today and yesterday
i met doug lansky today. the bastard. he's got this great job and he spent years doing cool shit so that he could have this great job. the bastard. doug lansky, in case you've never heard of him, is this 34-year-old guy who decided at some point to stand tall and wing it through the world. and then, on top of that, he decided to write about it. the bastard. here: check it out.
naturally, he's a very cool guy. so after i missed the free eurail pass giveaway (a $900 value) and most of his lecture and about how cool it is to travel all over the world living on a little ego and daredevilishness and not a whole hell of a lot else but the sense that fate gave him (see herman hesse's takeoff on nietzche in an 1919 essay that i now lift, like eddie haskell would, from the introduction of penguin books' 1999 publication of hesse's Siddhartha: "To whomsoever Fate comes from the outside, it kills him as the arrow kills the deer. To whomsoever Fate comes to from within, it empowers him and makes him into a god."), i HAD to show doug lansky something of MY town. something really fucking amazing. something really unbelievable. something that creates humility where humility may never have existed--or maybe where it is born. something that not only symbolizes beauty, betrayal and bloodless death, but does so in vibrant graffiti and dozens of floors of jawless elevators and jagged-tooth windows: detroit's michigan central railway station.
to see it is to see the the pain of the smallest slum of equador, india, africa, poland, elsewhere, everywhere. to see it is to see your father cry. the utter loss of hope, loss of sense. it is old grandeur's faint heartbeat. it is a patient in very bad coma. it is the epicenter of detroit--totally ransacked.
anyway, we drove there tearing open a discussion about the unbelievably crappy turnout of the 2004 presidential election and how doug lansky had gotten dave barry to sign a letter of reference that said, and i quote, "hire doug lansky or i'll kill you." see what i mean! unreal.
we pull up to the usual ghostland and--people!--workin men under hard hats and inside bright fleece sweatshirts were milling about. one was eating a peanut-butter and jelly sammy. another was talking on his cell phone. these were dudes on the job. and before i could park the car, doug lansky had already loped on over to the crew, did some fast talking, donned a hard hat and was walking into the long-gone majesty. i ran after, trying to act like i owned the place, too.
it's not the same inside with midday light pouring through its gaping wounds--or with hollywood additions (turns out they're shooting a movie in my beaten up building: michael bey's The Island, with ewan mcgregor, scarlett johansson, djimon hounsou and steve buscemi. all taken from The Island, written by alex kurtzman, roberto orci and caspian tredwell-owen.)
aply enough, dreamworks is the distribution company. i guess anything is possible. it remains to be seen, however, if "dreamworks" implies what we're dreaming about the building or what the building is dreaming about us inhabitants.
at any rate, i had my camera (blind dumb luck! i think doug lansky really must have some sort of midas touch) and snapped off a couple shots. "it's easy," i think doug lansky says, but i'm not sure because i might just be thinking out loud.
"yeah," i say. "easy." and i wonder how long, how many it will take before this place is strong enough to breathe without the machine. or maybe it will just implode, unable to bear the weight of a fantasy future.
"just focus," says dough lansky. the secret revealed. i try to take one more photo for good measure, but it's hard because my hands are getting stiff from cold. it's november and i can see my breath inside this building.
naturally, he's a very cool guy. so after i missed the free eurail pass giveaway (a $900 value) and most of his lecture and about how cool it is to travel all over the world living on a little ego and daredevilishness and not a whole hell of a lot else but the sense that fate gave him (see herman hesse's takeoff on nietzche in an 1919 essay that i now lift, like eddie haskell would, from the introduction of penguin books' 1999 publication of hesse's Siddhartha: "To whomsoever Fate comes from the outside, it kills him as the arrow kills the deer. To whomsoever Fate comes to from within, it empowers him and makes him into a god."), i HAD to show doug lansky something of MY town. something really fucking amazing. something really unbelievable. something that creates humility where humility may never have existed--or maybe where it is born. something that not only symbolizes beauty, betrayal and bloodless death, but does so in vibrant graffiti and dozens of floors of jawless elevators and jagged-tooth windows: detroit's michigan central railway station.
to see it is to see the the pain of the smallest slum of equador, india, africa, poland, elsewhere, everywhere. to see it is to see your father cry. the utter loss of hope, loss of sense. it is old grandeur's faint heartbeat. it is a patient in very bad coma. it is the epicenter of detroit--totally ransacked.
anyway, we drove there tearing open a discussion about the unbelievably crappy turnout of the 2004 presidential election and how doug lansky had gotten dave barry to sign a letter of reference that said, and i quote, "hire doug lansky or i'll kill you." see what i mean! unreal.
we pull up to the usual ghostland and--people!--workin men under hard hats and inside bright fleece sweatshirts were milling about. one was eating a peanut-butter and jelly sammy. another was talking on his cell phone. these were dudes on the job. and before i could park the car, doug lansky had already loped on over to the crew, did some fast talking, donned a hard hat and was walking into the long-gone majesty. i ran after, trying to act like i owned the place, too.
it's not the same inside with midday light pouring through its gaping wounds--or with hollywood additions (turns out they're shooting a movie in my beaten up building: michael bey's The Island, with ewan mcgregor, scarlett johansson, djimon hounsou and steve buscemi. all taken from The Island, written by alex kurtzman, roberto orci and caspian tredwell-owen.)
aply enough, dreamworks is the distribution company. i guess anything is possible. it remains to be seen, however, if "dreamworks" implies what we're dreaming about the building or what the building is dreaming about us inhabitants.
at any rate, i had my camera (blind dumb luck! i think doug lansky really must have some sort of midas touch) and snapped off a couple shots. "it's easy," i think doug lansky says, but i'm not sure because i might just be thinking out loud.
"yeah," i say. "easy." and i wonder how long, how many it will take before this place is strong enough to breathe without the machine. or maybe it will just implode, unable to bear the weight of a fantasy future.
"just focus," says dough lansky. the secret revealed. i try to take one more photo for good measure, but it's hard because my hands are getting stiff from cold. it's november and i can see my breath inside this building.
posted by stacy muszynski at 4:59 AM
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