I must have taken the kids to the Cranbrook MFA show at MOCAD a half dozen times during its short run. Amid a few duds there were some really bright spots, and there were a surprising number of installations that were a lot of fun for the kids, such as this strange crystal swan cave by sculptor Emily Nachison. It was like being inside a chalk geode. . .with magical papier mache swans. The boy was really into this felt+foam furniture by fiber artist Tricia Stackle:


I would totally buy one of those chairs if she ever chooses to sell them.

 
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Hey folks, remember this? I was walking the dog by where I saw that last year and decided to check out the situation, and what do you know, he's still at it!

And this time I can confirm that yes, indeed, those bottles are all filled with human piss. Please don't ask me how I confirmed it.

The homeless guy who lives in the little shelter in the trees by the fence (here is a photo of him in his home last summer) gets his fluids by taking discarded products from the bottling plant across the street and then he redeposits fluids in the very same bottles. One could say that he has his own microbottling plant in the shadow of the other one. See the bottles in the foreground that don't have fluid inside but what looks like paper? Don't worry, I don't think he's figured out how to poop into the mouth of a 16-oz water bottle (though I am intrigued by what's in those plastic bags). Those bottles are filled with bones picked clean and greasy napkins from a few dozen chicken dinners.

Hey, it's better waste management than our forebears knew in the dark ages.

It strikes me that this is art. It is a conceptual piece showing the urinary output of an individual over the course of an entire year. If you can ignore the fact that it's sun-baked, plastic-entombed piss, and just focus on all the strange colors, it's almost beautiful.



I think the guy is probably well aware that any homeless encampment, over time, must be abandoned because of the overwhelming stink of piss and excrement. This man is always very friendly to me, and always reading something. I don't buy into the whole patronizing idea that all homeless people are victims to be pitied in their suffering. All winter I brought the guys who live along this railroad line blankets and food, and they're not all schizophrenic drug addicts or drunks. They're resourceful and appreciative and interesting. And they're survivors. I think this guy kind of likes his home, and this is just his way of keeping it nice.

Just don't go and open any of the bottles. Trust me.

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After our now weekly trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts (kid #2 is now old enough to enjoy paintings so long as they contain some manner of beast), we stop off in an alley to see the naked guy. I had to take a picture of it just to make that sound less creepy.

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Every week we go to the art museum. We start at the cafe, which is one of the few places in Detroit with a decent salad bar. She eats chicken and tuna fish and broccoli and black beans and hard-boiled eggs and I tell her it's all healthy and at the end of the meal she asks me how much she's grown and I hold my forefinger and thumb a few millimeters apart, smiling. After lunch she runs at a breakneck pace past the suits of armor and through the Diego Rivera court all the way to the Picasso room, where she stops in front of her favorite painting (which I wrote about here).

I come into the room to find her like this.

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