Top Ten Abandoned Blog-Post Ideas of 2011

    The second annual attempt to offer some sort of explanation as to why there are long periods of inactivity on this blog, which, despite what many seem to believe, has not itself been abandoned.  As always, thanks for reading and happy new year. 


1.  Dave Bing's 1975-76 Basketball Card

     It's almost too easy.  But, even though our mayor has been reeling for awhile, it could be argued he hasn't quite fallen on his ass yet.  Still, was our mayor's, and by default our city's, future foretold on a trading card back in the seventies?   The implications of all this became too difficult to write about.

  












2.  The Differences Between The Jerome P. Cavanaugh Wing At The Detroit Institute Of Arts And The Jerome P. Cavanaugh Social Room At The Lager House

    This exercise was dropped because the challenge, although tempting, was much more difficult than the resulting piece's merits would warrant.  I mean, who cares, right?

















3.  Wishing The Wish Tree Was A Willow

    Yoko Ono's "Wish Tree for Detroit" may be the city's most vulnerable piece of art.  Not only because a transit center was built around it but because the tree itself, a ginko, seems so fragile.  I would have used a willow, but who am I to tell Yoko Ono how to do her art?  Besides, I didn't want to be labeled an "arborist".
















4.  "In Detroit Life Is Worth Living"

     I found a 100-year-old postcard bearing an image of Grand Circus Park with a floral display reading "In Detroit Life Is Worth Living".  I was wondering why the Detroit Cheerleading Squad hadn't revived this saying.  Personally, I was kicked off the squad for being too cynical.  The best thing about my copy of this postcard is the one-sentence note on the back:

     See how easy things were for Roy?  He didn't have to torture his mind with questions about crime and taxes and streetlights and schools and inefficient city departments and just the overall stigma that goes with living in Detroit.  All Roy needed was to be told life was worth living here.  After that, there's no question where Roy's living.

5.   The Center For Abandoned Letterhead

     This exhibition lasted only two days back in September during the Detroit Design Festival; by the time I was able to write anything about it it was gone.  This does not mean it should be forgotten, it was one of the most unique things to happen in the city all year.  Set up inside the Franklin Furniture warehouse, it was the work of Maia Asshaq and Danielle Aubert and consisted of crisp, neat stacks of blank sheets of letterhead.  Minimal and yet full of minutiae, the exhibit documented what the artists call "a future that never happened."  This is a theme often touched upon in Detroit, but never has it been so plainly displayed as on these stark sheets of paper, in great contrast to the usual depiction of abandonment in the city. 

6.  eTroit

     A combination of an electronic/computery version of the city and appropriating what's left by the people who call Detroit "The D."  This idea became too convoluted and was scrapped because it hurt my head. 

7.  The Food Desert

     If you told me you were going to a Sand Desert, I would think you were going to a place full of sand, not devoid of sand.  So when Detroit is called a Food Desert I believe that is the correct term.  That might just be me though, so I'm going to keep that idea to myself.  













8.  How My Extreme Displeasure For What The Ilitch Family Has Done/Is Doing/Has Not Done To Detroit Subsided For A Day Because The Tigers Won The World Series

9.   The Resurrection Of David Mackenzie

     I was going to write a horror-fiction piece about David Mackenzie rising from the dead and walking around the city wielding the giant boulder he's buried under and trying to smash some sense into our city officials.  But this is not my genre.


10.  Detroit Detroit
    When you tell people that you live in Detroit, usually the first question they ask is "Detroit Detroit?"   Apply this to any other city and it sounds very funny.  "Chicago Chicago?"  "Boston Boston?"  Applied to New York it sounds especially odd:  "New York New York, New York?"  This seems to be strictly a Detroit phenomenon.  I was going to propose the city officially change its name to reflect this, using an italicized Detroit followed by a non-stressed Detroit; but now may not be the time, the city just doesn't have the money to change all those signs.  Think of all the abandoned letterhead though. 



Dave Bing basketball card copyright Topps Co.