Cover Stories
College Guide 2012
The five people you meet in college The archetypal students, and how to handle them Choose the unusual Elective courses can sound strange but be very satisfying Local picks Offbeat electives at area institutions Fear and learning Balancing experience and expence The depths of debt Is higher ed worth the cost? Required reading A quick…
Last Blast of the Summer
We got the beats Here are just some highlights of the musical acts playing Arts, Beats & Eats. Around the block and back again After hits and tours, love for the Royal Oak stage Labors of love! Here’s a handful of bands appearing Hamtramck’s Labor Day Festival. Pocketful of punk Timmy Vulgar’s Panic in…
Local picks
Great Lakes Sailing, Michigan State University: If it seems frivolous, consider how well this would complement a lit student writing a thesis on, say, Melville. No doubt that spending 13 of 28 hours on a boat instead of in a classroom is an added bonus (but bringing some Dramamine might be a good idea) …
The five people you meet in college
You asked the appropriate questions and penciled in the right bubbles, and you survived high school. Your intensely unique identity — and you are sure it’s intensely unique — has been incubating within, saving its reveal for the gloriously progressive environment of college. No more labels, no more cutthroat social branding, no more clique-hopping to…
The depths of debt
The way we think about college has changed a lot in the last few decades. Instead of graduation denoting entry into a bright world of new possibilities, today’s graduation marks the time to begin paying back an insurmountable, suffocating debt of student loans. College debt and the long-lasting role it plays in so many lives…
After class
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY Avalon International Breads 422 W. Willis St., Detroit; 313-832-0008; avalonbreads.net: A regular winner of MT’s Best of Detroit poll, Avalon’s loaves are regularly featured at restaurants far beyond the Cass Corridor location. But there’s more than bread, including sandwiches, brioches, scones, excellent coffee and more. The atmosphere is conducive to chilling or…
Required reading
How to be a Person: The Stranger’s Guide to College, Sex, Intoxicants, Tacos and Life Itself by Lindy West, Dan Savage, Christopher Frizzelle, Bethany Jean Clement and the Staff of The Stranger Sasquatch, $16.95, 250 pp. The all-purpose guide to your formative years, or, should you come to this later, reformative years. With Dan "Savage"…
Fear and learning
Balancing on the blissful cusp between high school and college, I notice a few things beginning to change. I savor the time spent washing beer off these golf carts late at night; this may be my last "kid" job. The wall that always sat at the end of the season — another year-long block of…
Choose the unusual
Ultimately, college is a serious academic pursuit — the purpose of investing all that time and money is, after all, to earn a degree that you hope will serve as a kind of passport to the land of your professional dreams. It might seem odd, then, to hear that classes like "American Masculinity in 20th…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Remember – if you send it, it will get reviewed. That’s the City Slang promise. It doesn’t matter what genre the music is – as long as it has a Metro Detroit connection, it’ll get in. Preferably, we’d like to concentrate on new releases but, while we’re getting warmed up here, feel free to send…
City Slang: Sue Rynski gets blogging
Paris-based photographer Sue Rynski has been documenting Detroit music for decades, and she is world-renowned for her pictures of local icons like Ron Asheton and Iggy Pop, the MC5 guys, Niagara, etc. In fact, many of Rynski’s pictures appeared in both of my books, MC5: Sonically Speaking and The Stooges: Head On. But anyway, Rynski…
Pledge Allegiance to Summer Wonder
Sunday. Espresso. Gray…not hot, not cold, not yet raining and not yet shifted in gear to hit up Hamtramck yet. Listening to Cat Power. But thinking about Reverend. Would rather be listening to Reverend… What a show, What a…What the… Vigorous, valiant, aggro-jumbled jams, psychedelic rock stylings punches you in the sternum and death grips your…
Dispatches from the Detroit Jazz Fest: Saturday
Always polished and always swinging It wasn’t surprising jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis put on one of the top sets at the Detroit Jazz Festival Saturday afternoon. Marsalis is an elder statesman of jazz, and he seems musically incapable of doing anything sub-par. For Marsalis’ hit Saturday he used some key lions from the Jazz at…
City Slang: Ham-Town Labor Day Fest is a blast
I’m not knocking anything, honestly I’m not, but after attending Arts Beats & Eats almost ritualistically for the past few years, there’s a lot to be said for forgoing the insane crowds and attending a festival where parking is easy and there is no cover. I hear that great things are also happening Downtown at…
City Slang: Michigan Arab Orchestra at Music Hall
Detroit’s Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts announced this week that it is the new home for the Michigan Arab Orchestra. To celebrate, the Music Hall will present the orchestra’s season opening concert on Saturday, September 22 at 8:00 p.m. “The concert will feature some of the greatest repertoire from across the Arab World.…
Weekend Hit List
Friday 31st Arts, Beats & Eats Now in its 15th year, Arts, Beats & Eats takes place in Downtown Royal Oak. The festival will offer more than 200 performances on ten stages, a highly ranked Juried Fine Arts Show, local restaurants… [READ MORE] 33rd Annual Detroit Jazz Festival presented by Chrysler The 33rd annual Detroit Jazz…
City Slang: MusiCares offering free dental care to music peeps
Rather odd bit of news, this, but also rather incredible and very useful. MusiCares, the Detroit Jazz Festival and Smile Programs will be providing a dental clinic offering dental screenings, teeth cleaning, and x-rays to uninsured music professionals in need between 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on Saturday September 1 at the Detroit Marriott at…
City Slang: Detroit Jazz Fest ready to kick off
The 33rd Annual Detroit Jazz Festival is ready to go. Festival goers in Detroit can choose from the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival and Arts Beats & Eats this weekend, but the Jazz Fest provides worthy competition too. “We have an amazing collection of musicians performing this year and there will be a lot of energy…
Strikes twice
Lightning Love’s Blonde Album Release Party No. 1 is Friday, Aug. 31, at Woodruff’s Bar in Ypsilanti, 36 E. Cross St.; woodruffsbar.com. Jamaican Queens and Wally Dogger open; doors at 9:00 p.m., music at 10. Party No. 2 moves the lineup to the PJ’s Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; pjslagerhouse.com. The members of this…
Michigan slime time
Equal Justice Under Law. Those words are carved over the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., and when you see that majestic structure, and think of the great men once on the court, you can almost believe in that concept. Equal justice, under law. Then there is Michigan. If our state government were to…
Labors of love!
For full details, see hamtownfest.com. The Kickstand Band At 5 p.m. Sept. 1, South Stage Spritely indie-pop trio with a debut album due out soon. Melvin Davis & the United Sounds At 8 p.m. Sept. 1, South Stage Detroit’s self-proclaimed soul ambassador, Davis is smoother than mom’s pudding. The Sugarcoats At 6:30 p.m. Sept. 1,…
Divine inspiration
God speaks to her. She goes to sleep at night and by morning he tells her what he wants her to do. He told her to transform that empty apartment building across the street. He told her to clear the field where that little girl got raped. And he told her to take all those…
In dreams
Q: Not sure that even you can help with this one, but I’ll give it a shot. … My husband and I enjoy a solid, trusting BDSM relationship, and we’re both quite happy with not only our sex lives but our lives together in general. There is one issue that concerns me. Roughly twice a…
No jacket required
Local Kitchen & Bar 344 W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale 248-291-5650 localkitchenandbar.com Handicap accessible Prices: $15-$40 Hours: 5 p.m.-close Monday-Saturday, 5-11 p.m. Sunday Elevated everyday fare has become a successful formula in the metro Detroit dining scene. Popular spots have continued their growth, and casual eateries are opening all along the Woodward corridor. The newest,…
Killer Joe
Killer Joe| B+ You’ll never look at a Kentucky Fried drumstick the same way again. If pulp novelist Jim Thompson and overheated playwright Tennessee Williams had a baby, it might look a little like William Friedkin’s Killer Joe. A blood-spattered adaptation of Tracy Letts’ twisted trailer trash stage play, this is the kind of movie…
Swinging back to basics
This is the year the Detroit Jazz Festival cuts the jazz about appealing to independents and energizes the base. Yes, this is the festival for the true jazz fan with nary a big-name from blues or R&B — no Aretha or Chaka or Maria Muldaur or Derek Trucks or Allen Toussaint. No world music crossover…
Keeper of the flame
Charlie Gabriel’s Birthday Celebration is from 7-8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 2, at the Absopure Pyramid Stage. A Night in Treme is 5-6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 3, at the Carhartt Amphitheatre Stage. Charlie Gabriel isn’t the oldest musician playing at the Detroit International Jazz Festival this weekend. With his 80 years, he is still two years…
‘Money talks’
Jerry Ann Hebron had a story to tell last week at the listening session sponsored by the Detroit Food Policy Council at Gleaners Food Bank. Hebron is the executive director of nonprofit and community relations at St. John Evangelist Temple of Truth on Oakland Avenue, a couple of blocks south of the Bing Industries Complex.…
Pocketful of punk
Check out Timmy Vulgar in a cooking segment he did for MT here Timmy Vulgar (aka Timmy Lampinen) is a local fixture, heading up such bands as the Epileptics, the Clone Defects, Human Eye and Timmy’s Organism. An accomplished artist and Kresge Fellow, for eight years he has headed up a festival of punk that…
Killer instinct
Winning the Best Director Oscar for The French Connection (which took home five statues) in 1971 catapulted William Friedkin into the A-list of Hollywood directors. He followed it up with The Exorcist, which grossed (and grossed out) many millions and cemented the filmmaker’s place in cinema history. But unlike his contemporaries (Scorsese, Coppola, De Palma),…
Required reading
How to be a Person: The Stranger’s Guide to College, Sex, Intoxicants, Tacos and Life Itself by Lindy West, Dan Savage, Christopher Frizzelle, Bethany Jean Clement and the Staff of The Stranger Sasquatch, $16.95, 250 pp. The all-purpose guide to your formative years, or, should you come to this later, reformative years. With Dan "Savage"…
Around the block and back again
Deep See Sound System plays Arts, Beats & Eats on the International Stage on Friday, Aug. 31 at 8 p.m. The Hounds Below play the Ford Escape Alternative Stage on Saturday, Sept. 1 at 6:30 p.m. The Sights play the same stage on the same day, at 8 p.m. The Orbitsuns play the Soaring Eagle…
Letters to the Editor
Fortunate sons Re: "Rand, Ryan & Roumell" Aug. 22, Jack Lessenberry has yet again made another cogent argument in support of liberalism. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, coming from their respective privileged backgrounds, have never had to utilize any government programs in order to help raise themselves out of the mire of poverty. And, as…
We got the beats
Sean Forbes At 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 31, Michigan Lottery National Stage Forbes is a deaf rapper who has not only overcome the potential difficulties that life set before him, he has kicked their ass and come out on top. There’s no novelty here, no sense of patronizing, just fat beats and a talented dude…
Celeste & Jesse Forever
Celeste & Jesse Forever| B Like the proverbial better mousetrap, smart people are perpetually attempting to improve the romantic comedy formula, even if that involves twisting and contorting the genre into odd configurations. Celeste & Jesse Forever subverts the format by setting the action in the long, slow aftermath of a breakup, with a…
The nurturer
Marcus Belgrave’s Homecoming Band plays 8:30-9:45 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 3, on the JP Morgan Chase Main Stage on Hart Plaza. Trumpeter Marcus Belgrave is no stranger to big projects. He’s organized or played a key role in all manner of collectives, DIY recordings, workshops, concert series and such. Last year, he staged the massive Heidelberg…
2 Days in New York
Woody Allen has been on an extended European holiday for the better part of a decade, so it’s oddly fitting that he should find a female tribute artist of sorts in French actress-writer-director Julie Delpy, who tries to cram New York neuroses through a decidedly Gallic funnel. The blond and lovely Delpy started out playing…
Food Stuff
Weekday wonder For the second year in a row, Detroit’s Eastern Market is open two days a week. In addition to the traditionally busy Saturday, you’ll find the market open this summer and fall on Tuesdays, with farmers, flowers, produce dealers, specialty products and prepared-food vendors. The market calls it a "weekly community celebration through…
City Slang: The Marv Johnson Headstone Project
A project has been started to raise money to buy a headstone for the grave of Motown pioneer Marv Johnson, which, shockingly, has remained unmarked since his death in ’93 at Woodland Cemetery in Detroit. They say, “We are pleased to be wrapping up a successful campaign that secured a similar memorial for Motown drummer,…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Remember – if you send it, it will get reviewed. That’s the City Slang promise. It doesn’t matter what genre the music is – as long as it has a Metro Detroit connection, it’ll get in. Preferably, we’d like to concentrate on new releases but, while we’re getting warmed up here, feel free to send…
