Queen Margaret Professes...

crinoline capes.

qemargie — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 19:04:23 +0000

I should have bought a crinoline skirt a long time ago. They make a fabulous cape, and are very multifunctional.

…design for you.

qemargie — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 16:30:25 +0000

http://www.hermanmiller.com/designforyou/4ba773c59298f199c8cdc8b655ce5352cbc26689fd61b293

The link above is for Herman Miller the furniture manufacturers web contest entitled “design for you.” The Contest offers people the chance to win pieces from Herman Millers collections just for signing up, and getting others to do so. So if you want a chance to win some fabulous high design objects, follow the link above and sign up!

a timewarp.

qemargie — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:22:04 +0000

I swear some kind of crazy time warp has taken place, and in the matter of that happen and summer coming and going I lost track of my blog. It can be funny how that happens.

So now fall has come and the leaves on the trees in Cass Park have turned bright yellow. School is in session and I have a new job. My life is currently full of creative endevors, a thesis, a wonderful man, and so much more. And with all that is going on and how rapidly life changes I should probably take the time to blog more often, because as much as blogging is entertaining for those who read, it is a way to track our thoughts and ideas when life seems like it is flying by. It creates a real sense of who you were at any given point in time and that, that is really just a cool sort of thing.

meeting Camilla Nightly.

qemargie — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:57:50 +0000

It is getting to be that time again, the end of the semester is nearing which means less time for fun things in my life, like blogging. This coupled with the increasingly nice weather and the sudden growth of a spring social life mean I have very little in terms of witty banter this week. I will try to do better for next week, until then enjoy this photo from the Marche du Nain Rouge, which was a huge success and I look forward to watching the event grow for years in the future.

spring being sprung.

qemargie — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:42:35 +0000

Spring, that fabulous and wonderful time of year is once again upon us. The weather is getting warmer, the days are longer, I can’t focus on school, and social events are once again drawing me away from mundane everyday life.

This year it seems that great events are everywhere. Recapping from this last week was the fabulous and wonderfully insightful Dustin Lance Black, screenwriter from “Milk” speaking on the art of building inclusive communities. The ACLU did a fantastic job of bringing together people that should be in the same room but rarely are. The event was a literal stew of young, old, queer, straight, and everyone in between.

Moving to present tense tomorrow is Detroit’s Annual St Patrick’s Day Parade, which is always delightful, but I would like to talk instead about another upcoming parade. The Marche du Nain Rouge is Sunday, March 21. The event drives away the Nain Rouge or a little trouble making spirit, of local french folk lore, bring hope and good fortune to the city. Participants are meeting at the Third Street Bar, at Third and Forrest, dressed in their finest alter ego clothing in order to avoid the Nain knowing who you are.

http://www.lenainrouge.com/

More information on the Marche du Nain Rouge can be found at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=343108993600&index=1 or http://www.lenainrouge.com/

poems as everyday communication.

qemargie — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:00:22 +0000

About once a week when I open my front door after coming home from school there is a pile of reading materials provided by my landlord that may be of interest to the people living in the house. It is always a delightful and very thoughtful discovery to see. This last week however, those materials included an ominous sign. Underneath the magazines of architectural materials and urban planning articles clipped from papers was a poem. A poem that had the markings of disappointment on the part of a fickle landlord, who has a very specific vision for his street, that he has been the eyes and heart of for more than forty years. The poem read:

In order to thrive in a world of

change and chaos, we will need to…

Accept chaos as an essential process

by which natural systems,

including organizations,

renew and revitalize themselves.

Share information as the primary

organizing force in any organization.

Develop the rich diversity of

relationships that are all around us

to energize our teams.

Embrace vision as an invisible field

that can enable us to recreate our

workplaces, and our world.

-Margaret Wheatley

This poem struck fear in my heart, for the italics were there in print, and the bold was actually highlighted. As I stood in the vestibule of the house my mind began to race at what I had done wrong. How had I let him down? Why was he upset? Did I not say ‘hello’ often enough? Was I supposed to be sending thoughtful articles back? Had I not invited him over for enough events? What was I supposed to do? Shit shit shit! I was in a shear state of panic.

Luckily there was a house meeting the next day. And I found out what the poem was about, there was a breakdown of information between the house and my landlord. I quickly fashioned a hand written note and dropped it in his mail slot. And it seems as if things have returned to normal, but this picture makes clear what can happen when living in a community based on thoughts goes wrong.

My neighborhood in all its glory is based on the relationships that happens between the people that live there for without that the street would not survive. The housing stock would not be intact. And I wouldn’t dare live here. But the incident has begun to make me wonder is my dream that of my landlord and do I wish to continue what has begun on my quite uptown street? Or is that the realm of one of my other neighbors who has already bought into the dream? Do I have a place and a stake here or maybe is this a sign that this experience is drawing to an end and it is time to move and and look to find a new place in the fascinating world that is Detroit?

…living with others.

qemargie — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:54:03 +0000

Lately I have been finding myself quite irritated. It probably has alot to do with being on the go all the time, between school every day, and work, and homework, and trying to maintain some bit of sanity and a social life, that makes my calendar quite full. The week of snow everyday and it being the end of February doesn’t help either. And with that comes the irritation which I find I have been taking out on my roommates.

Living with others is hard, especially when there are four of them. People have traits and quirks and I myself, as much as I wish, am not immune to that either, and normally that is a good thing. However when it comes to living we all have habits at home that sometimes don’t mesh with the wishes of others. When you live alone and the sink is full of dishes, there are spills of something unidentifiable on the floor there is no one to get mad at but yourself. You live there and it has to be your lazy ass that made the mess. But when you live with others that is not the case, everyone can take part in irritating tasks like filling the sink with dishes, so it is easy to get mad about stupid stuff.

But when I take a step back the benefits of living with great people in a great house, irritating traits included, is what makes life fun and interesting. When I get home and I just want to chat with someone about life there is the possibility of someone being there, to lend an ear and a thought. Someday I may want a space for myself but for what I need now I think I have found it, even if that means the sink might be full of dishes that I didn’t dirty.

the hardest part of dating…

qemargie — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:58:34 +0000

…finding someone you like but you just aren’t that into. For me I find this to be one of the hardest parts of dating, specifically when the other person really really likes me.

Recently I had to go forth and do exactly that and let someone down. Unlike most of my other dating experiences they were not crazy, they are actually a wonderful and bright individual, but ‘its’ just not there. And as I was trying to say one of the hardest things to say, you know something like, “I am sorry but I just don’t like you like that,” but you know in a nicer way. It seemed as if a parade of every person I have ever know walked through the bar, the bar that I had specifically selected because it is low traffic for people that I know on Thursdays. At that point I kind of realized that when you have to tell someone something and you don’t want to do it, to avoid hurting feelings, you will constantly run in to barriers to achieving your goal, so maybe its just best to just spit it out.

being love sick…

qemargie — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:14:46 +0000

Valentine’s Day, as some would have us believe is the bane of us single peoples lives. However each Valentine’s Day that I am single I like to reflect on it as a blessing. Now you are probably thinking what the hell could be good about being single on Valentine’s Day?

Well the answer is really quite simple, each Febuary when this day comes around I count my blessings for the numerous awful relationships that I happened to escape from that year. Now this may sound cynical, and it kind of is, I will admit that yes each of those relationships had things I liked about them, I mean otherwise they wouldn’t have happened. However generally there were other things that were off course like the Titanic drifting towards an iceberg these relationships were destined for tragedy. And the escape from drowning in the North Atlantic of dating is something to be celebrated. Yes, it may suck to be single, but thank God you aren’t with that one guy that is gorgeous but each time he opened his mouth you wanted to beat him with a bat. Or what about the other guy who was so clingy that after a week you would have thought he was trying to move into your house and plan a wedding. And lets not forget our favorite, the guy who was attached to his crazy ex, who lives with him and goes on violent tangents breaking stemware, and mace-ing you in the face.

So instead of dreading Valentine’s Day the next time you find yourself single on the day of LOVE. Take solace in the fact that you survived, you escaped, to date another day, and you aren’t trapped in one of the God awful relationships you suffered through in the last year.

ice house

qemargie — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:20:00 +0000

This weekend Gregory Holm and Matthew Radune finished up their Ice House project on Detroit’s East Side. I had a chance to check out the end result on the wonderfully sunny day that was Saturday. The house looked stunning but even more stunning was the turn out of people from all over metro Detroit to a little house coated in ice on the Eastside. People who seemed as if they haven’t been in the city in years were there with the locals all in awe of a beautiful project.

Although conversations were started, some of which have been amazing, it seems as if everyone is a critic. Some critiques add to the conversation in such a rich way, but many just seem to be attacks on people for trying to do something interesting and for trying to make a change or have some sort of effect on their community. Overall though the project from my own view surpassed anything that I thought it could be. It turned out to be a very interesting piece. The long term effects of these projects, such as Power House, Ice House, Loveland, and the growing art momentum in the city is something that I am very interested in. It makes me wonder if maybe that Detroit is the place that everyone will be flocking to in short order? Time will tell but until then enjoy some more photos of a beautiful installation.