Cover Story
Metamorphosis
In January 2015 I got a text message from Alia Ismail. She wanted to meet up at a coffee shop. She said she had something important she wanted to discuss with me. See more images of Issa’s transition here. She and I had been classmates in middle and high school, but were nothing more than…
Jim Jarmusch’s Stooges doc is awesome, go see it now
Do not sleep on getting tickets for the best music documentary in recent memory, on the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band.
You decide how this horror film ends, using your phone!
As people are watching movie, a screen will pop up and ask d you’d like to have a character do this or that.
Michael Moore’s surprise NYC ‘Trumpland’ premieres tonight
Michael Moore is known for going against the grain. He does things his own way. He has also finished his documentary on Donald Trump and will bring it to New Yorkers tonight. They will have a chance to view his newest documentary Trumpland. The only information about the specifics of the film is in the…
Detroit is in the top ten most rat infested sites in America
Every year, Orkin creates a list of the countries most rat infested cities, and this year, Detroit is ranked ninth. Not only did Detroit make the list but Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo/Battle Creek ranked at 33 and Flint/Saginaw/Bay City came in at 41. The list is ranked by amount of rodent exterminations preformed residential or commercially. You can find…
Flint schools: Dealing with the damage done
Making the water safe to drink is just one of the issues that the state needs to address in Flint, writes the ACLU’s Curt Guyette.
Mercedes-Benz is ranked the King among rappers
If there were a televised “Hip Hop Olympics,” Mercedes-Benz would be the official sponsor. The brand is the most mentioned in rap, according to gocompare.com by a very large margin (1,740 mentions to be exact). The website analyzed over 62,000 songs from artists featured in the Billboard top-40 rap charts over the last decade and…
‘Handmaid’s Tale’ author Margaret Atwood to appear in Ann Arbor
Atwood will be promoting her most recent novel and will sign as many books as time allows.
What does a Canadian feminist Halloween disco masquerade look like?
There’s hardly a hint of scariness to this event, unless bellbottoms and wide collars make you scream
Detroit receives a gold star when it comes to LGBTQ friendliness
Detroit is an All Star again.
13th Floor Elevators’ debut turns 50 this week; don’t forget Roky plays El Club next Friday!
Tune in, and let Roky and crew take you to your empty place.
Ford’s Garage to bring assembly line of burgers, craft beers, and nostalgia to Dearborn
Featuring the $125 “Henry Ford’s Hub Cap” 10-pound burger.
MC5 nominated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Could Cleveland’s shiny rock ‘n’ roll museum finally let our grungy revolutionaries in?
VIDEO: This couple got engaged on the Detroit RiverWalk and the whole thing was caught on camera
It’s Tuesday, which means we all have a lot of feelings. Maybe you still have an an emotional hangover from Saturday night. Maybe you’re crumbling under the weight of another week working for the man. Whatever the reason, you definitely need some cathartic release. We’re here to help. On Oct. 10 Positive Detroit posted his…
Feds release $42 million in demolition funds as Detroit Land Bank sets new rules
“It’s a question of whether eligible expenses were all charged in the appropriate way,” Mayor Mike Duggan said after a review of the Detroit Land Bank’s operations.
Fuck the latest ‘New Detroit’ news; here’s a full Gold Dollar set by the Go from 1999
If this doesn’t brighten your day, nothing will.
VIDEO: ‘SNL’ mines Ann Arbor film culture for laughs
Emily Blunt stars in a new film, Qua, which featured at the 16th Annual Ann Arbor Short Film Festival on Saturday. If you’ve never heard of the film or the festival, though, that’s because it exists only in Lorne Michaels’ Saturday Night Live universe. The October 15th episode of the longstanding variety show included a…
Tricycle Collective’s ‘Do Not Bid’ mural pushes politics with style and grace
The mural features the art of Ellen Rutt, Ouizi, and Jonny Alexander.
Motown Museum’s $50 million expansion plans include theater, studios, interactive exhibits
“It brings me real joy,” Berry Gordy says of the Motown Museum’s plans.
Gender Blender is an awesomely inclusive Halloween bash
Want to meet new people, listen to great music, win awesome raffle prizes AND not have to worry about gender conformity? Then FtM Detroit’s Gender Blender is for you! Taking place this year at Circa 1890s Saloon, the Gender Blender is one of the biggest regular gatherings of trans and queer people (and their allies) in…
New anti-Trump billboard appears on I-94 — in Arabic
The billboard’s message, rendered in Arabic, ‘subtly accuses Donald Trump of racism and xenophobia.’
Mystery and Murder take over Meadowbrook Theatre
The game is afoot! Or rather, the play. Now playing at Meadowbrook Theatre, Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic Sherlock Holmes tale, The Hound of the Baskervilles, has been transformed by Ken Ludwig into a play of mystery, mayhem, and murder. One by one, the male heirs of the Baskerville line are being picked off. Holmes and Watson must find…
Recipe: Johnny Noodle King’s ramen with a tortilla soup twist
Now you can make this Detroit hybrid at home.
This vintage Detroit Zoo commercial will make you nostalgic for the ’80s
Children of the ’70s and ’80s will get all the feels from this vintage Detroit Zoo commercial that Reddit user offandthenonagain posted yesterday evening. The commercial was released in 1982, and features a cast of animals as they get ready for their big scene. Chances are you caught this commercial countless times while soaking in some…
Happy Birthday, Eminem
The real Slim Shady turns 44 today.
You can still catch the extraordinary Mary Ann Aitken show at What Pipeline
You have to see these riveting, large-scale street views of Detroit from the 1980s by Cass Corridor painter Mary Ann Aitken.
Exhibition opening offers book by activist photographer Leni Sinclair
Send an email in advance and you can receive a free monograph of Sinclair’s work, and maybe meet her too.
QLINE updates service hours; still behind the times
Fast forward to summer 2017. You’re lost in a euphoric haze of smoke, booze, and amplified guitars at the Fillmore, headbanging through [insert your favorite rock band’s] encore. After an all-killer-no-filler set, the house lights flicker to life, and you reflexively slip your iPhone out of your cargo pocket. You tilt its cracked screen upward…
Film review: Yusef Shakur looks at ‘Birth of a Nation’
If Nat Turner were white, he would be considered an American hero.
Green Dot Stables expanding to Lansing location
It’s official… There will soon be more Green Dot to love in the Mitten State.
10 ways to ‘Treat Yo Self’ today in Detroit
Because you deserve it, dammit!
Get your yoga on with deep house before the show
When was the last time you heard of a yoga class with live electronic DJs mixing it up on the decks?
The third annual Detroit Sound Conference is tomorrow, and it’s essential
We’re particularly excited about what Marsha Music has to say, and to hear Melvin Davis’ keynote speech, and to hear Thomas Calkins’ presentation “Down on the Street: Detroit’s shifting record store landscape, 1970-2010.” And John Sinclair! And…
Tonight: Cheater Slicks with Danny and Darleans at UFO Factory is the rock ‘n’ roll mind-blaster you need
Danny and the Darleans brings the absolute party vibes while Cheater Slicks starts with dark, gnarly, psychedelic garage rock as its jumping-off point, and then gets gnarlier and darker from there.
Side Dish: Chef Maxcel Hardy to return to his beloved Detroit
Meet the male Martha Stewart of Detroit.
Battle Trance at Trinos on Saturday is your can’t-miss show of the week
Holy moley we are so excited about the circular-breathing saxophone weirdos in Battle Trance, who return to Trinosophes for the third time in as many years tomorrow, Saturday, Oct. 15. Travis LaPlante’s face-melting saxophone quartet is so good at weaving these thick lines of sound together in a hypnotic and rhythmic way to make this giant um, sound-quilt, just…
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters bringing “Us + Them” tour to The Palace
“It will be a cool show, I promise you. It’ll be spectacular like all my shows have been,” Waters says.
Tired of lame costume parties? Check out these Halloween alternatives instead
Halloween for grown folks.
Are your whiskers award-worthy?
Last year a hairy competition made its way to Detroit. It was called the Circus of Whiskers and more than 100 competitors (men and women!) from around the globe put their beards in the ring, hoping their facial hair would win top honors. Now, the Circus of Whiskers is back and the charity fundraiser is…
Clinton Township trustee arrested, accused of accepting $50-70K in bribes
Clinton Township Trustee Dean Reynolds’ arrest comes as part of a wider public corruption investigation that’s focusing on Macomb County, according to the district attorney’s office.
Switcheroo: Chef Brendon Edwards to replace Josh Stockton at Gold Cash Gold
The pickle brined fried chicken will remain.
NWHL welcomes first openly transgender player
American professional team sports has been changing over the last few years. Standing behind causes such as You Can Play Project (their stance is that athletes should be judged on talent, heart and work ethic, not sexual orientation and/or gender identity), they’ve become a little bit more open and a little bit more welcoming to LGBTQ…
Nine great covers of Nobel laureate Bob Dylan by Detroit artists
In honor of Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature this year, we’ve assembled two fistfuls of covers of his music by area artists.
Buzzfeed says that Corktown is Michigan’s most hipster neighborhood
The hipsters have spoken! That’s right folks, those crazy millennials over at Buzzfeed released a list (shocker, we know) of the most hipster neighborhood in every state and our very own Corktown neighborhood was crowned the top dog. The article mentions the El Dorado General Store as being one of the biggest reason why it’s…
EXCLUSIVE: Former Duggan liaison heads dark money fund opposing Detroit community benefits ordinance
While opponents have been vocal about their stance on Prop A, finding out who’s funding Detroit Jobs First is a mystery.
What’s for dinner: Lincoln Park pizzeria rolling back to 1986 prices to celebrate 30th anniversary
$4.35 for a large, one-topping pizza… What a steal.
Die-hard fans line up 24 hours before first two Michigan Chick-fil-A openings
The lengths some people will go to score free food.
Clinton aide gives Lafayette Coney Island a thumbs up in email dumped by Wikileaks
“Bring your defibrillator,” or ask to borrow one from the Secret Service, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton wrote.
ComiqueCon is back
Half of comic book readers are female, and yet, as with most forms of media, women are radically underrepresented, both as protagonists and creators. But metro Detroit lady geeks are in for a treat: The second annual ComiqueCon, a one-day celebration of female comic creators co-sponsored by Green Brain Comics and the East Dearborn Downtown…
Feedback
In response to Jack Lessenberry’s column, Walter Finan of Royal Oak wrote us: I just voted for Hillary today absentee. It is not quite true, however, that Hillary is not, or at least was not, a crook at least once. Remember her first, last and only venture into commodity trading? A poor ex-student with Ivy…
Growing good cannabis businesses in Detroit
The original Bena Riamba — or “Sons of Hemp” — lived in equatorial West Africa in the 1800s. They were a cannabis cult that had spiritual and medicinal uses for the plant. The Bena Riamba were credited with changing the warlike nature of the Bashilange tribe from which they emerged. Detroit’s Sons of Hemp has…
Memphis quartet Nots traverses the upside-down psychogeography of modern America
We live in a time when popular metanarratives are either being unraveled on a global stage, or else taking a turn for the weird. Just look at the stories that have captivated our imaginations over the last decade. A supernatural child of MK-Ultra unlocks the door to a dark parallel universe. Ruling-class families vie for…
‘Carpe Noctem’ creeps up on Detroit
Joshua James, Detroiter and director of the Theatre Bizarre Orchestra, has been active in the city’s theater and jazz scenes since 1999. David Haskins (David J/MC Nightshade), a legend in the “goth” world, pioneered the genre in the 1980s as a founding member of Bauhaus. While different in disciplines, both have a passion for the…
Politics & Prejudices: Vichy Republicans
Here’s something interesting to consider: We know exactly what happens if a president of the United States dies. If the person in that job goes stark raving mad, things might be a little more difficult. But there’s a plan in place for that too. All it would take is for the vice president and a…
Parks & Rec is downtown’s designer diner
The Detroit diner (often referred to as a “coney island”) is the unsung hero in the restaurant world. Its purpose is rooted in utility, a place where busy lunchers can rest their feet for a few minutes, scarf down a quick bite for cheap, and shoot the shit with the surly short-order cook behind the…
Savage Love: Senior Moments
Q I’m 64 years young, a musician, chubby, full head of hair, no Viagra needed, no alcohol, I don’t mind if you drink, smoker, yes I am. I am also faithful, loyal, and single for five years. No health issues, nada, zero, zilch. Not gay, not prejudiced against gays, pro-woman, Democrat, MASCULINE. Except I only…
An incomplete glossary of trans terms
A-gen-der, adj. n. 1. A person who does not identify as having any gender at all; exists outside the gender spectrum. 2. May consider themselves non-binary. See also -non-binary Cis, adj: 1. A person who identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth. Ex: Arnold Schwarzenegger was assigned male at birth and still considers…
