CONCEPT
So it’s official; I’ve been posted on the American apologies site, page 245.
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A couple quick words on this picture, lest you think I chose it as an arbitrary image of desolation or worse, dragged it off the internet somewhere. I took this picture in the summer of 2003, two blocks from my house on Maryland Ave., on Flint’s Eastside.
The ruined building is the ruins of the Club Merry Inn which was a lively scene on North Franklin (an oasis among scores of structures that look the way the ruins look now) during June and early July. The, the Club Merry Inn abruptly burned down, less than two months after opening.
The Eastside is a rough neighborhood… but it’s littered with bars. Why did this bar specifically burn down? Perhaps it was because the clientele were primarily gay…
This represents to me threat of Bush’s particular style of conservatism, and frankly, it’s bigger than just Bush. In many ways, Bush is just a spokesman for ideas that have currency among many Americans, like the 60%+ that passed Proposal 2 in Michigan, not only exclusively defining marriage as stictly between man and woman, but further barring civil unions to the extent that even contracts between the UAW and the Big Three were emperiled.
I choose this image for my apology in part because of its dramatic grief… it is tangled and dense, and worst, it seems unsalvageable. These are observations viewers on the apologies page may note, while they will almost certainly be completely ignorant of the circumstances.
The circumstances remain. My connection to this place, a place of music and laughter, spoiled, like so much of my hometown for no good reason, is the most honest and evocative expression I can conjure of my sorrow. My sorrow for what seems to me to be an infection.
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Admittedly, I may not have spent so much time at the Apologies site if I were not looking for my own submission. I think the attraction, the desire to see it posted among thousands, for the whole world (for anyone who slogs through the first 245 pages) was something I’ve longed for ever since the election.
To put a voice forward to those who might not hear, might not be inclined to listen, and say “I am not for this.”
Interestingly, I think I will continue to visit. Despite the fact the I have no contact with any of these apologizing Americans, and forgiving human beings, a dialogue actually seems to emerge from one photo to the next. It’s very strange, almost as if it’s been plotted into a book or play.
I recommend choosing a page at random, and just start reading.
I believe they’re still accepting submissions.
~ Connor