the produce section

i'm going on a field trip tonight. actually, it's a more of a repopulation program--the fruits and such have been radio tagged and are ready to be re-released into the grocery store. oh, and also, if i'm not in studio tuesday morning, it's because the east side marketplace management took exception to my decision to put my own chicken dinner in their chicken dinner freezer. what's mine is theirs, i say.

oh, and don't forget:

The start of something beautiful

I saw this dream machine, and it was love at first sight; I just had to have it. Epitomized somewhere deep within its carcinogenic bowels is the notion of the American Dream; that you can have your cake and eat it too. Culture? Yes of course it's there - it's for tea! I never really needed a cart to drink tea before, but thought I'd get this for just in case. Who knows, maybe I'll really like it and like tea and carts, and throw this cart away when something bigger and better rolls around. I heard that the Benjamins just got a cart after seeing mine. It may already be time to accessorize. Cultural tradition my a$%! It's all about having the biggest and the best!

A few Detroit Links

Broken Detroit: Death of a City Block
The Detroit News - 2001

With this five-day series, The Detroit News launches a continuing examination of why Detroit has inadequate services, a shrinking population and vast tracts of abandoned or vacant property. The first installment, what went wrong on Elmhurst shows why our neighborhoods struggle while other cities' revive and thrive. A second installment will examine obstacles to change and a third installment will look at solutions for reviving Detroit.
Part 1:White exodus - In a panic, working-class Jewish residents flee the block on Elmhurst and blacks move in.
Part 2: Unrest and decline - The neighborhood thrives until the riots ruin businesses and property values plummet.
Part 3: Crime and abandonment - Crime sweeps in, people abandon property and buildings are torn down.
Part 4: Lost block - Abandoned buildings haunt the block and city government is overwhelmed.
Part 5: Life among ruins - During the Archer years, residents struggle to improve their neighborhood.

*Check out the 'Snapshot of Elmhurst' for each of the 5 parts which show the changes to this one block over the decades

Video - Detroit: City on the Move - 1965
Promotional film made for the City of Detroit, an unsuccessful bidder for the Olympic Games. With views of city highways, automobile manufacturing, a diverse population, and social activities, all shot prior to the city's economic decline.



Video - Renaissance Center - early 1970s
Proposal promoting the construction of the Renaissance Center



Video - Renaissance Center - mid 1970s
Groundbreaking of Renaissance Center and optimistic vision for the future of Detroit with its completion. As a bonus it has some sweet 70s tunes.

Audio Podcast - Shrinking Cities exhibit at MoCAD (Smart City Radio)
Also with us is Marsha Miro, acting director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, which is opening a new exhibition this month about shrinking cities worldwide. Marsha previously taught art history at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and has numerous books and a film on Cranbrook to her credit.
We'll talk about the challenges cities face in moving people and managing population shrinkage this week on Smart City (2/1/2007).

SkyMall Collage and Doomsday Capsule

I have been collaging images of products, people and the lifestyle promoted in the SkyMall catalogue while trying to arrange them densely in a way that ties them together to narrate the SkyMall ideal family/consumer. Almost all of the products are either for storage, comfort & ease, portraying an image particularly of a 'successful' suburban family, a sense of safety/paranoia or recreation.

Taking these key elements of SkyMall, my next step is to create a SkyMall product that incorporates all of them, namely a sealed escape family doomsday shelter/capsule for scares, emergences or when the world ends. This would be placed in a living room of a house and disguised by a built-in book shelf on its exterior providing needed storage, the interior would be very comfy with lots of fun gadgets and gizmos to play with (from SkyMall of course) and it would be made with easy maintainance materials like PVC. Then presumably when a problem occurs the family would retreat into the capsule, seal themselves in and wait it out in comfort and safety.