THINGS HAPPENING

so guys

this is coming a little late, but something happened in Ann Arbor a few weeks ago and now I’m feeling the need to write about it as others have written about it and should be – a progressive youthful creative act operating under the cover of a party that will go down in the journals of its leaders and participants and maybe will be rediscovered later and discussed in the Michigan Theatre at a lecture series, or maybe will just be remembered and talked about by the two hundred strong involved, which would be equally as beautiful if not more, actually probably better that way, but anyway something happened.

some context:

the artist/writer/musician/creative group of students formerly and currently known as the TeneT Collective began as and continues to be an underground zine of various media including but not limited to stories and poems and drawings and photos, the group a real raw bunch of subterraneans hangin out on porches all wide-eyed and excited, all headwise, cool, having read and known and talked about good books, all out to make things happen and make people think and feel and think maybe they should go out and express themselves too because dang it sure does look like those folks are havin a good time – and this group of doers and movers and makers got together and decided to step outside the zine for the time being to make something happen that hadn’t happened before, that wasn’t happening yet but should have been the whole time and this is how all great ideas begin –

and on the 6th of September the Happening occurred in Ann Arbor, beginning in Kerrytown (the IT house) and there were drawings all around and paper on the walls and paintings in doorways on hinges, vibes all over the place, everybody gathered and drew together, doodled as One and broke the ice and got their feet wet before being led away by Leg Champii and the Special Knees, the marchingband TeneT sector shepherding the crowd to new digs via the accordion, guitars, drums and other noisemakers; there was a woody nymph in a pale dress twirling a hoop on fire, spinning and dancing and leaving glowing tracers in the night, her and the band leading the way, a skip in their step and on the parade went down State street toward the Fuc* Boys Lair and here it reeked of Art too – there were paintings and performings and the release of a skate video set inside the Stamps studios titled BUT IS IT ART and everyone decided that it was, and on it went, this a brief stop of the Night, and further downtown Champii and the Knees marched, stopping cars in the streets, taking up whole blocks of sidewalk, onward to an underground empty parking lot where the acoustics were choice, the walls sang back, all were good and confused, the band doubled around and up and out the garage as quickly as they’d come and off we were again, making a sort of loop, only a hop and skip from the Origin, ending now at a Lamp house partay – there were lights all over, everything aglow, the lawn full of chairs and couches even all bespecked in glinty light, people teeming in rapture, the air quivering, excited, sharp, there were flashes of light and giant sparklers lit off, waved around, the fiery hoop and fairy hooper returned, swirled and dipped and hung in the air, a lad jumped through cleanly and nimble to cheers, the night went on – and then the cops came, it was only a matter of time, the crowd dispersed, webbing off into the shadowy dark to reconvene in factions, fading into Gloom and tingles, knowing they had just witnessed a Thing, one that doesn’t happen every day, having felt something new –

and to me this feels important – young people takin peers by the hands and the ears and jazzin everybody up, gettin everybody goin, feelin good, feelin light, feelin fine, feelin like dancin in streets and singin loud and lockin arms and huggin and laughin and talkin and makin MOVES, makin vibes, makin life do what they want it to and think it should, makin life, talkin about Life and Now –

so I say: watch out Annie, there’s change in the wind and more on the way –