detroit

Flyin’ High…

Thursday, May 27th, 2010 | Philosophy and Spirituality, deepchild live and dj sets, reflections | No Comments

Delta View...Detroit dreamin'...

I’m sittiing in New York’s JFK Airport - struck by the surreality of the fact that only 8 or so hours ago, I departed my beloved Berlin. At present, FOX News is blaring in the departure-lounge, reminding the US that BP have failed, yet again, to dam the ever-widening flow of oil from the Gulf of Mexico.

I can’t help but feel that there’s some profoundly obvious karmic lesson for us all to learn here. The USA, Gulfs and Oil - they’ve yet to find any sort of symbiotic relationship. I’m watching wetlands becoming engulfed in what amounts to a virulent testament to our communal greed, and failure to nurture, to adapt, to care. It breaks my heart, reminds me that I’m implicit, somehow, in this perverse food-chain - if not for explicit destruction, than for remaining too-long ignorant of the flaws of the dreams I was bought up to take as Gospel.

Meanwhile (in further gentle irony) I’m traveling to Detroit. Few clearer city’s bear testament to the social and economic costs of engineering mythology from the fabric of corporate greed, individualism, and capitalist expansion. Yet I’m going to Detroit to celebrate, with its wider community, one of the most important electronic-music festivals in the world. Detroit Movement (DEMF). What’s more, I’m playing my strange part as the only Antipodean invited to contribute my part to the story, this year. This is a strange, strange, state of affairs. I have nothing but kind words…Because as ever, in the industrial heartlands of places like Detroit, I find my angels and hopes and inspirations, whitewashed by stark truth and broken promises. I find stories of artists and imagineers and fringe-dwellers, removed from the aspirational nightmares of wider-America, if only by virtue of circumstance.

It’s all too easy to mytholigise places like Detroit, Berlin etc. I know. But there’s something which still stirs beneath the waters. I know this simply thru trial and error, experiment over so many years with people and place. It’s that simple.

As the oil pours forth, as the car-companies foreclose, so do the dagger-sharp blessings of being reminded that we are not independent units. We ARE each other, our failures and successes and cruelties and graces. This, I think, is part of the reason that I love Berlin so much. New York, London, Tokyo - brilliant big-cities, in their own right….and yet, give me people who’s eyes are stung by the light of truth, who’s brows are knit in jest and brokeness and dreams, who know how to open their hearts and wallets and stories to strangers like me. You are, you shall remain, my life-changing reason’s for being.

Tags: deepchild, DEMF, Detek, detroit