Happy Solstice 2014

At step-bro Selwin & Megans woods wedding (Suzanne's dress) 

Happy Solstice!

12/14

While 2014 becomes but memories, we have been trying to be with the light, though it's been a hard year with only the spirit of Clara's mom Alice now to cheer us on. We all miss her a lot and just celebrated her 58^th in Marquette recently. So in the spirit of fighting dark and depressing days just about the time you beautiful creatures

Wade shows Jhon a treasure at Dead Horse Bay (Brooklyn)

get this year end update, we are catching a giant eagle to Puerto Rico for a family holiday with Dan, Rita & Maya!

It's not our first trip of the year though. Clara and I took the Prius on a gorgeous end-of-summer/early Fall tour through Pennsylvania where the leaves were exploding with color, stopping in Pittsburgh, Phili, NYC and

the Delaware Water Gap to visit friends and go to a forest wedding.

Wade & Clara at Dead Horse Bay (Brooklyn)

Burning through the wood pile already, we are planning for What Next? ...like trying to have a baby, which is proving a little more difficult

than we expected--but please don't send advice. So to cheer up we bought a 22-foot motor boat with Jhon's cousin--please, lots of advice here!

The Mariah Carry is Clara's favorite colors, in excellent shape, and has a cute cabin; we can hardly wait for Spring to see if we have what it

Clara's kids practicing listening to eachother

takes to become boat people.

Clara's organization, Detroit Youth Volume is moving forward as a non profit

now with a Board and all that, so with her 20 students for private lessons, subbing,

concerts she's kinda becoming a force to be reckoned with in our changing city.

Check it out and help support the kids! (Alternative Giving gift cards with the

kids pics + snowflakes on them are available: “In your honor, I gave the gift of

music by donating to Detroit Youth Volume!”)

Meanwhile JC's home repair gigs are plenty and interspersed with our own home improvements, along with band practice (Collapse is only writing and

recording while singer Ash is in Florida for 4 more months). The dogs are still

totally spoiled and get tucked in on the couch every night. It was a decent pear harvest this year and next we're going to expand the garden, and the whole back yard actually. So, a little update to say hey have an awesome

new year and enjoy the wedding pics we sent out for you.

Love!

Clara & Hone A.

Part 2 Post-Wedding Update from Summer 2013

Part 2.0 ::: Slating / Ruff Flamingo poetry / Trumbullplex Yardsale

by jhon

Backing up a bit let's take a closer look at the beginning of July...

Big plans were already in the works, as always. I was running out of slates, copper nails and areas I could get to without scaffolding on my job, so I decided to wrap it up, in the nick of time, just before the H. Ruff Flamingo event. “The what you say?” Well, “The Flamingo” is the abandoned garage next to our house I comandeered, cleaned up and redecorated (with lots of help) for a bar at the wedding. Having spent so much energy on it and it just sitting; we really had wanted to do something fun in there.

It was just about set to host a book release for our friend that first Friday the 5^th of July, with just a little more clean up, but there was also getting the grrrls (Clover and Roofus) to the vet, who you might not have got to meet, but pretty much run our lives; checking in with my Dad regarding his upcoming shoulder surgery and of course preparing for the event of the summer, another McMahon-Hardie wedding (Maya & Joe--woo hoo!!), so I headed over to the Trumbullplex. What! Why go over to the Plex when there was an event that needed planning at our house, for the yardsale of course!

I really wanted to cram in a yardsale before we left for the U.P. wedding. This was going to be a big summer for our community space & the houses on Trumbull Ave. (where Clara and I met). The Trumbullplex is as infamous among the artists and activists of Detroit as the Old Michigan Central Train Depot is to the city at large. As the oldest anarchist housing collective in the country we were officially turning 20! I talked Clara into having the ultimate garage sale over there on Saturday and Sunday to kick off the celebrations and got to pulling out all sorts of crazy, but useful things from the infamous Trumbull theatre, basement, and workroom. We have been trying to get rid of a lot of extra things at our place, so I already had a pile back home to move over there in the truck and lord knows the Trumbull collective has collected a lot of stuff over the past 20 years, so let's just say there was a lot of happy shoppers that 4^th of U Lie weekend, and we are a little more free of the burden of stuff. Kameron (our nephew) was on board as well; he gathered up his own “stuff” for the sale and helped out a lot early Saturday morning. Plus, Lou's Mom Maria turned up with a full on BBQ and cupcake setup meanwhile Kam fell for how soft Maria's fur coat was she was selling, insisting that was all he wanted for his birthday. What a fun 20^th anniversary anarchist yard sale.

Oh, and the Flamingo's BBQ/Poetry reading for James' Hart III's latest book of poetry, Uncomfortable Clowns, (the day before the yardsale) was awesome! Everyone loved the intimacy of the space, we made all our money back with book sales and a unique community vibe, maybe even a little reminescent of the old days at the Zeigest meets a much smaller version of the wedding party. The book release became our second successful H. Ruff Flamingo event, where Clara played violin as the openner after I welcomed everyone followed by another great poet, Peter Markus, who read some special work for James the 3^rd.

Clara played on a new violin that came into her life free! Our friend Paul, who lives in Boston, fixed it up for us as a wedding gift. The violin has an amazing tone and is much better quality than her old one that she's had since middle school. She's now saving for a new bow, which some say effects more than 50% of the sound.

I know it's all a bit confusing, it was a whirlwind weekend, so that's how it comes out on the page I guess. The yard sale wrapped up on Sunday; Monday we cleaned up both events, Dad had a successful surgery on his shoulder, which finally got us to Tuesday morning. With the dogs, Kameron and all our wedding clothes into the new car and off to the U.P. we went, woo hoo!

2.1 ::: Maya & Joe's Wedding / Collapse tour / Violin Exploration Camp / Trumbullplex Slating

by jhon

Maya had asked me to DJ the wedding but I didn't have gear for that, so I brought my records and spent some time while everyone else was running around looking for 2 turntables and a dj mixer, which eventually was found way out in the woods. And that really is too long a story for this brief update, but kinda makes me think I should be a DJ when we move to Marquette someday. The wedding was incredible. They walked down an “aisle” of apple trees with rolling green hills all around on a beautiful day, there was a pig roast, huge stained glass art pieces hanging from trees and buildings  Maya & Joe did a swing dance to “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, kicking off the after party in the loft of a huge old barn and Clara wore her new San Francisco boutique dress! I spent a lot of time just walking around the grounds and talking about Detroit to a handful of folks and hardly saw Kam as he was off running around with all the other kids.

Kam on the way there. Working on a chapter of his story.

Mom polishing a set of silver for Maya & Joe that she put together from thrift store hunting & gathering

Where we found the DJ mixer...the workshop of our BFFs when we move up there someday.

Rita, Dad, Mom

wedding setting farm/apple orchard 

Kam on the way home, with Clover

The next day we had to get on the road and make the 8 hour drive back with dogs and 9 year old so Kam could start sports camp, Clara could start her violin camp and I could play our first show of tour the next day in Ypsilanti. Since Dad couldn't drive while in recovery, we stopped in Rochester Hills on the way home and I borrowed the van for the bands tour. My punk band, Collapse (Ashleigh, Mikey, Matthew, Anderson and me), toured Pittsburgh, Mont Clair New Jersey, NYC (at the infamous ABC No Rio on the lower east side), Philly and D.C. while Clara taught 3 groups a day in the 4^th annual Violin Exploration Camp at the Conner Capuchin Soup Kitchen. 4 new students ages 4-8 from the Rosa Parks Youth Program were brought into Detroit Youth Volume that week under Clara's daily, loving Suzuki method instruction!

Clara & Johnathan

After driving home from D.C. we got the scaffolding and set it up; the day after that I tore into a section of Plex Victorian-style roof badly in need of a new copper valley and as it turned out a lot of rafter repairs. It was a lot more work than I anticipated but it meant something more to me than just taking care of a bad valley and some roof leaks. For me Trumbullplex is an experiment with sharing the joys and hardships of life. Rather than take on a mass of debt that the Capitalist system pretty much demands a group owns the buildings together and all pitch in an amount less expensive than rent and bills even would be, but the trade off is you have to get together and meet to plan how things will happen and issues will be resolved. We have gone so far into the idea that each individual should have access to things that are supposed to make our quality of life better, that the systems of production and management of this single minded way that we have become used to is actually doing the opposite. What I have seen is there are better ways to live and not buy into all the American hype, we dont need so much stuff as much as we need to learn to better communicate and take care that we are not ignoring the fact built into the system are saftey nets that do not heal people but create a permanent life of struggle, but hey why should we make our lives about caring for

The Trumbullplex, the oldest anarchist housing collective and art space in the country, as having its 20^th anniversary since 1993, when the collective became a State non-profit and was a community theater and artists apartments. A band called Mischeif Brew who was celebration their 10^th year of playing Trumbullplex kicked off the night of the Flyer Art Show, along with Jhon's band, Collapse. Flyers on the wall were only a small part of the vast accumulation, arranged in sections like “Poetry/Art”, “Women's Nights”, “Puppets/Theater”, “Specifically Political”, “Work days”, “Weddings/Funerals”, “Cafes”, “Benefits for Others”... A low-key BBQ for all current and X-plexers followed on Sunday with good food and old friends pouring over hundreds of photos from our personal collections.

2.2 ::: Guernsey Lake / Sand Lakes / Kameron Turns 10

by clara

We decided to make it a priority to take the new kayaks somewhere and got the chance to drive Carolyn and her 2 babies, Finn & Rowan, up to her family cabin on Torch Lake. After spending a night there we drove down the other side of the lake to Traverse City to find a thrift store since Jhon realized he left Clara's bag at home and she had no other clothes to wear...of course it was Sunday so no thrift stores were open and Clara had to accept the nightmare of spending $75 at K-Mart to something other than jeans for kayaking, a bathing suit and warm shirt for camping. Regardless, after searching for our favorite Sand Lakes, we ended up at the beautiful, clear Guernsey Lakes and stayed up late on the shore in sleeping bags watching the Leonid meteor showers (shooting stars!). The next day, we kayaked on the lake with a family of loons! There was a fuzzy brown baby and 2 parents diving down, bringing up food.

After mom and dad moved Maya into the new apartment in Pittsbugh with Joe, they stopped by our place on the way home. We traveled Sand Lakes and met 8 Trumbullplex pals at our favorite lake. We took hikes to find wild turkey feathers and flicker feathers, cooked over and sang around the campfire, swam around the blue-green lake and applied mud body masks from the shore.

Kameron turned 10 in August. There was a party in Nana and Papa's new Great Room—an addition that Papa's son, Chuck, worked very hard on to complete before their Woodward Cruise party. Auntie Sandra's family came too. Kameron has done so many thing this year that he's never done before—a poem he wrote about water was published in a poetry book at Young Authors summer camp at Cranbrook, he tried out and made it onto a travel soccer team, played lacrosse at the Cranbrook sports summer camp, wrote a script and presented himself as Orville Wright in the school wax museum, inadvertently started an after school science experiment club and a lot more.

Getting the thank you notes in the mail!

Jhons cards he made from postcard collection

Colored envelopes Clara made & the update Jhon wrote

Hone A & Clara-bellum post wedding update!

Written by Hone A.

Caught up in our dreams and our lives, these past four months have been full! There really is nothing like Summer in Detroit. Life's been fair to awesome, if we were religious folks, like so many people we know here in the city, they'd probably say we were blessed and we understand that feeling. Turns out we're somewhere along the spectrum of radical pragmatists and idealists, which could mean we've been working and playing hard!

The wedding money went quick (for the most part) but it was well spent; thank you all so much for your generosity and support. It took a couple of days to come down from flying up there in the whirlwind and get things sorted out and cleaned up, but as soon as possible we set off to celebrate our love and togetherness (without hundreds of people around us) with a drive to Dear Creek bed and breakfast outside of Cleveland. We lived it up and the next morning set off to Spring-time at the Cleveland Botanical Garden, which was super cool and overall fun to explore Cleveland, ending up in Little Italy for dinner, wow, so good! We left feeling incredible, but Clara had to throw herself into “FiddleFest” (her students had a special performance) plus girls group (held at the soup kitchen) which needed to plan their trip to the 15^th annual Allied Media Conference, and I began slating an old house near the Trumbullplex with a very unique roof structure.

The Mission, San Francisco

We left for our honeymoon the day after Fiddle Fest and rented a hybrid Prius for our adventure into Northern California, which we had dreamed of for years. All the way into Southern Oregon we made it to the Giant “Old Growth” ancient Redwood Forests with hawks overhead and rivers winding through all the way to my old stoping grounds, Arcata California (where I lived for 2 years in later 1990's). It was fun going to an historic theatre and their crazy co-op to buy more seeds and fancy micro beers/meads.

Marble Mountains, Lovers Camp trail

That's where some of the shopping began and finally ended in the Mission in San Francisco, which was great to have the money for Clara to actually buy a new dress. On our way down we had stopped for a night at Aunt Ellen and Dennis' beautiful place in Sonoma and had a great dinner and got to stay in the yurt, which is very special, (no scorpions this time though, the first time I almost stepped on a little black one).

Berkley Rose Gardens with Matt

In the Bay we saw different friends, had lunch at Dolores Park (full of chihuahuas!), drank fancy cocktails with Clara's old friend, Lydia, hiked around in Berkley hills, got our burritos from a truck, amazing coffee from the latest greatest and had a totally delicious if kinda bizarre dinner of small plates with an old friend of mine in Oakland.

 Good times! Our honeymoon was perfect.

Oakland, CA

The new car! And kayaks!

Upon arriving home the day before Memorial Day, we figured out the car we wanted to get and moved forward with the loan, of course we found a used, nearly exact same Prius we had rented. Only slightly used and an all around excellent fit for us, we went for it. Clara's very tired and costly 1997 Camry was unsafe and we just couldnt put any more money into it; we eventually sold it for $700. The Prius is awesome and with the rack Clara found on Craigs list and I rigged to fit, we are now carrying our new kayaks on it! The second kayak trip should be happening by the time you get this.

Getting back to when we got home from the West Coast we found that we had quite the collection of fancy treats and got deeper into the better things in life after a days hard work:

RX Missionary Chocolates, OMG (sustainable, vegan, handcrafted, Portland Oregon made totally addictive truffles), we even made a video with the dogs in it when we first started eating them.

But that's just some of the sweets, there was all the booze, new towels and sheets, art, music... we were feeling pretty lucky right about then as we got back to our awesome life, even if feeling a little behind. As Clara took on her Detroiter status with a new vigor, hustling hardcore, the new students began to rack up. “Detroit Hustles Hardest” is a double meaning slogan you see around because we all have to work and “hustle” our work to survive here and the Detroit dance scene, young and old loves to get people to do the hustle. Meanwhile, even if a little late, we got the gardens in, was there for Kam's final days of 4^th grade and all the fun stuff , the band finished it's recording and rode into the Allied Media Conference with Kam and the Girls Group, one of our favorite events of the year, feeling great.

RX Missionary Chocolates and some mead in our new wine glasses

But that's just some of the sweets, there was all the booze, new towels and sheets, art, music... we were feeling pretty lucky right about then as we got back to our awesome life, even if feeling a little behind.

As Clara took on her Detroiter status with a new vigor, hustling hardcore, the new students began to rack up. “Detroit Hustles Hardest” is a double meaning slogan you see around because we all have to work and “hustle” our work to survive here and the Detroit dance scene, young and old loves to get people to do the hustle. Meanwhile, even if a little late, we got the gardens in, and chaperoned Kam's final day of 4th grade--a field trip to the movie theaters/bowling alley!

first round of hand-made CD covers for Jhon's band, Collapse

Kam started doing a lot of day camps, which allowed us to have a little more time and even though the heat by the beginning of July meant a lot less sleep (90's for weeks, even in the evenings) I felt amidst the tossing and turning my band's short East Coast Tour in the middle of the month was going to work out, which it did. Six shows in 7 days and one long drive home.

Clara at Living Arts waiting for the babies & parents

Back to Clara's hustle, she's now teaching “Music Together” and is a music teacher at the new Boggs School along with her 20 private students! She is the founder of both Detroit Music Teacher'sCollective (with Jennie Knaggs) and Detroit Youth Volume.

No signs of slowing down with the updates, so here might be a good place to take a break if you need and if you are reading this on paper...well, you should consider reading our blog for Part II !!

Welcome! Please visit our blog often, this is just the beginning...

• There will be a chance to give a brief toast at the end of our ceremony so start thinking now! 
• Directions to May 4 ceremony (our home)
• Parking will be on Lawton so carpool or bike if you can. There will be someone watching the cars.
• Roberts Riverwalk Hotel directions & website
• Link to our Lodging & Cabs page if you can't click the tab