The Power of Ruin: Detroit And The Artistic Mind

I was recently invited to participate in the telling of a story about a yet-to-be-discovered artist. Like so many others before him, he has himself been created in the environment that we commonly know of as ‘Detroit’. Seeing his work for the first time, I was stunned into silence. I sat for a moment, then, overwhelmed, I stood and walked to keep myself in my own skin. Profoundly moved, my mind shot into clarity about Detroit in a way I have struggled to articulate for many years. This is the power of a great artist: they shove us off our axis and allow us to see what we could not previously comprehend in the world around us. I look about each and every day, seeing the mundane, the known and the worn. Then, in a moment, with a space in my mind blown open by the genius of another, everything is new, never to be the same again.

Over my years in Detroit, more to the point, over the years Detroit has been in me, I have experienced this feeling of exposing my soul to Truth in its purest form via the artistic mind again and again and again. I have observed both personally and professionally the environment that is Detroit: as a resident, a scholar, an artist, a preservationist, an organizer, a writer, a woman, a daughter, a grand-daughter and a great-grand-daughter of those whose mark remains to this day in the city. I have observed Detroit from all sides: both serene and violent; intellectual and whimsical; flush and threadbare. I have observed it from within and from afar; with context both local and international and I have come to one conclusion:

‘D’ Series #1 ©2013 Lisa Spindler Photography

Detroit, as it exists today, is not necessarily broken, it does not necessarily need to be fixed. It is playing a role in the global community that is nonexistent anywhere else. It is time to adjust our thinking in a truly radical way so that we may continue to facilitate, not inadvertently obstruct, what it is Detroit delivers to the world, just as it is. Detroit is functioning, excelling, over achieving, in ways that do not have precedent anywhere else on earth and therefore it is profoundly difficult to recognize for those stuck in old paradigms, dreaming of resurrection and emerald cities.

All that glistens is not gold.

I sincerely understand when many of you may fail to perceive the reality I speak of. You want to bring to my attention the raw violence, the racial divide, the plantation power structures, the swaths of derelict housing stock, the graft, the societal devastation of addiction, the dysfunctional politics, the third world status of infrastructure and the fourth world (read return-to-wilderness) status many areas have assumed. I do not deny these aspects. However, they exist all over the world and do not differentiate Detroit from the human condition unfortunately experienced continuously across the globe. We are not unique. We are bonded deep to our brothers and sisters around the world whose suffering and sacrifice often leave us feeling simply blessed. Your mistake is this: in your mind you hold this city locked firm within the conventional definition of such. You think of what was, (Paris of the Midwest) and what you think it should be, (Prague). You lament that UCity Guides has labeled it the 8th ugliest city in the world, that Forbes has now labeled Detroit “The Most Miserable City”.

The only way to begin to understand the role Detroit is playing in the global community is to stop evaluating it by conventional standards. As long as we view Detroit within the known frame of ‘city’, with all the quantifiable institutional methods of measuring and evaluating statistical data, as long as we inevitably attempt to measure our worth in the global community by comparing ourselves to other urban entities worldwide who have yet to reach the point of social and economic evolution Detroit has reached as a geographic area with a density of population, we will never be able to fathom what Detroit really is. We will continue to suffer the utterly devastating psychological impact on our community of constantly failing to measure up to the worlds expectations of us. So long as yesterdays intellects attempt to evaluate Detroit by standards which are simply obsolete and can no longer be applied, Detroit will continue to ‘fail’.

Nothing is farther from the truth.

Instead, we must measure Detroit by how we respond cooperatively from within to the challenges we face from without; measure Detroit by what we create and export through our artistic endeavors; evaluate Detroit by the vision, the sense of hope that permeates all local initiatives; measure Detroit by the force of your own emotion and imagination fired in the presence of her ruins.

Scholars, urbanist, planners, politicians will have some acquired academic response they will throw at this essay in an effort to add elitist separation and definition to the ‘problem’ that they view as Detroit, thereby excluding many of the people who actually ARE Detroit via codified language. It is this approach that has led Detroit down the road of oblivion as a city constantly being forced to conform to an obsolete paradigm by those who would profit. It is the action of those at street level, those who are committed through residence, through blood, through muse or just too damn poor to leave who are creating, carving each day into a new identifiable reality, functioning to serve those who reside here, from within. Detroit is the first city to evolve, in response to a perfect storm of complex social, economic and cultural forces, into a new, emerging organizational structure that is defining itself organically based on meeting the basic necessities of its existing population in a self-contained and self-sustained way. Viewed within this frame where success is measured by the production of endless creative expression; locally sourced solutions to basic needs and the spiritual support born of street level, interdependent, co-operative living, the geographic area known as Detroit is simply amazing. It is breathtaking in the example it is demonstrating to the world everyday. We simply have to see it, own it, and stop listening to all those who are blind to what we are, what we do, the role we play, how we respond and how we give. There is nothing like us anywhere on the planet. Detroit, as a gathering of humans, is beyond the comprehension of most outside.

Detroit is the messenger of a reality few have the courage to embrace, but embrace it we do and therein lies the seed of our transformation.

For most Americans, images from Detroit are shocking for one reason and one reason only: they are very real, and exist within the continental United States. Scenes that would not garner a second view, let alone commentary if attached to a story of any second or third world nation-state blown apart by the West’s quest du jour, elicit almost violent disgust, fear, judgement and criticism for one reason: Detroit tells us the truth about ourselves, the state of our Democracy and the soft underbelly of our own economic system, a truth most Americans do not want to hear or see. The American Myth is just that, and Detroit pulverizes that myth both accurately and relentlessly. Detroit is America’s tough love therapist here to drum truth and reality into the American psyche until it can’t take it anymore and breaks the veil of denial. Instead of accepting the message, those blind to Detroit’s purpose steadfastly cling to the hope that they can bring the city back into the myth, back into the fold of lies about our own failures we tell ourselves as Americans. Most simply shoot the messenger and go on in their protective bubble of, dare I say, delusion. Like a messiah walking amongst us in rags, Detroit quietly delivers her gift of Truth to all courageous enough listen.

What Detroit has done, and not necessarily by choice, is find the courage to face the realities of our time, process them to the best of our ability and commence the necessary transformation required of us to now move forward. I challenge anyone to introduce me to a place anywhere on the planet that is undergoing such a revolutionary, largely organic, prototypical process at this point in time on such a massive scale, predominantly from within.

The Power of Ruin and the Artistic Mind

At the very core of this transformation and critical to it, is the artistic mind, a mind with the ability to defy the known and cast boldly forward into the unknown, creating solutions to challenges deftly, free of the constraints of structured provincialism. What is it that makes Detroit the perfect environment for artistic thinkers? Why do they thrive here? How does Detroit create some of the most profoundly genuine and talented cultural and social geniuses of our time across so many expressive mediums?

In urban centers, people come and go, but the buildings largely remain. The walls that surround us remain, functioning as story tellers in brick and mortar, witnesses to the human theater; the structures within which we carry on the daily activities of our perishable selves. Cities work feverishly to preserve, expand and glorify the architecture that literally forms the city itself, our self image in stone and steel, an image greater than ourselves. Architecture celebrates human triumph (Chicago Spire); architecture falls victim to human darkness (WTC). It is through architecture that we reflect our dreams and desires of a world greater than that which we know. Therefore it is coveted, protected, celebrated. So long as our great cities stand, so will we.

Detroit was been allowed a different fate, a fate unique unto us, one which now serves to define her most powerful asset, an asset that differentiates her from all other urban centers, an asset that cannot be found anywhere else, an asset that fuels her greatest artistic gifts being produced daily in her streets, alleys, warehouses, lofts and temple front bungalows…

At this point in time, the heart and soul of Detroit lies squarely in the power of architectural ruin to inspire, ignite and carry the human imagination wherever it wants to go. This is what we give the world: fertile ground for the artistic mind. This is the physical platform we offer to anyone who wants to join us. There is no place on earth more conducive to the artistic mind than Detroit.

An occupied structure, architecture in the positive, answers the questions posed by the observer: within lies a house, an office, a storefront. An architectural ruin, architecture in the negative, forces the observer to think creatively in asking the question: what was this? what happened? what transpired here? In that moment, the imagination is ignited and cast loose…fertile ground for the artistic mind, the creative mind, the mind that can imagine forward rather than frantically try to correlate what is before them with what is already known.

This current environment is unique in the world: there are ruins and there are occupied cities. There are no occupied ruins functioning as dwelling for dense populations on this scale in a democracy and this is what differentiates Detroit. From this landscape comes the most truth laden artistic expression emerging anywhere in the world. I saw it once again today and it shook me to the core. I credit an environment that has been utterly freed of the obligation to meet anyones expectations. This is the fruit of the response by the human spirit to the economic and social devastation wrought by advanced Capitalism. In Detroit, we bear witness daily to what is to come. We are creating what is to come, moment to moment and there is no template, no model to emulate, no precedent. It is in this environment that the artistic mind has no tether, no confine social or otherwise, no perceptual boundary and is therefore truly free to expand at will. Surrounded by the built environment in ruin that is the only remaining physical evidence of systemic failure, our awareness of our own release from the confines of that system is omnipresent and omnipotent. Everywhere we look we are reminded that we are no longer a part of that failed system, we are reminded that we alone are charged with creating this moment and this moment is new. What do we want it to be? In this moment, Detroit is a place of imagination, a place where transformative grief has produced its fruits, a place where we are free to dream, to create, to seed the future grounded by what has come before, perhaps more importantly by what has been overcome and is now behind us.

Detroit is not broken. It has simply blown beyond conventional definition. It does not need to be ‘fixed’ by attempts to make it something it has already been. Detroit does not need to be re-tooled into some economically acceptable form that can continue to contribute to a long dead paradigm. Detroit needs to be recognized for what it is: a place where courageous, creative people can actively participate in the unknown going forward, carving the trail ahead. If those outside her process, those unwilling to become a student of Detroit rather than predators to Detroit have an inkling of intelligence, they will silence themselves and let those actively participating in creating living systems that work, those bringing forth Truth through artistic endeavor, those courageous enough to ask the questions and implement untried solutions, carve the road ahead for this complex frontier to the future that is Detroit.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-kotting/the-power-of-ruin_b_2820749.html

© 2013 Nancy Kotting   All Right Reserved   Reproduction by Permission Only

The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Dressage Riders

Over the years working a never-ending multitude of horses, great Dressage riders develop habits, ways of achieving consistently high performance and excellence in the daily work. These are not training how-tos but rather personal habits adopted by riders to set themselves up for success every day. While there are endless training pearls-of-wisdom the Masters kindly pass on, it is inevitably up to the student, through endless hours of practice, to confirm the path to success. There is no sport, nor art form more difficult than what we attempt every day as practitioners of Classical Horsemanship. None. It is up to us to support one another in this endeavor, giving and sharing what works and what doesn’t.

Below is my list of ten habits of highly effective Dressage riders. It is my hope that you find them helpful in your daily practice.

Good Luck and ride well-

Nancy Kotting

The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Dressage Riders

1: An effective Dressage rider looks upon each failure as a ladder rung: step on it and lift yourself up.

Great riders know that failure is a constant on the road to success and they train themselves to use it in their favor. Failure provides us with critical information which we then use to improve our work. Embrace it. Welcome it. Study it and learn its lesson. Each time you fail, be thankful for the information, put it behind you, raise yourself up to the next ladder rung and try again. Failure is not the end, it is the beginning.

Photo: Nancy Kotting

2: An effective Dressage rider leaves their personal issues on the ground, approaching each ride emotionally neutral.

What is energetically in us, goes into the horse. If you carry your emotional refuse into the ride, ie; bad day at work, family problems, etc., it will inevitably effect performance. Be very careful what you put in as horses are like computers, if you write bad code, you will have to rewrite it at some point. Learn to neutralize your emotions BEFORE you get on the horse. This will give both of you an opportunity to begin the ride clean.

3: Effective Dressage riders make themselves the calm baseline that their equine partner can rely upon at all times.

The psychology of the horse requires a partner willing to assume a leadership position.  This assumption of the leadership position by the rider in the partnership translates to the horse via the language of the body in all circumstances, all scenarios. A rider who remains mentally AND physically steady when the horse experiences confusion, fear and perhaps resulting chaos, will very quickly gain trust, confidence and devotion to the work from their equine partner. A skilled rider quickly proves his or her leadership ability to a new horse, who then, greatly relieved in such capable hands, will confidently trust his rider and attempt to work with and not against. Trust is earned not given; work to deserve it from the horse.

4: An effective Dressage rider owns their personal space both on and off the horse.

Closely related yet different from habit #3, maintaining ones space communicates leadership. A dominant stallion does not mosey into a herd head down, tail low, back soft.  Oh no, he is up on his toes, tail flagged, every muscle pumped full announcing his arrival…his presence is known. His body language virtually screams ‘follow me!’ This type of presence must also subtly be in a riders body language when working both on the horse and off. Our equine partners rely on us to lead them and we communicate our worthiness of this responsibility with our body language, with the feeling of resolve within our bodies. Effective riders maintain exemplary posture both on and off a horse, we carry ourselves, we own our space with a steely intention, communicating our empathetic power and ability to lead to those who rely on us: our equine partner.

5: An effective  Dressage rider has trained their ‘inner voice’ to be either positive or constructively negative, never defeating.

An effective Dressage rider approaches the ride with a sense of wonder: what will the ride bring? What is the legacy of yesterday’s work? Will it be fair to push the horse just a bit more today?  Problems, resistances that arise are addressed constructively, not reacted to emotionally. It is the supportive ‘inner voice’ of the rider that keeps the ride ‘on the rails’ and productive, ending always on a positive in preparation for continued success in the next ride. It is the burden of the rider to maintain an emotional ‘thru-line’ that directs the ride steadily toward completion.

6: An effective Dressage rider knows success happens one ride at a time, day in and day out, remaining consistent and realistic in their daily goals and expectations.

The work is a continuum, each ride building upon the last. There are no short cuts. You cannot buy it, you have to make it with consistent, correct work, realizing nobody can do it for you. The amount of success you have as a rider is directly related to the amount of effort you put into it. Rome was not built in a day and neither is a Grand Prix rider/trainer, nor a Grand Prix horse. Get up, dress up, show up and put in another day’s work. Then do it again, and again and…again.  The river of trying never stops flowing.

7: An effective Dressage rider has the courage to be creative in their problem solving, the courage to go beyond the text-book and think independently.

An effective Dressage rider innately understands that every horse is different. Every rider is different. Every moment is a new moment, a new opportunity to create quality.

The Training Scale

An effective Dressage rider has the courage to experiment and try something different in approaching the problem, all the while adhering to the core premise of the Training Scale, placing the mental and physical well-being of their equine partner first and foremost.

8: An effective Dressage rider knows they must be an athlete in their own right before they can expect their equine partner to be one.

The foundation of the Training Scale is the rider’s seat. Every rider strives to be in control and command of their physical being, able to independently apply the aids effectively in both calmness and chaos.  A Dressage rider uses every single muscle known to man, and then some!  It is imperative that we cross-train, building our own strength, endurance and dexterity away from the horse. Cross-training keeps the muscles ‘fresh’ ie; not locked into the sole muscle memory of the ride itself but rather neutral, able to break old ‘muscle memory’ response patterns easily if required. Poorly trained horses effect the muscle memory of the rider just as poor riding effects the muscle memory of the horse. Cross-training assists the rider in both developing athleticism and neutralizing undesirable muscle memory.

9: An effective Dressage rider knows there is only one direction to go: forward!

Horses are built to move, they are born to move and most love to move. Effective riders know how to use this base instinct in the horse as a key ingredient in the work each and every day, much like flour to a baker. As it is in life, so it is in Dressage: if all else fails, GO FORWARD! In this way, an effective rider creates a fresh moment, a fresh opportunity to try again toward understanding and success.

10: An effective Dressage rider works for their horse, not vice versa.

Great riders do what they do for the sake of the horse… and nothing else. ‘Dressage’ encompasses all that we do from the moment we rise in the morning and enter the stable aisle to the final night check at the end of the day. Highly effective riders know they must stay close to their horses each and every day in order to build the intimacy required for the Grand Prix. They know their partner’s moods, their idiosyncracies, their likes and dislikes. The transition from the aisle to the school is best seamless: true partners from the stall to the aisle to the schooling arena to the show ring and home again.

Remember, Dressage is an art form in motion, therefore it only survives as such when practiced correctly on a daily basis by both Master and student, through the grace of correctly trained horses. Strive to develop good habits, for the sake of the sport, for the sake of the horse and for your own future as an accomplished rider.

Written with gratitude to ‘the trainer’s trainer’, Michael Poulin.

© 2013 Nancy Kotting   All Rights Reserved   Reproduction by Permission Only

Invisible Thread

It is September 10th and the weather is coming in.  Pulling the winter horse blankets out of the trunks fills the room with the stench of manure, mildew and the sweat of horses.  I reach to the bottom of the trunk and find the remnants of old blankets: the clips, snaps and webbing cut from the old ones for repairs to the salvageable ones, prolonging their use just one more season. I spread out the ones needing new buckles and snaps, measuring the odds and ends to find the fit, let alone a color match.

Opening a tattered moving box labeled with various markers no less than four times, each move crossed out by the next, I pull out three smaller boxes, one wood, one papered cardboard and one an old shoe box.  Inside are the thrown together remains of the sewing boxes of no less than four generations of women.  Thimbles, fabric weights with images of Niagara Falls embedded in them, buttons and bobbins, snaps and various spare parts for women’s undergarments no longer in fashion.  Several pin pricks into the thread search, dead-set on finding the perfect shade of hunter green, I pull a spool out, trying unsuccessfully to ascertain the color.  The label answers my question: ‘Invisible Thread’.

September 11, 2011

I read a quote yesterday that went something like this: “Death comes to each of us not once but three times: once when the body ceases to function; the second time when we are laid to rest and the third time when our name is spoken for the last time.”  And what links these three?  The invisible thread stretching through the minds of those whose lives ours touched.  The invisible thread stringing the memories and the grief into a comprehensible order of what remains: the thoughts, the pulse of the thoughts, the flickers of light in those thoughts that once again evoke a smile as our hearts seem to turn within our chests to glance back just one more time, one more hopeful time…to a trail now empty.

The thread often becomes visible in a scent or the flection in a voice, the slope of shoulder in a crowd or the cut of a jaw line that causes our heart to leap, only to be caught on the exhale back into emptiness. It is found in another’s story, words not our own yet painted across the canvas we long ago took a knife to in our rage of pain. It is found on the maps of our minds, our feeble attempts to drive a dart deep into the compass point, freezing time somewhere, anywhere but here.

Comes a time when the grieving come to envy the dead, come to envy their peace. The very nature of peace changes and becomes known in ways never fathomed. The thread holds tight as anger seeks ballast. The thread bears witness as the living ponder the cost of the one way ticket to home. The thing about invisible thread is that it never breaks, and cares not the direction from which it gets pulled taught. It exists to hold, forever.

Years pass. Our gaze fades into the dull hues of now. We long to touch but fingertips meet nowhere. Our dreams taunt and toy: the dip, the dodge, the faint. And we awake missing the night.

We reach into our own blindness and know the thread is there, sighing in comfort’s crumbs. Crumbs guarded with our every hope and dream, altered, edited, erased and re-written again and again and again till we sicken at our own thoughts, spitting at the promise dawn made.

Standing, we greet gravity like an old friend, settle into the weight. The needle still, the thread comes through, to be pulled and knotted. Holding the fabric of our lives, we pierce and pull through, pierce and pull through, ragged seams joined, held tight, with invisible thread.

© 2011, 2012, 2013 Nancy Kotting     All Rights Reserved     Reproduction by Permission Only   

America’s Revolution: When Democracy Itself Becomes A GMO

February, 2011

The sheer irony of watching a Revolution seed itself on American soil, inspired by a Revolution in a country inspired by my country is… breathtaking. And it is happening. To Egypt and back again, we’ve been struck by the raw strength of our own ideology in action. Through the grace of the Egyptian people, we Americans are now profoundly aware of what we have lost: Democracy of, by and for the people. We have been fed a GMO version for so long that we believe it is real. It looks like a Democracy, smells like a Democracy, tastes like a Democracy…but it is not. And now, after 18 days of witness, we know.

As an American, a woman, a human, my soul is afire with hope, dreams re-born and a deep, deep love for humanity as I witness it rising to the truth of freedom, self-determination and faith.  Within moments of Mubarak’s resignation a friend request popped up on my Facebook account which then featured an Egyptian flag I had posted in support.  The request was from an Egyptian gentleman who found himself in Cairo at that very moment…I promptly accepted and he gleefully thanked me for supporting his country.  He thanked me. The profound depth of humility that I felt, knowing what I know about my Governments support of tyrannical dictators around the world since WWII including his very own Mubarak, left me hollow, my blood resting low in my veins.

For that moment, our governments did not exist. We did. I cried unstoppable tears. And in that moment I knew, my country must change. And we must be the ones to do it, or it will be done for us.

That it would take the courage of Egyptians, recipients of my governments sheer greed and pathological support of the very tyranny beneath which they struggled for three decades, to rise up and say ‘no more’ thereby providing the very fuel we the people so desperately need here in the states to recognize that the very same tyranny exists on American soil, cloaked in a genetically mutated version of ‘Democracy’, is truly the most profound political moment of my experience as an American.  And I am sensing that I am absolutely not alone in feeling this way.

When, exactly, did our own democracy become a GMO version of itself? And what is to be done?

Where the Revolution will spark here on American soil remains to be seen.  I do not know.  Will it be the heartland with its feudal farmers hog-tied to the tit of industrial agriculture?  Will it be in the suburbs fraught with disillusioned debtors, barren, bank-owned trophy homes and empty-eyed youth on Ritalin?  Will it be in the grey cubicles of stale offices occupied by those who are silently mad-as-hell and conveniently close to the windows? Or will it be at the hands of the 20-something gadget brigade who, thanks be to God, do not know what they do not know?  Who holds the match and who holds the flint stone?

A Revolution is not a Revolution without the object of revolt.  What delays our own Revolution is that yet-to-be clarified object….right now we still believe that it is ourselves. We have succumbed to believe it is our greed, our gluttony of consumerism, our disregard for the cost of our lifestyle borne by others on foreign shores.  In part we are right.  But in greater part we are wrong… and we are waking up to this.  Blame games aside, when ‘it’ becomes clearly and succinctly defined, recognized and accepted as that which is to be removed in order for a true Democracy-of-the-people to be restored on our own shores, the momentum of the correction in the civil realm will be blinding.  Do not underestimate the power of resolve running in the blood of Americans. Do not. I believe the American people are ripe to recognize our own metaphorical naked emperor. We are keen for it. For Egypt it was, all things considered, easy, embodied in one man.

For us it will be far more difficult, but it will come.

© 2011, 2012, 2013 Nancy Kotting   All Rights Reserved  Reproduction by Permission Only

Easter Stories: A Waitress, Her Lover and A Revolution

Author’s Note: A word of caution to the reader in that this story, based on facts as told by one I will herein refer to as Eva Long, contains some graphic descriptions of events that occurred during a time of revolution. Most names and geographic locations have been changed for obvious reasons. Written from memory, no formal interviews were conducted, nor permissions granted. It is my hope and prayer for the well being of all participants described herein.

-N.K.  Easter, 2013

February, 2010

“Nancy, I do have to warn you, Eva is a bit, well, eccentric.” A woman friend of mine had accepted a very early invitation to Easter dinner on our behalf with an old high school friend whom she had wanted me to meet. I was told she had spent some time in El Salvador during the revolution, a subject of great interest to me both politically and as a Catholic so I had been rather anxious to spend some time with this woman whom I shall refer to as Eva Long, which is of course not her real name. As for our mutual friend Judy’s description of Eva as eccentric, I learned some time ago that ‘crazy’ is reserved for those who are of a certain economic status when describing a loosening, shall we say, of mental capacities and ‘eccentric’ is reserved for those of another certain economic status, often accompanied by excessively expensive academic credentials. Eva qualified on a wild card as eccentric being her IQ was in the stratosphere yet she was economically below the mean for the rural midwest, void of any notable pigskin yet rich in worldly experience.  Our mutual friend Judy (not her real name either) was not political in anyway and profoundly gracious yet rather socially reserved so I was prepared to arrange a time for Eva and I to speak privately of intense subjects real women freely discuss such as men, other men and revolution.

Easter day arrived to find us rumbling down a very long drive way in Judy’s monstrous diesel F-350 on the outskirts of a small town in mid-Ohio, a town defined by two types of vertical markers in the otherwise flat-lined landscape: a Godzilla vs. Rodan like grain elevator and a plethora of church spires. We pulled into the yard at the end of the two-track lined by ancient oaks and black walnut trees, each with recent dead fall, already cut to stove length. stacked neatly to dry at the base of each trunk. The field between the house and the road showed signs of being planted with winter wheat the previous fall by the farmer who had bought it during Eva’s last economic dry spell. Slowly over the years and the passport updates, she had sold off 40 acre chunks of her inheritance till all that remained was the stately old brick Federal-style house surrounded by the oaks; a massive gambrel-roofed dairy barn, painted dark green in homage to her Irish blood; a brick milk house and one tenant house across the way which was perpetually up for rent.

Eva’s vehicle and Eva were nowhere to be seen so we proceeded to give ourselves a self-guided tour of the barn. Pulling the lock and sliding the huge doors, inside we found a space swept clean, no signs of varmints nor livestock, hayloft bare. The stanchions for the dairy cows had been long ago pulled and sold as scrap. On the concrete floor, poured in the late 1920′s in a quest for modernity, stood several long folding tables, the type one would find in a convention hall, all empty and free of dust. A few boxes stood along the cut granite foundation, filled with both paper and plastic bags. Judy and I surveyed the scene, cast a glance at one another, shrugged our shoulders and walked back to the house, Eva’s 10 year old Crown Vic now tucked up tight to the side porch.

Eva emerged from the kitchen all smiles and hugs. She was a petite yet stout woman, not overweight but fit and filled out on the bone. She had wild auburn hair, shoulder length, and the strong facial structure of agrarian immigrants from the emerald isle. Her eyes were deep and wide, profoundly strong and intelligent with a glint of the trickster shining through. Her smile and her eyes worked perfectly as a team in putting me immediately at ease. This was a strong woman, comfortable in her body, with stories to tell.

Eva Long had been born in this town and was now the sole heir to the old family farmstead. Upon graduating from high school she had informed her parents that university was not for her, in spite of her daunting intellect. She had decided that she wanted to do two things with her life: travel and meet interesting people. To that end she packed up and went to Houston where she had a friend in the restaurant biz. Eva had opted for a career as a waitress, not the type that wear stock uniforms along the interstates but rather the elite servers found in the finest establishments in the world’s most glamorous cities. It was in Texas that Eva became a career waitress, earning well into six figures early on. She became a master of cuisine, a master of presentation and a master of putting VIP types at ease over a fine meal and good liquor. Over time she had become quite the chef herself, learning to prepare her favorite dishes from the menus of the various restaurants which employed her over the years. Eva knew well how to cultivate long term relationships with ‘the regulars’ and she slowly built a little black book filled with heavy hitting contacts whom she could rely on for patronly, even fatherly advice over the decades. In between her gigs as a waitress, she would travel the world, acquire notable language skills and a collection of friends with couches in various countries available on somewhat short notice from a weary traveller.

We received a tour of the house before dinner. Like many single people living alone in large farmhouses in the rural midwest, Eva opted to live in the core rooms of the house, closing off the remaining bedrooms, sitting rooms and bathrooms to save on utilities through the long Ohio winters. The house had two parlors, a mens and ladies, a dining room, kitchen and mud/wood room off the kitchen. Eva slept on a settee in the ladies parlor, entertained in the mens parlor and adjoining dining room but spent the vast majority of time in the big square kitchen, long stale from its mid-1960′s remodeling job.

The dining room table was exquisitely prepared for the three of us with heirloom china and silver perfectly set atop ironed linen, several crystal wine, water and aperitif glasses at the ready. Eva proceeded to lead us through several courses. As the various dishes came and went, the stories unraveled in a way that revealed more and more who Eva Long was, and wasn’t. This was a woman who actively sought out forks in life’s road for the sheer pleasure of turning left, every time.

He first story revealed the foundation of Eva’s tenacity in the face of those wanting to exclude a woman from the game. Over dandelion salad fresh from her yard, she told us of a group of high school boys, friends of her older brother, who would hold ‘boy only’ meetings in the stone milk house adjacent to the barn. Eva, just 14, had requested she be allowed to join them but had been rebuffed solely based on her gender. Eva was a regular participant in nearly all other activities with these boys, physically matching them in most of their endeavors from squirrel hunts to overhauling carburetors in one another’s hand-me-down pick up trucks. Eva was pissed, but she knew not to show it.

Early one morning, she placed a microphone in the rafters of the milk house, ran a wire through the hayloft to the tool shed off the opposite end of the barn and proceeded to accept being asked to ‘go away’ at the start of the boys next milk house meeting. Eva walked directly to the tool shed, flipped the switch and listened intently as the boys spoke of antics incriminating to say the least.

The following day at school she approached the group as they stood in the hall speaking of successfully reaching ‘first base’ with a girl. Eva calmly proceeded to deride one of them for ‘going to third base’ with one of the members of student council, a fact only known by the milk house club. She then turned and walked away. Eva discovered the power of information that day. She was invited into the milk house thereafter and retained the respect of those boys after they discovered her wiring system, respect that would span decades and garner political favors for years to come as both she and more than one of those boys became members of various city councils. Word was out and stayed out: do not mess with Eva Long.

As she served the venison stew, we learned of the hunting party that went out the morning she made the kill: four others, all men, all life-long hunters and expert marksmen. In the early morning hours, Eva had her buck in a clearing, three other hunters in view, all of whom knew it was her shot. She dropped it with one shot, straight through its heart from 40 yards out, leaving the remaining hunters in the silence of awe, the only sound being the disengaging of their rifles. All three had wrongfully assumed one of them would have to make the kill shot after what they thought would be Eva’s first attempt. The men looked at one another, then to Eva. They walked in respectful silence, dragging and loading the buck while Eva watched. Once again, Eva Long owned her ground, no matter who the company was she found herself in.

The venison stew was followed by turtle soup from a recipe Eva had picked up in Paris. I was about to ask where I might purchase such a thing as turtle meat in Ohio when Eva launched into a lengthy story of how one snags turtles from the pond out back. Though the pond was located on property Eva had long sold, the new owner continued to allow her hunting rights. Baiting, killing, cleaning and cooking a 9 lb. turtle was a far more complicated task then I had ever imagined. This explained why we had received our invitation 6 weeks prior to the holiday: Eva needed time to hunt, not just cook. Eva Long is everything Martha Stewart wishes she was but isn’t.

At this point in the meal, I realized something: everything we were eating and drinking was either caught, killed, grown or brewed by Eva’s own hand. From the dandelion salad plucked from the front yard to the mint tea from leaves grown behind the tool shed; from the turtle snagged in the pond to the venison stew from her one-shot buck, Eva had created the entire meal from the land that surrounded her. This was how Eva Long survived: by her own hand. She had made some money after retiring from being a waitress as a city council member in her small town, a position she had only won after declaring herself a Republican knowing damn well she would never get elected as a member of her own party. Her economic survival however now depended upon barter for the most part and to this end, she cultivated and maintained relationships with both enemies and friends.

I shifted the conversation to her barn, complimenting her on its cleanliness. Eva seamlessly launched into a story which gave me my first hint of how she now worked as a radical: One night each week she and several other women, under cover of night, fanned out across the strip malls and big box stores in the small towns orbiting one another across the barren Ohio fields. Each woman works alone so only one goes down at a time if caught. Into the dumpsters they dive, pulling discarded packaged foods bearing expired due dates of no more than one day past. Filling their pick-ups, mini-vans and station wagons, they make their way back to Eva’s barn where the food is laid out on her long conference room tables to be sorted, bagged and boxed, finishing up by three or four in the morning. By six a.m. the  bags and boxes are at the food banks and by 9 a.m. it is distributed to individuals and families in need. Realizing I had only scratched the surface of Eva Long, at evenings end we agreed to meet in town for a drink in the near future.

Just how Eva Long, a savvy tomboy from rural Ohio, ended up in the jungles of El Salvador with a cyanide capsule in her cheek is a story I nor you will probably ever really know. I never learned of the bridge events that took Eva from serving 5-star meals to the rich and powerful into the middle of this hemispheres most bloody revolution but I venture to guess it is a twisted tale of justice, love, cunning and contacts, lots and lots of contacts. Eva had a web of fellow revolutionaries within which she operated. She did not elaborate on many of the details and it was clear that she would never reveal much of what happened in those years as she aided the Sandinista rebels in their quest to free themselves from the U.S.-backed contra death squads.

At times as I gently gauged the pace of the conversation in that dive bar in a dead-end town in Ohio, I sensed I was speaking to a veteran, a warrior from a different era who perhaps struggled with the guilt of having survived when so many she loved did not; a warrior now mute in ways, dumbed into numb by the memories, the dreams and the scars. I had presumed Eva went to El Salvador only once to satiate her own curiosity and sense of justice. Eva Long did not go to El Salvador once. She went into the jungles of El Salvador no less than eight successive trips, each time alone and each time prepared to suicide either by her last bullet, always in reserve, or by swallowing her ever-present cyanide capsule should she be apprehended by the contras and faced with certain torture, rape and more than likely death.

In conversation Eva was unique in that I have never had anyone glide straight past any and all segways I tried to provide into topics they refused to speak of as deftly as she. My instinct is to approach people I am conversing with who have a story that interests me as a surgeon would approach a patient. I cut cleanly but deeply and I do not stop until I have their guts laid out on the table ready to be re-composed into their story via my pen. Eva was the toughest and I could clearly see that it was this skill of deftly controlling the conversation, detached from body language, that more than likely allowed her to survive. Eva Long is a book open to no one. If she decides to share a portion of one or two chapters with you, consider yourself lucky. And don’t even think of trying to verify sources. In this case most of them are dead or disappeared.

She did share one story with me that haunts me to this day and reveals horrors only female revolutionaries can fathom let alone live with. She was in the states, having returned after one of her solo trips into the mountains to assist at one of the rebel camps. She received word, (she made it a point to never tell me exactly how she received word) that a good friend of hers was pregnant and about to give birth in the coming month. She wanted Eva to come down and perform the duties of mid-wife for the birth. Eva agreed and got on a plane.

As she went into the story, I noted her detachment from her own words as they formulated in her mind and crossed the threshold of her lips, never to return. There was something eery in her that I still cannot quite describe. There is something in Eva that allows her to separate within herself from her experiences that are now filed deep away in her expansive mind. She recalls them and pulls them out for the listener as a librarian of a private collection might pull a voluminous tomb from off the shelf and hand it to the reader. Detachment.

Eva spoke of that night in the jungle as her Salvadoran friend entered into labor. The light faded and the sounds of the jungle at night began. That night was different. You see, the makeshift hospital was just that and it was located in a war zone. Clandestine and dark, the drama of life and death creating itself all around them. The cots were set along side one another in the darkness, with just enough room for those assisting to maneuver as needed in between. As Eva’s friends labor bore on, her wails and moans set the rhythm of the night. It was to become however the darkest of nights for onto the cot next to them was brought another woman. She had injected herself with battery acid in an attempt to abort the results of a gang rape at the hands of the contra. She was twisted, contorted in pain and dying from the inside out. In the depths of the jungle in a time of revolution, there are few resources in situations such as this. Eva sat between the two through the night, comforting the wails of the one dying only to turn and comfort the wails of the one bringing life.

By morning, the victim of the rape was dead. In her arms, Eva cradled the sleeping infant, gazing at its translucent skin as the sun’s rays reached across the jungle canopy and down to offer its first caress. The mother woke and the two women sat in the silence of knowing as only women in a time of revolution can.

Eva returned to the states from El Salvador for the last time. In her final trip she had been separated from her lover, a rebel himself and a native of the country. They had parted in the midst of the mountains as traveling together was far to dangerous. Eva was forced to return to the states before learning of his whereabouts or his fate.

Several years passed. The war came to an end. Eva received a visitor one day, again she would not share with me how they communicated with one another but to her door a woman came. It was a Salvadoran woman who had travelled to visit one family member and Eva. She could not give Eva the news in any other way other than directly, face to face and in her own voice for she still feared for her life. She came to tell Eva of the fate of her Salvadoran lover. He had been captured by the contra and was later found with several bullet wounds and signs of torture. However, it was clear to those who found him that he had in fact died by his own hand, his own bullet entering from the front, the others from behind. A noble death. Eva spoke of this with the same detachment I had seen earlier, as if telling the story of another, not herself, not her lover, not her revolution.

It is once again Easter and each Easter now I think of Eva, her living friends and her lost lover and I say a prayer for them all. I have not kept in contact with Eva over these past few years but I do know one thing: no matter where she is or what she is doing, she owns her ground, completely.

© 2013 Nancy Kotting   All Rights Reserved   Reproduction by Permission Only

Time to Scalp Detroit, Snyder Style

Several months ago I found myself sitting in pub in a rural town in Michigan being introduced to a man who has made a rather large fortune scalping architectural artifacts out of the city of Detroit beginning in the late 1970′s. He quietly yet smugly spoke of the truck loads of doors, windows, trim work, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, etc. he would haul out of ‘abandoned’ apartment buildings and sell off to retailers in New York, Chicago, L.A. etc. He explained how easy it was when he began. He and a crew would strip an entire apartment block, one building at a time with zero competition.

Over time, scalping got to be a little more dangerous as the supply tightened up and competition moved in cocked and ready to put up a worthy fight over the Deco, the Classical and the Gothic. What began as stealing candy from a baby, turned into a foreshadow of the Hunger Games. Having picked over the easily removed and highest dollar value artifacts, this particular parasite has since moved on to the far safer world of industrial salvage. He now hires himself out to strip massive factory buildings owned by corporations who have moved offshore. He makes his margins selling the industrial fixtures, scraping raw materials and selling off used heavy equipment to less developed countries the world over.

I sat quietly listening to him, realizing he had no clue who I was. You see, while this vulture in a ski mask with a crow bar and a flatbed was stripping our city during those years like a maggot on roadkill, I was fresh out of grad school with an MS in Historic Preservation, attending meeting after grueling meeting in the city with preservationists, bureaucrats, activists and organizers working diligently to build consensus around the concept of identifying, stabilizing and adaptively reusing residential, commercial and industrial space, space that was a whole heck of a lot more appealing to potential investors when it retained its light switches, toilets and doors.

I have to confess that there is a part of me that admires the efficiencies innate to scalping in Detroit. It is a highly organized system that more or less functions in an underworld outside the laws of property, operating in its own state of raw goods anarchy, often on third party que from absentee landlords with soon-to-expire insurance policies. It is truly as efficient as any organic decomposition process one could find in nature. Biomimicry, Detroit style.

Scalping in Detroit is about to go large as we say. Wearing a ski mask, wielding a crowbar, hiring a thug or two and maneuvering flat beds in alleys is just so, so… messy.  How does one new to the game compete? Especially when one drives a sedan and not a flat-bed, has a wall full of expensive diplomas and absolutely no crowbars? You snuggle up nice and cozy with a governor and a legislature. Then bring in a black dude with nice teeth and acceptable manners to run block for you. That is what you do.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder through the EFM has now cut the locks and turned his back while an unelected official makes decisions regarding the future ownership of public assets acquired via decisions by representatives of the people of Detroit. Representatives chosen by the people of Detroit through the electoral process. It is called the Democratic process and good or bad it is the only system we have. Well, not really. We also have an oligarchy when convenient which is apparently now.

While most headlines bark on and on about fiscal emergencies and what the EFM will and won’t do, can and can’t do, they are predictably missing the point: the entire world, with the exception of Iceland, is in a fiscal emergency. The sorry state of Detroit’s finances precisely mirrors those of  individuals, cities, counties, and entire countries. Why this moment in Detroit matters is not about whether we acquire fiscal stability with an EFM. It is about whether or not we are going to tolerate the unilateral suspension of Democracy (a precedent I certainly do not want Detroit to own for the rest of time) veiled behind the argument of incompetency, a suspension of Democracy which allows the literal scalping of our cherished public assets. Gone forever. Just like all the stained glass windows from your neighborhood church, now decorating some Wall Street bankers garden shed in East Hampton.

The EFM is allegedly going to improve city services, apparently thinking that alone is a carrot big enough to entice us to lay down and say to hell with Democracy, we want our garbage picked up and we don’t care if its a fascist, an oligarch or Milky the Clown on a Zamboni who does it. Perhaps they will also walk our kids to school and mow down some weeds for lemonade stands. Right. If you think for one minute that legislators in Lansing, or Governor Rick Snyder care if the street lights are on in front of your grandmas house in the ‘hood, you my friend are delusional. These dudes are not white knights, they are scalpers in suits. And you really do have to ask yourself: why are they finally showing up now ?

Am I the only one who finds it coincidental that at the exact same time Governor Snyder suspends Democracy in Detroit, Mayor Bing beefs up law enforcement by bringing in the state and the ATF thugs to ‘crack down’ on crime in Detroit? Am I the only one who finds it coincidental that at the exact same time Governor Snyder suspends Democracy in Detroit, Bing, homeboy Roger Penske and his auto king buddies pony up for a new fleet of law enforcement squad vehicles? If you are planning on protesting the loss of your elected representation, be prepared for a smack down.

The Democratic process is designed to handle failure due to incompetency. Is it a slow process? Yes, at times. Is it a messy process? Yes, at times. Is it the only process we have?

So we thought.

Irreconcilable Differences: Detroit, U.S. Auto Industry File For Divorce

December 2011, Dateline Detroit:

The City of Detroit filed for divorce yesterday from the U.S. Auto Industry citing abandonment and irreconcilable differences.  A laid-off Wayne County employee, who wished to remain anonymous after years of feeling anonymous, tipped off SurReal Detroit Media shortly before noon at a clandestine meeting on Belle Isle. The report was later confirmed via text by a long-haul truck driver while delivering a load of charred Chevy Volts back to the assembly line under cover of night.

Detroit and the U.S. Auto Industry (aka: HotRod) married quietly in a civil ceremony at the turn-of-the-century, the turn-of-the-century before the last turn-of-the-century.  Their relationship had been the envy of the world for decades with entire nations trying to emulate them. “We admire very much them, perfecture marriage of industrialness and urbaness.” said Xu Zhi han of Shanghai between gasps for breath in the city smog. In a brief Skype interview, German Peter Meinhard expressed little sympathy: “Vaz iz das future? Vee alvays knew zay made sheet together!” Though we could feel their glow, the Japanese could not be reached for comment at press time.

Long suspected, the filing came as no surprise to residents who have worked to assume an identity autonomous of the auto industry. “I want my own life” said Detroit resident Athena Sunshine as she worked in her warehouse art studio. “Like, every time I hear the word ‘Detroit’ in the news, like, they are not talking about me, they are like, you know, like, talking about HotRod.  HELLO!  Do I LOOK like the auto industry? Hell no!  Just look at me: white girl natty dreads, I’m covered in plaster, eating Slows-to-Go and creating my OWN future ALL BY MYSELF!” she said while hurling plaster into what appeared to be a vat of nude barbie dolls.

HotRod and Detroit simultaneously tweeted of the impending split, having shared the news with family first. With a smoke stack as an avatar, HotRod tweeted: “It is with great sadness that I must keep this to 140 rpms…the chrome is gone from our relationship as is the vroom vroom of yesteryear.” Detroit followed with a not-so-kind tweet: “HotRod has been on the sofa munching subsidies for years and I’ve given up. I’ve moved on and I’ve become someone I’m really proud of.” HotRod fired back: “Detroit never appreciated my pistons!” A tweet riot ensued. While Detroit’s tweets remained coherent throughout the night, HotRod was backfiring all over the Twittersphere, not ceasing up until well after 4 a.m. Eventually, HotRod’s account was stripped and blocked.

At the crack of dawn, in the fields of Brightmoor on Detroit’s Northwest side, Virgil Ploughforth Rakewell hollered at our reporter over the noise of his spit-shined Kaboda: “been farmin my part fer years now and I can’t member see’un no autoworkers, natta one. Seems they dispaired ‘fore my time. Cuz says heez seen some down t’ward Tennessee but I dunno, never been thar. Deevorce jus seems like the right thing ta do at this point.  I gotta git, sun she’s a burnin, pleasure speakin ta ya.”

In Berlin, in a haze filled cavernous club, our strung out stringer caught up with Techno-turned-House-turned-Hip-Hop-turned-Trance-turned-Electro music magnet and former Detroiter Juan Attitagin to get his spin on the split: “I knew it was coming years ago and to be quite honest with you…” he screamed over the wall-fall inducing bass,  ”I’m surprised Detroit stayed with HotRod for so long. They did fantastic sh*t together and it was beautiful, soulful, they changed the world man. But now, Detroit needs to move on, the city no longer needs that fat a*s HotRod, they’re doin their own thing, makin their own rhymes, their own times, know what I’m sayin?”

Several newcomers to Detroit we interviewed had never known Detroit as something separate from HotRod and were somewhat surprised upon hearing of the split.  Transplant Jules Galore said it best: “Growing up in New York City, all I ever heard was HotRod this, HotRod that…HotRod ruled the world, from Havana to Tokyo to Tuvalu. I had no idea there was this beautiful, soulful, strong, independent city behind the industry. It was never allowed in the limelight, we never really knew Detroit. And there it was all along, just working it’s fanny off behind the scenes while HotRod got all the headlines. That HotRod’s been two-timin Detroit all over the world and we know it.” He continued: “Detroit deserves it’s own identity now, it’s own freedom, it deserves to be recognized as a PLACE not an INDUSTRY.” When pressed and asked what he thought Detroit might be beyond a life with HotRod, he smiled and said: “Look around us, Detroit knows whats goin down. It’s prepared to be whatever it needs to be, whatever it wants to be.”

© 2013 Nancy Kotting    All Right Reserved    Reproduction with Permission Only   

Inside Out In Detroit

Detroiters always come home. Living in the city, intrenched in our valiant efforts, we burn out, get angry, say we are done and go to great lengths to put the heartbreak behind us, through rearview mirrors our final farewells cast. No matter how strong, visionary or devoted to truth, justice, or even a fleeting moment of psychological break-even we may be, Detroit eventually breaks even the stoutest of hearts. And yet, we return.

Over the years I have watched wave after wave of ‘fresh troops’ come into her bosom, on fire with dreams ignited by the scent of her ashes. The most carnal instinct erupts at the sight of embers and no flame: we rush in to keep the fires lit knowing somewhere in our DNA that our life depends on it. They arrive from any and all points beyond: taunted, haunted and doomed by her motto: ‘Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus’. Translation: We hope for better things, it will rise from the ashes. Just as she pulls in the first-time-is-free clients, she also pulls back the repeat offenders. For those addicted to resurrection mythology, Detroit is your slipstream.

There are good addictions and there are bad. Detroit is a good one and I’m back for another hit. When I came into the city of my ancestors in 1988 I sought to rip apart her fabric thread by thread in all my cat-killing curiosity. I wanted to know Detroit politically, racially, aesthetically. It was daunting but deeply fulfilling for the span of 10 years. I fled and quickly returned in 1999, only to be met with a resounding ‘not now’ in my soul to which I answered with a firm foot to the accelerator pedal and the slow fade of her embers in my heart.

When in Detroit last I was agnostic, a wonderful protective device. Back then I drove the cobble streets fooling myself into thinking I was deep cover in my research of the city’s guts, an urban surgeon let loose with her scalpel on a cold cadaver. If I could see it, I knew it. The architectural ruins of pie-eyed capitalists surrounded my explorations, kept company by grand mansions, conformist worker housing and the occasional lone brick church, spires relentlessly pointing skyward, asking us to shift our gaze from the surrounding hell to the heavens above. Intellectually and with a true open heart, I soaked up the scene I found myself immersed within. I lived it, owned it, sent it to the printer in my mind as a final draft.

Now, I know better. Fate returned me to Detroit as a Catholic. It is this that allows me to see Detroit within a frame I never imagined. Ever. It came to me as I sat in the nave at St. Albertus. I had caught glimpses of it over the course of my last sojourn in the city: a side-lot newly planted in spring vegetables; an open window four stories up, above three abandoned, Thornetta’s voice falling out of it; the gentle nod of an elder as I waited, my wheels on the line at the cross-walk. But I didn’t quite get it then. I do now.

I targeted St. Albertus for Mass that day for two reasons: first, they are a parish that no longer exists and therefore it is nearly impossible to enter so I had to take the opportunity while I could. Secondly, a devout group steadfastly continue to keep the structure alive by holding Mass once per month, more importantly, the Tridentine Mass in latin which I am often hard pressed to find and attend.

As I approached the block of St. Aubin street adorned by St. Albertus, I found myself hoping for an attendant who might watch over the vehicles whilst we did our thing inside. St. Albertus is surrounded by the scenes of headlines, the scenes of the Detroit we all recognize: burned out houses, vacant lots of tall grass, a wandering soul in rags never afraid to make and hold eye contact with a passing motorist.

A 7′ tall wrought iron fence surrounded the church, the front gate open for the occasion, massive padlocks dangling in wait for the Mass to end. On the exterior, St. Al looks a part of the landscape which surrounds it: spalled bricks, ledges shrunk from dry rot, her stained glass windows barely perceptible behind protective plexiglass, iron and years of soot. The massive arched entry doors are held by iron hinges, the decorative false hinges long scalped, leaving their ‘ghost’ outline impressions lest we forget.

To walk into any of the Historic Catholic Churches of Detroit is to experience something beyond words. To do so feels akin to a radical action. To do so constitutes the most astounding shock to the psyche, in real time. These days we are acclimated to adjusting our perceptions in nano-seconds as pixels and bytes infiltrate our brainscapes at alarming speed. But such is wholly a cerebral test of ones mind-width. To cross the threshold of St. Albertus, or any of these churches,  is to go from the post-apocalyptic subject matter itself into a surviving sanctuary of unfathomable and pristine beauty, built in a time long past. To do so alters the senses in a way that renders the terms ‘cyber’ and ‘virtual’ a joke, something you immediately, almost violently wish to eliminate from your life as a pathetic passing fancy.

St. Albertus Roman Catholic Church Photo: Nancy Kotting

Nothing defines real or tactile as starkly as stepping across the threshold of St. Albertus or any of these spiritual oasis of deep beauty from the darkness of an endless urban night.

Sitting in the nave listening to the priest bellow in perfect latin, I gazed out the open door of the South transept upon the barren field next door, a rusted water tower in the distance. This view from my pew in its totality constituted the very juxtaposition which I had sought for years to put into words for all those inquiring minds from locales beyond Detroit who inevitably asked me: why Detroit?

Answer: Her beauty is only found from within.

You will never see what it is that keeps we Detroiters here, that thing that keeps us coming back if you continue to gaze upon her from a safe distance. Even when I walked her streets a decade ago, thinking I knew her, I didn’t.

In these churches I have found the metaphor I have searched for, stated in architectural terms much more clearly than the human random acts of grace I previously referred to as markers of what kept me here. They are the metaphor I somehow knew was here, just beyond my perception, the one I needed to truly understand Detroit: that her beauty is found deep within, and that beauty has remained, untarnished, in spite of the forces of time and socio-economic travails, in spite of what one may see from the outside.

Sweetest Heart of Mary Photo: Nancy Kotting

In Detroit, no matter what life brings, no matter how deep and ugly the scars, the heart of the city remains strong and true, a thing of beauty, a beacon of hope beyond destruction.

Dedicated to David Blair 1967-2011

© 2013  Nancy Kotting  All Rights Reserved   Reproduction by Permission Only

SixamtoSixam I AM

Over a 24 hour period in Detroit, August 14/15, 2011, 16 people were shot leaving 7 dead in unrelated occurrences. But they are related, we are all related and violence such as this does not occur in a vacuum no matter how removed we feel our lives to be.  I, perhaps like you, moved through the same time period… albeit a world away.  SixamtoSixamI Am is dedicated to those lost or still struggling with violence. May God Bless the families of those lost this horrific weekend in the city’s history.

________________________________________________________________

6:00 a.m. Friday to 6:00 a.m. Saturday.

Detroit, Michigan.

FRIDAY

8:12 a.m. | A 36-year-old man was approached by a man on the 16700 block of Biltmore and was fatally shot. The suspect, 30, ran away. Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 313-596-2260.

I AM walking through a stable yard gazing across a freshly mown meadow at a herd of deer grazing in the remains of a morning mist.  The pads of my dogs feet fall gently in the soft morning grass, collecting dew.

6:50 p.m. | A 20-year-old man was walking to a basketball court in the area of Dexter and Davison when a man in a vehicle pulled up and fired shots. The victim received a gunshot wound and was listed in temporary serious condition. The suspect, who escaped in the vehicle, is 24-years-old. Anyone with information is asked to call the 10th Precinct Investigative Operations at 313-596-1040.

I AM wrapping the legs of an old schoolmaster, softly holding the tension in the bandage as it comes round his fetlock and back again, round and back again.

7:55 p.m. | A 40-year-old man was traveling at a high rate of speed at Warren and St. Antoine when he struck a pole and a tree. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died. He had received a gunshot wound. Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 313-596-2260.

I AM feeling the work of the day in my bones, joints thick. I move through a slow cooked meal and a deep red wine.

9 p.m. | A 14-year-old told police he had an altercation with a person driving a vehicle at Harper and Bluehill. The suspect fired shots and escaped in the vehicle. The teen was struck and listed in temporary serious condition. The suspect is unknown and police, on a synopsis of the shooting incidents, noted: “The victim is being less than truthful and has had three different versions of what occurred.” Anyone with information is asked to call the Eastern District’s Investigative Operations at 313-596-5940.

I AM doing a night check of 8 horses whose countries of origin span continents.  I climb the loft stairs, throwing each a flake of hay to keep their guts occupied till the break of dawn when I will come again.

9 p.m. | A 15-year old told police he was walking in the area of Colfax and Oregon when he heard a shot and felt pain. He received a gunshot wound and is listed in temporary serious condition. Police said the investigation indicates the victim shot himself.

I AM walking through the moonlight, the sound of horses and the smell of hay fading behind me, the gentle noises of the night descending across the meadows, the pond and the woodlot.

SATURDAY

12:01 a.m. | Shots were fired at a backyard party on the 200 block of W. Greendale and five people were shot. The party, police said, was to celebrate the return of a person just released from being incarcerated in connection with a crime of assault with intent to murder. During the celebration, shots were fired, killing a 16-year-old and wounding another 16-year-old, two 18 year olds and a 19-year old. According to the synopsis of the shootings: “Persons fathering are not providing information on the shooter(s).” Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 313-596-2260.

I AM dreaming of contorted faces morphing out into magazine glossies of people I do not recognize.  I wake, gazing at the red semicolon parked between the ’12′ and the ’01′.  I pull the linens close and let my eyes slide again into darkness.

1:50 a.m. | A 20-year-old man was approached on the 17300 block of Greenfield by several suspects as he changed a tire. As they attempted to rob him, the victim ran. Shots were fired, striking the victim, who is listed in serious condition. The suspects are unknown. Anyone with information is asked to call the 6th and 8th Precincts’ Investigative Operations at 313-596-5640.

I AM lost in sleep. Outside, the coyotes pace, measuring the light beams from the motion sensor floods, the scent of a bitch taunting them into a dodgy dance between the darkness and the light.

3:25 a.m. | Three men were shot on the 4000 block of Harding. Police said the men – ages 35, 38 and 46 – were gambling inside of the location when an altercation occurred and shots were fired. The 35 and 38 year olds were killed. The 46 year old is listed in critical condition and was arrested. Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 313-596-2260.

I AM awoken by an ancient force: the Hour of Mercy. I reach for my Rosary in the soft red glow of digital lights, pulling it to my chest to pray in the quiet of the night. In the darkness my lips move, a whisper cuts the air…”Eternal Father I offer you the body, blood, soul and divinity of…

3:25 a.m. | A 21-year-old man, attempting to help his mother during a physical altercation with a man on the 9000 block of Robson, was fatally shot by the suspect, who is 39, police said. The suspect fled the location. Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 313-596-2260.

I AM feeling the beads fall into the folds of my bed linens, in the darkness, one by one in silence, each cloaked one more time in my whispers…”for the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

In this hour, around the world, an unbroken chain of prayers whispered for both the dead… and the living.

I AM.

Light breaks. I wake, pull my boots and walk, half drunk on a sorrow I cannot explain, to wide-eyed horses asking questions I cannot answer. I firmly grasp the rake, drop my brow to my work, and begin to shovel the dregs of the day.

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© 2011, 2012, 2013 Nancy Kotting.  All Rights Reserved.  Reproduction with Permission Only 

 

How The Kings Of Built-In Obsolescence Became Obsolete

December 2008

Henry Ford was a genius. He was also a curious mix of Capitalist, Socialist and Fascist all bundled into one but that is an essay I will save for another day. Of the over 100 fledgling auto makers who brainstormed the industrial revolution in the little brick shops of the warehouse district of Detroit at the turn of the century (the forerunner to the ‘garage’ wombs of the hi-tech revolution), Ford has survived as the author-apparent of the concept that provided the gasoline for capitalism itself as a viable concept: built in obsolescence. In short, the concept involves mating Darwinism with the primal need of virtually 89% of humans to feel a part of the herd, at any cost. But of course neither Ford nor any other industrial revolutionist ‘invented’ the concept. Like all great geniuses, he simply found a truism and co-opted it effectively. The concept of built-in obsolescence is mere Darwinism in its most simplistic form, with the twist of ‘Keep up with the Jones Family’ added as the critical kicker aspect. It is in a nutshell: Grow, change, conform, or die. And implementing this simple formula, Detroit changed the world.

There was a time when Detroit could wield this concept most effectively model year after model year. Slowly, over time, Detroit commandeered our need for identity and belonging and hope for a better tomorrow, swathed it in a unibody design, added more and more cylinders and gave the world an extension of our very selves on wheels. ‘We are what we drive’ carjacked a nation and we loved it. They sold it, we bought it. There was a time in our history when we had no idea of who we were beyond a gaggle of Bobbits. The Big Three took it upon themselves to tell us. They carved us into consumers of identity. They made our vehicles ourselves and ourselves our vehicles. Product as self. Sound familiar? And you think the concept of branding is new? Year after year, in all our need, we fell for the dangling carrots of options, up grades and thunderous horsepower. And an industry grew bulbous, lazy and dependent on a system that fed them well to the point of knowing nothing else. Nothing.

I grew up in the northern suburbs of Detroit, a location brought about by the ‘flight of the white’. I was one of the rare few children whose daddy did not work for one of the ‘Big Three’. While my professor father drove a string of used Volkswagons, culminating in the ultimate liberal vehicular statement of the early seventies, the VW van, all of my friends were ushered to school in the latest ‘company car’. Big, heavy, shiny sedans with shiny wheels and shiny grills and shiny burled wood dashboards. Chrome out-massed paint. They had trunks that could hold enough luggage to get a family of four coast to coast without ever having to wear the same travel outfit twice. Those who ‘belonged’ to one of the Big Three, for they surely sought to ‘own’ people back then, were members of an exclusive club, a world unto itself that literally ran the world. Or at least drove it.

Back then in Detroit, you either served the gods of combustion or you were destined to a life on the outside, picking from the meager used car lots filled with last years model. Poor, poor you. There are literally generations of families in whose blood runs the auto industry of Detroit. They know no other way of being, of thinking. Employees were treasured and it was understood that you hired in young and stayed for life. GM families did not mix with Ford Families. Heaven forbid you worked for Chrysler. From blue collar to white, from suppliers to the legions of after-market businesses that orbit the giant three, thousands directly and indirectly lived off their rotund presence like birds a top the hippopotamuses standing in the rivers flow. Company men to the core. Suppliers stuck to the breast of the Big Three.

And now the Big Three are at the breast of the big G looking for a bail out. How did we get here? What I see now is an industry that has built itself into obsolescence by practicing the concept of built-in obsolescence without ever looking back, or beyond themselves for that matter. What I see is an industry that simply CANNOT change its corporate culture from one of arrogantly defining the market and selling into it year after year after year… to one of serving the market. What I see is an industry that sold us the answers year after year without ever asking the questions. Detroit simply cannot stop thinking that they create the automobile market by telling us who we are and selling us that version of ourselves on wheels. The very idea of starting first by of looking around outside of yourself to see where you might be of service is innately and profoundly an extraterrestrial concept to Detroit. Yes, they profess to now be ‘”market-driven”. But know that you are hearing this from an industry that again, survives by telling you what you are rather than asking you what you need, what the planet needs. The idea of any inkling of congruence in such a message is naive.

The notion of letting the current environment within which consumers are to own and operate vehicles determine the form of said vehicle was never put into the DNA of the industry at it took its first baby steps back in the shops and warehouses speckled along the river in Detroit in 1900. And changing the DNA of an industry is proving to be impossible. After spending decades telling the world who we are again and again and again, model after seductive model, they have failed to grow the ability to listen, to observe and to change. They are the beast whose ears corporate evolution has deemed irrelevant and hence they cannot hear. They are the beast whose eyes corporate evolution has deemed irrelevant and hence they cannot see. The residual arrogance of this culture is the very rope they now fashion as necklaces.

Earlier this week I watched as the patsy CEOs, recruited from ‘outside’ the auto industry to man the bridges while these corporate ghost ships roll, pitch and yaw in their death throes lined up in front of Congress, receipts in hand, looking for a refund for all of their lobbying-dollars-of-denial.

Right.

We are foolish to think a Hippopotamus can morph itself into an Eagle. It is not going to happen. The change required to bring the corporate culture of the American auto industry into the here and now is monolithic. And it must happen at the very core of the industry. And it must be done at the hands of those who went to school on the industrial revolution in creating the hi-tech revolution. It must be done at the hands of those who have built an empire by successfully learning to start with nothing but an open mind, a sense of place and a sense of humility in a perilously fragile global environment. It must be done by those who can accurately read the world around them, see what needs to be done and do it. In order for American automobile companies to survive and prosper from here they must be stripped bare of their very DNA, and rebuilt from the oil stained concrete up.

©2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Nancy Kotting.   All rights reserved, reproduction with permission only.

Sixto Rodriguez: Inner City Blues (courtesy Single Barrel Detroit)

Single Barrel Detroit captures Sugarman at the Detroit Institute of Arts…

http://vimeo.com/5313931