So this is what film production is like: back in NYC for the weekend to do a final revise on the screenplay with John, the director, before production in Mid-March. It’s like being in the air traffic control tower on Thanksgiving during a white-0ut. John is working the charm offensive in what appears to be a dozen directions: casting, locking production talent, location scouting, soundtrack… Cable internet drips. Time Warner is called, called, and called again. Fridge has Fresca and left-overs and emergency hummus. Suddenly, we need to restore a scene from, like, twelve drafts ago. Where, pray tell, do the twelve-ago drafts live?

At least it’s pouring rain out. Nobody’s going anywhere.

I’ve wanted to work on a Site:Lab — this tremendous public art rave (I know, weird, but it’s the best I could do) curated by this fellow Paul Amenta that happens here in Grand Rapids about three times a year – ever since I went to the spectacular “Land of Riches” one at the Old Public Museum.

The one thing about Grand Rapids: it’s never crowded. You never feel like you’re in a crowded space. EXCEPT at Site:Labs, where Paul oversees dozens of individual artists, classes, collectives etc. who put together site-specific work. “Land of Riches” was so elegant and composed — rooms upon rooms of smart, sensitive re-imaginings of what a museum does. You had to to be there, and that was the OTHER cool thing about it: you, having to be there. It was a one-night Brigadoon of art and socializing.

The next one is April 13, downtown. And I think we’ve got something that many folks will want to plug into. I have been sworn to secrecy because I’ve always wanted to swear to it. BUT here are some pics of the space: 111 Division.

Second floor ballroom

111 Division

The Third Floor

On the way to pick up my Fancy Pants from the dry-cleaners,I passed the window of the used bookstore in Eastown (well, one of two right next to each other, weirdly), and the Issacson Steve Jobs biography in the window caught my eye. Somebody gave that badboy up?

It was $35, mine for only…marginally less than that.

I also picked up Kevin Boyle’s Arc of Justice, which I’ve been meaning to read. I feel like there’s a story in white flight in Michigan — it’s what eroded the schools which eroded the cities which eroded the tax base which led to everything else. For a long time, I’ve wanted to tell the biography of a house, in Detroit, and the series of concessions and sacrifices that might lead a family (or families) to abandon something that size. I live on a block with four empty homes, here in Eastown — two boarded up.

Maybe we should do the piece IN THE HOUSE? David Hancock style?

Listening to the Catalyst Radio/WYCE/The Rapidian interview I did last week about RUST. I’m always surprised by the sound of my own voice — surprised might be the nice way to put it. I think they even edited out the space between the words. To cram it all in? Either way, I sound very much INTO IT. I don’t know that I will ever master nonplussed. But Linda, the host, did a great job incorporating the original songs and even the documentary sound from “From Dawn Until Sunset”, the 1937 GM corporate film we use in the show…