Techno meets jazz in Paris (with Carl Craig and Tribe)
Fusions, like politics, make strange … no, let’s just say interesting bedfellows. And as lots of jazz and techno fans know, Carl Craig is at the fused intersection of their genres. One of his projects of the last couple of years has been reuniting the surviving members of the cutting-edge Detroit jazz collective Tribe from…
How green are the Detroit council candidates? Find out Wednesday!
Candidates for Detroit City Council are keeping busy racing from one forum to the next as Election Day approaches. But there’s only one event that we’re aware of that will focus on the many crucial environmental issues facing the city. Thirteen local environmental, community and social justice organizations will hold an “open forum” from 6…
Ambassador Bridge report released — after court fight
In a 2007 inspection report the Ambassador Bridge owners fought to keep secret, the span is described as being “in overall fair condition” but in need of structural, electrical, steel and surface repairs. “I make no allegations about the safety or lack of safety of the bridge,” says U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-Dearborn), who today…
Housing discrimination on trial at WSU; urban food policies under review at U-M
A couple weeks back, we took Time magazine to task for its retelling of — Time’s headline — “The Tragedy of Detroit.” The region’s stark segregation is one of the elements of that, but, as we argued in a blog posting last week, the piece overplays the role of the 1967 riot and underplays other…
Slammin’!
So, what do you get when you cross a poetry slam and an open mic night at a comedy club? Probably something terrible that will bring shame to all involved. Thankfully, though, this is not what happens during a recent Moth StorySLAM. Yes, the increasingly popular public radio program has come to Detroit. And the…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr.
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Masters of the Burial
Amy Millan’s second solo outing since 2006’s Honey From the Tombs is several steps removed from the bands with which she’s most generally associated. There is no melancholy synth pop ala Stars nor is there a Broken Social Scene-like layered atmospheric din. Instead, Milan offers up understated elegance —simple songs with a touch of country…
The Don of Detroit
Tragedy follows the men who find themselves at the center of Detroit’s rap world. In the Eminem flick 8 Mile, actor Mekhi Phifer plays Future, the right-hand man to Rabbit, the film’s hero. Future is at the center of the Detroit hip-hop scene, hosting open mics, promoting shows, dropping sharp 16-bar raps off the top…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Kwame Kenyatta
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Dumbing way down
Michigan’s political system no longer works, and is rapidly sending our state careening toward a future of poverty and hopelessness. That’s not wild-eyed leftist talk. That’s just a sad, inescapable clinical diagnosis that can be confirmed by anyone who takes the time to collect the information and study how our government works. Or, rather, doesn’t…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Lisa Howze
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Motor City Cribs
Driving past Guilty Simpson’s cute little Dearborn Heights bungalow with flower pinwheels in the front lawn, the last thing you would guess is that its resident is about ready to take Detroit hip hop to a new level. But barely a year after the release of his classic debut LP Ode to the Ghetto, Byron…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Mohamed Okdie
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Stick it in!
This is a simple story about a regular guy with a dream, a dream that cost him more than a hundred grand, 10 years of his life and 16 inches of his small intestine. Stick It in Detroit is a labor of love in the purest sense, a sprawling chaotic comedy about a guy who…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Raphael B. Johnson
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
True value
When was the last time you met a kid in middle or high school who was actually in shop class? I can’t remember, and I have a 16-year-old sister. Information technology is at the forefront of American education, but those jobs are mostly sent overseas, so where does that leave the office worker? How about…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Saunteel Jenkins
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Free Press mess
Talk about a tricky situation. Pulitzer Prize winning Free Press reporters M.L. Elrick and Jim Schaefer last week found themselves covering a story they were directly involved in. It’s an explosive issue that centers, in part, on the guy who now appears to be the person most responsible for the two star reporters receiving that…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Shelley Iris Foy
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should cut? The…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Alberta Tinsley-Talabi
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Letters to the Editor
Out of control RE: Jack Lessenberry’s column "Merrily down the drain." (Sept. 30) Sir, since you believe you "certainly should have to pay more state taxes than [you] do," there is no one stopping you from writing a weekly check to the state. Also Jack, since you believe you "owe something to those … before…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Andre Spivey
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
School rivalries
Before the Monday, Oct. 12, editorial in The Detroit News, Detroit school board member Anthony Adams all but predicted the paper’s endorsements — or lack of them — in the eight-candidate election for four at-large board of education seats next month. "There is a natural bent along the editorial pages to denigrate leadership in most…
The MT dining guide
Sure, times have been tough. For our last several years, we’ve been watching the initial tweaks our talented entrepreneurs have dreamed up to keep diners coming in. And it’s been challenging. Dining out is one of the first things people tighten their belts on, and, with recent fuel shocks, the price of running a restaurant…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Brenda Jones
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Detroit council consultations
It is difficult to recall a Detroit City Council race that’s been more wide open, or more important to the city. Two incumbents decided not to seek re-election. A third failed to make it past the primary. And one — Monica Conyers — was removed from the race after pleading guilty to a bribery charge.…
Puttin’ off the ritz
Speaking of trends, are we noticing our upscale restaurants going a bit … casual? Lately, it seems restaurateurs aren’t just concerned about how much diners pay for a meal, but how much they think they’ll have to pay. Call it dressing down, if you will: The same talented staff, but a fresher, funkier take that’s…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Charles Pugh
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Your guide to dining
vegetarian-friendly Aut Bar 315 Braun Court, Ann Arbor; 734-994-3677: In the warmer months, historic Kerrytown’s Aut Bar spills out onto a quiet courtyard it has nearly all to itself. Functioning as a restaurant and a bar for 21 years (the second level is 21 and older only), there’s a popular Sunday brunch (10-3) and a…
Working the room
Lately, we’ve been thinking a lot about a certain sort of chef or owner: the kind who personally comes by your table to greet you and inquire about your experience. A few weeks ago, we talked to Paul Grosz, the chef-owner of Cuisine in Detroit’s New Center neighborhood, genuinely curious about what he hopes to…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: David Jonathan Cross
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Middle feast
La Saj’s menu covers the usual suspects in the Lebanese kitchen. The appetizer sampler ($23.95), which can easily satisfy four, includes a silky hummus, suitably smoky baba ghanoush, vegetarian or meat-stuffed grape leaves, fried kibbeh stuffed with meat, onions and pine nuts, falafel, labneh (house-made yogurt), a fresh but a bit drippy tabbouleh, and cheese…
A fresh niche
If you’re of a certain age, you remember those TV commercials for compilation records. The announcer would urge you to buy that collection of hits because "assembling this collection of music would cost you hundreds of dollars, and many cannot be found anywhere at any price." Sounds sort of quaint in this day of downloaded…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Fred Elliott Hall
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
The Boys are Back
Clive Owen uses every drop in his considerable reservoir of charm to infuse his shallow young widower with warmth and dimension, and comes up a tiny bit short. That he still comes off as an entitled prep school twat getting by on looks and brawny ego is both a testament to the script’s strengths, and…
It’s Miller time!
You may remember the mustache. TV talk hosts rarely sport fuzzy lips (potentially distracting to viewers, consultants tell ’em), but Jeffrey Miller’s whiskers were tight, dashing and distinctive — just like the newsmaker interviews he conducted for a dozen years on the locally produced series Transition. From 1990-2002, on three different Detroit stations and numerous…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: Jai-Lee Dearing
About 50 percent of the $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be cut?…
Still Walking
Kore-eda Hirokazu is the most gifted and graceful Japanese filmmaker of his generation and is often considered the heir to Yasujiro Ozu, a title he’s truly earned with this wonderful little blessing of a movie. Like that mid-century master, Hirokazu uses silence as punctuation and empty rooms and ghostly staircases for space and context. He…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY OCTOBER 14-17 Edgefest WHICH WAY OUT? THESE WAYS OUT! Edgefest, now in its 13th year, has always celebrated the breadth of a hard-to-define avant-garde whose roots twist back to John Coltrane and John Cage, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew and Erik Satie, folk music of the world and Frank Zappa. This year’s fest is no…
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: James Tate
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Life sucks. Get over it
I guess gleeful misanthropy wasn’t enough for the Coen Brothers. Now they want to make it clear that God … excuse me, Hashem … is an unforgiving bastard. Though their scorn for humanity has long been evident, lately the Minnesota auteurs have been seething with unbridled contempt, producing films that revel in the shallow, selfish…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Detroit City Council Candidate Questionnaire: JoAnn Watson
About 50 percent of the city’s $1.8 billion general fund budget is spent on salaries and benefits. Is there a way to address an accumulated deficit of at least $300 million and avoid the risk of insolvency without significantly reducing those worker costs? If not, by what percentage overall do you think they should be…
Grand larceny
The Raveonettes are thieves. Don’t consider that an insult, though. Since its inception, some of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll has been all about stealing; John Lennon once bragged that the Beatles only stole from the very best, while the ancient saw argues that "talent borrows, genius steals." And while it may be overstating things…
The Sights: New lineup, new album in the can, an email and a free show today.
We just got this email from the lovably impish Eddie Baranek. We couldn’t put it better ourselves: Hello, as part of United Way’s Blocktoberfest, The Sights will be kicking it on the back of a flat bed truck from 5pm til 6:30pm today. Where the hell is that?– Lafayette between First and Third Streets. There…
Liebler gets national nod, rocks out with Sinclair at Alvin’s
Organizing retreats for Michigan writers, putting together local and out of state poetry workshops, hosting open-mic night’s at Music Hall’s Jazz Cafe, publishing in local publications and across the country, M.L. Liebler continues to be one of the most active voices in Detroit’s literary community. But Detroit word-smiths aren’t the only folks to take notice…
