Time Travel Travelogue #1: Aisha's Journey (as List)

Tucson. Wichita. St. Louis. Detroit

1. I throw away a full container of lukewarm milk at the gas station just before we get on the 10 to leave Tucson. My dad threatens to fish it back out. This cross-country journey is off to a great start.
2. A two hour long car jam in Phoenix is spent listening to Outkast sing "Spottieottiedopalicious." I say, "Dad listen to this lyric. Did you hear it? Let's hear it again. I mean, this is brilliant. Don't you think? Did you hear it?"
3. Hundreds of miles later, dad ejects the Outkast CD from the player while uttering, "Ooooooh kay then." We are floating through the dark down a near-empty highway out of Texas, toward Oklahoma. Headlights appear alone at the top of a hill in the rearview, and the curve of the road is coasting up behind us like we are a dipper in the sky. Dad puts in a CD of his own. Opera plays with windows open while red lights skinny as acupuncture needles flash on and off outside some sort of factory or plant to the left.
4. Lovely late night poolside walk with the dog around a cheeeeeeeeeeeeap motel with caution tape "decorating" the thin metal posts that are, I think, keeping it standing.
   
5. Wichita? We don't talk about that.
   
6. My father speaks of meeting and not meeting the photographers he admires near Parisian parks and in Manhattan high rises when the men were at the end of their lives. The topic of our conversations is often mortality.
   
7. Late lunch at an outdoor restaurant in St. Louis. As the dog splashes around in the koi pond, we see actual groups of real black people for the first time. The meal is a ridiculous extravagance: blue cheese and steak sandwich for me, a savory crepe and beer for dad. Why? Because of the chemical smell of gas station food we were being poisoned by.
   
8. Pushing it, we drive through Chicago after midnight with three hours to go...
9. In the middle of the night we get to Kalamazoo and are rewarded by the first gas station thus far to sell the New York Times.
10. The city is quiet. An empty, yellow tunnel turns into Jefferson and we are blocks away from the first house my father bought, where my mother waits.
    

Six Words

One way we like to think of Detroit Ho! is as a "resignification" project. Remember all those Henry Louis Gates Jr. articles about the signifyin' monkey from your undergrad thesis research? Don't worry, we won't get into all that theory.

But...

We want to plumb the subconscious minds of everyone we can and take some samples, maybe leave behind some experimental treatments. What are the synapses in your brain that are touching the word "Detroit" connected to? Poverty? Gardens? Peacocks? Greek food? We want to know. We also hope, with every intention of being manipulative, to get down in there and add "photography" and "sculpture" and "literary reading" to the web of associations. The power of impression is strong, and if the whole country-- nay, world!-- started to feel creatively inspired when they thought of Detroit (instead of using it as a punchline for cynical jokes) who knows what kind of innovative energy could waft Detroit-ward?

As a part of our not-so-technical research process, we've found that most of the associations that people currently have with Detroit are pretty apocalyptic. Even if they are beautifully so. For example, at a panel on "Writing Other People's Stories" at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference (AWP) in Denver last month, Jo Ann Beard spoke about the two essays she's written since The Boys of My Youth. One is "Werner" (read it!) and the other "Undertaker Please Drive Slow." Beard said: "Cheri T drove her mother to Detroit to Jack Kevorkian and he euthanized her. This is another kind of mother/daughter story. Take your mother to the arms of death and drive away."

The presence of Detroit in this narrative isn't negligible. It helps create the sense of despair that makes the story so inexcusably painful. It would sound different if Cheri T had driven her mother to Brooklyn or Los Angeles or Tucson to die. Wouldn't it? Detroit has become a kind of metaphor for the shoreline of the river Styx.

At our recent auction, we asked people to write a "six word short story" that takes place Detroit and put it in a jar. This is somewhat inspired by all that NPR reportage on the six word memoir, and by the Ernest Hemingway story: "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn." And by magnetic poetry and collage and whatever else. Pablo Picasso.

It turns out that people's associations, while the dominant mood of them may be grim, have novels-worth of feeling behind them. For example:

• Anguish. Passion. Growing up in mud.
• Tiger's game. Parking. Wisest little brother.
• Newstory: a missing girl. Dogtown, Quarry.
• My mom in dumpsters, retainer found.

Want to add one? Comment to this post! Even if you don't leave your name, please say where you are from. Help us create a map or catalog of associations, to chart the city's resonance in the collective unconsciousness. And perhaps, slowly, resignify.

Detroit Summer Nights Art Auction: The Artists

Art has been pouring in for this Saturday's art auction! (Scroll down for details). Here are some of the bios of artists who have donated thus far:

Rachelle Diaz: Except for a stint in Florence, Italy, Rachelle has been a Texas resident her entire life, in big cities and bucolic wide-spots-in-the-road alike. She has worked with DiverseArts Culture Works, served as art director for Austin Downtown Arts magazine and The BackWord online magazine, and was a founding member of Pump Project Art Complex. She recently moved from Austin, Texas to Tucson, Arizona where she works from her home studio as a graphic designer and enjoys doing visual art and fashion design in her spare time. Currently, she is producing paintings on vintage fabric and recycled fabrics incorporating embroidery and puff paint. She is also the diva behind Tu Scene, Tucson's premiere art blog.


Lisa Lennon: A commercial photographer and horticulturalist, Lisa currently lives in Tucson via Austin, Texas. She shoots landscapes, architecture and engineering projects.



Emily Yetman: An Arizona metal artist, Emily designs jewelry that enhances "the perfect curves, lyrical forms, and sensual lines that are the human figure." She takes inspiration from the texture of the desert landscape, using "stones and minerals to connect with the body on an emotional level." She is currently earning an MA in Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona.


Carl Hughes is the founder of Hughes Moto Art. According to his website, it was a passion for art and motorcycles that led him to pick up an airbrush in the early 90's. For the next few years his airbrush skills were honed and his knowledge of automotive paints and materials grew. Earning a little extra money and experience custom painting motorcycles while going to school, eventually Carl graduated from the University of Arizona with a BFA. In Phoenix, he had an opportunity to be the art director for one of the nation's largest and most reputable custom paint shops.

Scout Phillips: Self-described cowboi and bike riding ninja, Scout likes to draw and ride unicorns. He currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Ilyea Olsen recently began meditating.

Monica Weinheimer is a painter and an acrobat. She can be seen spinning from pieces of silk hung from the ceiling during performances by the Tucson dance troupe, Zuzi.

Kristin van Fleet worked on organic farms for seventeen years before enrolling in the Landscape Architecture program at the University of Arizona. She plays soccer and is going to France this summer to start up a garden.


Adam Frumhoff is a carpenter, musician, and bike mechanic who is converting an ice cream truck into a house.


TC Tolbert is a genderqueer, feminist poet and teacher committed to social justice. S/he earned his MFA in Poetry from the UA in 2005 and currently teaches Composition at Pima Community College. TC is the Assistant Director of Casa Libre en la Solana and is a member of Movement Salon, a compositional improvisation group in Tucson. S/he is a collective member of Read Between the Bars, a books-to-prisoners program, and s/he spends his summers leading wilderness trips for Outward Bound.


Daisy Pitkin lives in Arizona, grew up on a farm in Ohio, and at fourteen coerced her friends to read "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on a roof. Her job as a union organizer kept her moving around the world, and for ten years she rarely spent more than five days in the same place. For the last several months she has been mastering the mysterious art of photography and photography-related processes. She will be a candidate for an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Arizona this coming Fall.


Lester Sloan: After teaching himself to develop photographs at the age of nine, Lester became the first African American cameraman at Detroit's CBS TV station. He worked as a staff photographer for Newsweek magazine for over twenty years, covering assignments in the Southwest, Mexico and Central America. He served as a contributing editor at Emerge Magazine and as a contributing essayist at National Public Radio's Weekend Edition; he currently blogs for the Huffington Post. He is also the owner of the house where the First Annual Seminole Street Artist's Colony and Exhibition will take place this summer.


Leila Ruth Sarah Simpson is a 3rd grade GATE student at Lineweaver Elementary School. Her talents include reading, writing, making art, gymnastics and magical thinking. One of Leila's many goals is to open a sanctuary for abused animals with a clothing boutique and a cafe on the premises. Leila has an older brother, Brian, and two pets: Sophie the dog and Hermione the hamster.

Laura Milkins earned an MFA in Visual Art from the University of Arizona, and most recently completed a Fulbright Scholarship by crossing all of Mexico City on foot in the company of strangers and their stories. Since 1993, she has shown her work in Boston, Portland, Maine, Grand Rapids, MI and Tucson. Prior to settling in Arizona, Laura traveled to Europe, Asia and South America, documenting the experience through email with text and drawings. Laura has worked in a variety of media from traditional painting and drawing to mattresses and altered books. Her current work seeks to create community and engagement by involving the viewer in the art making process.

Amanda Sapir defends Gabrielle Giffords from flying bricks by day, is an art therapist by night, and is also, somehow, getting a masters degree in her spare time. She can do a killer (whale) Powerpoint that will make you laugh and cry.


Emily Feingold lives here in Tucson, where she has been blissfully taking refuge from northeastern weather for nearly three years. Leaving her full-time job this year has afforded her time and energy to devote to art, which has taken the form of portraits in pencil and charcoal. Since January, she has drawn around twenty portraits and intends to keep it up.

Logan Byers grew up on an ice boat in a remote location surrounded by water for most of the year. She currently resides in Tucson, where she learned to draw from a desert tortoise named Tank.

Aisha Sloan first learned about photography from her photojournalist father as a teenager, but never got into all that technical stuff so calls herself a "multimedia" artist to explain away all those blurs and scratches. She studied printmaking, video art and New Media at NYU, where she earned an MA in Cultural Studies and Studio Art, and rode in an elevator with Ashley Olsen. She will be in Detroit this summer, interviewing her father on the sun porch over coffee.

Sarah Donnelly's brain is a fish net knit by the nymph Calypso after her infamous affair with Odysseus. The net disappeared from Coast Guard radar once when it was carried to Antarctica by a school of renegade sharks. After a raucous time fishing up sushi for Somali pirates, Sarah's brain now contains infrared maps of an ancient, buried civilization which may or may not be a metaphor for the future of mankind. Spelled backwards and translated into Farsi, her name means the distance between Saturn's cutest moons.





Andy Steinbrink - While the majority of the drawings created by the American Apparel staff are, shall we say, obsessively "anatomical," the print that will be featured this weekend makes a direct critique of the kind of workplace malaise endemic to the modern American workforce.


Patsy Gelb was born in 1987 to a couple of working musicians. Her parents separated and then traveled throughout her childhood, bringing Patsy along for many tours. Left to her own imagination, Patsy spent most of her spare time drawing and looking at bird books. Home base was the hot valley of Tucson, Arizona where Patsy completed grade school. She began studying at the University of Arizona for a few years before migrating north to Portland, Oregon where she now attends the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA). It is there that she discovered printmaking, which among other things has become a versatile medium for her work to grow from.

Giddy Up!

Detroit Ho! is preparing for our May 8th art auction, which will feature fine art, piano jazz by Del y los Pecados de Amor, Memphis Soul by Club de Veste de Jean, a trike raffle and more. We'll be holding the event at the Boxing Gym (click for a map) in Barrio Anita. Tell all your art collector friends! Keep an eye out around town for our poster, and be sure to have loud conversations about how amazing the event will be whenever you're in public. We will be collecting art up until May 4th, so if you'd like to donate, contact us at airtrain@gmail.com. In the meantime, take a look at some of the posters and tee-shirts you'll be able to buy! This new image was created for us by Portland designer Philip Iosca:


Please note: there will be a huge variety of artists donating to this auction, from established photojournalists with matted 8 x 10 work prints (of a young Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Jackson and Elton John) to MFA candidates working on their theses at the University of Arizona. This will be an excellent opportunity to get very high quality art for a low cost. And a good cause!

Hope to see you there...

Colbert Makes the Connection: Arizona/Detroit

On Friday, Jan Brewer signed a bill into law that allows police to question "suspected illegal immigrants" for their papers, inspiring a great deal of furor among Tucsonans. It is a common first instinct for many of us recently-arrived young folks to say that it's time to leave when such things happen. But after years of thinking that Arizona's red politics (and its SOLE art house theater and its completely illogical tanning salons and its bleached blond sorority sisters and its 3% black population) would eventually prompt me to leave, I am starting to feel more aware of just how many people around here aren't as divorced from reality as our Martian-like politicians.

At the restaurant where I work, for example, my co-workers used their breaks from work to grab (free) "Legalize Arizona" tee shirts across the street at American Apparel, to the delight of our customers. And as I walked the dog yesterday morning, I listened to speeches at Congressman Raul Grijalva's headquarters against the Immigration Enforcement Bill, and felt a buzz in the air. Brewer's naive, bizarre step in the direction of fascism has, like any natural disaster, started to bring folks together:






While it's been my temptation to abandon this town, (and I am going to Detroit for a break soon, obviously) there is something satisfying about sticking around, and helping a new culture-- one that is compassionate, culturally diverse, and artistically dynamic-- manifest itself. I'm starting to consider being the antithesis of bi-coastal. Being bi-Tucson/Detroit-al. Spending time in two places that are becoming America's most unfortunate. I mean, c'mon, what's so great about having low self-esteem in Brooklyn when you can walk around knowing that you have more degrees than Arizona's governor?

That said, I can't blame people for wanting to escape racial profiling, deportation and a general air of harassment. But if everybody leaves, what will be left? Stephen Colbert likened the Arizona of the future to "a very dry Detroit." After all, it only took a couple of crooked politicians to help hurtle Detroit toward it's current state. One possible solution could be to give these tired Arizona politicians a chance to relax in one of the Sonoran desert's many spas while somebody else (as my friend Dallas has suggested, those "crystal-yoga women in Sam Hughes who walk their dogs at 4AM") tries to fix our dismal economic/educational situation. There are PLENTY of folks in Tucson who actually have a college degree, unlike Gov. Brewer.

Saturday Night Movie at Shakespeare and Co.

This weekend, Detroit Ho! will host Saturday Night Movie at Shakespeare and Co. In addition to showing a documentary, we will be selling used books, handmade Detroit-themed posters, and freshly silk-screened tee-shirts.


Why "at Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore"?

OK. It's actually at Logan's house in Tucson. BUT, we can pretend. In 1919, Sylvia Beach started the Shakespeare and Company Bookstore in Paris, with the help of her girlfriend Adrienne. It became a base for English speaking writers like Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Beach is perhaps best known because she took the risk to publish James Joyce's Ulysses, despite the fact that she had little experience as a publisher. Beach's store is a fantastic example of the Do-It-Yourself mentality embraced by Detroit Ho!... and of what our summer is going to look like! A handful of lesbians brainstorming on beg-bug-ridden couches. I am only kidding. There are no bed-bugs in Detroit.

When I was sixteen, my dad and I spent the summer in Paris, and five days out of seven were spent at the Shakespeare bookstore. We sat upstairs listening to Mary Louise tell stories about raising her family in a tent in Italy as she puff-painted portraits of Shakespeare onto black tee-shirts. We ate Chinese food down the street with a group of ex-pats and listened to Finnish poetry. We tried time and time again to get the owner, George (featured topless below), to crack a smile. Artists and writers from all over the world exchanged a few hours at the register for a bed in the apartments above the store. It was one of the first artistic communities I witnessed, and one I'd very much like to emulate in Detroit this summer.

Here are some pictures from that trip (to be superimposed onto the images that come to mind when you think of Detroit):

Tucson Artists!

On May 8th, Detroit Ho! is hosting an art auction: Detroit Summer Nights. There will be piano jazz, a trike raffle, and much much more. Perhaps you'd like to consider donating a piece of art to our fundraiser! Or you have an artist friend you'd like to tell. If so, contact Logan at airtrain@gmail.com or Aisha at sloanish@gmail.com. The deadline to donate is May 4th.