At the same time, no doubt, there are benefits to an art culture with no reviewers, no gatekeepers, no judges. Namely, that I can “direct” and collaborate (still not sure what the word is for what I contributed…I’ve been going with “executive produce”) with Site:Lab on a project this size, with zero experience at the helm.

Kevin, the critic, walked through the whole space and even watched the entire performance. I’m in total agreement that the event was as much a signal flare as a fire: there might have been lines down the block to get in, but the next one, and the next one after that, should be even better. Building out from a core concept, in our case the environment of a failing secret society, proved to be a great model for distributed participation.

Jeremy Robinson, Pythias III

Oh and I just bought one of the Pythian “Founders” portraits (made by Stafford Smith and his photo class at GVSU) for myself, for my birthday.

Daniel Radcliffe, caught by the paparazzi on the second day of shooting Kill Your Darlings on the streets of Brooklyn.

He’s such a professional and hard worker — never late, never complaining (even when wearing layers in 70 degree heat), and basically running sprints everyday with this film schedule. He’s used to shooting 1/8th of a page of screenplay a day on the Potter films. We’re regularly shooting five.

I’m back in the city for a run of days, to be present for the “action sequence” and help make it run smoothly. As you might imagine, it involved books. And if all goes well, it will be EXCITING.

I read the NYKR for sentences like this one:

“The enduring false belief that Ravi was responsible for outing Tyler Clementi, and for putting a sex tape on the Internet, can be seen as a collective effort to balance a terrible event with a terrible cause.”

This would be wrong.

But I do find it amusing.

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

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

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?