Secret Stairwell Concert

>>*Bike tires skid to a sudden halt*<<
"You guys are from Detroit? Great! I'll be DJing your afterparty. But it's *highly illegal*, so tell everybody."
<<*Rides off into the night*>>
-Berlin DJ during our 2017 UNESCO City of Design visit as guests of honor in Saint-Etienne

In that spirit:
>Improvised, original + traditional world folk/and other violin (+maybe viola) music
>A participatory experiment involving cellphones from the audience and audio feedback to play along with
>A stairwell that sounds almost as good as or better than an auditorium
>All tucked away in an unsuspecting downtown Detroit building.
>Possible improv game/coaching exercise [Party Like it's 2021!!!] with dancing to random office music may ensue after
But it's a secret, so tell everybody? ; )

We'll convene at Campus Martius and walk in when the time is right.

Let me know if you want to help out.
Don't have money but want to join? RSVP if you can and show up anyhow.
Tickets/RSVP are mostly for headcount.

• Music
• Concert
• Avant-garde music
• Experimental music
• Volunteering

Photo credit to @Mari_visualz
See Bryce Detroit's commentary on why cultural representation matters and how the work that comes with uplifting healthy behaviors that are attributable to them beyond settler narratives that we often see from the music industry add to what he likes to call "entertainment justice" attached to an album from the event this photo was taken at:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B17RXy1lm3z/?igshid=1vgoh0pp1o5ug


PROMO+LOGISTICS:

###
Fri. January 24th ~2:24pm

Ian D. Tran More excitement?!? Why yes, of course! Tony Paris (who happens to be a trained legal observer) + Michael Brumo of Tony Paris and the Sugar Burn and Efe Bes of iBm [intelligent Buti music]+Synergistic Mythologies will be joining us.(!!!)

>What else could* sweeten the deal--fortified with 22+ essential vitamins and minerals?<

How about a mediocre selection of dessert-like breakfast cereals and your choice of dairy or non-dairy milk after the stairwell segment? (*courtesy of the office we'll be adjacent to in performance, assuming there's still some left by Saturday)

><>>Have friends (or maybe you yourself) who can't join in person but want to join contribute and hear some of the ruckus for the experimental participatory music segment at 7:45pm?

Here's the conference call line that we'll be using at 7:45pm too!
Call in for the musical magic making: (425) 436-6385
Access code: 789059

You might even hear Sacramento Knoxx call in from Ann Arbor during one of his events, during our experimental participatory segment too. So we might have the ability to be with people in not two, but three places at once!<<><

See you at the statue on the Woodward side of Campus Martius Park between 7pm-~7:25ish!

And when we're all done, we'll probably head up to the North End to join Tony Nova at Northern lights lounge to dance with house music later in the evening.

 ###

27 January ·

Between the 14 folks who joined in person, plus the callers-in, we had a total of 21 knowing* participants (not counting the random guests and staff) in last night's performance--thank you to all of you, including those who couldn't make it but expressed their enthusiasm, support, encouragement, and interest in other ways!
Gennifer Brumo made a montage that captures the spirit of the evening's performance well in so many ways.
Thank you also to Michael Joseph Brumo for adding his musical touches on guitar (often quite percussively!) and shout out to Norm for capturing the toilet flushes and faucet flows in the audio mix too--what a way to top off the night!

The evening was a great experience and lesson for me in considerate inclusion:
>what we did together, by phone and by our presence
>finding and being in a warm "public" space where we could convene to /play/ with one another during a cold day
>carrying forward city history and hearkening back to its raves
>who we could see represented whether by age, appearance, ability, opportunities
>who wasn't able to or might not have been in a comfortable position to join us based on how the event description may have been interpreted
Thank you to everyone who both considered and took the risk of entering the new lunar year together by experimenting with creativity in a challenging place with open hearts, eyes, and ears. Here's to creating more spaces for claiming moments of wonder, appreciation, and awareness for us to grow--together.
"#secretstaircase #doyouhavearoomhere"
https://www.facebook.com/gennifer.dawson/videos/2584320268360020/?__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARDKtbOBUdB7TlgBhzJYhNYMYYw0ufsuc3M_GLdL46PVmxd5N5iuA2QUyRQdh_m7RyLq1lxgn6ywVtnPZ4r0gImEt-pQJhXoNRuih8Xapii2obW1R_tFNDnomiX4We2Ma9Lfp_zGJ7s6gIKrWA3cBp1p9P4KuQqLPhXNhITNwfpeHfqRsngh5ODOLVFJu0VBHussR-LDkx3WPv2qnPD7SY7KvIPUkFRtVxTpG2EAez7bPSUbIZaMojDgUzjYphJGFNAGyIHmHxpBoIo&__tn__=-R

 ###

Friends and fellow adventurers, wow! Thank you to everyone who's RSVPd (and shared!?) the event with your interest.
Unlike most concerts involving violins, bringing a cell phone, and a friend/acquaintance whom you're willing to call while at the event is encouraged (but not necessary--and no, as much as I do appreciate your calls, it can't be me : ).
Cell phones will be instrumental to some of the piece and we'll have the option to call each other or a conference line to get the best effect for a participatory segment of pieces or several.
Tentative schedule:
~7:00pm Meet at the statue on the Woodward Side of Campus Martius toward the EY Building and Galaxy Solutions/WeWork Building -- I'll likely be the only person around wearing the hat pictured on the right.
7:25pm we enter the sort-of-secret building, proceed to floor 5 and enter the stairway (requires keycard access thus we must assemble outside before entering)
7:30 Music + Musical Experiments ensue (Solo + w/ special guest[s])
~9:00pm music might continue, or we bring it into an actual office commonspace for activities (Condensed version of Party like it's 2021!!! improv game) + mingling
Due to a momentary lapse in calendar-awareness, it turns out we'll be celebrating the Lunar New Year as well!
So that calls for something special. If folks are interested I'll facilitate an improv personal/organizational development game called Party Like it's 2021! (!!!)
..
~10:30pm all invited to the "Afterglow" joining DJ Tony Nova at Northern Lights Lounge
Looking forward to seeing you there!



###

Linda Swanson is attending Secret Stairwell Concert: Detroit I 2019 with Kim Casteel and Chris Casteel.

25 January ·

This tickled my curiosity to experience the unexpected.
Old school techno ravers will recognize echos from 30 years ago. The map point. The secret location. Experimental music. Audience participation. And, ultimately, getting busted by authorities.
Oh, and an excerpt from the event description:
">>*Bike tires skid to a sudden halt*<<
"You guys are from Detroit? Great! I'll be DJing your afterparty. But it's *highly illegal*, so tell everybody."
<<*Rides off into the night*>>
-Berlin DJ during our 2017 UNESCO City of Design visit as guests of honor in Saint-Etienne"

Linda Swanson Some more photos: https://www.facebook.com/Linda.A.Swanson/posts/10219974946702748

Do you have the one group shot that the guy from Beacon Park took in the mirror?

...

The Map Point.
Campus Martius, unwittingly 2 blocks from a common raver map point at Farmer & Grand River.



...

Thanks, Linda! Without saying too much here--glad to see you found the experience notable and enjoyable as chronicled! : )

 

The Chumbawamba Case Study

In the 90s, a British band called Chumbawamba suddenly became a hit in the U.S. (and probably worldwide, too) with a song called "Tubthumping", in which the energetic chorus "I get knocked down, but I get up again, and you'll never ever keep me down." becomes the soundtrack to the lives of youth as countless shows and radio stations play it on repeat.

Yet when you listen to the rest of their album, pointed and political statements fill the songs with themes that would be relevant to a lot of politically active people even today. I still recall hearing a recorded sample from one of the tracks with someone asking in testy tones: "what about free speech!?" and some bizzare training audio for washing out the brains of a cow, likely a suggestive nod to brainwashing in media.

Which brings me to wonder: of all the people who bought their album, how many actually listened to the rest of the album and its content?

So I looked up the band not too long ago and found they disbanded around 2014 to focus on -- guess what? -- their activism.





Most people in the U.S. are inclined to write the band off as a one-hit wonder, and the commercial stations and media spheres that surrounded its sudden popularity certainly made it so--but it seems like it answers a question I and many others tend to ponder:
At what point can the reach of your platform, storytelling, or media outweigh the need for impact?

If we consider Chumbawamba's commercial radio and record store (at that point, cassettes and CDs where the primary medium) success, their story might point us to an answer:
Some people were certainly switched on by the band when they realized how "music could be a political tool" (as one youtube user comments), but the novelty effect of becoming an overplayed hit on the radiowaves sometimes overshadows the genuine message and story of the group by the time it reaches certain audiences.

Demands vs. Guidelines for Justice

It's easy to demand better work. It's challenging for others to meet that demand. Likewise, it's easy to demand social justice. It's challenging for others who might not know what social justice means to you, and what it looks like when they're doing it right.

Herein stands my claim that guidelines are easier to use than demands, less confrontational, and more likely to see action earlier on.

What might guidelines for social justice look like?

How might we implement and integrate them into our businesses and institutions?


I can guess the UN and human rights organizations have plenty of declarations. Those can provide the desired "whats." What we need most today however, are clear "hows" put into action and exercised on an operational basis.

Organizations which champion those guidelines can also share a certification--it's certainly something worth taking pride in.

Of course, we have every right to demand dignity and respect from ourselves and one another.

A Devil's advocacy and simple actions

Yesterday morning I had a dream that I was at work and a lab user told me a story about "the devil's advocate".  Normally, the expression "Devil's advocate" refers to someone who offers insightful reason for a contradictory if not controversial position in a debate.  But in this story, the person spoke about immense hope and changing the world--and before anything conclusive about what the first step to take toward making a better world might be, he added another condition and new story.  It was endless.

His advocacy led to nothing.

In that case, the Devil's advocate advocates to move us emotionally, while hacking emotional sensation and rapid dependency on the next detailed caveat. In lulling our being into the next caveat, the Devil's advocate shifts our attention from any prospect of moving forward to look for the next caution and item to fear. We're smitten by grandiose prospect, while simultaneously disempowered by its monolithic complexity and our loss of self-agency when relying on someone to create a vision and path for us to follow.

Conversely (and in waking life), I spoke with another person about mantras and music as both means and ends to sensing spirit and confidence yesterday.  I think it ties in really well with the same practice of self-empowerment by scaling down big initiatives into something you can act on. There was a lot of great insight from the discussion I'll share another time, but for now I'll send some links.

Converting grand intentions (like new years resolutions) into habits that are tangible and actionable:
http://blog.bufferapp.com/the-science-of-new-years-resolutions-why-88-fail-and-how-to-make-them-work

http://blog.bufferapp.com/what-the-research-on-habit-formation-reveals-about-willpower-and-overall-well-being

The academic research it's based on:
http://psyserv06.psy.sbg.ac.at:5916/fetch/PDF/10978569.pdf

Being "completely wrong about GMOs": Scaling responsibility with technological escalation

In reply to this blog post by Torie Bosch of Slate about an advocate's change of heart toward Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) for meeting world hunger: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/03/mark_lynas_environmentalist_who_opposed_gmos_admits_he_was_wrong.html

Bosch's post was irresponsibly framed.  It misleads the public into thinking the challenges behind GMO practices are settled.  Maybe* (I'm very, very skeptical but will remain open minded.) there's a case for GMO methods in genetic/medical research and such in very controlled spaces, but when it comes to claiming they're necessary for world hunger, it's like trying to justify nuclear energy for meeting global energy demand when we have yet to guarantee a safe legacy of fuel extraction and waste disposal that doesn't compromise the health of others.  Alternative strategies and technologies exist that have fewer negative legacies.  Granted, a lot of it can be harmless, but we're operating on a level that's so profound that it can cheat the defenses of our evolutionary protections in ways that we're incapable of knowing until we've met its consequences.  It transcends our known responsibility to a point that we don't know how we're ethically accountable.

As acknowledged in the article, a fair share of anti-GMO advocates don't appreciate the monopolization of large chemical companies and their strategic business models.

Consider common approaches to Monsanto's GMO business:

1) Develop pesticide/herbicide/fungicide resistant crops so that farmers can use a lot of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides on their plots--as a chemical company that pioneers GMO techniques and patents cultivars/dna for pesticide/herbicide/fungicide resistant crops, it wins in two ways: people buy their seeds, and people use more of their chemicals.

2) Patent genetic sequences, allow the DNA to spread into the wild/neighboring non-GMO crop farmer land (this is a kind of negligence that the every day person has yet to find legal redress for),  let the crop cross-pollinate with untainted crops/wild plants, sue any cross-contaminated farmers.

3) Develop self-terminating "suicide" gene that creates infertile crops like corn,  allow the DNA to spread into the wild/neighboring non-GMO crop farmer land, once it's cross-pollinated, hybridized GMO plants (including those tainted in the wild or owned by non GMO using farmers) self-terminate after a season, create absolute dependency on the supplying GMO seed company in the region.

A prevailing concern with GMO work that isn't addressed is the uncertainty of outcomes when integrated back into the environment and living systems like a person's body.  If there are people willing to take the risk, fine, but it never ought to be done at the expense of those who cannot voice or choose to opt out.  GMO in food gambles with our evolutionary abilities.

Other things people might want to note about this "confession":

1)  An activist, while many are worthy of respect in their own right, isn't necessarily a scientist (which Mark Lymas acknowledged).

Just because an outspoken person changes stance on a complicated issue (this one's the kind that gets a technical classification as a wicked problem from complex system scientists), it doesn't mean the problems of the issue are no longer valid.  In stating he was "completely wrong" about GMOs denies many ethical problems that have yet to be understood and resolved.

I don't fear genetically modified food, I worry about its unintended consequences in other living things and the rest of the world.  Living things are relatively resilient, but we I don't appreciate a gamble that goes against what my evolutionary background prepared me for.  Most people don't even know about the things that I'd be concerned about.  Unless you've had vigorous scientific environmental and biological exposure and training, the things I would add as important arguments probably aren't heard and appreciated by the lay person on a regular basis.

2)  Science is different from engineering and industrialization.  It's also not the same as advocacy.  

Science is the process of discerning truth.  Advocacy is a change-oriented political act that summons the perceived truths ("facts") found by science to champion a hypothesis/claim (i.e. GMOs are good or bad).  Engineering and industrialization strive to maximize functions--productivity, efficiency.  Aside from science, none of these acts that people try to champion (i.e. we need more free enterprise so that small businesses can compete with the giants)--more doesn't always mean better.  What difference does it make if the majority of the small-scale GMO competitors also maintain unethical practices?  Quantity does not speak to quality.  Furthermore, none of these "civil virtues" (engineering and industry) are wholly accountable to comprehensive reasoning and justification for the sake of humanity.  While they behoove profit for those privileged to leverage them, they don't guarantee that people will respect the dignity of other beings as ends rather a means to their end.  Even people who truly adhere to Ayn Rand's notion of objectivism would find concern in that argument (there's a paradox to her definition of objectivism that I've found, so I see something bigger that's missing to her framework of objectivism).

3)  The world already produces enough food to feed everybody.  

I don't even need to dive into academic peer review literature to back this claim, see here (worldhunger.org), here (oxfam Canada), and here (The UN Chronicle).

If anything, the world's people need to learn how to live better within their means in ways that don't necessitate intensive land use.  Look up your estimated ecological footprint, if everyone lived the way I did, it would need about 4 and a half times the arable (farmable) land that our planet earth currently has to offer.  For an American living in the Metro-Detroit area, this is a fairly efficient footprint considering how much we tend to rely on automobiles and imported foods.  The average American's (footprint stands at 5), and it's really challenging to minimize further unless big changes in housing and infrastructure (i.e. transportation, substantive renewable energy as a primary source) are involved.

The world's people might not be good at figuring out how to innovate or discipline itself in living with, maintaining, and cultivating sustainable environments, but food shortage is best articulated as a local challenge.  I'll dare say food sustainability is inappropriate to reduce into a singular global problem to be solved with a large international monetary fund (even the IMF/Worldbank eventually tries to consider problems at a local scale) and technological wonder crops from exotic places or chemical companies that pioneer GMO methodology.  I might be lacking direct sources at the moment, but read to the bottom and you'll find a few things that give you leads into how I've come to this opinion (hint, college courses in sustainable ecology and agriculture).

4)  Also, let's have the death of environmentalism now.  

We don't defer all of our ethical behavior to ethicists, we let them inform us about better ways of living, but the responsibility remains our own.  Environmental issues don't affect environmentalists only, they matter to everyone, and everyone needs to find ways to exercise ethical actions that contribute to making the world a better place.  Nordhaus and Shellenberger have a better articulation about this in their essay called "The Death of Environmentalism", feel free to read that too.  The world doesn't need to be saved.  People need to save themselves in ways that don't necessitate the compromise of other living things' fundamental well-being.

So what should we do?

I'm short on time to spell out answers, but in the context of this post, I'd recommend getting vigorously acquainted with the principles of sustainable agriculture, ecology, and ethics.

Ask Dr. David Susko at The University of Michigan-Dearborn for his thoughts. teaches an excellent course on plant ecology.  His thesis work found ways for farmers to successfully (environmentally and economically) transition from conventional agriculture to organic practices.  The rest comes down to dialog.

Here's a place to start, though I'm not sure what their contents will cover yet, University of Florida's teaching it online for free:
https://www.coursera.org/course/sustainableag