Midwestern Gothic

Midwestern Gothic is a new literary magazine out of Ann Arbor is focusing on the Midwest.  The mags goal is to "collect the very best in Midwestern writers and writing in an effort to compile a definitive resource on the region and its influences.

Prose, poetry and photography by those who live or have lived in the Midwest are sought, especially those that that capture the essence of the Midwest.

My favorite Detroit-area writer/blogger Anna Clark will be featured in the first issue.

Fringe- Places that Verb Your World

5 Pieces by R. Justin Stewart by R. Justin Stewart • 03.07.2011

Fringe Magazine

Fringe Magazine, in honor of the launch  of Issue No. 26:  Maps (Spring '11), is asking readers to contribute to a piece of collaborative artwork, in the form of a Google Map:


For our anniversary Maps issue, Fringe is making an interactive map of Places That Verb Your World and we need help. Send a little something — a photograph, a verse, a few sentences about a geographical location that is meaningful to you - to FringeTheMagazine@gmail.com, or post your submissions on our Facebook page.

Quite a  few entries are up already. Viewed using the Google Maps plug-in, you can fly from place to place and view these places-from-the-heart from the landscape level or street level, accompanied by verse, a short story, or a photo.

Rumpus Readers on Neighborhood - The Rumpus.net

The Rumpus, a San Fransisco-based online literary and culture magazine co-founded by author Stephen Elliott, recently issued a call for reader submissions on the topic of neighborhood- 500 words or less.

As this post by NRDC's Kaid Bensfield so eloquently points out, neighborhoods, not cities, are the locus for defining our connection to place. They embody the spatial increments which circumscribe our daily existence and create (or preclude) the opportunities we have (or don't) for meeting the people who surround us.

Ray LaHood, Secretary for the US Department of Transportation, defines neighborhood this way.  Richard Florida has another take. According to Wendell Berry, local economies depend on them.

I have an ideal mental image of "neighborhood" and I am not sure that I have ever lived in one.  My first image derives, of course, from Sesame Street's "Who Are The People in Your Neighborhood."  I picture a bustling street with people milling about. I think of corner stores, neighborhood Christmas get-togethers, local eateries, dropping by, informal Friday night dinners at a friend's house, and "regulars".

I had a taste of this kind of neighborhood in college, in the student ghettoes of Ann Arbor, where on front porches festooned with decomposing couches, students congregated in impromptu, informal gatherings. I had another taste while visiting friends in Portland, Oregon, and again in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Before and since those college years,  I have always lived in suburban, single-family residential "neighborhoods."  The one I live in now is nice.  I can walk to a downtown area in about ten minutes in one direction, and to a park with a river in the other. People are out walking dogs and kids  in the evenings when the weather is nice.

Yet I feel something is missing, something that I can't quite put my finger on.  I don't feel connected to the community.  I don't feel part of my neighborhood.

I am intent on finding ways to be more connected.

Here's what I've learned about living in the suburbs: you meet people in your job and through other interests, but because you spend so much time away from home or inside of your home, meeting your neighbors takes effort. And because everyone you know from the other parts of your life  (which take place in other land uses) live so far away, having a social life takes a lot of planning. And, of course, driving.

The Rumpus' readers delve into some of these themes with some delicate, beautiful writing. Here is a sampling:

Aimee Loselle writes on the ideologies we manufacture about our childhood neighborhoods:

I’ve never found the same sense of belonging I had when I was ten, running home on a July evening, tan and tired from playing tag and kill-the-man-with-the-ball, ready to eat meatloaf and read a book in my bedroom or watch “Private Benjamin” or “The Greatest American Hero” on television. My house was mostly silent by then, everyone in retreat. Yet the neighborhood streetlights and kitchen windows were seemingly stable and warm outside my own lit room. I fell for that illusion. I had to believe, even as it shredded around me. Although I don’t believe anymore, I still have the longing. For something unchanging and full of sentiment. For something that doesn’t exist.

Ray Shea contemplates the illusory, arbitrary borders we construct in our neighborhoods:

I’ve never been past the La Chica. It’s not a neighborhood I avoid, it’s just that it’s all houses and apartment buildings and I don’t know anybody who lives there. I only go to the edge, to the taco truck. I wish I spoke Spanish. I wish I could hang around and drink beer, talk to the men, while my children play in the parking lot. It feels nice.

Sam Jasperh satirizes the isolation that suburban neighborhoods can engender:

After two years’ residency, you can try sitting on your porch, which constitutes a breach of neighborhood etiquette, with a sign lettered: “Seeking friendship. Apply within.”

Find the local indie bookstore, drive the fifteen miles to it, park in the very large lot. Walk in and case the place, like you would if you were planning to rob it. Make small talk with the clerk. You’ll most likely be the only person in the place.

Joan Mathieu describes the crime and poverty of a skid row neighborhood, then points out:

But here’s the thing. Bank robbers and car thieves make better neighbors than doctors, lawyers, and TV actresses, the sort of people I once called neighbor before fortune blasted me against the rocks. Those people never came out of their houses, and when they did never spoke to me, and when they spoke to me it was to tell me to keep my fucking dog out of their yard.

Read more at:
Readers Report Back From… Neighborhood - The Rumpus.net:

PlaceLit: Rhonda Welsh

My Only Home

By Rhonda Welsh

Detroit is my only home.
Child of the west side...
Majestic, Puritan, Elmhurst,
Linwood, Plymouth, Eight Mile

All the while
craved a
different existence
but finally realized
Detroit is who I am.

Good students teased for acting too white
while the suburbs scream too black.
Neighborhoods who know no lack
always labeled poor.

Detroit was once much more than…

Dirty streets. Corrupt politicians.
Perverted superstitions
make some people treat books
like bad ju ju.

But my Detroit is not that simple…

Kind-hearted hustlers work day and night.
Make a dollar out of fifteen cents.
The auto industry came and went
but true Detroiters always make it work.

Saturday greens from Eastern Market
and a new hat from Mr. Song.
You can't go wrong on Sunday mornings
shouting and rocking
until the blues melt away.

Detroiters always seek
a brand new day.

Even our skyline boasts a Renaissance.

And the summer…

Caribbean Picnic on Belle Isle,
Moonlit concerts at Campus Martius,
and greasy fish fingers
clap to the beat
with sandal clad feet
at the African World Festival.

Poetry is everywhere.
Music Hall, Scarab Club, 1515 Broadway,
even at the Y-M-C-A.

Detroit is no longer in its heyday,
but its days are not finished yet.

There is much more life.
More pride runs through the veins.
Soon the activists must rise and take the reins.

Restore what has been lost.
No longer give thought
to those who diss and dismiss.

It is not a wasteland.
There are families here.

Educators, doctors, lawyers,
butchers, bakers,
yes, even candlestick makers reside in Detroit.

Shake off depleted self-esteem
that hangs over the city like a cloud.
Shout the city's praises out loud
and recognize its worth.

Induce the new birth.
Invoke that migrant spirit
transplanted from red earth.

Don't let it die an unnatural death.
Purge the dross and rebuild the best.

Detroit is the only home I've ever known.

©Rhonda Welsh 2010
from the book Red Clay Legacy

Read more: http://detroit.blogs.time.com/2010/10/04/a-detroit-poet-and-her-city-as-muse/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogs%2Fthedetroitblog+%28TIME%3A+The+Detroit+Blog%29#ixzz11RTmgfLn

4th Annual People's Arts Festival at the Russell Industrial Center

Hoping to make it to this on Saturday or Sunday after a trip to the Eastern Market!

4th Annual People's Arts Festival at the Russell

Water, CA

Arguably, the disconnect between place and people that ails much of our society is contributed to in no small measure by our over-use of and addiction to technology (the very technology with which you are now reading this post).

Place-based multimedia tools, when done well, offer a potential countermeasure to this effect.  Web-based tools such as Water, CA, which skillfully infuses geography, history, culture, activism and art, can connect, inform, and inspire through integration of personal and journalistic narrative, photographic and artistic imagery, and the interactivity of the web.

Of course, nothing can so inspire as an actual physical encounter with a place.

Flickr: Wade Bryant's Photostream

Some really incredible gorgeous photos of Detroit.

Flickr: Wade Bryant's Photostream

Culture in the D

A great deal of press lately has focused on Detroit art, DIY and "homepreneurs." Detroit is wrapping up it's first Indie Film Fest this week. We are hosts to one of several Moth events across the nation. Last month saw the freezing (and thawing) of the Ice House project. The Heidelburg Project (above photo) is alive and well after 20+ years, and is hosting an "outsider art tour" on March 20th, which is Atlas Obscura day (see previous post). Matrix Theater is building community through theater in southwest Detroit. The Crofoot in Pontiac continues to put out a can't miss schedule of concerts showcasing local and national talent. Live jazz can be had at Cliff Bell's. The Scarab Club continues to present art, music and literature after 100 years. And of course, the DIA and Detroit Film Theater continue to bring art and culture to the region.

When you read about Detroit in the national media, you don't often hear about this stuff: the people and institutions that sustain a vibrant culture, and which give soul and authenticity to this place, in times of good and in times of difficulty.