Visiting Detroit
Imagining Detroit
spring 2009


Looking up?

I really doubt I agree with country singer John Rich's politics, but his song "Shuttin' Detroit Down" hits a vein. The images are real, the anger is real. The twang is real. And the song is unusually activist for a genre that usually talks about love, swigging beer and bailing hay. Here's the video. Worth it for the images and for the novelty factor:


I spent last week in Detroit. I twittered from a bus full of 7th graders and radical activists planning the 2010 US Social Forum. I argued with locals that corporations could indeed be a force for progress and "good". I met angry poets toughing it out for decades in the streets. I ate at Avalon Bread, which is one of the first "social enterprises" I'd ever read about. I stayed in the third floor of the artist mansion Trumbullplex with an old friend. I sat in a circle with 94 year old activist Grace Lee Boggs and listened to that Chinese-American tell stories to the inner city kids of her 40+ years in the city and why she thinks Detroit is a City of Hope. I tried to retrace my roots to that crumbling, forgotten city....and I discovered that the place is alive.

Detroits plains gardens are blooming. Artists are moving in from all around. Detroit's music is thriving, even 50 years after Motown. And Detroit is so poor and so self-sufficient that it's the first place in the US that's had time to more fully consider what the low-energy, post-growth boom of the afterfuture might look like.

A Detroit New article from March 13 on the appeal of D-town to artists:

"Newcomers see an unusual receptiveness in Detroit as well. 'There are so many interesting things going on here that you couldn't do in New York,' says Barlow, 'both because of cost and crowding, and the fact that everyone's overseeing everything. Whereas in Detroit, it's like, "You're trying to do that? Neat."'"

Here are some of my pics from that journey:











Now I'm back in Beijing, where a different (but no less exciting) future grows. I'm hopefully staying in the same time zone for at least a few months, so I hope if you're passing through, hope that you stop by. We've only got a few years to shuttle ourselves around cheaply on fossil fuels before olfactory-rich dialogue between mortals on different continents (and different cities) probably becomes an afterfuture luxury, and digital (probably not smell-o-vision) is our closest thing to touching the other sides of our planet.

Read also my friend Rob Goodspeed's post on Detroit and the limits of urban decline.

Labels: detroit, development, michigan, photos, sustainable development

50,000 Views:
What People Looked At
On Flickr

I swear this post has nothing to do with flickr being down in China. That event just happened to coincide almost perfectly with my 50,000th photo view. I told myself I'd write a blog post as soon as I crossed that magic number. Instead, I finished a stats project, wrote a survey , and had a finance exam. Now freedom has arrived....

50,000 views sounds like a lot, but it's not a lot when you think that I've uploaded over 10,000 photos to my flickr account. Even though I reckon 1,000 of said uploaded photos are for private archival purposes (biz cards, journals, various publications, research, etc that are for friends or personal viewing only), this figure only means each photo has been viewed a little over five times. That means each person on earth has viewed one of my photos .000000008 times!

Here are people's favorite pics.

As of June 15, 2007, 1:47am....

# 20) Ms. Fawcett

334 Views

Here's the sham wife! In her wet suit. Could the fact that this photo is tagged "Ms. Fawcett" and "wetsuit" have anything to do with its popularity?


#19) Prototheca wickerhamii

335 Views

I did not take this photo of "Prototheca wickerhamii." Nor can I take credit for this saprophytic alga. I don't know which Wickerham named this guy. Or which Wickerham won the that scientist's heart. There aren't many Wickerhams out there. But oh how we woo. And here's what wickerhamii does. Ewww. Internal septation.

#18) Drag in Henan

360 views

Who wouldn't be curious about a drag show in Henan Province? Click on it to see other pictures of me in a terrible outfit feverishly doing things in that filthy smoke hole.

#17) bumpermadness

368 views

As if driving an Expedition wasn't enough of a middle finger to the world... These people had to plaster a bigoted bumper sticker on the bumper. This picture got posted to a news site, so we're starting to get some hits now. (Don't click on it if you're offended by swear words).

#16) Crying Mary

369 views

When this statue of the Virgin Mary started bleeding from the eyes, guess who was there? Your narrator, that's who!

#15) On the Dock

385 views

Another pic of the sham wife. This time you see her whole body in the wet suit. She claimed she wanted this pic for her mother. I knew she was doing it for the good of the blog.

#14) resume art

401 views

Here's my resume after being corrected by all three career services staff at IR/PS.


#13) holding brokk

419 views

Brokk was a norse dwarf. He's also the sham family's dog. He has overactive anal glands and a cute mug. And why does anyone care? Because we posted this photo at the bottom of every auction when we were selling out childhood possessions on eBay.

#12) letter writing

422 views

Over winter holiday 2006/7, I wrote a letter to a girl from YangShan Cun in rural Anhui Province who said she wanted to be pen pals. She has yet to write back. I have no idea why 422 people have chosen to view this unless they're hoping to make out my chicken scratch.

#11) love with you

432 views

A compendium of gay organizations in China, circa late 2004. Here's a link to photos of the whole pamphlet. It was comprehensive for its time, but is a little out of date now. Published by the Beijing Gender and Health Education Institute. I imagine the majority of viewers up to now had been Chinese, since I tagged it in Chinese. Not any more. I colored all the photos blue over the weekend for our mainland Chinese viewers.

#10) just pretend

476 views

Everything is ok. So this was a response to those flag-waving days that have not really gone away in anything but a cosmetic way. Something's gotta give, folks!

#9) in the midst

506 views

More eBay bidders wanted to look at Susan's picture than the one of me holding Brokk. She was sitting in the middle of 500 Star Wars action figures. I guess she had a bit of an advantage over me and cute little Brokky pants.

#8) carved wooden buddha statue

541 views

From Hangzhou. I was thinking about exporting these little guys. I think they're fine figurines. Actually, some of the best commercial carvings I came across in all of my travels. I just wasn't good enough at bargaining. This photo is quite worthy of its many many views. It looks great zoomed in on!

#7) I Want you to Want Me

550 views

Just one of the many images that will haunt me if I ever go into politics. Even if I delete it today, I'm sure 17 weirdos have it saved to their hard drives. Or I can so hope.

#6) homemade satellite dish

611 views

Nothing like a rusty satellite dish made from an old cooking wok and a tin can to spark enough interest to push this to number six in the flickr charts. This is actually a much better homemade satellite dish photo from the same Chinese village. Check out the hens hiding from the rain under it. (9 views as of this posting).

#5) galaxor nebulon clowning around

633 views

Caption: "ryan hughes caught in the middle of what could have been his most popular antic ever." Another copyrighted image bringing in the viewers!

#4) A Backpack and a Keyboard Logo

673 views

Again, the caption pretty much says it all. "A vanity logo for a vanity blog."


#3) Nappatizers

794 views

The menu from the restaurant in Tomorrow Square, Shanghai. With Dad.


#2) Nappatizers?

848 views

Dad's trying to make something of this too. Welcome to the five-star JW Marriot in downtown Shanghai.

#1) Jeni and Clara Kissing

1,506 views

"Jeni and Clara Kissing" has been ranked at the top since the very first day I posted it. If you didn't think I was a flickr whore before, I hope I've changed your opinion. Go ahead. Look at those girls kissing. Girls! Lesbian hot action girls kissing!

Check back in a few months to what statistical impact including those key sex terms have on the hit count of "A Backpack and Keyboard."

Labels: flickr, photos

[Narrator's Note: Four months after the fact, I finally find time to fix the ftp settings on the blog.]

One Week In Shanghai
And the World's Your Xiaolongbao (though i recommend the veggie version)
Greetings from the Xu Hui District (where I used to live)

My advisor told me I was crazy to take a week off in the middle of my first quarter at IR/PS, but I got a free ticket to Shanghai and here I am.

My friend requested pictures from Shanghai as I take them, so here they are. Click on the big tea garden gate to your right.

My first day, I took our first econ midterm via webcam. Then I went to Jiaotong University to talk over some plans, which did not progress as planned. I had been awake for two days and was been having trouble forming utterances very well in English, let alone Chinese. After that, I represented my university at a graduate recruitment fair. I kept nodding off during the consular staff person's talk on how to get a visa.

Yesterday I spent the day researching the relationships between Shanghainese "money boys" and the NGOs that work with them to do harm reduction. It was interesting. If it pans out, I may put more time into researching this in the future.

This morning I got up at 3:30 all jet lagged and unfocused on tasks at hand. That means you, my gentle readers, are the ones to benefit.

Jane Goodall arrived last tonight. I was out late with friends at my favorite vegetarian restaurant, so I wasn't here when she arrived, and she was asleep when I got in. I knew Dr. Jane had arrived at my boss's house because her mascot Mr. H was on the bureau.

I'm now awake while she sleeps in the room above me. I haven't been this excited in a long, long time. Not since Christmas Eve maybe, when I knew Santa was coming.

The next four days will be jam packed with chimp-loving, people hugging, worm bin creating, organic garden viewing, and Chong Ming Island hopping. Stay tuned to my Shanghai October 2006 flickr set for my latest uploads from this whirlwind tour. I can't believe this is happening. I feel very blessed.

Labels: excitement, goodall, personal, photos, shanghai