There’s a theory that we’re descended from aquatic apes. It supposedly explains why we’re buoyant and hairless, and mysteries of evolution from upright posture to peculiarities of our mating. It’s outsider science, far from mainstream, but it can feel right, intuitively, this time of year when there’s a pull to the shore and the water. Waves lapping at sand sound like home.
In temperate climes like ours, summer is the most primal of seasons. Besides flocking to the beaches, we bond to the beats in mass rites of outdoor music and dance; we feast outdoors. And isn’t going to the movies — and all the more obviously in the season of the blockbusters — just an update on going down to the caves to see rock drawings by firelight
In our 2006 Summer Guide we touch on the primal and more. We go to Metro Beach with News Editor Curt Guyette and photographer Nicole Marie Polec. Frequent film writer Michael Hastings tells us how to live through the summer blockbusters. Comix aficionados Sean Bieri, our design director, and music contributor Walter Wasacz recommend graphic novels for summer reading, while our copy editor Michael Jackman considers some out-of-the-way Michigan towns with storied pasts
And thanks to Listings Editor Eve Doster and our diligent interns, we’ve got hundreds of things for you to do throughout the metropolitan area this summer, from concerts to food festivals, from sports to camping, covering the wide metropolitan area through the Labor Day Weekend, when we begin to filter back indoors for another three seasons.
Curt Guyette
Harmony park
Hoops, hijabs and Christian rock at Metro Beach.
Sean Bieri
Strip teases
These days, even preening pre-teens are comic-carrying snobs, but there’s plenty left for the rest of us.
Walter Wasacz
It’s graphic: How novel!
Michael Hastings
Bust this
Summer blockbusters are box-office poison? Here are some anidotes.
Michael Jackman
Ghost stories
Faded and freshened, Michigan’s small towns get their due.
