed with me that LH is wacky, talks too often and too much, with so little to say, a very needy and pained soul.

Gloria Milligan

Johnny

A few catch up items from earlier days:

I noticed at the AMC what might be an excessive absorption in social network news. Not only news on the grand scale, like an earthquake killing thousands, but more likely on a small scale, someone going for a walk, making a drink—the tweets and twits of life. (I am myself guilty of this, receiving and transmitting what might be trivia to many.)

On tour with the US Social Forum, 2010

There exists a plethora of communication channels: twitter mania, how valuable is this new media and what are its consequences? To be so connected thru social media and at the same time to be so disconnected. If lack of call back and follow thru are indications, the social media do not help bridge the gap between intent and fact. Between X’s declaration to me that “I hope we stay in touch forever” and her utter silence. Yes, we are connected via Linked In; yes, I have her old Cambridge phone number in my mobile directory and theoretically, if she still uses that number, can phone her at any moment from most any point with coverage; yes, I know her email address; yes, I have her address in Canada and found her house on Google Earth; and yes, she is on my Levant list. But where and what she is remain complete mysteries.

Grace Lee Boggs

I believe it was Grace Lee Boggs who observed that there is now a greater gap between generations than previously, maybe than ever in USA society. We laud the youngers and ship out elders. Is this gap changing? If the AMC was any indication, matters are changing for the better. I feel it. They’d organized a special van for elders to tour the city. The last event featured 2 special elders, Grace Lee Boggs and Vincent Harding. I felt more appreciated than the year before.

One of the AMC tour guides told us about the importance of babies’ shoes in black families. When her family migrated north, one of their first purchases was baby shoes. Why baby shoes? the guide asked rhetorically. Because poor black folks vowed, once they lived in the north, they’d afford shoes for their babies. No longer would such young children have to walk around shoeless. Does this motivate the strong attention black youth now place on footwear? Case in point: sneakers and sandals. I make a study of this in my riverfront video.

Dreamt: I rode with Gary Snyder to his ranch or home in upstate Michigan, in the winter, in his small rickety truck, with several others, including a young girl. Gary smoked, or at least left a burnt out cigarette dangling from his lips. We stopped and climbed over slippery rocks. Either rain fell or had just fallen. The young girl climbing in front of me stopped, unable to step over a rock ledge that a slightly older girl had transcended, that adults would have the leg reach to easily surmount. I helped her, first asking if she were scared (yes). At some point in this story I viewed a map of Michigan to learn exactly where Gary’s house was. While in the truck I was tempted to tell him how much I appreciated his poetry. That I remembered his appearance in Boston at the Arlington St church with Paul Winter’s consort, many decades ago. I told him that I enjoyed his poems even more than Winter’s music that night. But either I was too shy to say this or we didn’t have the opening.

Where are my dreams of phantom lovers? Why no such dreams recently?  I am missing much. Why, if dreams represent desires, have the dreams avoided me? No more such desires? Would be a great relief, however much I might miss them. Concerning love, this is a dry season—in dreams, in real life.

June 29, 2011, Wednesday, Detroit, Karen’s house

Chilly, upper 50s, clear, slight breeze, after a very windy day and evening, wind from the west.

Not only have I found nearby Internet access at G’s across the street, but I get to know her better. Among other details: her husband, a cop, died 13 years ago while off duty but while performing some sort of cop duty. He loved adventure, risk, effort. He once requested that his son provide him with the gear from the Navy required to build a strap-on rocket so he could lift off. (I’m not too sure about this story, did I get it right, was joking intended?) She’s lived in the house since the early 1980s. It once belonged to her mother-in-law. G raised her son and daughter there. Her son is US Navy, reaching Chief, in for more than 20 years. She cares for her grand daughter, J, every day while her daughter is at work.

G, probably in her late 50s, is fairly attractive and slightly overweight. Judging from photos around her home—I complimented her on her home’s elegance, it is very precisely composed—she was once slender and a true beauty. Can I show who she is now, also her history and her destiny, in a photo? I tried, and believe I failed. I’ve not been able to transcend thru her smile, her tendency to laugh and make light of most any situation. Perhaps I will try again.

At K’s urging I might request that Johnny and G set up photo sessions with other neighbors for a portrait series. What might be ideal is a July 4^th block party. Then all would assemble and me making portraits would not seem so strange.

Yesterday was not only cool but very windy, from the west, unrelenting. One of the features of this flat land is strong wind. A grind biking against it. So yesterday I skipped long distance biking, except during the evening for a short ride to the other side of Grand River Ave where I’d not yet explored. And then the market, Grand Price. I bumped into a white employee, he seemed friendly, I complimented him on the store and then launched into some questions. To learn: indeed the store is owned by Arabs, but, he pointed out with some emphasis, the family was not Arab American, but Catholic American, from Iraq, Chaldean. They’ve owned the store for 9 years, bought it from someone else of the same background, and have recently upgraded it with new lighting, counters, and stock, and plan to expand the market if granted permission by the city. It was once a car dealership. They have, he claimed, good relations with local residents. His name is Omar and he concluded with a handshake and the words, if there is anything I can do for you please ask.

So I was partially correct in my surmise a few days ago: owner is Arab (despite his qualification). And also I was wrong: they’ve owned it for some years. I was misled by the recent improvements. Whether relations are good between local people and owners is yet to be determined.

Riverfront security 2 days ago for the fireworks event was huge—more cops of all stripes in one narrow strip than I’ve seen in years. State cops, local cops, various private security organizations, all with different uniforms, some armed, some not, all with radios. I felt extraordinarily well protected, equally well circumscribed—my biking from instance. This clashes with police presence generally in the city: minimal. I rarely see a cop, the highways, streets, neighborhoods, sidewalks.

My neighbor J’s turned off electricity now seems turned on. Not sure why or what happened. K mentioned he has a $3,700 electrical bill. Lights glow at night, including the post lamp which K asked me to observe. More than lanterns light that man’s inner life.

I learned from M that Grand River Ave runs thru the state, a long long distance. This also could become a photo theme.

THIS COMPLETES MY DETROIT SERIES

LINKS

Security Excercises on the Detroit Riverfront Aug 22-23!

Teen Shot On Detroit’s Riverfront

Detroit Police Blue Pigs Band

Biking in Detroit

Allied Media Conference

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Detroit Down & Up-6: Air & River, Models & Canada

Lake St Clair, between Canada and the United States

Miksang, at its most basic level, is concerned with uncovering the truth of pure perception. We see something vivid and penetrating, and in that moment we can express our perception without making anything up—nothing added, nothing missing. Totally honest about what we see—straight shooting.

—Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

PHOTOS

Excerpts from my journal while on the road for 3 weeks to the hinterland of the USA, with photos to show and photos to make.

July 4, 2011, Monday, Detroit, K’s house

Cooler, upper 60s, overcast with mostly altocumulus, still.

Today [July 4, 2011] is my last day in Detroit. I will leave tonight around 9:30 by Amtrak bus for Toledo, layover there until the Lakeshore Limited from Chicago rolls in around 3:30 am (if on time which is a big if), and head for Boston arriving there tomorrow evening around 9 pm (if on time which is a big if). Journey completed—at the least the active part, then the follow-up begins, editing, processing and posting.

Yesterday was a combo of relatively short bike ride to Rouge Park for the bike trails and a jaunt with M and K to Windsor Ontario Canada. I’d contemplated visiting Canada via about the only way available to me, bus, but decided it would be too complicated to get to wherever the bus leaves from downtown Detroit, travel to Canada, walk around awhile in what I anticipated might be a scene much like Detroit, and bus back, then bike home. Providence knocked when K offered me a trip to visit a friend’s cottage on the enormous Lake St Clair, connecting with the Detroit River, which in turn connects Lakes Erie and Huron.

First the bike ride: west on Plymouth Road to Rouge Park. A huge swimming pool complex which looked Olympian with a series of high dive boards (not used). Wide sweeping roads. Empty fields. Walkways perfect for cycling. A few picnickers on the day before the Fourth of July. And then the climax: the model airplane field that Johnny told me about. Planes, usually large, with wing spans of about 1 meter, World War 2 fighters, private planes, a 2 prop commercial airliner, a helicopter, most with a toy figure for a pilot sitting in the cockpit (maybe an in-joke). Much advanced over my early days flying model airplanes in the 1950s. Then they were smaller and tethered. Around and around a circle, rather boring.

Now the planes are larger and controlled by radio devices, but they look to me about as boring. Some pilots did stunts with their planes. Some tuned their engines. I imagine they can race their planes. All seems to my jaded mind to be inane, a complete waste of time. When time is so short and demands on it so vast—healing the world—how can someone decide to engage in a mere hobby? Am I missing something vital in life?

I tried to photograph all this with an unprejudiced mind, or with the W. Eugene Smith idea of truth is my prejudice. One goal, probably obvious, was to juxtapose a model with the real thing. Real things were flying regularly overhead on 2 paths so I had ample opportunities to do this. Whether I achieved it or not I’ll see when I examine my photos.

Unsure of K’s plans, as usual, her modus operandi, I had alternatives. While biking the first leg, phone rang, Katy calling: we’re coming around 4, will call when we leave Ann Arbor. She didn’t say who the we was but I guessed. She also perfunctorily explained what we might be doing, the Canada visit, but I discovered later, either thru her truncated information or my not hearing, that we’d be on a lake. I didn’t know which one, I didn’t think of swimming so I brought no swim suit, I didn’t know the cottage owners would not be present.

Eat something before, she said, we’ll eat on the way. Huh? Should I eat before or are we eating out? Eat before. And I believe this is characteristic of K: mixed messages. Tricky to interpret.

This was to be true for the entire Canada trip. River road or main road? Right or left? Stop for dinner or not? Walk up river or down?

We managed. I was anxious as I’m sure they were. Then: we were stopped for nearly 1 hour at the USA border. Long lines of vehicles awaited inspection. Coming into Canada had been relatively swift, little traffic, but brusque security and a complete examination of the car. This for entering a friendly country?! This after decades of loose border control? This after 911 and ongoing trauma? Fear prevails, fear defines the society, fear rules and corrodes the soul, fear punctures the heart.

While waiting we chatted about photography, Canada, K’s old neighborhood—I learned she graduated high school in 1961, 2 years after me, making her about 68. I learned the neighborhood switched color, white to black, in the 1960s, her dad the last white, and, being a realtor, sold homes to incoming blacks, who, K claimed, screened them carefully. I am beholden to his legacy for the warm reception neighbors give me. during the discussion I finally realized I could make a few photos of the line of cars waiting at the border, tried, even in the dark.

Lake St Clair itself rivals some of the smaller Great Lakes in scale. This is big. Can’t really see the opposite shore. Water was very warm. Beach was void of people for the most part, only a few 3 waders who recently finished a jet ski ride. We sat quietly, observed the sky changing. First it melded with the water, only a faint horizon line defined borders. Then billowy clouds lofted, storm clouds formed, streaks of distant rain fell. I photographed all this. I walked, discovered may or dragon flies stuck on a window, flattened there, pairs, one in each pair larger and more elegant, perhaps they were mating, or had. Some insects were dead as well. I photographed this close up.

The cottages were squished together, half American and half Canadian, one was selling for $100,000, people seemed to know each other, it felt like an expanded Turtle Lake Wisconsin where my married family had a shared country place. I imagined my kids growing up here, as they did during numerous Turtle Lake summers. I imagined sitting night after night, utterly bored, but at least slowed down. I imagined partner-swapping for the fun and novelty of it.

I’d not brought a book, I found the only book in the cottage—about Canada. Perfect. I began reading the chapter about social inequalities and protest. Perfect also. M had declared, no politics on this trip. K drives me crazy with politics. And whenever the conversations nudged toward this topic M grew visibly nervous. How can they sustain a relationship when the political awareness and activism gap is so huge?

Canada, at least Windsor and adjacent regions, is, relative to Detroit and much of this United States, healthy economically and socially. It was not hit as hard by the economic crisis as the USA. I saw little abandonment. I saw new construction. I saw large well-groomed parks and bike trails. I saw myriad whiskey manufactories. We drove by the mammoth casino, one of the primary industries now. I also saw only a few stores open late Sunday evening, not a spot for nightlife (maybe all drained off by the casino, which, who knows, runs all night).

Renaissance Center, Detroit

My big thank you to K should mention or at least acknowledge that she is a stand-in for me. She frequents if not actually lives in a black neighborhood that previously was white. I no longer live in my now-black Southside Chicago neighborhood. Visiting her, living here, knowing her, she is an aspect of the person I might wish to be.

Click any map for larger versions

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKS

Windsor-Detroit

Windsor economic condition (2007)

Model planes Detroit

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Detroit Down & Up-5: Museums

I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda. I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.

—Malcolm X

PHOTOS

Excerpts from my journal while on the road for 3 weeks to the hinterland of the USA, with photos to show and photos to make.

July 1, 2011, Friday, Detroit, K’s house

Warmer, mid 60s, clear, still.

Had I emerged from my momma’s womb prone to depression, I would now be clinically depressed. I would be unable to get out of bed; I would drink or drug myself, or run from one woman to another. I might be hospitalized. None of this is my state: I function, barely. And try again—I try.

Home (thanks to K), near Wyoming St & Grand River Ave

Yesterday was a day off from photography, for the most part, to visit museums. The Detroit Historical Museum, as expected, highlighted automobile manufacturing. I learned that the USA was not the first to produce a car—Germany and France, as one might guess, were antecedent. Placing the engine in front, rather than the rear, took a while to discover. Electricity, cooking oil (the original diesel) and fossil fuel competed with each other to be the driving force. Computer-originated automation came to rule manufacturing, deleting jobs. Several rooms were devoted to this topic, whereas Detroit’s role in abolition—a major terminal on the underground railroad—earned only one small section, part of a stair case.

In contrast, the phenomenal Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History dedicated much space to not only the abolition movement but slavery, Jim Crow, resistance to racism, and forms of integration into contemporary USA society. The museum building itself is grand—a large circular atrium with exhibits radiating off this center. The And Still We Rise: Our Journey through African-American History and Culture exhibit which included slavery and ancillary topics is in a series of rooms that includes a slave ship, main deck and below the deck where frozen black figures moan, cry out, (figuratively) vomit, and generally suffer. All very moving and life-like.

Sojourner Truth, advocate for women’s rights & the abolition of slavery

Frederick Douglass, another advocate for abolition

For most of my African-American museum visit I was the only guest. I’d entered the Still We Rise exhibit with a large group of African Americans but then diverged from them, annoyed by the docent’s voice. I also accidentally stepped in front of one of the participants as she took notes. Excuse me, you’re blocking me! she announced. With a peeved tone she asked me to move out of the way. I thought I might have pluged once again into my stereotypic role as Big White Father.

This is a monumental museum, worthy of another longer visit. Stopping in the shop I found Kente cloth the perfect gift for both K and my grand daughter, Eleanor. Also 2 postcards, one with Frederick Douglass, who is one of my heroes, and the other a description of fascism, which eerily resembles the condition of the United States currently. Later at the Contemporary Art Museum I found a better gift for Eleanor—a thick book entitled Doodle All Year. Space for coloring and drawing on themes that soon she’ll be able to read. Grandpa may be known at times for his frugality and stinginess, but at others—this gift might represent that moment—he can be extraordinarily generous.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit showed Barely There, Part 1, a mystifying collection of oddities: flags from different nations heaped into a loose pyramid, a pen with its cap removed, a series of writings about death and other such topics, a video of goldfish with words tied to their tails, and a video of a man hypnotized to believe he was viewing an art exhibit. I found the last most interesting, and thought LM with his new path toward hypnotherapy might also.

Biking back (propelled by a tail wind) I stopped at a resale shop to replace the wooden spoon I’d broken when stirring the sticking rice. Crammed with stuff, I remarked, you have enough stuff here to outfit a mansion. The skinny black woman running the shop seemed listless. The place was dark. Several people sat around. Everything felt dour and dank. I cheerily paid my dollar and left.

Mexican Town

Whizzers—small motorcycles from Japan—haunt me. They whiz, they whine, they speed. A few days ago on the expressway I saw 3 in a row hurdle past all the cars, going at least 80 mph. They are obnoxious, dangerous, and pervasive.

A staple of the Midwest, alleys, once used by garbage trucks for pickup and to access private garages, are disappearing [or becoming green alleys—see below]. As a youth growing up in Chicago I remember alleys. They were the secret passageways to other regions of the neighborhood. We could spy from them into the backs of homes, enter back yards, pick from cherry trees, spy on girls shedding their clothes as they prepared for bed, hide in garages. And now, perhaps because of new techniques of trash collection and the vanishing of garages, alleys are not needed. Weeds grow over them, obscure them. Yesterday I noticed a fence extended into what may have been an old alley to add to the home’s space.

Had I stayed with my earlier plan of returning home on June 30, today I’d be on the train somewhere in New York state or Ohio, due to arrive in Boston tonight around 9 pm. Because of cheaper Amtrak prices on holidays when fewer wish to travel, I’ve extended. Is today my last day in Detroit? Will K show up for our meeting with Barbara about the Swords into Plowshares exhibit? Will I go to Ann Arbor with her for my remaining days on the road, leave from Ann Arbor Monday evening, arrive home on Tuesday, just in time to begin my teaching? All is uncertain.

Detroit Eastern Market

As of yesterday morning when I worked at Gloria’s home she had not yet contacted neighbors about portraits. I was tempted to ask Johnny to do the same, but thought perhaps asking both to coordinate portraiture might create conflict. Right or wrong call? No word yet from Bill Wylie-Kellerman about photo leads. I’ll phone him this morning. Today, depending on K’s plans, I might bike to Corktown and Mexican Town, maybe meet Bill, survey the area. Search for photos.

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKS

“Taking Back Alleys” by Ashley C. Woods

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Detroit Down & Up-4: Oil Refineries & Tar Sands Oil

Excerpts from my journal while on the road for 3 weeks to the hinterland of the USA, with photos to show and photos to make.

PHOTOS (2011)

PHOTOS (2010)

I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda. I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.

—Malcolm X

June 29, 2011, Wednesday, Detroit, K’s house

Chilly, upper 50s, clear, slight breeze, after a very windy day and evening, wind from the west.

Yesterday morning while I worked across the street from my home at Gloria’s—trying out a new Internet access method—M phoned to ask if I’d be home so he could drop off some things for a friend. He arrived around 1 pm with a large load of food, drawings, frames, bike, and sundry. I invited him to stay for coffee. He accepted, seemed surprised by my cordiality. We discussed my photography, life after death, healing, the role of thought on health, my experience at this house, the neighborhood, and other matters. Such as Israel-Palestine. He asked me if I took sides. Yes, the side of international law. Was I partisan? Yes, for justice, peace, equality, and security for all parties. (I thought I handled that well, in the style of Christ, answering but not falling into a trap.)

What is your take on that situation? I asked. I have no take.

I mentioned how safe I feel knowing some of my neighbors. I used the example of suppose I experience a kidney stone and can’t pee and need to reach the emergency room rapidly. I could probably call on Johnny, even during the middle of the night, to request a ride.

He interrupted. Do you have kidney stones? No, this is merely an example. I visit Gaza regularly and because of the saline water many residents have kidney stones.

Well, you know that people there are pissed off (he didn’t acknowledge the pun) and stress causes health problems. After a goodbye to me he left to say goodbye to a Gloria across the street.

Surprising me, he returned and said, want to go for a tour of Detroit? I suggested the refinery district, one of my main Detroit themes. We explored by cruising rapidly thru the district, he didn’t want to risk being stopped and questioned. I doubt any of these photos made from the car will amount to anything. For a change, I was more interested in building relationships than making photos.

Last night I dreamt I was home in my second floor apartment looking out on the parking lot. Workers had removed a large tank which exposed a set of rusting pipes oozing water and oil. I was frightened that my basement would flood, all my photos destroyed. I considered what I might do to protect them. In addition, workers were repairing the elevator shaft. It was partially open. I accidentally kicked a broom into the shaft and listened and watched as it plummeted down. I thought, this could be me if I’m not careful.

 June 30 2011, Thursday, Detroit, K’s house

Chilly, upper 50s, partly cloudy with cirrus and vapor trails, still.

Patricia Watson appeared to me last night in a dream. She and a man, identity unknown, looked grimly at me as I sorted thru small boxes. I asked, did I do something wrong, am I guilty of anything, am I hiding something or are you about me, is my photography off? Please tell me, why are you looking at me like that.

No answer. I continued sorting thru my boxes, finding treasures. We also discussed money.

So much for my dream life. I am currently reading a fascinating master’s thesis from a former MIT student, The Construction of Photojournalism: Visual Style and Branding in the Magnum Photos Agency by Michelle L. Woodward. It returns me to an earlier era of my career when I put together a slide tray of my photos to submit to Magnum for acceptance. I reached the finalist stage, which is some accomplishment. It also drags me to a gnawing worry that I’m not as good a photographer as I’d like to think. Have I not found an opening, a niche, but might later? Are my photos inferior when put against world standards, generic, that term I despise which was applied to my earlier work by Karl Baden. As the quotidian factor is the curse of much of my life, the generic factor is the curse of my photographic life.

Yesterday is a case in point. I scoured the refinery area by bike, as I’ve done earlier, and as I did by car the day before. I photographed. Reviewing them later, I find not a single one stands out. A pile of crap. What to do? Go again? Find another angle? Wait for better access? Show them to someone for some sort of response? Ditch these photos and drop the idea for this larger Detroit project until I can devise a better strategy?

Neighborhood next to the refinery district, area code 48217, known as the most polluted neighborhood in Michigan

Garth Lenz (curious last name for a photographer), the first price winner at Social Documentary Net, made aerial photos of the tar sands oil region in Alberta Canada. Simply by going into the air he made his stunning photos. Suppose I were to beg, borrow, or steal a helicopter and lift off over the refineries? Or devise the equivalent?

Alberta tar sands oil field, Canada, photo by Garth Lenz via Social Documentary Net

Tar sands oil (euphemistically named “Heavy Oil”) is coming to Detroit, which is one of the main reasons I’m here. Growing up in Chicago, the Great Lakes is imprinted in my heart. After the Gulf oil rig explosion in 2010 and the Kalamazoo River spill of tar sands oil that same summer, I visualized a pipe rupture flooding my beloved Great Lakes. Poof. Goodbye clean water, goodbye birds and fish, goodbye a major portion of the earth. [Recent news: major oil spill under the Yellowstone River, July 2011]

To reach the refinery district for my second foray I made a long bike ride south to southwest Detroit, thru Dearborn, stopping on the way home for chicken shuwarma at the New Yazmeen bakery and café, wind from the west, mild, not a problem. I dropped by Ford’s sewage treatment plant, stood at the gate reading signs when suddenly the gate slowly creaked open. I walked over to a black man peering at his phone who I assumed was security and had opened the gate. For permission he told me, Go to gate 10, turn left, ask there. I neglected to do it, not especially interested in sewage pools today. Shortly after that I crossed a bridge and spotted a Great Blue Heron on the River Rouge banks waiting to snare and eat fish. The river passes near the Ford plant and the refinery district. The stench from the water was nearly unbearable. I choked. What will happen to that bird after eating fish from that water?

Near the end of my romp, as I photographed from my moving camera platform, I noticed a small truck marked Security that seemed to be following me. I stayed on the sidewalk and even when the truck pulled into a parking lot blocking my path, I did not veer but went straight to the truck and said brazenly to the driver, are you looking for me? Oh no, not at all, the driver answered, smiling.

Relieved and slightly disappointed that I couldn’t put into practice the routine I’d rehearsed as I biked—Isn’t this sidewalk public property? Yes. Then I have a right to photograph anything from it. No confrontation for me today. Little access either.

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKS

Ford Motor Company in Detroit

Rouge River Restoration Project

The Construction of Photojournalism: Visual Style and Branding in the Magnum Photos Agency by Michelle L. Woodward

“Detroit: Benzene in the Sewers…. Really?!?” by Air Hugger

Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department

“Marathon’s Detroit refinery expansion promises jobs and cash — but not enough, neighbors say,” by Katherine Yung

“48217: Life in Michigan’s most polluted ZIP code” (with photos)

Detroit Heavy Oil Upgrade Project

“Canada’s Tar Sands and the True Cost of Oil”
Photographs by Garth Lenz via Social Documentary Net

Exhibition: ‘Detroit Experiences: Robert Frank Photographs, 1955′ at Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit (2010)

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Detroit Down & Up-3: Grace Lee Boggs & Vincent Harding at the Allied Media Conference

Excerpts from my journal while on the road for 3 weeks to the hinterland of the USA, with photos to show and photos to make.

PHOTOS

We are not alone in this struggle for the re-creation of our own lives and the life of our community.  It has long been written and known that those who choose to struggle for the life of the earth and its beings are part of an ageless, pulsating membrane of light that is filled with the lives, hopes, and beatific visions of all who have fought on, held on, loved well, and gone on before us.  For this task is too magnificent to be carried by us alone, in our house, in our meeting, in our organization, in our generation, in our lifetime…  we are all a part of one another, and we are all part of the intention of the great creator spirit to continue being light and life.

—Vincent Harding

June 27, 2011, Monday, Detroit, K’s house

Cool, lower 60s, clear, still.

Allied Media Conference (AMC) finished, now the real work—the fun work, the painful work, the challenging work—begins: photographing Detroit.

This year at the AMC, perhaps like last year’s, ended with a bang and not a whimper. The last workshop I attended, titled Human creativity and the next revolutions, featured brief talks by Grace Lee Boggs, Vincent Harding, and Halim el Dabh. I nearly missed this listing. Only by perusing the catalog during a lunch break did I find it. Grace Lee Boggs and Vincent Harding together! Amazing. She (age 96, nearly) spoke about finding the positive in the negative, the yes in the no (much like the Great Turning perhaps that Joanna Macy writes about), the dialectic of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, while not using those terms, crediting Hegel. She applied it to the phenomenon of hope and reconstruction transcending suffering. Out of suffering great works emerge.

I believe I first heard about Harding when reading his excellent history of the Black Freedom Movement, There is a river. Later I met him in person at a conference in central Massachusetts and again thru a Buddhist academic center. I remember him beginning his talk by playing Civil Right Movement music. He may have served on the advisory board of the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage, a journey I undertook with many others in 1998 to retrace the African slave trade. Y told me about Lee Boggs, impressed with her earlier Marxism and support of Malcolm over Martin. In reference to Detroit on the rise I hear about her frequently. I’ve quoted her in one of my presentations about Detroit, words to the effect of let’s make the revolution of values peacefully, step by step, grassroots and beyond, and with strong determination.

Vincent (age 81) used stories of others to teach lessons. For instance his main talk hinged on a question a young man had asked in a previous talk, what are the foundational stories of our new democracy? In the discussion following his main talk he referred to someone in the audience who had established porch seminars in Detroit—selecting a porch, often in an impoverished area, on which she then organized a neighborhood discussion about some topic such as urban gardening. This was in response to a question about how to make use of the elders: porch seminars with elders telling their stories. Another story, in answer to the question about when were you discouraged and what did you do, paired with what art work most sustains you, he told about Martin Luther King Jr listening to a blues or country version of “Precious Lord,” then going out on the porch of the Lorraine Motel to ask a blues artist standing in the parking lot (if I have the story correct) to play that music for him later that evening before his talk. Vincent claims these were the last words of MLK before his assassination. Vincent, who had written the first draft of Martin’s Riverside speech criticizing the Vietnam War, ended by leading us in song.

All very powerful. The young hip-hop artist woman moderating the panel introduced Halim (age 90) as the Egyptian composer of the first African electronic music, which I suspect is an arguable claim. He was not as lucid and wisdom-laden as the other 2, nor as succinct, but he was joyous and dear. He led us in a song which later became the finale song for the entire conference.

I was moved to tears by much of this panel. Luckily I found a seat near the front and had a good camera position. I stilled and movied. Some of what I made I thought my dear friend and companera, Y, might truly appreciate. She among my entire circle would be most likely to appreciate this pairing of key wisdom figures. Will I be able to convey to a lager audience the power of these elders?

A side benefit of this last workshop—more accurately a panel discussion with subsequent questions and answers—was honoring the elders. I was not on the panel but I felt fully honored.

Then the conclusion of the entire conference. We assembled in the main lobby, sang, beat our hands and feet in rhythm to the lead of Halim, danced sort of, chanted a line about Jan or Feb. 25^th which I believe was the date of the Egyptian revolution, and departed.

I should also mention 2 other workshops with some interest, Al Sha’ab Yureed (The People Demand), about the new media fostering the Arab Spring. I asked one presenter, Atef Said, an Egyptian in Egypt for part of the revolution, about the importance of nonviolence. He said it varied. Some people defended themselves and their property with clubs. Others were strictly nonviolent. The sense I received was that nonviolence was an operating principle in much of the revolution but not all. This revolution was not based on nonviolence as much of the US Freedom Movement was. This might have been because there seems to have been no one leader or leadership entity like Dr. King or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that clearly stood as the leadership.

Nadine Naber, in Egypt currently, visited us by Skype and showed what I can only call gibberish as her entry into the world of cyber media. Something called the cyberborg. Hastily thrown together, as she admitted, some sort of incoherent collage.

Yesterday morning I attended yet another Palestine/Israel track workshop, New Media to Create the World We Want to See: Let’s End Israel Apartheid, with Kristin Szremski from American Muslims for Palestine, and Andrew Kadi from the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding. Very interesting about blogs, Facebook (Andrew felt the Gaza Youth Break Out manifesto was dumped from Facebook because of it did not meet the terms of service, however they were applied to this entity and it might have been because they signed up as an individual when they were an organization, they later corrected this), Twitter, websites, and the many ancillary services linking to these. I am midway in understanding and using this new media. Thank god for Islam at Quaker Palestine Youth Program in Gaza who seems very adept at the new social media.

An excellent conference as expected. With a few caveats: I met virtually no one, other than the few fellow elders on the van for the opening eco tour. And Dunya, an old Israel-Palestine friend, and former roommate of my daughter’s at Hampshire College, and Kristin, from American Muslims who I met last year. I told her how much I admire the organization’s graphics. I picked up a new assortment. These initial meetings on the eco tour led nowhere. I remet none of them. None of the workshops I attended included any time for personal participant intros, unlike last year when I recall at least a few presenters made this one of the key points. I shirked the opportunity to meet the makers of the movie Road Map to Apartheid, mainly my own reluctance to engage more deeply with them, based rightly or wrongly on what I picked up as their or at least his relative coolness to engagement. I made a decision and feel it might have been a wrong one. Missed opportunity.

Filled, satisfying, enlightening, encouraging, inspiring. As hoped for. And now I settle in on one of my main themes: photoing Detroit.

Adding to my supreme pleasure this year in Detroit is my bicycle. How I love it, live for it, relish it, can’t wait to hop aboard. All is righted when I mount it. I overcome problems, quell anxieties, relieve pains. Despite my ailing back (again, maybe the mattress) and my failing hands (increasing pain) I am fully alive and young again on my bike. Not alone on my bike—many others bike as well, usually older black men—I roam the hi and bi ways of the city, as free as a crow or eagle.

My bike is my partner, my bike is my pet, my bike is my confidant and lover, closest friend in Detroit (other than K and AR), and I will soon give it up to its owner, M.

A dream: I photographed a group of homeless people on the street at a food distribution spot. Then they sang. I joined them to show that I was part of the organization running this program. Later another group went thru some sort of athletic routine, all in close coordination. They were formerly homeless. I ran to photograph them but was intercepted by a man who told me I had no permission to do this. I tried to explain that I intended to show recovery from poverty. Long debate.

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKS:

Allied Media Conference

Grace Lee Boggs

Vincent Harding

Halim el Dabh

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Detroit Down & Up-2: Eastern Market, Dabl bead & outdoor art museum, & a movie set

Along Grand River Ave

Johnny, my next door neighbor

Eastern Market

Felicia in an urban garden, part of Team 313

Excerpts from my journal while on the road for 3 weeks to the hinterland of the USA, with photos to show and photos to make.

PHOTOS

We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens or looking out for our neighbors. That is how change takes place in living systems, not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.

—Grace Lee Boggs

June 22, 2011, Wednesday, Detroit, K’s

Warm, low 70s, partly cloudy, turning to overcast, hazy, still—after an evening and night of heavy rains, with electricity. could rain again today.

This morning on my morning walk 3 dogs greeted me as I strolled south on Washburn toward Grand River. They lumbered toward me, I continued toward them on the sidewalk, I hoped they’d diverge. They didn’t. They challenged me, they snarled at me, they came very close to my legs. I thought they might bite. I tried talking sweetly to them. They didn’t listen. They weren’t like the Palestinian dogs who give ground when approached, despite their vicious appearance. I startled, turned away, watched them, prepared for them to bite.

Would I kick them, flee, or—as I ruminated later—whack them with my camera on a strap, really laying into them to hurt them, drive them off? I gave them the sidewalk, took the street, and they lost interest. Were they trying  to protect some turf? Were they simply mean? Perhaps from a background of abuse? I wish I could ask them. The little shits.

Remarking to Anne about my use of McDonald’s I noted to her that McDonalds’s and other large eatery chains can help remake blighted areas. They have financial backing and experience to open a store in a neighborhood that is not friendly to such enterprises. Like the one I live in with its McDonalds’s. My McDonald’s is thriving, its drive-thru service open 24 hours, the main part from 7 am to 10 pm. There is always a large group eating when I’m there working with the internet (my main reason for attendance), and many are also conversing together across tables. Occasionally a large group sits around one table. Good for business and good for the neighborhood? Yes. Good for the world? Not so sure.

Returning from McDonald’s yesterday I stopped at the Grand Price Foodland store for bananas, orange juice, greens. I noticed the produce person looked Arab. I noticed another worker looked Arab. I noticed the man at the customer service booth looked Arab. The cashier was black, she looked to be the only black employee. Does this signify a change of ownership? Are Arabs the new Koreans, taking over local businesses? Part of urban renewal? If so, how are they received by local people? I should ask my neighbors, Johnny and Gloria.

Biking home yesterday on a hot muggy day, not too long before the rains hit, I came upon a movie being made: Have A Little Faith. Perfect title for Detroit. At the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr and Grand River, using an old dilapidated church as a set, well over 100 people were preparing a scene. The scene might have been about roof repair because a truck with a large crane was parked in front of the church, the roof definitely needed repair, and they were rehearsing with a crane-mounted camera. I was amazed at the amount of equipment, people, and preparation for what might be only a few moments of film time—and the cost.

Trying to find a good position for my camera, honoring the restriction of barriers, I set up, only to be confronted by 2 large black security guys who insisted I move off the sidewalk and down the street. Is this not public property? I asked, pointing to the sidewalk and street. It is but we rented it and have full rights to its use. Which may be correct or not. I’d like to check. Initially I resisted, just stood there after my brief conversation, and then relented after I’d made a few photos and thought maybe I could find a better spot. More security men insisted that I move again. With the same rationale. I managed to make a few photos from a distance, unsure what I was photographing. Was the camera merely recording the condition of the church? Or rehearsing for an actor perhaps to repair? I learned that one of the stars from Matrix is in the film.

I compared this operation with our recent movie-making in Gaza. Gaza very simple: small crew, one camera, one boom mike, no tracks or cranes. No security either which seemed to make up a large portion of this crew. One take, virtually no scenario. Will Have A Little Faith be a better movie because of its elaborate infrastructure and financing? Will Eyewitness Gaza be a better movie despite the lack of infrastructure and its slender budget, or partly because of it?

Yesterday’s 4 hour plus bike ride on a miserably hot and sweaty day brought me several gifts: urban art in the form of Mr. Dabls who paints and applies broken glass to abandoned exteriors—and constructs an outdoor museum which rivals Heidelberg, the better known one in Detroit, and even that of Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont. Also Felicia who I met digging thru the soil near Mr. Dabls, planting and weeding a patch about 10 by 10 meters. She told me she is part of Team 313 (after the local area code), serving the people of Detroit, all the people she stressed. She is also widely traveled, living in South Africa for some years and other parts of Africa.

Mr. Dabls accepted my portrait invitation, but smiled as he peered at me while on his ladder. Felicia believes that she is not photogenic so she initially declined my invitation. As I was walking away she said, but an action shot would be OK. I photographed her weeding the onion patch.

Dabls means beads and his Mali ancestors were beaders. He is also and uses them in his constructions.

In photographing the outdoor museum with its many mirrors I noticed myself in one distorted mirror. I wanted to believe that my chubby, varicose-veined legs were a product of the mirror. But I suspect what I saw reflected what others see: chubby, varicose-veined elder legs. Not at all the appealing legs I once had. Years ago biking transformed my legs from sticks into strong and muscled works of art. And now? Deterioration.

Leaving yesterday morning for McDonald’s, Johnny greeted me as he often does, asked where I was headed on my bike. He allowed me a portrait, what I think might be a good start in this neighborhood series. Next, Gloria across the street.

My main goal yesterday was to explore the Detroit Eastern Market, and finally I did, taking once again the wrong path but thereby extending my exploration. Turning left onto Rosa Parks Drive (liking the name) from Grand River Ave, having located MLK Boulevard and might take that east to the market, I thought I was heading east. No, I was traveling north, away from the market. Into a zone of new housing, amidst old abandoned churches.

Belatedly I discovered my mistake, reversed, and finally found the market. What makes navigation tough for me is the Detroit’s skewed layout: often a grid, the streets are usually not oriented north-south and east-west but north is more northwest. The basis is the river, northwest-southeast, not east-west and north-south. In addition some streets like Grand River radiate out from the city center. Grand River is west-northwest, not northwest as I once supposed. Complicating the mess is that some streets are north-south, east-west, like Wyoming St. And then there are the maps. The bus map is absurdly unreadable, the tourist map doesn’t list all the main streets, the AAA map cuts off just when I need it.

The market was not exactly thronged on a Tuesday, that happens only on Saturdays so far. My first stop was an outdoor grocery where I made no photos but bought walnuts and dates. Next a flower shop, outdoors, myriad flowers, and I happened in while a postal worker was choosing her plants. This allowed me to photograph her and the proprietor, a well-tanned fellow (I’m here 24-7, he told me when I remarked about his skin tone.), with curly hair graying slightly and a gray goatee. Noticing the small fridge inside the building I surmised that he might sleep there to protect the plants.

I also surveyed the Gratiot Ave market (pronounced gra-shit) for possibilities, found none, lousy lighting, and I’d have to struggle for good person access. Maybe later. Best on a Saturday, but both my remaining Saturdays might not be good. Next Saturday is the Allied Media Conference, and the following Saturday is the weekend of July 4^th. Which might be perfect—or might be a rotten choice. I will check.

My bike is perfect for such perambulations. Around and around the vicinity, stopping and dismounting easily for any possible photo. Much easier than walking surely and even driving. To exit and enter a car many times a day is tiring. Much simpler to jump off the saddle onto the sidewalk. Photo and remount, zoom off.

I used my big SLR camera for the first time on this trip, and the wide-angle lens might have been perfect for the outdoor art photos. For the movie set I missed my telephoto lens.

Where to bike today? River and refinery area maybe too far. It also looks like rain. What might work that is closer?

Dreamt: I had set down my small khaki shoulder bag with many of my valuables as I walked around with a few friends. I was to leave on a long trip the next day. Where had I left the bag? Would I be able to find it? Was it in that wooded spot we just visited?

A young man invited me to speak briefly to a large group of young adults who were making pasta with noodle machines. I was naked except for garden work gloves. The young man noticed and mildly inquired, why naked? I had no answer. I felt deeply troubled by the potential loss of my bag—coming one day before I was to leave. I desperately needed my wallet, notebook, date book, maybe even the camera if it was in the bag. While waiting for the group to take a break to hear me I wandered off to a large lecture hall where I vaguely remembered we’d visited. It held classes about medicine. No bag. What to do?

I woke, thankful that this was dream.

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKS

Detroit Eastern Market

Team 313

Dabls bead museum

“Detroit Arcadia: Exploring the post-American landscape,” by Rebecca Solnit

“Detroit’s Grassroots Economies,” by Jenny Lee and Paul Abowd

Eyewitness Gaza Preview

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Detroit Up & Down-1: Arab American Museum, Biking, & Michigan Central Train Station

Abandoned drive-in movie theater

Reconstruction project

Excerpts from my journal while on the road for 3 weeks to the hinterland of the USA, with photos to show and photos to make.

Please Bring Strange Things

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
And the ways you go be the lines of your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
And your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well-loved one,
Walk mindfully, well-loved one,
Walk fearlessly, well-loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
Be always coming home.

—Ursula K. Leguin

PHOTOS

June 14, 2011, Tuesday, Detroit, K’s

Detroit plans, photographic and filmic:

Refinery district with special attention to tar sands oil
Water, rivers, boats, fishing
Riverfront
Auto industry, rise and fall and rise again
Urban gardening and farming
Old train station
Vacancy, novel uses like urban art gallery, go-carts,
Artists
Young adults
Night and low light
Urban landscape
Midwest feeling, home architecture

June 15, 2011, Wednesday, Detroit, K’s

Cool, probably low 50s, perfectly clear, still.

K told me about 2 fairly nearby hardware stores, south on Wyoming Ave, the first about 1 mile, an Ace store a little further. The first, named appropriately Wyoming Hardware, was closed, maybe permanently, couldn’t tell. (The nearby Arab bakery also looked closed and sealed.) The second I learned was closed for good. The men in the check cashing store where I learned this information (maybe Arab, but they didn’t acknowledge my black t-shirt, bought in Gaza, with Naji’s cartoon character and the word Palestine) informed me that the store next to theirs sold Internet cables. That store, staffed by a young white man languidly watching an old basketball game on TV, was filled with junky electronics of all sorts, radios, etc. Yes, I have a cable. $10, he said.

Searching for a store which offered key cutting, the 2 Arab men told me of a third store, near the intersection of Joy and Wyoming. Here I found the same cables for $1 each. I bought 2, 1 for K and 1 for me. Thinking, I’ll try them all, and if they all work, I’ll return the $10 cable claiming it is not suitable. Or maybe simply keep it, contribute to the local economy.

The Detroit point here is first, store closings. Second, linked with the first, lack of strong commerce. Third is good will. I find good will in Detroit everywhere I look, so far.

Contrasting with the lousy store situation is the garbage pickup, another scene in the Detroit story. The garbage crew consisted of 3 sets: first a compactor truck with an arm that lifts containers high, tilts them, and dumps the contents into the truck’s gaping belly. All done by controls in the cab by one operator. Not much future for garbage collectors. Second a standard compactor truck picks up yard waste for composting. I saw the composting facility last year, not far from the river. I watched both operations. We weren’t quite finished with trimming and collecting branches when the second truck rolled up. A man greeted us, large and black, waited patiently as we towed our bags to the truck. And finally, unseen by me, third, the final episode in this routine, another truck collected what was on the ground and not in containers—years of  family memories.

While engaged in all this, observing the interchange of neighbors, I thought, how about a series of portraits of neighbors? Begin with Gloria, then Johnny, the grandson down the street, his grandpa, and others that I might meet thru K and on my own. Before K left for Ann Arbor last night I’d intended to try this idea with her. But she is now in Ann Arbor. We promised to connect by phone once per day, I can ask her then.

Last night before leaving for Ann Arbor she brought me belatedly to a meeting at the Traffic Jam and Snug restaurant (odd name I realize) of the local chapter of a national Jewish organization working for justice and peace in Palestine-Israel. We sat in on the final minutes of an energetic planning and report meeting. BDS with respect to TIAF Cref was one theme, to join with the national call for “flash mob” actions this summer. They also discussed joining a labor rights’ organization. The 2 might join together, each supporting the other. This represents a broadening of perspectives, alliances, and actions, perhaps boding well for the future. And perhaps also part of the groundswell of grass-roots activism occurring world-wide, at least partly inspired by the Arab Spring.

Later I met Jimmy, the famous Jimmy of the Israel Committee Against Home Demolitions fame, who, he told me, is originally from Michigan, lived many years in Israel, is Jewish, moved here, and now offers himself to congregations for discussion about the situation. He is also a fellow biker. Big guy, with a black beard and wisp of an accent. I chatted with Barbara also after the meeting, learning that up to this point the FBI has not yet targeted local activists. She looked horrified when I told what had happened to Alice R, that frightening knock on her door. After she learned about my new Female in Palestine photo set she suggested I contact Alice because Alice focuses on women.

June 16, 2011, Thursday, Detroit, Karen’s

Cool, low 60s, overcast with some slight cloud definition, hazy or foggy, still. After an evening and night of light rain.

~~As I write this I observe from my front window a mid age black woman, slightly overweight, bulging butt, wander apparently aimlessly and with very little energy, down the street. Emanating lassitude, she looks dazed, perhaps drugged or drunk. She sat on the curb in front of my house, slowly lifted herself, then walked languorously away down the center of the st. She looks like she’d like to die.~~

Dreamt: with 2 friends we were at MIT hoping to catch the last lecture by a famous economist. Many gathered into a large room to be picked, not all would be able to enter the lecture hall. We sat in front, near the woman choosing. She pointedly overlooked us, even tho we waved our hands for attention. Was this because of our politics, or for more personal reasons? No resolution to this.

Later one of my friends opened a door to a huge cavernous room, bare of all furniture, echoey. Typical MIT, someone said.

House gone, foundation gone, nothing left but to fill in with dirt—yet another vacant lot

Yesterday was the bike ride, my first long ride I’ve taken on this journey to Detroit. A triangle: south on Wyoming Ave to Michigan Ave, east on Michigan to the old train depot, further east to downtown, then the hypotenuse—northwesterly on Grand River Ave. About 15 miles in 4 hours.

Aiming at the old train depot I also discovered a nearby, mostly abandoned industrial complex. A group of about 6 young folks, all white except for one black woman working by herself digging with a shovel along a driveway, were weeding small garden patches planted by a nearby church. They were part of a summer project with the word rescue in it. Mostly to offer summer camp to local youth who I assume would be black, they were novices or newly hired and given a taste of this sort of life by performing this mission—rescuing the garden from weeds.

The old train depot, officially named the Michigan Central Station—whose history I will have to research—is gargantuan. It consists of the station proper, built of stone, about 2, maybe 3 stories high, with columns, and an office complex rising above the station. Constructed from bricks, the office section soars to maybe 20 stories. Most windows are broken and I learned that the owner, Manuel (Matty) Moroun (who also owns the bridge to Canada), is replacing windows, perhaps with the objective of converting to condos. The backside of the building, presumably where it joined the tracks, was confusing. How did the tracks orient to the station? Some of the configuration might be lost by later changes and some by plants growing in, covering the original design. I managed to explore most segments of the exterior, making use of my bike mobility, and photographed extensively.

A young woman and man, she black or perhaps Asian, with very long black hair, were separately photographing the building. As I stood in front to frame a photo of the crane against the building, 2 young men approached me to ask what I knew about the depot, how to enter. They told me that many of their friends had been inside, one all the way to the roof. I spotted some graffiti. Was window breakage an inside job? I told them the little I knew—maybe condos, replacing windows—and suggested Wikipedia might be a good source of info.

Roosevelt Park joins with the station to create a large open vista. When Winkie and I drove by on Monday we spotted what looked like an archeological crew digging and sifting. A few abandoned buildings dotted the landscape. The postal service has its maintenance headquarters nearby.

Along Michigan Ave I stopped at a Goodwill store and found a bike helmet for $3. Nearby I noticed a series of adult entertainment emporia, one named Crazy House. I photographed it as a fat man conveniently lumbered by.

Reaching downtown, still on Michigan Ave, I stopped in a small shop advertising hats and shoes. Thinking they might carry a version of the skipper’s cap I’m wearing and wearing out, from China, perhaps a gift from Katy, I asked. No, nothing like that, nothing from China. I was wearing my orange biking vest, carried my helmet, had a clip around one pant leg and this must have tipped the proprietor—a black man with a Caribbean accent—to at least deduce my mode of travel if not also an aspect of my basic nature. He asked, how far are you riding? About 20 miles (later, examining the map, I scaled down my claim.) Where? I told him. He then said, I ride 30 miles every other day. Inner Detroit is best for biking, drivers respect you. Out as far as 8 Mile Road. Then they get aggressive.

How about Dearborn? I asked. Aggressive. For a long ride I’d suggest Ann Arbor, took me 5 hours round trip, to visit my son at the university. And he then outlined the route. I’m tempted, but doubtful.

When I arrived home about 5:30 pm my next door neighbor, Johnny, an ebullient soul with a long grey hair tail, asked, how far did you ride?  I told him and then added, I’d much prefer riding your horse. He seemed impressed with my mileage. He and his brother own a horse. My doc asked me not to ride this year and I’m honoring that, he stated. He didn’t explain.

McDonald’s is proving more than adequate for my Internet work (I lack it at home). It is jolly, many people meet there. I might explore photographing the patrons. Several times yesterday—the haberdasher and Johnny—I thought about the portrait series I’m contemplating. Long in gestation, maybe this is good. Or maybe I’m just shy.

June 17, 2011, Friday, Detroit, K’s

Cool, low 60s, dry, clear, still, full moon.

After a confusing planning session with my host, K, what transpired finally was a moderately long late afternoon bike ride to Dearborn and the Arab American museum, plus a stop at the New Yazmeen bakery (for a tawook sandwich and date cookies) that I’d discovered last year. The morning had been foggy and dark. As I left the house for the ride, rain fell. I retreated, donned rain gear, and headed out.

The museum is very well done, large, clearly presented. Displays show how Arabs came to America, from where, during when, how they live now, and what they’ve contributed. There is a large central indoor courtyard with displays on the periphery. Other rooms host conferences and workshops. I could imagine making a photo presentation here some day. Only a few other people were in the museum while I was there. I suspect it is not high on tourists’ lists of favored sites to see while in Detroit but it represents one of the most important developments in the city’s history.

Detroit has one of the highest concentrations in the country of Arabs. Initially drawn here by manufacturing jobs (I believe), they established a presence which drew others. With the collapse of the auto industry (and its possible rebirth) I might ask what Arabs do now for money. How linked are they to the failing economy in the nation and especially the hard hit state of Michigan?

On the way, I stopped at a Lebanese-owned bike shop in Dearborn to raise my bike seat. Equivocating, the owner finally charged me nothing, saying, if you have lots of money the charge is $2.50, if not it’s free, next time. I’d flung around a few Arabic words, shukron and marhaba, ending with masalama. This might have prompted the warm reception.

Biking off I also wondered why I’d not asked to make their portraits. Did I miss a rare opportunity? Or was something not quite right—the light, the scene, the people, the timing?

I continue to ponder the idea of a portrait series, maybe beginning with the neighborhood and spreading out. I’m not quite ready to begin. Another idea occurred to me yesterday while reading the weekly Metrotimes (which I found at the museum, nowhere else): the Eastern Market. In an interview with the director about his plans, I thought, this might be an interesting lever for showing Detroit. The market is vibrant on Saturdays, but mainly wholesale and a few tourists during the week. The director, Dan Carmody, is eager to expand operations—thru renovation of buildings, better promotion, and an improved regional food network generally. All very far-reaching and connected to urban gardening and farming. I plan to visit the market on the first possible Saturday (if not earlier), which might be 1 week off.

My photo ideas are sometimes very slow to develop. Meanwhile what do I photograph without a guiding idea?

McDonald’s heats up late morning. Yesterday, above the din of the music system, suddenly more music, submerging the existing, poured forth at increased volume. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and others. I eventually learned someone was setting up audio equipment for some sort of event, maybe connected with gospel singing. I might have stayed around to explore and possibly photograph but again I didn’t. Why not? Not quite ready. By late morning, around 11, many had left. Is this the pattern? Early morning confab, split before lunch?

TO BE CONTINUED

Shrine to murder victim, 1/2 mile from where I’m staying

LINKS

Michigan Central Train Station

Michigan Central Station: Reframing the narrative of Detroit’s grand past

Arab American Museum, Dearborn Michigan

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Midwest Tour of the Rising of the Light: Photography of Palestine & Israel

The Rising of the Light:

Photography by Skip Schiel from Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestine

October 11 – November 1, 2010

We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

—Dr Martin Luther King Jr

Apsara Warrior, by Ouk Chim Vichet, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Art Museum

I am very grateful to all who organized and hosted for me on this tour. Without them and many others I’d not be able to do the little I’ve accomplished. I am immeasurably grateful. Unfortunately, a few who promised venues did not follow thru—usually for unexplained but I’m sure understandable reasons. Maybe next time.

—Skip

The journey—intentions, problems, meaning, and achievements?

Three weeks in the Midwest, the hinterland, mostly Cleveland, Detroit, Ann Arbor Michigan, Tiffin Ohio, and Chicago and suburbs. At 2 conferences, 1 mosque, 1 Islamic high school, 2 public high schools, 1 neighborhood center, and 2 Friends meetings. Details here.  Showing Dismantling the Matrix of Control, Gaza Steadfast, and The Hydropolitics of Israel-Palestine, also with the photo exhibitions, Gaza is Home to 1.5 Million Human Beings: How Do They Live? and Living Female in a Zone of Conflict. To approximately 600 people in live audiences, including children as young as 7 years and elders older than me—and an unknown number at former, current and future exhibitions.

Gaza and Living Female exhibits at AFSC Chicago

My tour organizer and I found fewer venues than we’d anticipated, perhaps our lack of Midwest contacts or the economy or poor timing. At some venues, notably in Cleveland, the audiences were small (10-15 people) and relatively quiet. While in others, the 2 conferences and the Friends meeting, audiences were larger (100-200) and seemed more engaged. People frequently encouraged me to return.

The audiences were mostly welcoming, with a few exceptions—someone at a mosque misinterpreted my Gaza slide show to be siding with Israel, propounding its point of view. A man shut down that show. Later several participants from the mosque apologized and told me this man did not speak for their community. In addition a Jewish adversary from the Boston area, long critical of me, sent a letter to key leaders of a suburban community claiming I was partisan against Israel and worse. The high school at which I was to appear canceled my presentation. Local organizers felt this was not in response to the letter, but to what they thought were my slanted views displayed without sufficient context. No easy road—threading thru a tortured terrain.

I’ve lost friends and supporters as I’ve photographically engaged with Palestine/Israel. And I’ve gained many new ones, especially on this last tour.

Not to take sides is to effectively weigh in on the side of the stronger.

—William Sloan Coffin, Credo

I connected with various people in the progressive Jewish movement who are in the forefront of Jewish activism about Palestine/Israel. I co-presented with Mark Braverman (author of Fatal Embrace, Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land, highly recommended) in Tiffin OH, Rabbi Michael Davis in Downers Grove IL, and Rabbi Brant Rosen (co-founder of Fast for Gaza and the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace) of the Evanston Illinois Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation. The Chicago regional office of the American Friends Service Committee’s Mideast program honored Rabbi Rosen, Shirien Damra (a Muslim American graduate student organizer for Palestinian rights), and me with their annual Inspiration for Hope award.

Zionism always was, despite strategically motivated denials and brief flirtations with other objectives [e.g., bi-nationalism], an attempt to establish Jewish sovereignty over Palestine. This project was illegitimate. Neither history nor religion, nor the sufferings of Jews in the Nazi era, sufficed to justify it. It posed a mortal threat to the Palestinians, and it left no room for meaningful compromise. Given that the Palestinians had no way to overcome Zionism peacefully, it also justified some form of violent resistance.

—Neumann, Michael: The Case Against Israel

The Muslim and Arab communities are on the rise, organizing and participating in events like mine, and boldly speaking out against injustices in Palestine/Israel. Potentially they form a funding and political bloc which could influence the course of events in the Mideast.

Various activists housed and fed me, treating me to tours of their regions. Hospitality seemed limitless, as did love, commitment, and appreciation. Hosts and organizers taught me about issues local to their region, and what’s being done. For example, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor I attended what I call The Red Shirt Affair, a dramatic opposition to a campaign by Israel to rebrand itself by sending current and former soldiers to campuses to propound views supportive of Israel. (Photos here, included in part 1 and part 2 of a 2 part series of my photos from the trip. )

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

As if riding thru neighborhoods and homes on a railroad train, I sampled lives as I tunneled thru.

A highlight was exploring my hometown of Chicago—childhood on the Southside and high school years in the northwest suburb of Arlington Heights. Roots and influences. A rich heritage. I hope to return soon to this vibrant and often overlooked sector of the nation.

Security officer, Cabrini Green, Chicago

Confirming the observations of others in the United States, I’ve noticed a shift in perception about Palestine/Israel. People are more willing to criticize Israel, demand the application of international law, understand the complicity of the United States government in fostering the oppression, and most importantly (thanks in large part to Mark Braverman) realize that the silence of the Christian church community enables Mideast horrors to continue. As evidenced by the people I’ve mentioned, Jews and Muslims and Arabs play a major role in this perceptual and activist shift, standing up for human rights despite the opprobrium this generates in their own communities.

Prison, Detroit

My temporary neighborhood in Detroit

My main hope for this journey was to broadcast as widely as possible my images and stories collected over the past 7 years, enhancing the struggle for Palestinian dignity, human rights, and justice, while acknowledging the suffering and rights of Jews and others in that region. And to do this by concentrating on international law, holding accountable all parties in the conflict.

Both Israel and Hamas have failed to meet their obligations under international law to conduct credible and independent investigations [into the assault on Gaza by Israel named Operation Cast Lead from late 2008 to early 2009]. “The Human Rights Council must therefore assess these domestic proceedings and report accordingly to the UN General Assembly and Security Council,” said [Wilder Tayler, Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists]. “The Security Council must take concrete and robust measures to ensure accountability for the perpetrators and justice for victims, and to this end consider the options at its disposal to break the cycle of impunity prevalent in this conflict, including by referring the situation in Gaza to the International Criminal Court,” concluded Tayler.

—International Commission of Jurists, September 2010

Now I bear down on plans for another trip: Gaza for 6 weeks, mainly to teach photography thru the AFSC and to make photos, in the context of a movie being made about Gaza and my photographic work there.

I’ll be blogging and posting photos on my website, so please consider signing up for the Levant list below if you’ve not already.

Levant email list: please write skipschiel (at) gmail (dot) com with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

Website: teeskaphoto.org

Articles:

Conference seeks to clarify Israeli, Palestinian hostilities, by MaryAnn Kromer

Cleveland Report: Space for Everyone… “New Jim Crow & 4 Apartheids” by Kim Hall

Video: Students stage intense, silent, nonviolent protest as IDF soldier appears at University of Michigan in PR campaign (“The Red Shirt Affair”)

Article about “The Red Shirt Affair” in the Arab American News, Ann Arbor M

Tour Prospectus

The prophets do not offer reflections about ideas in general. Their words are onslaughts, scuttling illusions of false security, challenging evasions, calling faith to account, questioning prudence and impartiality.

—Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets

Morton Arboretum, Downers Grove IL

All we want is to be ordinary.

—Mohmoud Darwish, the late Palestinian poet

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Detroit-part 15 (conclusion-arriving in Detroit, first impressions)

Excerpts from my journal while in Detroit, moving backwards (not always), last to first.

About deindustrialization, depopulation, residential and commercial vacancy, corruption of capitalism—and the rise of urban gardens, local resistance and activist organizations—ending with news about the US Social Forum, Allied Media Conference, and the first public national gathering of anti-Zionist Jews in the United States.

In several parts, with periodic photos and videos.

I who shall never come back
and have never returned
continue my journey
inside the holocaust:
though the blood
races on
through my veins
I shall never arrive
at my selfhood within.

—Pablo Naruda, from Shadow

 

June 18, 2010, Friday, Detroit, home of KD

Arriving at the Detroit Amtrak station early morning yesterday, 1.5 hrs late on the Lakeshore Limited, Karen met me as planned.

First, impressions of Detroit, largely gained from talking with Karen, driving around with her last night on our way to a small jazz club, and examining briefly the neighborhood she lives in. Well, doesn’t exactly live in: inherited from her parents, buying her siblings out, she now maintains the house with vague hopes of forming a group house.

The city sprawls, laid out as Karen told me, by the automakers to require private cars. When she grew up here—in this same house, owned not only by her parents but by her grandparents, and partially renovated by her grandfather who, with the house, left her his tools—the public transport system worked well. And earlier yet, Detroit was known as the Paris of the West, or something like that. Trees, gardens, boulevards, palatial homes.

In some city parts, perhaps near downtown, or the East Market area, large swaths of land are vacant and overgrown with grasses and weeds. When I had a photo exhibit here in the late 1990s with Billy Ledger about the Auschwitz to Hiroshima pilgrimage, I remember finding open plots like these. So they date back to an era before the complete demise of the auto industry—or nearly complete. Karen told me Ford is doing well, a privately owned company, making some wise decisions to anticipate the crash.

Music is strong in Detroit, judging from what Karen told me and what we saw last night at the club. Every Thursday is open mike, with a backup band led by her friend Bill Myer on the keyboards, a drummer and a standup base player. All very good. And all the performers who joined them last night, most of them unknown to the band, never having played with them before, were excellent—the vibraphonist, guitarist, bass guitarist, singers, trumpeter, and flutist. A stunning array of talent all for the cover price of $3 plus drinks and food.

Detroit huddles along a river, Canada just on the other side, within swimming distance. Dearborn touches Detroit and houses a large Arab Muslim community. Karen treated me to a lunch at Al Alameer (meaning the prince), chicken shuwarma over a spinach salad, followed by strong Arabic coffee (for me, Mountain Dew for her), and rice pudding. We stopped in the Dearborn library for Internet and when emerging found that our car was trapped. A crew was erecting facilities for Arab Days, a 3-day long celebration of Arab culture, the 15^th year. Detroit has a comparable celebration, Arab Detroit.

On the way into the Al Alameer, I noticed a man picking up a newspaper in Arabic, rightly guessed he’d know the meaning of al alameer. He then launched into a heated discussion about Americans being blind toward the conflict in Israel and Palestine, Karen and I nodding in complete agreement. Not so much a discussion but a lecture into which we fought to insert our awareness and activism on the issue.

We had a grand time together at the jazz club, and last night before turning in, we scouted the various possibilities at the 3 conferences that are opening up to us. We share a great deal, not only Israel-Palestine, but Anne R, Quakers, the inner city, art (she paints and draws), walking, nature, fixing her house (I helped her turn on the hot water, change storms to screens, clean out the gutter), etc.

June 17, 2010, Thursday, on the train nearing Toledo Ohio

A rotten night sleeping on the train: crowded, sharing the seat with a young black man who talked with a white woman friend across the aisle till late, a very obese woman tending a whining child, the woman, not the mother, with a loud hacking cough sounding tubercular, and my usual aches and pains from trying to sleep in such a confined space. But one dream that I recall: a young man whom I’d just met asked me to vouch for him so he could apply for an entry permit to this country. I wanted to help, then thought—maybe in consultation with others—that this would not be smart. He might be a terrorist. And I told him that, to his obvious disappointment.

More later when I have a chance, the train is about to land in Toledo.

DONE (FOR NOW)

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Detroit-part 14 (Allied Media Conference, Hurricane Season, Assembly of Anti Zionist Jews )

Excerpts from my journal while in Detroit, moving backwards (not always), last to first.

About deindustrialization, depopulation, residential and commercial vacancy, corruption of capitalism—and the rise of urban gardens, local resistance and activist organizations—ending with news about the US Social Forum, Allied Media Conference, and the first public national gathering of anti-Zionist Jews in the United States.

In several parts, with periodic photos and videos.

Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares
she raises her voice.
At the busiest corners she cries out;
at the entrance to the City gates she speaks.

—Proverbs 1:20-21

June 20, 2010, Sunday, Detroit, home of KD

One major epiphany during the Allied Media Conference workshops yesterday: the parallel between the Wounded Knee massacre and the Nakba . Both were pivotal events in the history of the peoples affected, both were deeply meaningful to me, and I suffered neither of them.

This came to me during the indigenous workshops that described the first-ever US indigenous delegation to Israel-Palestine. The official title was Palestine is Turtle Island, Indigenous Organizing to End the Occupation. Last August a group of youth connected with Haskell University in Kansas, once a notoriously punishing American Indian school, saw the parallels between Indians in this country and Palestinians. They met with comparable youth in Palestine and now are hoping to connect with similar groups in this country, namely PEP, the Palestine Education Project. And indeed, this was the source of their insight. They’d attended a PEP workshop last year, inspired by what they learned. The story of the occupation spreads.

Earlier I’d attended a workshop called “Hurricane Season: Unearthing Solutions in an Era of Unnatural Disaster,” which brought me close up to the two women who’d performed the night before at the plenary. They performed more excerpts from the piece called Hurricane Season: the Hidden Messages in Water, traveling to 50 cities across the US with an all women crew. As I wrote X, this was among the best photo presentations I’ve ever seen. I am simultaneously intimidated and inspired. I videoed portions of it, hoping to include also the section with narration by Arundhati Roy—which I was unable to do.

The 2 performers, Alixa and Naima, the soul-sister duo known collectively as Climbing Poetree, ended by inviting people to connect via a rope—say what you’re doing for justice and grab a section of rope. One initiated the rope net by stating what he was doing providing free medical services, another chimed in about a free food service project, etc, until about 10 people were linked together. I thought of adding my volunteer work in Israel-Palestine, but deferred to youth so they could tell their stories.

Continuing the array of exciting workshops I attended was Our Hearts are Bigger Than Their Maps, presented by PEP based in Brooklyn. This is a group of largely high school youth who offer workshops that demonstrate the parallels between life in American cities and life in the Occupied Territories of Palestine. Especially centered on prisons. We were invited to form a prison machine, made by individuals miming some aspect of the prison, such as control, cement, noise. I met again Carlos who I spoke with later about visiting the Brooklyn high school where they work, thinking on one of my trips to visit family I can drop by the school. I videoed portions of this workshop, when folks wrote on large paper what they could do without, and what they needed, such as injustice for the first and fairness for the second.

For the opening workshop I arrived late, How Social Media can Amplify Palestinian Voices and Support the Global Movement for BDS (Boycott-Divestment-Sanction). I remet the woman from American Muslims for Palestine as she and 2 others from Jewish Voice for Peace laid out action plans for supporting the BDS movement.

In each workshop I was moved and learned a great deal. In the BDS workshop I was moved to tears during a series of videoed interviews with University of California Berkeley students working for divestment, especially when Jews were shown, so heartful and honest and courageous.

On the bus to the center of Detroit, from where I was staying to the Conference, I finally realized I could make a video showing the vacant lots, empty store fronts, wide streets (perhaps planned to encourage auto use), and the people who inhabit these areas, largely black and poor. So I made one long take out the window, with a dim reflection showing passengers. I continued this and heard, nearly missed hearing, a discussion between a passenger and the driver about Grand Boulevard, my connecting stop. Good grief, this is my stop! Forgetting to turn the camera off I continued videoing as I confirmed with the driver that this was the connection with the Dexter Ave bus and where to catch it. Just in time, all on video.

By now, as I suggested to Karen, I’m becoming an expert on some sections of Detroit. Just in time to leave. Altho since I’m committed to nearly 3 weeks in or around Motown, I have a few more days to build and demonstrate my expertise. Meeting Karen at the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network assembly, we drove home together, a ride of about 15 minutes, compared with 1 hour by bus in the morning when all is well, and 3 hours at night when all is not well.

Accepting a general invitation from the Media Conference organizers to “dump” our video and photo files for their later use, I visited the media lab. Participants were building small output radio transmitters, learning how to make music via computer, editing videos, and one, me, was dumping files. How these will be used, whether these will be used are questions I cannot answer. In the spirit of sharing and trust, I donate my work.

By contrast with the Media Conference and its spirited use of popular education teaching principles—interactive, engaging, fun, lively, sharing wisdom and knowledge—the 2010 US Assembly of Jews Confronting Racism and Israeli Apartheid used, at least last night for its opening session, that old banking model. This is the top down, lecture mode: assemble a group of experts who will impart their knowledge to a relatively empty vessel, you and me. As thrilled as I am to be a small part of the first-ever such assembly, an historic occasion no doubt, after the buzz of the Media Conference, last night’s Assembly was dull.

But I learned a few things: Barbara Lubin, co-founder and director of MECA, the Middle East Children’s Alliance, is Jewish and not happy with Jewish-only organizations working on Israel-Palestine. I’m not sure why, maybe because the spread should be wider, as evidenced by MECA. Someone else compared snowflakes to diligent activism: snowflakes are virtually weightless, but when enough of them land and collect on a tree limb they can break it. Same with popular movements. The Israel Lobby has alerted its membership to the activity of this Assembly and the Assembly organizers have taken steps to prevent trouble, namely, organizing a group of peacekeepers and keeping tight security. Registration is required and all must wear their nametags. Those wishing not to be identified wear orange stickers on their nametags.

But beyond all this, the picture laid out by Mich Levy, formerly of Israel apparently—about the fact of Zionism being racist, that the Assembly is not going to debate Zionism, the anti Zionist struggle is part of a larger struggle against colonialism and imperialism, and action is the main theme—was comprehensive and itself—despite my reservations about the banking model—educational and powerful. I’d like to read it again, delve into its superb analysis.

The constituency differed also, from that of the Media Conference. Older, whiter, more conservatively dressed, but with the same presence of young daring vibrant women, probably many of them gay. Short hair predominated, across the age spectrum. As was true at the Media Conference. The young women are bucking the fashion of long, blow-dried hair prevailing with their peers.

Later, after KD and I had met, feeling the same mild zing with her that I felt and reported earlier, as if a dear long term friend I’ve known for decades, growing up together, fitting naturally together, not necessarily a romantic sexual partnership, we together, almost a couple, met Rick and his 4 friends, including Grove. We are all together in Karen’s house, me at the early hour of 5:30 AM, at the moment apparently the only one awake and working. Once again not much sleep, no nap, little food, the usual pattern for a conference, a fine opportunity to ditch my routine and not be so damned bored.

Today, the final day of the Media Conference, I’ve chosen to continue attending the Conference, despite my draw to the Anti Zionist Assembly, partly to attend certain workshops that appeal, such as the video conference between American Indian and Palestine youth, also to continue forging new relationships with fellow travelers. One of the benefits of staying with the Israel-Palestine theme in choosing workshops and events is I see the same people over and over and begin to form alliances. As with Carlos, for instance, and renew friendships, with Dunya and Hannah for other examples. Then the closing ceremony and I shall attempt to find my colleagues later at the Jewish Assembly.

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKS

International Jewish Anti Zionist Network statement

Hurricane Season: the Hidden Messages in Water (link may not work)

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