June bug

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Diane Wakoski preparing to read poetry at The Scarab Club

In Michigan in June we see lots of June beetles banging against lighted window screens and we also see them dead on the sidewalk like pieces of broken brown bottles.

I went inside one very alive beetle this week. Once a golden scarab that could have been the Paris of the Midwest, Detroit is of course now littered with crumbling empty buildings and brownfields, photographed and even relished the world over for its "urban decay porn." But there are jewels in the city that are protected and showcased by loving enthusiasts. James and Kim hosted a poetry reading Wednesday by Diane Wakoski in the heart of Detroit's Cultural Center at The Scarab Club, across from the Detroit Institute of Arts, where Diego Rivera's famous Detroit Industry murals glow. When I walked into the club with Diane, Robert and Heather the space lit by the towering garden window opened me up like a beetle flying to light. Paintings by students from the art school Lesley attended backdropped Diane's reading of her poems about movies.

Afterward some of us had dinner at the Union Street Cafe on Woodward Ave. Listening to James and Kim talk about the club I realized once again how little I know about the Detroit scene. It is alive thanks to the people who believe in its heart and culture.

Here is a poem by Diane that conjures elements of summer and Detroit for me. I have these episodes of inspiration to get inside Detroit. And then I get distracted by my university and country life a couple of hours away.




Inside Out

By Diane Wakoski 

I walk the purple carpet into your eye
carrying the silver butter server
but a truck rumbles by,
                      leaving its black tire prints on my foot
and old images          the sound of banging screen doors on hot
             afternoons and a fly buzzing over the Kool-Aid spilled on
             the sink
flicker, as reflections on the metal surface.
Come in, you said,
inside your paintings, inside the blood factory, inside the
old songs that line your hands, inside
eyes that change like a snowflake every second,
inside spinach leaves holding that one piece of gravel,
inside the whiskers of a cat,
inside your old hat, and most of all inside your mouth where you
grind the pigments with your teeth, painting
with a broken bottle on the floor, and painting
with an ostrich feather on the moon that rolls out of my mouth.
You cannot let me walk inside you too long inside
the veins where my small feet touch
bottom.
You must reach inside and pull me
like a silver bullet
from your arm.

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Poem: Hymn

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I haven't attended church since sometime in the 1990s. Sometimes I miss the singing. I grew up singing alto in the choir, as my mom was the choir director and pianist. I've been reading Walt Whitman poems, and poems by many of you, and Billy Collins, Denise Levertov, Mary Oliver and Emily Dickinson. It's time for praise. Poetry is praise, I think, or can be, even when it rages. There is something about the slowing of its condensation that makes my heart rise up and sweeten (like sap into syrup, maybe), both reading it and writing it. So I call this one "Hymn," remembering praise songs. The poem ends with a word that symbolizes many different meanings, probably at least billions. My three-word glossary is just a start. The picture above is from a bathroom stall at the Cass Café on Cass Avenue in Detroit, taken in 2006 when our Lesley was attending the College for Creative Studies. I wonder if you have ever taken a picture inside a bathroom stall?

Hymn

Praise the sky to the tree
And praise the tree to the ground
Praise the word on a leaf
And paraphrase some praise in song

Ride the curve of a question
streaming down the wing of a swan
Uncurl your tongue with a holler
Or fly on praise without sound

Exhale the body to praise the air
Burn brittle sticks of hate
Clean the room with incense
Sniff the glue of “Celebrate”

Blossom a path to the plum
And flower-fountain the moon
Waterfall your hair on rocks
Then tease it out like the sun

Shout in yellow and laugh out red
Amen the sinners, admonish the dead
Swing on the tire to praise the clock
Then hug the hammock and sleep full stop

Heat up your heart
And mercy your mind
Climb on the couch, bounce
your jiggles divine

Puff milkweed pouts and explode the pod
Shake your bones till they’re humble
Fill that space with God!


March 2012

Glossary:
God = Love.Light.Life

Poetry should be heard.

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Story of Detroit: Motown ~ "What's Goin' On?"

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Original Motown Records site on West Grand Ave in Detroit

In the junior department at Sears, buying school clothes for my sophomore year of high school with my stylist (my sister Nancy) and Mom, I heard strings and French horns out of the store’s music speaker of a song by then so familiar and adored that my eyes closed involuntarily and my head fell back in a feigned swoon fifteen-year-olds do so well, resulting in a look of disdain on the face of my mother. The song was “Just My Imagination” by the Temptations, one of the many musical groups with countless hits that burst out of this little homemade studio called Motown.

My high school years spanned some of the most thrilling, volatile and frustrating times of my country’s history: 1970-74. We learned about the Watergate scandal and listened to impeccably dressed men testify in hearings on TV (and watched that one wife). Daily on our living room couch we listened to Walter Cronkite behind his TV news desk announce the number of American soldiers killed that day in Vietnam. My brother Bennett wore a black armband in his 1970 college commencement in protest of the war. That year The Temptations of Motown practically spit out the lyrics of their song “War”: War . . . huh . . . what is it good for . . . absolutely nothin’!

War was at a distance. I had no brothers or personal friends fighting in Vietnam. I lived in a small Michigan town far from peace protests in big cities, although Kent State was awfully close in the next state of Ohio, and there were campus protests at our local university. It was through the music collected by my brothers that I felt the war, and it was how my worldview and politics were shaped. I never saved enough money from babysitting to buy my own record albums, so I listened to the radio and played my brothers' albums on the turntable in the bay window while I ironed pillowcases, t-shirts, handkerchiefs and boxer shorts in the dining room. Besides Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon and Blue albums, I also listened to folk songs of peace by Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” and “Imagine,” Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train,” “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, my favorite band in those days, had a protest song following the Kent State massacre called "Ohio." There was even a band named "War" with a song "Why Can't We Be Friends." Along the way were sprinkled funkadelic love songs and war songs out of Motown, like The Temptations’ “War.” 

The Temptations' song "War" was so popular that fans wanted a single (remember those?). Motown songwriters Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong decided to release a new more blatant version by Edwin Starr, a different artist, so as not to upset conservative Temptations fans. It's awfully hard to sit still when you listen to music out of Motown, something has to move. I can feel myself wanting to get out on the street in protest when I listen to this song. "War can't give life, it can only take it away!" Someone said Music is the language of lovers. I'll talk more about that, in relation to Motown in another post, but truly, music was one of the healthiest and most powerful ways my generation responded to the travesties being orchestrated in the world.

I was almost oblivious to the fact that some of the music I loved best was being produced down the road in Detroit at Hitsville, U.S.A.: Motown Records, founded by Berry Gordy Jr with an $800 loan from someone in his family. It was the first record label owned by an African American. I just took this music as it came, loving it, but not claiming it as part of my local geography. My older sisters and brothers had heard little Stevie Wonder sing in Lansing when he introduced himself at a Youth for Christ rally: I’m Stevie Wonder, and I sing for Jesus. He signed on with Motown at age 11. Stevie Wonder is now the only remaining artist from the early days on the Motown label that included Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Jackson 5, Gladys Knight & the Pips, among many, many more.

The Chrysler ad that recently inspired me to turn my attention to Detroit got me out to visit the Motown Historical Museum Saturday, which just happened to be Smokey Robinson’s 71st birthday (February 19). The museum duplex was the original site of Motown Records 1959-1972, after which Berry Gordy moved it to Los Angeles. Smokey and his musical group The Miracles provided the foundation for Motown’s artistic success, and Motown’s founder, Berry Gordy Jr was Smokey’s mentor. Berry made Smokey Vice President of Motown, which he remained until Berry sold the company in 1988 (for $61 million, not including music rights sold later). I'll tell you more about my two hours in this beautifully preserved, humble space that produced some of the most electrifying and long lasting music ever, in future posts.

This Thursday the Obamas will host Smokey Robinson and other Motown singers in another of their  "In Performance at the White House" concerts, this time honoring Motown’s music. They have already honored other American music genres with concerts and workshops for students: classical, Broadway, Latin, country, jazz, and music from the Civil Rights movement. It will be aired on PBS March 1. I don't know if anyone will sing what Rolling Stone ranked as the fourth greatest song of all time, but the man who co-wrote and recorded it won't be there to sing, sadly. The song was written and released under Tamla, the original Motown label, and one of the multiple subsidiary labels Motown eventually created. It was a turbulent time of war and race tensions. You can see some of that history in the photograph montage in the version I've chosen, below. Marvin Gaye himself had a troubled life, and it ended in a terrible episode of domestic violence on April Fool's Day in 1984 when he tried to intervene in a fight between his parents. His dad had a loaded gun. It went off, killing Marvin the day before his 45th birthday, making this song an incessant question that never seems to live into an answer.

I'll post more about Motown, and Detroit, in the days ahead.

What's Goin' On

Mother, mother

There's too many of you crying

Brother, brother, brother

There's far too many of you dying

You know we've got to find a way

To bring some lovin' here today - Yeah

Father, father

We don't need to escalate

You see, war is not the answer

For only love can conquer hate

You know we've got to find a way

To bring some lovin' here today

Picket lines and picket signs

Don't punish me with brutality

Talk to me, so you can see

Oh, what's going on

What's going on

Yeah, what's going on

Ah, what's going on

In the mean time

Right on, baby

Right on

Right on

Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong

Oh, but who are they to judge us

Simply because our hair is long

Oh, you know we've got to find a way

To bring some understanding here today

Oh

Picket lines and picket signs

Don't punish me with brutality

Talk to me

So you can see

What's going on

Yeah, what's going on

Tell me what's going on

I'll tell you what's going on - Uh

Right on baby

Right on baby

~ Written by Renaldo "Obie" Benson, Al Cleveland, and Marvin Gaye

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A different kind of uprising

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Diego Rivera's "Detroit Industry" murals in the Detroit Institute of Arts

It was like a new bird was born out of the burnt ashes of the phoenix Sunday.

If you don't live in the U.S. you might not know about the big hype over TV ads they run during the Super Bowl, the playoff football game between the two conferences of the National Football League. Advertisements cost $3 million per thirty seconds of air time. People like me who don't care about American football watch between touchdowns when the ads come on, for the entertainment, and to see if they spent their money well. For the most part, they're a whole lotta money spent on silly. In fact, the ads were so mediocre Sunday that Don started flipping to other channels during ads. Poor Madison Avenue.

But apparently in the third quarter an ad aired that hadn't hit the Internet ahead of time like many ads had done. It was two minutes long, unprecedented for Super Bowl ads, and cost $9 million to produce and air. (Sounds like maybe they got a bargain.) After the Packers beat the Stealers, the buzz started, and the ad was aired by 2,000 news organizations, including the NBC evening news that we watched Monday night. I immediately loaded it on YouTube and watched. It had 1.5 million views by then after the first 24 hours. At the moment of this post it has 4,740,910 views. The ad was made for the new Chrysler 200 automobile, starring Eminem, but more than being a car ad, it is an ad for Detroit. It's called "Imported from Detroit." Be among the millions and watch the ad here or at the bottom of this post. Chrysler is being criticized for taking the $15 billion bailout from us taxpayers, still being in debt, and then spending so much money on this ad. But as one of the "shareholders" of this loan (which won't be paid back, since they filed bankruptcy), I think the ad might be a good investment. The Chrysler 200 web site traffic has increased 1600%.

Of my 54 years, some of which I lived in Chicago, Oregon, California, and Istanbul, 43 years have been  in Michigan, with Detroit down the road. Two years we lived a couple of miles from the General Motors proving grounds. I grew up when the population shifted from the city of Detroit to the suburbs, becoming one of the wealthiest metropolitan areas of the country, sadly and ironically, as the city of Detroit began collapsing in on itself. The peacock strutted as the phoenix burned. Simultaneously there was the excitement of Motown Records, making black musical artists like Stevie Wonder (from Lansing, where I was born) international stars. After the Twelfth Street race riot of 1967, we felt the heart of Detroit turn sour, as white flight, political corruption, a disappearing tax base, and the decline of the American-made automobile turned a once gilded city into a sepulchre. There was little to be proud of, it seemed, and we felt the shame as the whole world thought of Detroit as the armpit city of the U.S.

Slowly a few have started to invest in Detroit. I've been skeptical, wondering how those with money to invest would want to do so in a still failing city. While our daughter Lesley attended art school in the heart of Detroit's cultural center, the city buses stopped running at night. The workers in the city who had no cars of their own couldn't even get to a night job! Automobile plants closed one by one as imported cars like Toyota and Honda became more and more popular. Unemployment rose, until Michigan's economy was one of the worst in the country. In high school when Lesley went to punk rock concerts at venues in Detroit, I worried about her in Detroit at night, even with friends. In the last few years, when I've wanted to go photograph interesting neighborhood art projects there, Don hasn't wanted me to go alone, even in the daytime. It's just how we think of Detroit.

So when the Super Bowl ad titled "Imported from Detroit" played, a miracle happened. I could feel the city down the road rising up from its nearly burnt out forging fires. You can watch the two minute ad for yourself, and maybe you'll feel something of its power too. As my friend at work said, whose husband was a Detroit cop for twenty years (such terrible tales he tells!), "he was speechless, and I cried." What is so moving to me about this little film-ad is how it gets inside the very aspects of Detroit that we had thought were its weaknesses, and convinces me they are its strengths! The laboring class, abandoned buildings, keeping on with toughness, even when everyone says you're burned up and out.

This little ad has inspired me to turn my attention to Detroit and share things with you. In the ad you can see shots of Diego Rivera's 1932-33 Detroit Industry murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts (top photo of this post). I'll write about that eleven month project soon, the only Rivera murals in the U.S., and what he thought of as his most important work. This is across the street from a beautiful art deco hotel where he lived while he painted the fresco in the gorgeous atrium court of the DIA and his wife Frieda Kahlo visited, and where our Lesley lived while she went to art school a block away. I felt such pride as I watched the Chrysler ad, about just these murals alone. I want my friends to know something good about Detroit. But I promise I will show you some of the "sepulchre" along with the "gilt."

As long as I live in Michigan, I want to pay attention to this city, as it keeps rising and filling its dead, abandoned spaces again with life. Maybe it will be safe one day for me to take my future grandchildren to walk its streets any time, just as we will in Chicago and New York City.

Detroit skyline on the Detroit River, viewed from Windsor, Ontario, Canada
taken the year we went to the North American Auto Show in 2007


The Chrysler ad "Imported from Detroit":

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In Detroit

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We finally watched Gran Torino last night, Clint Eastwood's 2008 film, set in Highland Park, a suburb of Detroit where Walt (Eastwood) lives, a retired Ford factory worker. It reflects the changes happening in urban areas worldwide, where people are migrating from their homes to new homes in foreign places. It is about figuring out who you are, what you want. This is not a movie review, but a small notice about a tender film that touched me deeply. It's hard enough to understand yourself, let alone another person. Mix into that another culture, and it takes a great deal of listening and walking in another's shoes to begin to see. I watched more movies this weekend than I have in many months, another was The Fog of War, an amazing and also tender film, a documentary that touched me at my center. Robert McNamara emotes, and expresses in hindsight why we should not kill people and destroy nations, for how do we begin to understand one another -- enough to talk, let alone annihilate the other?

Anyway, when Gran Torino was over, and the credits rolled, and this song came on, the first of the film, it was one of those moments when characters and plot came together in perfect emotional release, and satisfaction. Please have a listen to this beautiful song written by Clint Eastwood, Jamie Cullum, Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens. Embedding of the YouTube video has been disabled, so you'll need to click here for it.

Gran Torino

[*Sung By Clint Eastwood*]
So tenderly your story is
nothing more than what you see
or what you've done or will become
standing strong do you belong
in your skin; just wondering

gentle now the tender breeze blows
whispers through my Gran Torino
whistling another tired song

engine humms and bitter dreams grow
heart locked in a Gran Torino
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long

[*sung by Jamie Cullum*]
Realign all the stars above my head
Warning signs travel far
I drink instead on my own Oh! how I've known
the battle scars and worn out beds

gentle now a tender breeze blows
whispers through a Gran Torino
whistling another tired song

engines humm and bitter dreams grow
heart locked in a Gran Torino
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long

these streets are old they shine
with the things I've known
and breaks through the trees
their sparkling

your world is nothing more than all the tiny things you've left behind

So tenderly your story is
nothing more than what you see
or what you've done or will become
standing strong do you belong
in your skin; just wondering

gentle now a tender breeze blows
whispers through the Gran Torino
whistling another tired song
engines humm and bitter dreams grow
a heart locked in a Gran Torino
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long

may I be so bold and stay
I need someone to hold
that shudders my skin
their sparkling

your world is nothing more than all the tiny things you've left behind

so realign all the stars above my head
warning signs travel far
i drink instead on my own oh how ive known
the battle scars and worn out beds

gentle now a tender breeze blows
whispers through the Gran Torino
whistling another tired song
engines humm and better dreams grow
heart locked in a Gran Torino
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long

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