Really random.Last night, I lived a fairly decent life. I stopped first at Random Access Gallery. This experimental gallery in an old lecture hall at Syracuse University hosted a two man show. The artists welcomed me, took my questions seriously and posed for pictures with their art. One man painted in black graphite paint right on the wall. Itll be covered in two weeks time because the shows stay up a very short time. I talked to the curator who really believed in the sculptor from Pittsburg, the curators home town. And I know art isnt always pretty, but the exhibit included a poly pool filled with, thankfully, fresh water and a stack of air conditioners worked over with a sledgehammer. He hadnt heard of Tyree Guyton, the painter and sculptor famous for the Heidelberg Project. I had visited Guyton at his street of houses painted with polka dots and his assemblages of discarded household items the last day I taught for the Detroit Public Schools. My base on Mack Avenue in an old elementary stood near the project a few blocks north of Heidelberg. The Pittsburg sculptor had followed the example of Gordon Matta-Clark, who carved up buildings in New York City with a chain saw. Tyree never did that but I met a team of Birmingham Michigan architects who carved up a tear out that had to go so a McMansion could go up on that precious postage stamp of Bham. The team trucked the pieces down to the Hastings Street Ballroom for an art exhibition, set out on the lawn, six foot by six foot cubes of a white house house that couldnt be assembled into a house to give humans shelter again. Mike Kelley had built a replica of the house in Dearborn Heights where he grew up, put it on a flat bed and filmed the journey of the house and truck from the suburbs to its permanent home at the Museum of Contemporary Art, on Woodward, Midtown Detroit. I never met Kelley, but I knew he came up with a musician and painter named Niagara, a woman I met once and whose work I deeply respect. Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert come to mind in this brief art history because the two architects won a major award at ArtPrize one year by emptying an abandoned house of all of its contents and putting the rooms on display in the Grand Rapids Art Museums former space near Dog Story Theater. I didnt want to take up the artists time for more than five minutes because all the art students wanted time with him too. I also met the painter, whose work impressed me. His six month old son and his wife posed for a family photo, very willing to help my photography.I caught a ride share down to the YMCA for a reading by Jonathan Dee. I easily found a seat in the front row where I could take pictures. He brought in the biggest crowd I ever had noticed at that auditorium, many of his students at Syracuse showing up to pay him respect. A young man smiled and spoke directly to me, Hey, I saw you at the gallery. Are you taking pictures for the university. Just for my personal use. They say that the first hundred thousand pictures are the worst. Besides, theres no film in the camera. He laughed and we talked writing. He also studied writing with Jonathan Dee. Hey, I want to read your writing, and he asked for my name. I gave him my phone number in case there was anything I could do to help his career along. Jonathan Dee read for an hour from his book called The Locals, which reminded me of The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, although The Locals felt closer to home.The pictures of Dee turned out better than I expected. I have yet to hear from Victor.