Teenage lament
We recently chatted with of Montreal frontman Kevin Barnes, who talked at length about his time growing up in the greater Detroit area. He also talked about working with godhead producer Jon Brion, race relations and getting beyond genre categorizations. You’ll note that of Montreal’s star has been in steady ascension, and they’ve slowly constructed…
Soup’s on
Spend 40 minutes driving north on Woodward Avenue from Detroit’s city center at Campus Martius Park and you’ll find yourself in the vicinity of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, a revered graduate school surrounded by plush wooded plots and mansions in Bloomfield Hills. With flat land in every direction, the campus sits on a patch…
Firestorm of questions
If Detroit were a normal city, the Fire Department’s dispatcher would have sent Engine Co. 47 first when reports started coming in Sept. 7, about fires breaking out around East Robinwood and Van Dyke. Engine 47 is only 1.3 miles away, and it’s the closest rig to the scene with the ability to put water…
The ambassador
Leave it to a writer to let a line like this fall out of his mouth: "In Detroit, you can see the embers of the American dream are still capable of catching fire." Sure it verges on romantic, but, hey, this city needs dreamers — and doers — like Toby Barlow. Two years after he…
Transplant energy
They’ve come here from New York or the Baltimore suburbs or New Orleans. Maybe they started here and have circled back slowly by way of Australia and other far-flung points. Or maybe they’re biding time in Paris, anxious to join what they see as a new emerging Detroit. They’re bringing energy, vitality. They’re bringing fresh…
Grand River runs through it
2Booli Fresh Mediterranean Eats 37610 W. 12 Mile Rd., Farmington Hills; 248-994-0614; $: At 2Booli, they pull together several cultures around the Mediterranean: Bruschetta, polenta, fritto misto, clam linguine, and a meatball sub share the menu with tabbouleh and falafel. Almost everything at 2Booli is made in-house. Both versions of 2Booli’s lentil soup are wonderful.…
Letters to the Editor
Here comes the judge Jack Lessenberry’s jeremiad regarding Michigan’s current system of selecting Supreme Court justices ("Let’s make a deal," Sept. 1), while perhaps rhetorically satisfying to him, displays a lack of understanding and appreciation of how well the mixed system of appointment and election of judges, and particularly supreme court justices in Michigan, has…
Dancing back
The dream of becoming a dancer led Aku Kadogo away from Detroit a year after graduating from Cass Tech High School. After more than three decades of achieving that dream and numerous others — more than most would dare to dream — she returned home to teach another generation what she had garnered. "I tell…
Free Daisy!
There was much tough talk when a crowd of about 250 medical marijuana advocates gathered outside the offices of Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard on Monday to protest recent raids on clinics where pot was being sold. Along with outrage over the way patients were treated — allegedly thrown to the floor by masked, gun-toting…
Night and Day
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 16 Lost Detroit Book Release BUILDING MEMORIES Lost Detroit: Stories Behind the Motor City’s Majestic Ruins returns 12 crumbling, historic buildings to the glory of their former years, not through wistful descriptions of their former architectural splendor, but by telling the stories of the people who worked, played and lived in them. Author…
First blood
Writers like to write about writers. Sometimes when that happens, however, the work reads as if they’re writing for writers. Considering the resounding "write that which you know" mantra, it’s hard to blame them. But when the work doesn’t cross over, and most fails for some reason or other, it’s likely because it’s overworked in…
Metro Retro
27 years ago in Metro Times: Bill Rowe writes on his opposition to electronics, gizmos and automation in pop music in the article "Grabbin’ Gizmo: How are your waveform options?" He writes, "I took a look at the nationwide Top 50 last week. Of the 44 tunes I knew well enough to gauge, 35 had…
Eastern elegance
You can choose among about 20 different nigiri, priced between $1.50 and $3 apiece, and about 20 rolls at $2.50 to $6. Missing are the fantastic and pricey specialty rolls you find at so many of the hip sushi lounges catering more to a Western palate. The nigiri are well-constructed, with mildly sweet rice, excellent…
French connection
It sounds strange to hear someone say they would trade a life in Paris for a life in Detroit, but Alex Black would. "I can’t stand being back in this fucked-up country," the Paris native says, via Facebook chat, of his recent return to France. Alex is a stuntman who has worked countless jobs in…
The Extra Man
Louis Ives (Dano) is a wannabe transvestite and F. Scott Fitzgerald devotee who’s dismissed from his university teaching job after being discovered in a bra. Moving to New York City to become a writer, he rents a room from the flamboyant and imperious Henry Harrison (Kline), a failed playwright and aging gigolo. What follows is…
Kristine Diven and District 7
Kristine Diven’s Rivertown warehouse would quickly drop the jaws of most Detroiters. Sitting dignified and still in the shadow of the old Stroh’s water tower, and a stone’s throw away from Atwater Brewery, the newly christened studio and gallery District 7 is all exposed brick and raw energy. Twenty-foot high ceilings and sprawling space welcome…
Phoenix falling
You may remember when infamously intense method actor Joaquin Phoenix had a prolonged tabloid meltdown, shambling around like a drug-addled caveman through a series of embarrassing public appearances, as he became increasingly unhinged. “I’m Still Here” is the allegedly “real” account of Phoenix’s career suicide. Looking like a homeless Zach Galifianakis, with a huge mountain…
Bing’s open-secret plan
As I was watching TV the other night, my dog started growling and pacing around the room. I know from experience that means someone’s approaching the house. I looked out the front window but didn’t see anyone. Then I heard a tapping sound at the back door. I went into the kitchen and peeped out.…
The Virginity Hit
The Virginity Hit was shot entirely with handheld DV cameras in formats of varying quality, from lush widescreen to scratchy stuff meant to look like Internet video. The title refers to the most excellent naked devil-lady water bong the gang uses only for very special occasions; namely when one of them successful pops his first…
Obama’s image crisis
More than a half-century ago, the Democrats had a candidate who in some ways was sort of a white Barack Obama. His name was Adlai Stevenson. He was a brilliant speechmaker, also from Illinois, smart, sane and witty. Once, an adoring woman told him that all the thinking people in the country were behind him.…
Kisses
When his dad punches his mom in a fit of anger, young Dylan (Shane Curry) fights back, only to unleash the full force of his father’s brutal fury. With the help of the girl next door, Kylie (Kelly O’Neill), he flees, and the two hitch a ride with a friendly barge-driver. This sends them on…
Got Milk?
For 27-year-old Detroit producer Curtis Cross — better known by the name Black Milk — things operate best in his life when everything is moving in organized fashion. Call it the assembly-line method of progress and personal growth. If his music is evolving and gaining more recognition, that’s one part of the equation. If fame,…
Kitchens of distinction
The “Soul Kitchen” in question is both a restaurant and state of mind. A low-rent grease-pit eatery run by rumpled but cuddly Zinos Kazantsakis (Adam Bousdoukos), it’s far from health code-compliant, but the regulars like their beer, fried food and potato salad from a bucket. Nevertheless, even this threadbare slice of heaven is destined to…
Mouse in the house
Q: I’m sorry about sending this letter to you via snail mail. I don’t want to send an e-mail because I’d rather not have a record of this living forever on some server somewhere. About six months ago, after watching my girlfriend insert a tampon, I asked if I could do it for her next time.…
Valhalla Rising
Set between the eighth and 11th centuries against the stark, gloomy and filth-ridden world of pre-Christian Denmark, we’re introduced to One Eye (Mads Mikkelsen, the villain in Casino Royale). He’s a fearsome and mute warrior and slave for a Norse clan, and he disposes of his opponents with frightening efficiency while earning coin for his…
Food Stuff
Sunday Morning — With Soup at Spaulding and the Pink FlaminGO trailer, it would seem Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood is becoming a center for innovative ways to dine. Well, Corktown just got a little more food-centered with the resumption of the Corktown Community Brunch, a monthly event (mostly on the third Sunday of every month) that…
Alamar
A slow-burn that shows us connections between what’s real Not quite a docudrama (there’s little drama here) and not quite a documentary, this personal travelogue of sorts is a lovely and gorgeously wide-shot exercise in subtle activism, immersing the viewer in an idyllic world, as seen through the eyes of a young boy. Natan is…
