Metro Times 11/29/2023

2 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

metrotimes.com | November 29-December 5, 2023 3

Vol. 44 | No. 6 | NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2023

EDITORIAL

News & Views

Editor in Chief - Lee DeVito

Feedback ............................... 6

Investigative Reporter - Steve Neavling

News ...................................... 8

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What’s Going On

Controller - Kristy Dotson

Things to do this week ........ 24

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Music

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Local Buzz ............................ 26

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metrotimes.com | November 29-December 5, 2023 5

NEWS & VIEWS Feedback Correction: In last week’s issue, an article about Detroit’s Def Sound Studio seeking historic designation erroneously reported that the designation had been granted.

In fact, there are two more public hearings slated, with final approval from City Council pending.

The Historic Designation Advisory Board was established by the City of Detroit’s Ordinance 161-H of 1976. Criteria used for the evaluation of proposed historic sites include places where cultural, social, spiritual, economic, political, or architectural history of the community, city, state, or nation is particularly

6 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

reflected; sites which are identified with historic personages or with important events in community, city, state, or national history.

Located at at 18315 Winthrop Ave., Detroit, Jerry Flynn Dale’s former residence was a critical launching pad of Detroit hip-hop, where everyone from Smiley, George Clinton Jr., Street Lordz, and a young Kid Rock (just to name a few) have laid down tracks over the years.

We regret the error, and we promise to keep our eyes on this developing story regarding a landmark significant to Detroit hip-hop history.

Sound off: letters@metrotimes.com

metrotimes.com | November 29-December 5, 2023 7

NEWS & VIEWS

Our lawsuit against MSP is part of a project to create national database tracking “wandering cops” who engage in misconduct.

Metro Times, Invisible Institute file lawsuit against Michigan State Police for access to records Metro Times and a nonprofit news organization teamed up to file a lawsuit Monday against the Michigan State Police for refusing to disclose public records about the identities of current and former police officers.

The lawsuit, filed in the Michigan Court of Claims by the University of Michigan’s Civil Rights Litigation Initiative, alleges MSP violated the Michigan Freedom of Information Act by refusing to divulge the data.

Among other things, Metro Times and the Invisible Institute requested the names of all certified and uncertified officers in Michigan, along with information about their employment history. The information is held by the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES), which is housed within the MSP. The request for the data was part of a project to create a national database to identify, track, and report on “wandering officers” who move from department to department after engaging in misconduct.

So far, 34 states have disclosed at least the names of certified officers, in response to requests made by a national coalition of news organizations.

Metro Times and the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit based in Chicago, requested the data on Jan. 3. On March 8, MSP declined to provide the identities of certified and uncertified officers, along with other information, arguing “the public disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual’s privacy.”

MSP also argued that releasing the names of officers “would endanger the life and safety of the law enforcement officers and their families, because the information would lead to [their] doxing,” referring to the act of publishing identifiable information about an individual on the internet.

But by withholding the identities of officers, MSP is impeding the public’s ability to track cops who lose their job in one place only to be rehired at another.

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“To address and prevent police misconduct, we need to know which officers are moving between agencies or departments and evading accountability,” Eli Massey, student attorney for the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative, tells Metro Times. “This lawsuit is about that necessary transparency, which the public is entitled to, about who is supposedly serving and protecting us and who is engaging in misconduct.”

To deny a public records request under Michigan’s FOIA, the burden is on a public body to demonstrate that withholding information outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

The lawsuit argues that MSP fell short of that standard by failing to show that anyone would be harmed by disclosure and points out that the agency’s code of conduct requires officers to “identify themselves by name and badge number when requested by the public.”

Further, the lawsuit states, MSP routinely identifies its new officers, including with photographs, to the public. For example, in May 2022, MSP released the

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names of its 19 newest officers and their assignments to a media outlet.

“If Defendant already releases the names of troopers — along with photographs, which Plaintiffs are not requesting — to news outlets, then it is difficult to maintain that releasing such information to Plaintiffs would endanger the safety of officers or others,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit argues that the public interest in tracking wandering cops far outweighs any legitimate concerns raised by MSP. “In the era after the killing of George Floyd and dozens of other unarmed Americans by police officers, the public interest in exposing police misconduct is at its zenith,” the lawsuit says. “Especially in an era where news stories of police abuse are common, the attempt to keep the names of all police officers secret contradicts democratic values such as government transparency and checks on government power. Indeed, hiding the name of police officers is something that we would expect to happen in countries with authoritarian forms of government, not in a democracy.”

Without the records, it’s unclear how often police who engage in misconduct in Michigan are moving from department to department. But it does happen.

Last year, the Eastpointe Police

Department hired a former Detroit cop who resigned after an internal investigation found that he had punched an unarmed man in the face and then lied about it.

After a news story revealed the hiring in September, MCOLES responded by suspending Officer Kairy Roberts’s license, preventing him from serving as a cop in the state.

The hiring happened because Detroit and Eastpointe failed to comply with a state law aimed at thwarting wandering cops. Detroit failed to report the alleged misconduct, and Eastpointe falsely claimed to MCOLES that Roberts had met the character fitness standards, which is required for officers to get their licenses reactivated, MCOLES Director Timothy Bourgeois told Metro Times in September. DPD acknowledged the failure and said it is investigating, and MCOLES suspended Roberts’s license after learning about the allegations against him. The Eastpointe Police Department then placed Roberts on leave, and he resigned soon after.

A Detroit Free Press investigation published in July 2017 found about two dozen problematic officers who “jumped from department to department in recent years.” Some of them were fired and criminally charged, only to find work at another law enforcement agency.

In 2017, state lawmakers tried to put a stop to wandering cops by passing a bill that requires police departments to retain records that explain why an officer leaves. The law also requires officers to sign a waiver to allow other departments to view their previous records.

But the law doesn’t work if police departments don’t properly report officer misconduct, Bourgeois says.

Isaiah McKinnon, a retired chief of police for the Detroit Police Department, said the consequences of hiring an abusive cop can be deadly.

“In law enforcement, what you have is a person who has the potential of taking a life,” McKinnon, who also served as deputy mayor of Detroit, says. “You basically have more power than the Michigan Supreme Court. We want to make sure those people who commit heinous acts are not purposely or inadvertently allowed to join a law enforcement agency.”

According to the lawsuit, the information sought by the news organizations is critical for the public to access.

“It is clear at this point that Plaintiff’s primary purpose in obtaining the information it requests from Defendant is to promote public accountability, responsibility, and transparency of Defendants and its officers,” the lawsuit states.

—Steve Neavling

Detroit City Council passes resolution calling for Gaza ceasefire After hearing hundreds

of spirited comments from Detroiters, the Detroit City Council voted 7-2 last Tuesday to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza — becoming the largest U.S. city at that point to do so.

Public comments were overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution, calling it a “bare minimum” given the concerns of ethnic cleansing happening in Gaza. The U.S.-backed Israeli military has killed nearly 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children, since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

Detroit joined other U.S. cities like Atlanta, Georgia; Akron, Ohio; Wilmington, Delaware; Providence, Rhode Island; and Richmond, California in passing a ceasefire resolution. Later on the same day that Detroit City Council approved its ceasefire resolution, Seattle, Washington’s also passed its own.

In Michigan, similar resolutions have passed in Hamtramck, Ypsilanti, Dearborn Heights, and Dearborn — home to the highest percentage of Arab Americans in the U.S. Detroiters at last week’s meeting criticized council members, asking how many Palestinian children needed to die before the council took a stand.

Several threatened to vote the council members out of office if they did not pass the ceasefire resolution.

“The Detroit City Council calls for an immediate, durable, and sustained

ceasefire to protect and save human lives, which allows for humanitarian aid and the unhindered provision of goods to civilians throughout Gaza which are indispensable to their survival as required by international humanitarian law,” the resolution reads.

It continues, “As part of the ceasefire, the Detroit City Council also calls for the unconditional release of all civilians who are being illegally held hostage, demanding their safety, well-being, and humane treatment in compliance with international law.”

The resolution, introduced by Councilwoman Gabriela SantiagoRomero, was originally met with opposition from council members Pro Tem James Tate and Coleman A. Young II, who asked for more “neutral language.”

Tate and Young were the only members to vote against the resolution, opposing the use of the word “ceasefire” and instead calling for a “two-state solution.”

“I do believe that the state of Israel has a right to defend itself following the horrific acts that killed hundreds of civilians on October 7 while also abducting hundreds of innocent civilians,” Tate said. “I want to see an Israel that is no longer under threats of attack. I also want to see Palestinians be able to live freely in their homeland with the opportunities to thrive, both

Whitmer signs Michigan gun ban for domestic abusers Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

signed legislation aimed to keep guns out of abusers’ hands in Kalamazoo, 24 years after the tragic death of Maggie Wardle, 19, at the hands of an ex-boyfriend.

“I could jump for joy,” Maggie’s mother, Martha Omilian, told the Advance after Whitmer signed a series of bills that extend gun restrictions to those who are convicted of domestic violence-related crimes from just those with felonies to misdemeanors offenses.

“If one person … maybe somebody doesn’t have to go through this,” Martha said. “I will sit with this for

the rest of my life. It’s the last thing I think about at night and the first thing I think about in the morning.”

On Oct. 18, 1999, Wardle was murdered in her Kalamazoo College dorm room by her ex-boyfriend, who was previously emotionally abusive to her.

Rick Omilian, Wardle’s stepfather, recalled at the bill signing the outpouring of support Kalamazoo College and the bill signings’ host, YWCA Kalamazoo, extended to them throughout the years.

“We know this room,” Omilian said, looking out at the crowd of YWCA employees, gun control advocates and lawmakers who supported the bills

at home and abroad. I want to see no more aerial assaults that kill innocent children and other vulnerable civilians in Gaza. I want to see all hostages released safely.”

Santiago-Romero said, “If I am or if we as a body should pass this resolution, and if we are accused of picking a side, surely we are picking up the side of humanity.”

Councilwoman Mary Waters also spoke out in favor of passing the resolution.

“We must call for a ceasefire, must appeal directly to President Biden to stop the slaughters in Gaza using our taxpayer dollars, killing our babies,” she urged. “Hamas and Israel must immediately stop the killing. Hamas must safely return all hostages. Israel must allow all humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. Half stepping is on the wrong side of history. And it’s not an option for those who respect the history and majority of Detroit.”

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Detroit has also introduced a ceasefire resolution in the U.S. House. While short of the necessary votes needed to pass, it has picked up support in recent weeks, with around 40 members of Congress signing on.

Last Wednesday, the day after Detroit City Council called for a ceasefire, Israel and Hamas agreed to a four-day break in fighting in order to exchange 50 Israeli hostages and 150 Palestinian prisoners, as well as allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. On Monday, the truce was extended for two more days so an additional 20 Israelis and 60 Palestinians could be released.

—Randiah Camille Green

signed, as well as other gun control bills passed this year.

Current law bars those convicted of felonies associated with domestic violence-related offenses from possessing, carrying, or distributing firearms for three years after the completion of their sentence. The ban can extend to up to five years for “specified felonies,” such as those involving threats or use of physical force.

Senate Bill 471, Senate Bill 528, and House Bill 4945 create an eight-year ban for those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence-related offenses from possessing, carrying or distributing firearms. The legislation also expands offenses related to domestic violence that advocates said during the legislative process would more clearly encapsulate what domestic violence can entail.

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One of the bills’ sponsors, state Sen. Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit), said domestic violence tends to increase in severity, so early intervention is key.

“We know that domestic violence can escalate. What might be a more minor incident the first time or the second time, may become more violent and dangerous later on.”

And current repercussions for domestic violence related misdemeanors are not enough to create safety for survivors, Michigan Coalition to End Domestic & Sexual Violence Public Policy Specialist Heath Lowry said during a September legislative hearing for some of the bills, adding that short stints in jail don’t have the same effect as the removal of weapons.

Chang added that about half of all women murdered in the U.S. are murdered by a current or former intimate partner and women are five times more likely to be murdered by an abusive partner when they have access to guns than when they do not.

Many survivors of domestic abuse and their families have come to the Capitol to ask lawmakers to pass this legislation, as well as other measures aimed to keep survivors safe. Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, issued a statement Monday applauding those who have dedicated the time to pushing this legislation through.

“Governor Whitmer and Michigan lawmakers refused to stand idle while

Alba Coffee to open in former Astro Coffee space in Corktown Detroit’s Astro Coffee

quietly closed its Corktown location amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but now a new coffee shop will rise in its place.

Alba Coffee will host a soft opening in Astro’s former this week. The new spot promises “exceptional coffee experiences” and “thoughtfully prepared” drinks including matcha, hot cocoa, herbal teas, and an affogato featuring house-made gelato.

The cafe was founded by David Valdez, former manager of Milwaukee Caffe, and Carlo Liburdi, co-owner of Milwaukee Caffe and Kiesling, both in Detroit’s Milwaukee Junction neighborhood. Alba, which means “sunrise,” or “dawn” in Spanish and Italian, will be a fusion of its owners’ Mexican and Italian heritages.

The coffee and the interior design is inspired by cultures around the world, as well as the city of Detroit.

The space was renovated with help from local designers and builders including Line Studio, Woodward Throwbacks, Teikaut, and Sultan Signs.

Alba’s commitment to the community includes supporting local as well as ethical sourcing, according to a press release. Its house espresso will be roasted locally by Anthology Coffee, and a rotating selection of bags for home brewing will be offered from roasters across the country.

“Specialty coffee can be perceived

as intimidating. I want to change that with Alba,” Valdez said in a statement. “Whether you’re just popping in for a quick caffeine fix, looking for an excuse to nerd out with the barista over our latest pour-over options, or know nothing about coffee and want to discover something new, Alba’s here for all of that.”

Liburdi, meanwhile, is passionate about the grab-and-go model of specialty coffee, which was inspired by his years living in New York.

“You don’t always have time to indulge in a drawn-out coffee experience,” Liburdi said. “Sometimes you just want to grab a cup of coffee on your way to work or knock back an espresso and be on your way. Alba offers both.”

For Valdez, Alba’s home has a special place in his heart, as working at Astro was his first job in Detroit and where he had early conversations about opening his own cafe someday.

“I know I’m not alone in having truly significant memories in this space,” Valdez said. “It’s our goal to continue that legacy, to make Alba more than just a coffee shop; it’s a place where we create meaningful connections, share laughs, and support one another.”

Astro Coffee first opened in Corktown in 2011. In 2019, its owners opened a second location in the Core City neighborhood, which closed in May 2022.

—Layla McMurtrie

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we wait for the Supreme Court’s decision in the Rahimi case — an outcome that could be a potential death sentence,” Ferrell-Zabala said. “Instead, they are actively showing up for women and families in Michigan. It’s my hope that other states will emulate Michigan’s example as they continue to champion common-sense gun safety laws.”

Many of those who spoke at the bill signing echoed that the bills are “common-sense bills” based on the real threat on a person’s life domestic abuse presents. Whitmer said the bills will save lives.

“These bills are based on a simple idea. If you have been found guilty in court of violently assaulting your part-

ner, you should not be able to access a deadly weapon that you can use to further threaten harm or kill them, it’s just common sense,” Whitmer said.

And Wardle would be proud to see this day come, Martha Omilian said after the signing.

“She was a strong person, a very strong person, in spite of what happened to her,” Martha said of her daughter. “Some people might think, ‘Then how did she let [her ex-boyfriend] get away with that?’ But … she had compassion and empathy for other people. … This can happen to anybody … and there’s more that has to be done. … This is just the start.”

—Anna Liz Nichols, Michigan Advance

Detroit is most dishonest city in the U.S., according to survey If you found $1,000 on the

ground, would you turn it over the police... or quietly pocket it?

According to a recent survey, a majority of Detroiters (62%) would keep it — leading its authors to deem the Motor City the “most dishonest city in the U.S.” Of course, these surveys should always be taken with a grain of salt.

(This one was produced by bestcasinosites.net, an online ranking of casino websites.) The survey was sent to 6,610 Americans across the country, and found overall 47% would keep the money.

In the rankings, Detroit was closely followed by Memphis and New Orleans (both also 62%), followed by Baltimore (59%) and San Antonio (58%). Meanwhile, the most honest cities, according to the study, are Jacksonville (38%), Los Angeles (39%), Tulsa (39%), Atlanta (39%), and Miami (41%).

According to the survey, people in Boston, Fresno, Minneapolis, San Jose, and Denver were all evenly split at 5050.

The survey’s authors noted that every state has laws requiring the return of money or property if it’s possible to identify the owner, so if that $1,000 was found in, say, a wallet, you cannot legally take it.

“The results certainly demonstrate an extremely interesting insight into

SHUTTERSTOCK

whether Americans would or would not keep money found on the street but I think this has raised a bigger question; do people know this is an offence?” bestcasinosites.net online slots and statics expert Kiera Miller said in a statement.

“Whilst pocketing money on the street has parallels to winning the jackpot, it can be classed as theft and unfortunately, ‘finders keepers’ won’t hold up in a court of law.”

While this may be the letter of the law, we think Detroit should get a break here. The city has a poverty rate of about 30%, nearly three times the national average, according to the University of Michigan, and the Detroit Police Department doesn’t exactly have a reputation for honesty. From 2003 to 2014, DPD was under federal oversight due to allegations of excessive use of force, illegal arrests, and improper detention.

It was also revealed in recent years that former DPD chief James Craig was never even a licensed law enforcement officer in Detroit, despite promising through a spokesperson that he would attain certification, Michigan Radio reported.

So look, we’ll keep it real — if we saw you pick up a band off the ground in Detroit, no we didn’t.

—Lee DeVito

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NEWS & VIEWS

Detroit Lions’ Jared Goff gets tackled by Green Bay Packers’ Rashan Gary.

CAL SPORT MEDIA / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Lapointe

For a change, the Detroit area deserved a double dose of the football spotlight

By Joe Lapointe

Was Jim Harbaugh sending in trick plays by text message from his Ann Arbor home Saturday afternoon to his staff in Michigan Stadium?

Or did the suspended Wolverines’ head football coach actually disguise himself as Brutus Buckeye, the Ohio State mascot, so he could spy on the OSU coaches and steal their signs on the sidelines?

Or, perhaps Harbaugh — from his laptop computer at home — hacked into the video system at his home field with the help of university scientists.

Then they used artificial intelligence to fake the images on those muchreviewed replays. These tampered tapes gave Michigan an early touchdown on what might have been an Ohio State interception in the end zone. On Fox, the neutral TV jury said it should have been the Buckeyes’ ball.

It was one of several pivotal plays in a 30-24 victory for the Wolverines that was exciting, excruciating, and exhilarating. The result sent Michigan (12-0) into

Saturday’s Big Ten championship game against Iowa in Indianapolis.

Another triumph there would put Michigan again into college football’s final four for the national championship for the third consecutive year and expose the school to more weeks of scrutiny and suspicion. Back to absorb it will be Harbaugh following his second, threegame suspension this season.

The first was issued by the school, pending NCAA investigation of recruiting violations and lying about them; the second was by the conference, for illegal scouting and stealing signs; a third, by the NCAA, might exile him next season if he doesn’t return to the National Football League.

In the meantime, Harbaugh has earned at least two accolades in 2023: He has one of America’s best college football teams and maybe the most reviled. Not since the “Fab Five” basketball scandal of the 1990s has Michigan’s athletic department suffered such national embarrassment.

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And the local football picture is even bigger than Harbaugh. Saturday’s showdown in Ann Arbor was the second half of a doubleheader that by cosmic coincidence saw two of the biggest stories in the sport on display in Southeastern Michigan.

Just 38 miles to the east, at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit on Thanksgiving Thursday, the surprising Lions took their unexpectedly successful season to national TV. They promptly fell on their faceguards in a turnover-filled, 29-22 loss to the Green Bay Packers.

Now 8-3, the Lions remain a serious contender for the Super Bowl playoff tournament. But the loss may have knocked some of the cocky swagger from fans of the Honolulu Blue. Like the Wolverines, the Lions are, literally, a blue-collar team that sometimes over stokes its blue-collar fan base.

Consider their commercial during this disappointing defeat. It featured images of players and words hurtling across the screen. “All fight,” it said. “All

Heart. All Us. All Grit.” It ended with an email address for Lions’ tickets. A pretty good sales pitch not verified by the show wrapped around it.

At least no one accused the Lions of cheating, although there was one “extra man” incident. It came at the end of the first half, when Packers’ coach Matt LaFleur tried to run from the field to his locker room. His path was blocked by a big guy near the end zone.

The man wore a Honolulu Blue shirt with “SECURITY” on the back in white letters and he appeared to touch the visiting coach, who turned and looked irked. After a brief moment of confusion, LaFleur was allowed to pass.

In defense of the employee, the coach did not appear to be wearing a formal credential and he didn’t look all that much like Vince Lombardi. Later, LaFleur explained the confrontation to Fox sideline reporter Tom Rinaldi.

“He said ‘That’s never happened to me ever in my coaching career. I was fully committed and I wasn’t going to be stopped,’” Rinaldi reported.

It could have been worse. The officials could have thrown a penalty flag against the security supervisor for an illegal block or for unnecessary roughness. And when Lions’ coaches see the film, they no doubt will find fault with his blocking and tackling technique.

At least the Lions players looked good in their old-school silver helmets with no logos and their high blue socks. With a little imagination, you could close your eyes and almost see them back on the muddy grass of Briggs Stadium.

No, wait. In that case, the national, black-and-white telecast from Michigan and Trumbull would’ve been blacked out in the local home market, even if the game was sold out. Those were dark days.

Speaking of black-and-white football, a more contemporary televised gaffe came early Thursday when Fox tried to compare and contrast this year’s Lions with the 1962 team, perhaps Detroit’s best team since their last championship in 1957.

Producers of this pre-packaged feature used black-and-white images and a faux newsreel style to show what life was like 61 years ago. It was narrated by play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt. The concept was clever enough.

However, the most prominent words and images in the bit were “1962” and “The Ford Mustang Made its Formal Debut.” According to most records, the Mustang was unveiled at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

As for Burkhardt, he is one of the rising stars in his business. But some of the plays he calls are unbelievable! And various athletes also are unbelievable!

And seasons are unbelievable! And

some statistics are unbelievable, too!

And our crew here is unbelievable! And today’s weather is unbelievable!

Kevin, that word literally tells listeners “Don’t believe this.” Please stop.

His network carried both games and it was curious to witness questionable decisions made on the fly in the college telecast Saturday when Michigan’s offensive lineman Zak Zinter — a captain and key player — suffered a severely broken leg with the score tied, 17-17, in the third quarter.

Immediately after the injury, Fox cut away to seven commercials, for insurance, pizza, a nutritional supplement, a car, a credit card, beer, and sporting goods. Fine. We know. “They have to pay their bills.”

But when Fox returned to the Stadium, with Zinter still writhing on the field, announcer Gus Johnson said only that the injury was “a disturbing scene” and “We’re not going to show you” a replay of what happened.

Oh, really? That, in and of itself, was a questionable choice. What happened was news as well as high drama at a pivotal moment and Fox tip-toed around the story as if afraid to report it.

During those three minutes of commercials, could Fox find not even one visual replay angle that was not so gruesome? Fox’s next decision was even worse. “We’re going to step away,” Johnson said.

Why? They stepped away to show not paid commercials this time but filler promotions for Fox shows, including The Masked Singer.

When they returned, for the second time, Fox tried to catch up to the story, with Johnson telling the audience that 100,000 fans in Ann Arbor had just chanted “Let’s Go Zak!” as Zinter got carted off the field. (It would have been good to hear and to see that).

Then Johnson narrated over a video of quarterback J.J. McCarthy hugging Zinter’s parents on the sidelines. (Seeing it live would have been even better).

And there were plenty of closeups of tear-stained faces of teammates, which would have been more effective in real time.

Speaking of Johnson: Someone should tell him to stop acting like a carnival barker. At the start of the telecast, he was screeching “Do or die! . . . This year, the hate is at an all-time high!” Yeesh.

Final thoughts from a weekend TV notebook: You have to wonder how rookie Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti liked Michigan State naming its new head coach, Jonathan Smith, during the biggest conference game of the year on Saturday afternoon… It’s still hard to believe that the odor of

Harbaugh’s dual scandals could overtake the stink over MSU’s firing of head coach Mel Tucker after accusations of a sexual nature… MSU-Penn State Friday night at Ford Field was to be a showcase game for the league. How many left the building or turned off the TV at halftime of a 42-0 Spartans’ defeat?... During football telecasts, which is the biggest tearjerker commercial: The elderly ladies sledding down a snow hill for Amazon to the tune of “In My Life” or the “Happy Holidays” for Chevrolet when the elderly woman with memory loss is refreshed by one of her descendants taking her for a car ride through her home-town memories during a family gathering?... And did you see that ad during football for the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare? It shows gunfire and explosions and soldiers running around in realistic urban combat — just like Gaza and Kyiv! Happy Holidays, everyone.

(Rated “M” for “mature)... Speaking of “M,” it is a total coincidence that Michigan came into the Ohio State game with 1,000 victories in its history.

The Roman numeral for 1,000 is “M”...

An enclosed stadium like Ford Field is great for a home crowd revving up the home team for a third-down stop. But the Lions must remember that booing also reverberates…

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Burning their fires for all to see

After munching on rectangular slices of Pie Sci Pizza, the high schoolers sit behind long, wooden tables as the poet laureate of Michigan glides across a dimly lit room inside the Scarab Club in Detroit, keen to deliver lessons on a cultural tradition so ancient it predates the birth of Christ by more than two millennia.

Within the next intimate hours, Nandi Comer, 44, teaches poetry while battling a sinus infection that isn’t contagious. Sporting stylish glasses, whip-like braids, and a youthful attitude, she passes out poems written by people who aren’t dead. “If they’re in town, you can talk to them,” she says.

The time spent together on a recent gloomy Saturday in November is a far cry from an after school punishment.

The workshop is part of nonprofit InsideOut Literary Arts’s Visiting Writers Series, where teenagers participating in the Citywide Poets program can think critically, build self-confidence, express themselves without threat of censorship, and improve their craft together as they excavate meanings behind verses and liberate the poets within.

The group of 18 teenagers, a mix of writers and spoken-word performers, choose to be here. The voices of

some, already found. In a dark and divided world, they combat negative stereotypes. They seek to restore. The poets will soon illuminate their truths.

An open mic is scheduled later in the downstairs art gallery.

Right now, life is full of rough drafts, but they don’t seem to be afraid of them.

The young are still dreaming. Their better angels resound.

A little after 12:30 p.m. the workshop begins. The faint glows emanating from stubby and geometric chandeliers reveal a chiaroscuro of bodies veiled

by shadows. Comer encourages the students to scribble their twinkles of thought onto the stark-white computer paper as they dive into the first poem.

Comer provides questions that prompt thinking amid the quiet communion.

What makes you question?

What puts a little spark in you?

What makes you feel?

A young girl reads aloud “The Colonel’’ written by Carolyn Forché in the

late ’70s. The legendary poem recounts a disturbing dinner with a military officer from El Salvador, according to Dissent Magazine. The Central American country’s civil war would last from 1979 to 1992.

A poet, teacher, and activist, Forché was born in Detroit and widely credited for coining the phrase “poetry of witness,” which describes the lineage of English language bards who’ve entered battlefields, endured exile, observed suffering, even evaded death to inscribe

Nandi Comer (center right) stands with high school students participating in nonprofit InsideOut Literary Arts’s Citywide Poets Program, which offers weekly writing workshops and performance and publishing opportunities.

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In Detroit, a poetry workshop gives high school students freedom to be themselves BY 16 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

ELEANORE

C AT O L I C O

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what they survived for the people to behold, process, ponder, and where the political and personal collide.

On the page, the poem is a thick, single stanza of text.

The first line foreshadows the telling of a tale. What you have heard is true.

The girl recites calmly the images of destruction. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man’s legs or cut his hands to lace.

The images of mutilation. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves.

The final lines hit chilling notes.

Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

The reading ends. The students snap their fingers, a gesture signifying appreciation for what they’ve just heard and absorbed. A soft, pattering sound.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Now it’s time to unpack what it all could mean.

Deciphering poems has become routine, but each one is different. There are really no wrong answers. Imaginations can run wild around here. The interpretations start flowing out of some like water surging from an open fire hydrant.

“What did it for you?” Comer asks the group of high schoolers.

“The human ears and the dried peach halves,” one young boy says, beginning to unspool the tensions embedded in the verse.

“This comparison between luxury and cruelty is something I noticed.”

“Yeah, you got it. You’re onto something,” Comer responds.

Together, they mine the language for more meaning and technique, singling out lines that grip their curiosities. The dimly lit room quickly transforms into a bazaar of drifting theories and revelations.

The wife in the poem couldn’t sustain her life under a violent regime, so her act of resistance was to leave.

The images of the moon swung bare on its black cord and my friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing were cinematic moments another young girl had never encountered before.

“I didn’t think about that. But people do say a lot of stuff just with their eyes and their expressions,” she says of her discovery.

Comer is intrigued by the answers harvested by the students then pivots to the reason why she keeps returning to “The Colonel.”

“I keep trying to figure out why? Why does it resonate so much with me? And it is the beginning sentence and the last two sentences,” she says.

“It starts with talking about hear-

Nandi Comer is Michigan’s second-ever poet laureate. She’s dedicated to helping aspiring young writers and artists find their authentic voices.

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ing and ends with the hearing of these dead people.”

She launches into her own analysis.

Those words made her think about the ways people hear. Those ears could be refusing to listen or self-aware. Forché deploys unique turns of phrase, avoiding the brute force of literalism and clichés.

Comer hopes the workshop will give the students more tools to use in their own work and expose them to the role of poets in communities across the ages. In some traditions, poets are called griots.

The literary genre is shifting in the popular consciousness, being more democratic rather than institutionalized while bonding the storytelling species together.

“We call on poets during our most difficult times, during the most celebrated times. There’s always the poet reading at a wedding, at an inauguration, at a funeral,” Comer says.

“So I think we know that we understand the importance of poetry. I think that social media has made it much more accessible.”

Ever since she was named the poet laureate in the spring, the second ever in the history of the Great Lakes State,

it’s already been a whirlwind for Comer, several months into her two-year term.

“It’s been really amazing,” she says.

She’s visited public schools and libraries. She recently traveled to St. Ignace in the Upper Peninsula for a reading. Outside of her laureate duties, she collaborated with a wrestling company to orchestrate bouts with poems.

In her recent poetry collection Tapping Out, Mexican freestyle wrestling is the primary lyrical motif.

“All in all, I’m just really an advocate for the art form and showing people how poetry can show up in their lives,” she says.

Today’s a bit of a homecoming for Comer, describing herself as an “InsideOut baby” once taught by the organization’s founder Terry Blackhawk, an accomplished poet in her own right.

On her website, Blackhawk says her childhood was a “sort of moveable feast” with barely any money but lots of culture. Her father was an education professor who often traveled. Her mother, a pianist. The piano moved wherever the family moved.

Next to her short biography is a portrait of Blackhawk, eyes gazing upward looking placid and inquisitive.

As a teacher, Blackhawk believed in the gift of poetry. She invited professional writers to her classroom, an instructional model she infused into the literary nonprofit she founded in 1995.

She lit a match inside a young Comer, then a student at Communication and Media Arts High School. She asked Comer to join her creative writing class.

She showed Comer the craft of poetry and the publishing world.

She wanted students to expand their minds, to be creative, to be brave.

“She retired to dedicate her life, all the time to InsideOut,” Comer says, once serving as the Writer-in-Residence for the organization. “Today, it’s an incredible, robust program.”

Halfway through the workshop, the high schoolers then delve into more poems chronicling the traumas of war and colonization, including Iraqi American poet Dunya Mikhail’s “The War Works Hard.”

Mikhail was a translator and a journalist for the Baghdad Observer and then got put on Saddam Hussein’s enemies list, according to The Poetry Foundation. After immigrating to the United States in the mid-’90s, she’d eventually earn a master’s degree at Wayne State University.

Mikhail’s poetry is known for “irony and subversive simplicity,” evidenced by the punchy opening lines.

How magnificent the war is!

How eager and efficient!

The students isolate the poem’s techniques.

The enjambment and the way the lines cut off so sharply and abruptly.

The personification of the war.

Jassmine Parks’s long, lavender braids cascade down her shoulders.

Once a local slam poetry champion, she often chimes in to affirm the students’ interpretations, interrupting short stretches of quiet.

All of the students here have joined Citywide Poets, an after school program offering weekly writing workshops taught by professional artists as well as performance and publishing opportunities. They also offer an annual scholarship covering college tuition for up to $25,000 a year for up to four years.

High school seniors participating in the program are eligible to apply. Over 100 high school students from across metro Detroit are enrolled in Citywide Poets for the 2023-24 academic year.

As the organization’s program development coordinator, Parks helps oversee the program and designs workshops in lock step with the youth wherever they happen. From the libraries to the schools, the youth help build the learn-

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ing culture inside those “sacred” walls.

Where empathy and connection and independence can grow.

“They can explore their own identity and their own worldview. And I think that’s what’s freeing about this because they’re coming into their own. This is a pivotal age where young people are separating their identity from their families and trying to decide who they’re going to be, who they are,” Parks says. “Thank God we don’t live in Florida. These conversations would get cut off at the knees.”

Between readings, the students write down singular moments etched in their memories for a brainstorm exercise.

Ones where they witnessed the unjust, the unfair unfold before them.

The students reenact the chaotic scenes by accentuating the syllables.

Their voices, rising.

The shock of an attempted car breakin during Halloween.

“And I was like, ‘Oh my god! Hey! I think they’re breaking into your car!’

And she was like, ‘What?!’ And so, my cousin, my dad, and my brother all ran outside. And you know, it ended the way it ended.”

A high school freshman, vainglorious and unapologetic, ripping the head off a friend’s teddy bear during lunch then disposing of the mangled stuffed animal.

“Like she put her back into it. She threw it in the TRASH!” These incidents show the surreality of being young. The students then write unvarnished verses in a streamof-consciousness style, each packing a wallop of vulnerability. and I wonder if my cousin when she gets her window replaced again will make art of what was almost taken from her I saw the eyes of a teen, an adult, a child then nothing Snap. Snap. Snap.

Charisma Holly, a junior at Detroit Edison Public School Academy, is an archetype of a bubbly teenager. She stirs to life when she lets her words flow. A sunshine of a smile born from the diaphragm.

Her online scrolling sparked a metamorphosis.

Charisma fell in love with poetry after watching videos of the American spoken-word poet Rudy Francisco on the Button Poetry YouTube channel.

Across his videos, he speaks into a microphone, performing poems that tackle the stickiness of healing and forgiveness and revenge and the quirkiness of giving bad hugs and liking ginger ale.

His voice, loud and billowing. His

She is no longer the teacher but the “ Given the state of the bard from the west side.

She recites a poem about Malice world, I always say, Green, a 35-year-old Black man who was beaten to death by Detroit police in 1992, a few months after an poetry won’t end wars. officers uprising swept across the streets of Los in the wake of Rodney King Poetry probably won’t Angeles getting beaten by police. Green’s death rocked the community and the nation. end hunger. Poetry She recites a poem about her hometown and its forgotten people and Her words hit like gospel truth. probably won’t reform places.

What do you feel like people get wrong when they try to tell stories the school system. about Detroit? Everything.

KeAnna Mills, a junior at Thurston But it’ll give somebody High School in Redford, is measured and calm. She writes poems about school and basketball. She plans on enough hope, enough majoring in English or journalism once goes to college. joy, enough inspiration.” sheInsideOut helps the rookie poet cadence, moving faster and faster like a bullet train.

“I felt so inspired by watching him go and perform,” Charisma says. “And it made me think, like, ‘I have something important to say!’ I have a story that I want to tell. And I want to tell it in a way that will make other people want to tell stories.”

Since joining Citywide Poets, she’s shared her original poetry at local art museums as part of a performance troupe and gotten paid for it. She’s also complemented her creative resume with other titles in addition to poet.

An actor. A backstage technician. Her poetry touches on the light and dark in life, believing the worst things that happen doesn’t define a person forever.

Her words, a lighthouse for better tomorrows.

“Given the state of the world, I always say, poetry won’t end wars. Poetry probably won’t end hunger. Poetry probably won’t reform the school system,” Charisma says, smiling through the end of her answer. “But it’ll give somebody enough hope, enough joy, enough inspiration.”

The workshop ends after 2 p.m.

Comer, Parks, and the students scurry down the steps for the open mic in the art gallery downstairs.

The young poets don’t need a microphone. Their voices echo inside the gallery walls adorned with sculptures resembling wounded violins. The shadows no longer cloak them, instead baptized by bright lights.

One by one, the students approach the front of the room filled with more than a dozen people seated in dark folding chairs.

For some, smartphones are the tablets from which they read testimonials and confessions to past, present,

20 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

future. The ballads of sorrow spoken in miniature. The clarion calls. The warning shots.

One by one, they speak truth to poetry. because a child can’t tell their parents they’re queer until they have their bags packed and ready in case they are erased please try and get to know me. can you put that pride aside? they lay their eggs in my open stomach you can never be too safe I know what it’s like feeling like there’s nowhere else to go. world up in a tornado they don’t have to grow up as fast what is it about you that makes it so hard to hate you? i want to hate you and i can’t and i don’t know why. mom, will you pick up the phone, please? will they suffocate you and destroy you? he seen the power of the pencil over the power of the pistol there is something wrong here there is something wrong here there is something wrong here her message is as predictable as the tone of her voice the world never changes inside this sanctuary we wanna live longer than the sun Then comes fluttering applause.

Flashing hums of recognition.

The headliner this afternoon is Comer. Sitting in the back row, Erin Pineda, a co-owner of independent bookstore 27th Letter Books, has brought copies of Comer’s poetry collections Tapping Out and American Family: A Syndrome to sell. All of the workshop students got these books for free. Comer now reads her poetry before the audience.

boost her writing skills and offers an avenue to explore new genres of life, to dream big.

“It’s like giving people ways to express themselves in other forms that they didn’t know was possible. It’s really good for me,” she says. “I’ve met people that I wouldn’t have been able to meet anywhere else.”

For the teenager, poetry isn’t reserved for people with literary ambition.

It’s a tool to learn. A hobby. A way to pass the time that doesn’t harm other people.

Her workshop peers had just shared a piece of themselves to personal champions and strangers inside an art gallery. The stories they chose to tell uncorrupted by critique. The stories that send a message beyond heartache and angst and hope woven together.

Fragments of young life that feel real and honest and true.

“It’s time for everyone to see that Detroit youth, specifically Black youth, can do something good too,” KeAnna says, her impromptu passion soaring from her tiny frame like a phoenix.

“It’s always, ‘Oh, look at what the Black kids are doing. They aren’t even doing anything. They just go into drugs, and they’re getting locked up.’ This is a great way to show that we can do something good too! We always have been.

This isn’t news.”

Around 3:30 p.m. the open mic ends.

The crowd slowly disperses until the gallery is close to empty. The people exit the tall brick building, welcomed by orange leaves waving above the side street, a sign of autumn in full swing. A season of change.

An afternoon of bearing witness is over until next time, led by a young generation of poets. Torchbearers of an ancient tradition blazing forward.

Burning their fires for all to see.

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WHAT’S GOING ON

Monday, Dec. 4

Select events happening in metro Detroit this week. Be sure to check venue website before events for latest information. Add your event to our online calendar: metrotimes.com/ AddEvent.

cover.

Royal Oak; no cover.

Cattle Decapitation, Immolation, Sanguisugabogg, Castrator 6 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.

Dirk Kroll Band 7:30 p.m.; Edo Ramen, 4313 W 13 Mile Rd., Royal Oak.

John Hollier: Nashville Hits the Roof! 8 p.m.; Tin Roof, 47 E. Adams Ave., Detroit; no cover.

Geddy Lee - My Effin’ Life in Conversation 8 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $76-$200.

MUSIC

Jason Bonhams Led Zeppelin Evening 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $47.50-$125.

Protomartyr, METZ, Wolf Eyes 7 p.m.; Majestic Theatre, 4140 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $30 advance, $35 day of show.

Adult Skate Night 8:30-11 p.m.; Lexus Velodrome, 601 Mack Ave., Detroit; $5.

Kiwi Jr., Stef Chura, Phased Out 9 p.m.; UFO Factory, 2110 Trumbull Ave., Detroit; $15 advance, $20 day of show.

Queen: From Mercury with Love 8-9 p.m.; Longway Planetarium, 1310 Kearsley St., Flint; $8.

Little River Band 8 p.m.; Andiamo Celebrity Showroom, 7096 E. 14 Mile Rd., Warren; $35-$110.

Re-Cure (The Cure tribute) 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $25.

Mae, Tedious & Brief 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $25-$125.

The Bronx Wanderers 8 p.m.; Andiamo Celebrity Showroom, 7096 E. 14 Mile Rd., Warren; $35-$65.

Mariah Carey - Merry Christmas One And All! 7:30 p.m.; Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $59.95-$499.95.

The Suicide Machines 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $29.50.

Wednesday, Nov. 29 Better Off, Valleyheart, Daisyhead, Sign Language, Choice Words 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $15.

Boy Named Banjo, Five N Dime Poets, Winestoned Cowboys 7 p.m.; Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; $12.

Ghost Garden, Fern Whale, Pedro Meadows 7-9:30 pm; Berkley Coffee & Oak Park Dry, 14661 W. 11 Mile Rd., Oak Park; $15.

Imminence 7 pm; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $18.

Thursday, Nov. 30 Candlelight: A Tribute to Adele 6-8 & 8:30-10:30 p.m.; The Detroit Masonic Temple, 500 Temple Street, Detroit; $27.

Cooper Alan, Noah Thompson 7 p.m.; District 142, 142 Maple St., Wyandotte; $25-$45. lespecial, Dizgo 8 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $20.

Live The Who: Celebrating 50 Years of Quadrophenia 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $20.

Queen: From Mercury with Love 8-9 p.m.; Longway Planetarium, 1310 Kearsley St., Flint; $8.

Trapt, Tantric 6:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $25.

WJZZ Legacy Jazz Series Presents: Saxophonist Kasan Belgrave Hosted by Joan Belgrave 7-9 p.m.; Aretha’s Jazz Cafe, 350 Madison St., Detroit; $25.

Karaoke/Open Mic Celebrity Lip Sync Battle 5:30-11 p.m.; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $33.

Friday, Dec. 1 Queen: From Mercury with Love 8-9 p.m.; Longway Planetarium, 1310 Kearsley St., Flint; $8.

Angel of Mars, Dunamis 9 p.m.midnight; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no

I’ve Seen Stranger Tour 7 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $30.

Queen: From Mercury with Love 8-9 p.m.; Longway Planetarium, 1310 Kearsley St., Flint; $8.

Sky Covington’s Satin Doll Revue 7-11 p.m.; Bert’s Warehouse, 2739 Russell St., Detroit; $45- $100.

Taylor’s Version - a Swiftie Dance Party 8 p.m.; the Crofoot Ballroom, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $15.

The Cadillac Three: The Years Go Fast Tour 7 pm; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.

The English Beat 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $45.

The Last Waltz - The Official Revival Of The Band By Chest Fever 8 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $25.

DJ/Dance Open Format Dec. 1, 10 p.m.-2 a.m.; Willis Show Bar, 4156 Third St., Detroit; $13.

Saturday, Dec. 2 Queen: From Mercury with Love 8-9 p.m.; Longway Planetarium, 1310 Kearsley St., Flint; $8.

Ekoostik Hookah & Flying Caterpillar 6 p.m.-midnight; Tangent Gallery, 715 E. Milwaukee Avenue, Detroit; $25.

Jim McCarty & Mystery Train + DJ Stashu @ Bowlero 9 pm-midnight; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; FREE. Jim MccCarty & Mystery Train, DJ Stashu 8 p.m.-12:30 a.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy.,

24 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

Thunderbeard (Tribute to ZZ TOP), Band Company (A Tribute to Bad Company) 8 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $15.

Tiny Moving Parts, Clipboards, World’s Greatest Dad 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $25.

Only Photons Exist Here, Repose, Yaksaw, ST33LO “The Wax Museum” 7 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $12.

Sunday, Dec. 3 Andrew Mcmahon In The Wilderness - New Friends Tour 6 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $33.50-$60.50.

Hollywood Casino @ Greektown Celtic Woman Christmas Symphony 2023 7:30 p.m.; The Music Hall, 350 Madison Ave., Detroit; $59.50-$95.

Noah Zachariah w/ Mike Ward Opening at Trinity House theatre 3 pm; Trinity House Theatre, 38840 W. Six Mile, Livonia; $20.

Rockabilly Holiday with George Bedard and the Kingpins, the Memphis Thrillbillies 2 5-10 pm; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $15 in advance.

Sky Covington’s Sunday Night Jam Sessions every Sunday with band Club Crescendo 8 p.m.-midnight; Woodbridge Pub, 5169 Trumbull St., Detroit; donation.

Will Downing with special guest Marcus Johnson 7:30 p.m.; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $42-$55.

DJ/Dance

Tuesday, Dec. 5 Barenaked Ladies: Hometown Holidays 8 pm; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $63-$95.

Billy Raffoul, Peter Raffoul & the Indiana Drones 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $18.

Bryson Tiller 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $47.99$97.99.

Channel 95.5s Jingle Ball with Usher, Jelly Roll, Lil Durk, Big Time Rush, Flo Rida, Doechii, Kaliii, (G)I-DLE. 7:30 p.m.; Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $35-$300.

DJ/Dance B.Y.O.R Bring Your Own Records Night 9 p.m.-midnight; The Old Miami, 3930 Cass Ave., Detroit; no cover.

THEATER Ant Hall Match Made on Stage: A monthly comedy show where two strangers have a blind date, live on stage, while blindfolded. Hosted By L. Shima Darby and a new guest comic each month. $15. Wednesday, 8-9:30 p.m.

AXIS Lounge Dueling Pianos: An Interactive Entertainment Experience.

Thursdays, 8 p.m.-midnight. No cover.

Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom Cirque Musica Holiday Wonderland. $28-$58. Wednesday, 8 p.m. and Thursday, 8 p.m.

Detroit Repertory Theatre Topdog/ Underdog. $30. Fridays, Saturdays, 8-10:30 p.m., Saturdays, 3-5:30 p.m., and Sundays, 2-4:30 p.m.

Meadow Brook Theatre A Christmas Carol. $45. Wednesday, 2 p.m., Friday, 8 p.m., Saturday, 2 & 6:30 p.m., and Sunday, 2 & 6:30 p.m.

The Inspired Acting Company Talley’s Folly by Lanford Wilson. $35 general admission, $30 for 30 and under and 65 and up. Friday, 8-10 p.m., Saturday, 8-10 p.m., and Sunday 2-4 p.m.

Musical Detroit Public Theatre’s Holiday Cabaret.Wednesday, 8 p.m., Thursday,

8 p.m., Friday, 8 p.m., Saturday, 2 & 8 p.m., and Sunday, 2 p.m.; Detroit Public Theatre, 3960 Third Ave., Detroit; $47.

Noel Night

Frozen (Touring) Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., Thursday, 1 & 7:30 p.m., Friday, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, 2 & 7:30 p.m., Sunday, 1 & 6:30 p.m., and Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.; Fisher Theatre, 1526 Broadway, Detroit; $45-$120.

COMEDY

Improv

Go Comedy! Improv Theater Pandemonia The All-Star Showdown. $25.

Fridays, Saturdays, 8 & 10 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Hip-Prov! Hosted by Tam White.

Special guests Fox 2’s Lee Thomas and Alan Longstreet. Proceeds provide free improv programs for Detroit youth. $2535. Sunday Dec. 3, 7-9 p.m.

Planet Ant Theatre Ants In The Hall present Season Two Finale. Thursday, 8-9 p.m.

Stand-up Royal Oak Music Theatre Ashley Gavin. $29.50-$54.50. Saturday Dec. 2, 6 p.m.

The Fillmore Nikki Glaser: The Good Girl Tour $39.50-$75. Saturday Dec. 2, 7 p.m.

Fisher Theatre Chelsea Handler: Little Big Bitch. $66-$136. Thursday, 8 p.m. and Friday, 8 p.m.

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant Jamie Shriner. $10 advance, $15 door. Saturday, 9-10:30 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Troy Bond with Louis D. Michael and Greg Shar. $25. Wednesday, 7:30-9 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Comedian Rocky LaPorte with Paolo Busignani and Mark Moehlig. $20.

Thursday, 7:30-9 p.m.

Continuing This Week Stand-up Blind Pig Blind Pig Comedy. Mondays, 8 p.m.

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant The Sh*t Show Open Mic. $5. Thursdays, 9-10:30 p.m.

DANCE The Music Hall Classical Arts Entertainment The Nutcracker. $25-$75.

Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.

The Whiting The Nutcracker. $10-$40.

Saturday, 7:30-9:30 p.m. and Sunday, 3-5 p.m.

FILM Longway Planetarium First Friday Through the Looking Glass: A Discussion of the Art of Microscopy. $8, first Friday of every month, 6-7 p.m.

Protomartyr, with Kelley Deal, plays at the Majestic Theatre on Saturday.

FUN: Detroit is kicking off the holiday season with the 49th Annual Noel Night, a free event full of music, food, and shopping local. Produced

by Midtown Detroit Inc., the evening will see more than 100 institutions participating in a city-wide open house, including the College for Creative Studies, Detroit Public Library, Detroit Institute of Arts, the Magic Stick, Michigan Science Center, MOCAD, and Wayne State University, as well as local businesses offering holiday specials. Other family-friendly activities during Noel Night include pop-up winter marketplaces, makeand-take crafts, food trucks, and holiday drink stands. Performances by over 80 music, theater, and dance groups in the area will also take place, including sets featuring the Detroit Youth Choir, Detroit Puppet Company, and Detroit Opera. Many restaurants and businesses participating this year are joining Noel Night for the first time. For Noel Night, Detroit’s Cultural Center will be open from 5-9 p.m. and venues south of Warren Avenue will be open from 5-10 p.m. Free shuttles will be available to and from participating locations, but attendees can expect to pay around $7-$20 for parking. — Layla McMurtrie

COURTESY PHOTO

Critics’ picks Cirque du Soleil’s Holidaze

FUN: Cirque du Soleil’s “Cirque Dreams: Holidaze” is bringing its whimsical performance to Detroit this weekend. The Broadway-style production, which features an infusion of contemporary circus acts, kicks off at Fox Theatre at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, followed by performances at 11 a.m., 3 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, and 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Sunday. A world-renowned cast of performers will be accompanied by an ensemble of aerial circus acts that includes reindeer jumping through hoops, breath-catching acrobats, and sleight-of-hand jugglers. An original music score includes new twists on seasonal hits like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Carol of the Bells.” — Steve Neavling Shows Friday, Dec. 1-Sunday, Dec. 3, at the Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit; cirquedreams.com.

Tickets range from $35-$99.

Protomartyr

Intimacy: The Artistic Community of PASC

MUSIC: Detroit’s Protomartyr enters its second decade together as a group even stronger than ever.

The indie rock band made a name for itself in the 2010s by blending a juxtaposition of ferocious, punk-inflected Motor City rock ’n’ roll with everyman frontman Joe Casey’s dystopian, deadpanned lyrics, but its sound has evolved in recent years thanks to guitarist Greg Ahee’s textured, cinematic approach to songwriting (he kept busy during the pandemic scoring short films) and a creative boost from Breeders guitarist Kelley Deal, who joined the band on tour providing additional guitar, synthesizer, and vocals. Saturday’s hometown show also includes long-standing Detroit noise band Wolf Eyes and Canadian punk band METZ. —Lee DeVito

ART: Progressive Art Studio (PASC) will host its next exhibit of metro Detroit artists with developmental disabilities and mental health differences at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. Intimacy: The Artistic Community of PASC, opens at MOCAD on Friday, featuring over 90 artworks from 30 artists. The exhibit serves as a survey of PASC’s work representing and fostering disabled artists over the past three years. PASC is a program of Services to Enhance Potential (STEP) and is the first studio in Detroit and Wayne County that’s dedicated to providing open studio space and career development to artists with developmental disabilities. The exhibit is part of MOCAD’s Mike Kelley Space for Public Good initiative, which focuses on inclusivity in the arts. —Randiah Camille Green

Doors at 7 p.m.; the Majestic Theatre, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; majesticdetroit.com. Tickets are $30 advance, $35 day of show.

Opens Friday, Dec. 2 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), 4454 Woodward Ave., Detroit; see mocadetroit.org for hours. $10 suggested donation. Through Jan. 14.

metrotimes.com | November 29-December 5, 2023 25

MUSIC ALL YOUR TEAMS PLAYING ON OUR BIG SCREENS ALL YEAR! Thurs 11/30

Happy Birthday, Benjamin Tesner!

Fri 12/01

TODOR x HYDRA 313 PRESENTS: HYDRA TAKEOVER TODOR B@B KREG/Slash Skip/Aramis/ Pillow Talk/Augenohren (house/techno) Doors@9p/$5cover

Sat 12/02

NOEL NIGHT @ THE OLD MIAMI All Over The Shop/Teddy Roberts & The Mouths/Raazzz (alt rock/alt country/ psych country) Doors@9p/$5cover

Mon 12/04

FREE POOL ALL DAY Tues 12/05

Detroit’s Amp Fiddler needs our help.

B. Y. O. R. Bring Your Own Records (weekly)

Local Buzz

Happy Birthday, Ben Archambo!

By Broccoli and Joe Zimmer

Open Decks@8PM NO COVER IG: @byor_tuesdays_old_miami

Coming Up:

12/08 The DeCarlo Family/The Kasino Family Band/Thurman 12/09 BANGERZ & JAMZ DJ Dance Party (monthly) 12/15 Berserker/Grand Circus/ Midnight Proof 12/16 Karalavara/Career Funeral/ Bella Agonia/The New Relative 12/22 Cocktail Shake/ Brandon Z. Smith 12/23 SANTARCHY:Detroit Party Marching Band/Summer Like The Season/Lung OPEN XMAS EVE 12P-12A & XMAS DAY 12P-2A! 12/29 Joel Douglas Gray/ Brion Riborn/Boy Blue 12/30 Vendors/The Wrenfields/ Hung Up 12/31 NYE BASH w/BANGERZ & JAMZ ‘til 4am Book Your Holiday Parties at The Old Miami email us: theoldmiamibarevents@ gmail.com

Got a Detroit music tip? Send it to music@metrotimes.com.

Come together for Amp Fiddler: Detroit’s international ambassador of funk Joseph “Amp” Fiddler has been a mentor to countless musicians from the Motor City and beyond, with an irreplicable soul that has permeated through every record he’s produced over the years. As a member of the Parliament-Funkadelic extended universe, Fiddler is a supreme collaborator, and has also worked with acts like Moodymann, Jamiroquai, Maxwell, Was (Not Was), Prince, and Dames Brown, to name just a few. He’s also credited with teaching J Dilla how to use the Akai MPC, Dilla’s preferred sampler and drum machine that now resides in the Smithsonian. Recently, Fiddler has faced some health challenges and a long recovery road after surgery last year. This giving season, fellow funkmeister Dez Andrés is curating the Amped Up For Amp fundraiser on Sunday, Dec. 10, at Spot Lite (2905 Beaufait St., Detroit; spotlitedetroit.com) to raise funds for Amp’s medical costs. The evening’s lineup includes Monica Blaire, R&B songwriters Bevlove and Britney

26 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

RENE PASSET, FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

Stoney, regular Spot Lite selectors Vincent Patricola and Mike Clark, and Dez Andrés himself, with more special guests. Early bird advance tickets are available now via Resident Advisor for $10.95. —Joe A corporate holiday gathering at the UFO Factory: A subversive take on the typical office holiday party is planned for Detroit’s UFO Factory (2110 Trumbull St., Detroit) UFOCO’s “mandatory holiday soiree” is set for this Saturday, Dec. 2, with featured keynote speakers (headline acts) Bileebob and Kiernan Laveaux and UFOCO’s CFO and CEO (DJ Etta and wetdogg, respectively) hosting “breakout sessions” (DJ sets). The only way to get the full readout of the evening is to attend in person — there will be no call-in or video conference option, as all information is confidential and an NDA is required for entry.

Further information is available via the Resident Advisor event page, and entry cost for this cordially required, tongue-in-cheek event is $10. (After the party, please shred everything.)

—Joe A massive jungle-style b2b soiree: The High Dive (1474 Joseph Campau Ave., Hamtramck; thehighdivedetroit. com) has increasingly become a solid home for dance music. For its “Blue Note” party this Friday, Dec. 1, jungle

champion Lazarus is enlisting the help of a couple local favorites, including sets from THRG resident Nico, Blueprint’s very own AK, and the everimpressive Psy-Chick. The format of the night is a series of b2b sets that are sure to result in some unique synergies between selectors, and with a lineup as strong as this one, I think we can all expect a proper tribute to UK jungle with all of the dancefloor madness that comes along with it. Tickets are available via Resident Advisor for $5.

—Broccoli A good rock ’n’ roll show at Outer Limits Lounge: “Radiant Hue,” the most recent single from Detroit power trio Shadow Show is a feat of psychedelic retro-glam, with a washed out and dreamy sound that harks back to summer daze lying in a field of grass, looking out into the mist after a night of dancing until the sun comes up. They’ve got a two-show run this weekend with NYC band Ruby, and their Detroit stop is at none other than Outer Limits Lounge (5507 Caniff St., Detroit; outerlimitslounge.com) on Friday, Dec. 1. We’ve got a great touring-band sandwich going on here with Toeheads rounding out the bill, so check out a few bands you know (or maybe a few that you don’t) at one of the best hot spots for garage rock and more. Tickets are $10 at the door, show starts at 8 p.m. —Broccoli

metrotimes.com | November 29-December 5, 2023 27

FOOD

Coeur 330 W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale 248-466-3010 coeurferndale.com Appetizers $8-$24, entrées $26-$42, tasting menu $89

Coeur’s fall menu includes lots of mushrooms.

COURTESY PHOTO

A heart of gold

By Jane Slaughter

I’ve never thought it was a

good idea to name your restaurant a word that people are unsure how to pronounce. Why introduce any hesitation into their decision to talk to their friends about going there? Few Americans, including me, can pronounce well this quintessentially French word (“cœur” means “heart”) — but that doesn’t seem to have slowed down the restaurant’s success one bit.

In fact, Metro Times readers voted Coeur, open since August, Best New Restaurant (Oakland) this year. How Ferndale has changed, when none of the Yelp reviewers thought the prices worth mentioning. I’ll follow their non-grousing lead and just say that my party of two stayed off the high end of the menu, ordered two appetizers, two entrées, one dessert, and one glass of the cheapest wine, and spent $162.74 including tip.

Another night I went with the $89 five-course tasting menu and left stuffed and happy.

The food was mostly great, if not absolutely can’t-wait-to-tell-my-friends.

Portion sizes are reasonable and there is a plethora of smiling servers dancing attendance; on tasting-menu night, it seemed like each course was delivered

by a different person. The restaurant’s self-description emphasizes informality — the servers wear plaid flannel shirts — and the décor is minimal, with bare tables but one gorgeous glass sculpture hanging from a corner ceiling. On each visit the servers were eager to say that their spiffy new menu holders had just come in from Kyiv.

Among the appetizers I liked best was a velvety mushroom velouté (“velouté” actually means velvet), a soup with five kinds of roasted mushrooms.

A milk bun for dipping was stuffed with mushrooms too, surprisingly cold.

Chef-owner Jordan Smith, a Culinary Institute of America grad, says the restaurant gets them all from Stony Creek Mushrooms at Eight Mile and Pinecrest.

Ethereal potato and comté croquettes were light as a cloud inside, lighter than cotton candy by far, with a matching weightless crust and a burnt leek dip in a color you don’t often see in food — stone gray. These were worth eating just for the sensation of insubstantiality and the unusual piquancy of the dip.

I thought maitake mushrooms, also called hen-of-the-wood, were less successful. The tempura was perfect but there was little mushroom flavor.

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A honeynut squash, course No. 2 on the tasting menu (which changes as Chef Smith desires), was the texture and taste of a sweet potato pie and enlivened with pomegranate seeds and persimmon — it felt like a lot going on, in a good way.

Course No. 3 was chewy potato gnocchi in lobster bisque, high praise for its texture, and I have no problem with two soups in one meal when they are this quality.

For main courses, I’m putting the tom kha broth that came with the black cod on my list of “best things I ate this year.” The kohlrabi and carrot were fine and the tiny white beech mushrooms as cute as could be, the fish pretty plain.

But that silky rich broth! It’s the coconut milk, and a reminder to eat Thai again ASAP. More mushrooms accompanied the teres major steak — you’re sensing an autumn theme here — and of course were good complements, a similar kind of umami. The teres major is a shoulder cut that its advocates say gets a lot of movement, therefore blood flow and therefore complex flavor, while lacking the connective tissue that causes toughness. It was indeed tender as could be, which could not be said

for the accompanying rapini, which I chewed for a while with little result.

Potato pavé requires a huge amount of fussy work with the humble spud, and in this case was not worth all that precise slicing and layering.

A short rib was tough, if tasty, and its side dish, potato rösti, was much more successful. Creamed greens were kohlrabi tops that night; I like it that Smith will use whatever type of green he has on the cutting board, if it works with the dish.

For dessert, I have no complaints (I seldom do), only a satisfied sweet tooth. A pear tart on a hazelnut crust was sublime, with little blobs of yogurt mousse encircling it. I could have had a pumpkin spice (!) latte semifreddo but chose a slightly salty “almond Snickers.”

You can see the resemblance; an actual Snickers has caramel, peanuts, and nougat under the chocolate, but here you see what a masterful pastry chef can do with top-notch ingredients. Dulcey is a “blond chocolate” from Valrhona, which has been described as “somewhere between white chocolate and milk chocolate” and “like dulce de leche but more toasty than overly sweet.”

Then there are the candied cocoa nibs and the salted caramel crémeux, plus the toasted almonds on top. A kid would like this and so would you.

Because it was November I tried the newly arrived Beaujolais Nouveau; small but mighty. (Ever notice that the size of your wine pour is proportional to the grandeur of the restaurant? I’ve been rash enough to order wine in a dive bar and gotten enough in a $6 glass to put me on my heels for the night.

A higher-end place will make sure the bottom of the glass is covered.) That night a western Michigan supplier was advertising its own offering as a “nouveau” alongside the French version. It was served quite cold, a practice that supposedly enhances a nouveau, but I thought it hid the wine’s qualities.

Smith and team are serious about wine. Once a month sommelier Sean Crenny picks a region or a varietal to highlight and teaches a class on a Sunday afternoon. New Year’s Eve will see a seven-course dinner with wine pairings.

Coeur is open for brunch on weekends, with such delightful-sounding dishes as brisket hash, babka French toast, almond pancake with charred milk caramel, and fall panzanella.

metrotimes.com | November 29-December 5, 2023 29

FOOD Chowhound

A monkey’s uncles

By Robert Stempkowski Chowhound is a weekly column about what’s trending in Detroit food culture.

Tips: eat@metrotimes.com.

One Christmas Eve when I

was little, my Uncle Harry’s brother Joe nicknamed me “Magoola” — a drunken mispronunciation of “Magilla” — after a cartoon gorilla from ’60s television. The name stuck for years afterward, clinging embarrassingly like toilet paper to my shoe; ultimately entangling itself in our family Christmas tradition. Around the Holiday Pinochle table, Magoola-speak became a drinking game all my uncles played; belching-out beer orders I’d run and fetch for quarters they’d throw me under the table, where I’d position myself to perform profitably like some organ grinder’s monkey.

“Magoola, grab me another one,” I’d hear. Cha-ching. “Magoola, me, too.”

Another register ring. I made some serious piggy-bank jockeying suds. As good as the tips were, eavesdropping on the adult conversations proved priceless. Sitting quietly in my catbird seat at their feet while they slaked truth serum, these uncles of mine — who filled-in as my father figures — seemingly forgot the small boy there within earshot. The longer I listened to their takes on those times, the more I learned about life in our blue-collar, working class. From Vietnam, bitterlydivisive politics, and “those damn hippies,” to Women’s Lib, race relations, and how the guys at the auto plants and factories where everyone worked were getting along, they weighed in on what sounded a lot like today’s weightier issues: war, bitterly divisive politics, LGBTQ+, Black Lives Matter, “wokeness,” and what’s becoming of the world’s working economy with AI, automation, and generational workforces in flux.

Through bits and pieces of my uncles’ back and forth, I got the general gist.

“So, somebody busted out all his windows?” I once overheard.

“What a shame. Beautiful automobile.”

“Sure, but you don’t park a Bonnev-

ille in a Ford [Rouge Plant] lot. What was he thinkin’?”

“And his kid just got sent overseas [Vietnam].”

“Christ. It’s heatin’ up over there.

Nixon’s sending more troops and airstrikes.”

“They’re communists. They gotta be stopped. We served. Our boys may have to, too. Richard’s number could come up. Change the subject. My wife will hear.”

“Magoola, bring me and Uncle Harry another beer. Tell Aunt Mary we’re ready for ham sandwiches. Make Uncle Janek a good one.”

My mother’s baby brother, John (“Janek” in Polish affectionate), was runt of my large litter of aunts and uncles, and subject to their collective efforts every Christmas to get him good and schnockered for the sake of festive, family fun. A happy drunk for sure, he was typically beyond ecstatic by the time late-night sandwiches were served; his slathered especially thick with my Uncle Harry’s homemade horseradish. Ever-emboldened by boozy delirium to insist no amount was too much for him, my always game and totally plastered uncle would bravely shit-face his yearly trial by sinus-clearing fire.

“Careful, Uncle Janek,” somebody would bait him, winking to everyone else gathered ‘round to watch. “This year’s batch is pretty potent.”

“Naah,” he’d slur a scoff, all sloppy and courageous. “Mary, bring me a soup spoon!”

“Don’t, John.” My aunt always begged. “You’re going to kill yourself one of these days.”

“Bring the soup spoon!” A chorus clamored in support.

With his already spiked snack in front of him, Uncle Janek would ceremoniously take another heaping scoop of beet horseradish from a bowlful set alongside, and plop it atop the sandwich plated open-face, to everyone’s applause. One year, he really out-did himself; gulping-down that spoonful straight instead of spreading it over his sandwich. When his head blew back in his chair after swallowing, Aunt Mary shrieked, thinking he had just expired right there in her dining room. But after remaining motionless for a long second or two, Uncle Janek started wiping away tears with a deeper-than-usual flush filling his face; contorting back from frozen death mask to droopy-eyed semiconsciousness.

30 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

Pa rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum.

“See,” he insisted, struggling to get that single word out before gasping for more air to make a near-breathless request: “Mary, maybe bring me a little glass of water.”

“God Almighty, John,” my aunt shook her head — hand on her heart — while everyone else died laughing.

It was now officially a StempkowskiGozdzialski-Matynowski Yule celebration, yet boozy delirium had one more part to play in the proceedings to make our Holiday cheer complete.

“Mary, put my favorite song on the record player.” Now, it was Uncle Raymond’s turn to make a spectacle of himself.

“Mary, don’t.” His wife, my Aunt Stella, always tried to intervene, running dramatically to the stereo console first.

“Bullshit, Stella,” Aunt Mary just as theatrically nudged her aside, to rousing family support. Then she’d cue the record and “The Little Drummer Boy” song would start to play. Emerging from the kitchen with a soup pot and wooden spoon in hand, Uncle Ray marched into the living room “a rumpa-pum-pumming” to the rhythm of the tune. Back and forth throughout the house, he’d keep the beat with

SHUTTERSTOCK

my Aunt Stella hot on his heels; to the happy howls of everyone rooting for him to make it through to the end of the number. He never did. Somewhere around the third chorus, my aunt would catch him, snatch the wooden spoon from his hand, and start marking time on his backside with it.

“Damnit, Razz!” she’d screech, half-laughing and part of the show.

“Every year, you embarrass me!” Still, all I ever heard in her complaint was how much she loved him for just who he was. They stayed married many decades after those days, dying just a short time apart, unable to live without each other for more than a virtual minute.

And it’s this time of year that I miss them all most, and that mix of peculiar antics and quirky personalities that make up the mortar real family structures are made of.

To hell with Hallmark-perfect holiday images. When I get to Heaven, I intend to spend a good bit of eternity binge-watching home movies of those Christmases past — just as they were — with all of them again.

Take it from me, Magoola. Take Christmas as it comes. And make memories.

metrotimes.com | November 29-December 5, 2023 31

CULTURE

Akea Brionne.

COURTESY PHOTO

Artist of the week

Akea Brionne conjures her ancestral traditions

By Randiah Camille Green

In Akea Brionne’s dreams, she summons her ancestors, some of whom have passed away and others she never met. They congregate in deserts and warped beaches where voodoo and religious indoctrination both meet and separate, as culture becomes lost under colonialism.

The young artist transfers these dreams onto canvas in her solo show Trying to Remember at Detroit’s Library Street Collective, which opened on November 17.

She’s trying to remember, not only her dreams, but her Creole roots and traditions as her family migrated across the globe. Brionne is originally from New Orleans and her family’s heritage traces back to Honduras

and Belize. The Cranbrook Academy graduate and self-portrait artist moved to Detroit for graduate school and now lives between Detroit and Baltimore. She says she doesn’t have roots anywhere.

“My work centers around ideas of displacement and migration, being Creole and coming from New Orleans,” she explains. “Right now a lot of my work has been processing those forced migrations that have happened, and thinking about what it means to often be the only Creole, or the only Afro-Latina in spaces. There’s also this mixing of landscapes and interior and exterior space that starts to intersect, which is representative of my own mental state of moving in and out of spaces.”

32 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

A constant force in Brionne and her family’s migration is water, which appears in nearly every piece in the show amidst distorted landscapes and strange figures embellished with shiny crystals. “[Hurricane] Katrina happened when I was eight. That was in 2005, and it caused a huge scattering for my whole family,” she says. “And since then, we’ve just been really scattered and migrating across the south and southwest. And then, of course, I ended up here in Detroit, so I’ve been thinking a lot about what water is as a force that has sort of been guiding me.

But it’s also been really destructive.”

Brionne previously worked mostly in self-portraiture and although Try-

ing to Remember deviates from that practice visually, it’s conceptually similar.

For this show, Brionne creates jacquard textiles to depict her dreams.

She starts by collaging self portraits and family photographs, then feeds those images to an AI software (she makes sure to tell us it’s not ChatGPT) along with a detailed description of her dream. Once the AI spits out the image, she further distorts it with references to memories like her childhood home in New Orleans and makes them into tapestries.

They’re stretched across a canvas and filled with polyfill (aka doll stuffing) so the figures mimic voodoo dolls that Brionne grew up with.

“In Louisiana there’s a lot of mixing of French, Spanish, Indigenous, and African cultures, so through that I grew up with these sort of rituals being a consistent thing [and] having altars in the house,” she says. “Voodoo dolls aren’t something I necessarily use, personally, but almost every woman in my family has them and there’s three that have been passed down from my great grandmother.

I use [them] more as a guide, just thinking about people who have passed that I can’t necessarily connect to... having this physical doll, in a way, keeps this communication happening.”

The pieces include symbols with religious connotations like the serpent. Though her family had these strong cultural and spiritual practices, Brionne says she was raised in a strict church because her mother was a pastor. Including these symbols in the show is a way of reversing the religious indoctrination she received as a child.

“I was not able to wear chokers because they were the devil. I wasn’t able to read anything that wasn’t the Bible for school assignments. I could not partake in Halloween. There was consistent fasting. It was really intense,” she says. “And so I often think about the serpent. Outside of religion, it’s not actually a negative symbol. It’s one of transformation, but for me, it was something that was so steeped in negativity and evil and temptation.”

In one of her dreams reflected in the show, the snake was the last thing she saw before she woke up.

“It felt like this sort of mental captivity that I am constantly navigating through where I’m still trying to uncondition myself,” she says.

Where to see her work: Trying to Remember is on view at Library Street Collective; 1260 Library St., Detroit; lscgallery.com. Through Jan. 6.

metrotimes.com | November 29-December 5, 2023 33

CULTURE Film

An old tabloid tale is a first-rate sexual thriller

By Kayla McCulloch

May December Rated: R Run-time: 117 minutes

“You do it nicely, ‘cause it really does matter how it looks.” So says Gracie (Julianne Moore) to Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) in Todd Haynes’s May December. Ostensibly, she’s talking about arranging the maraschino cherries in a pineapple upside-down cake. But, spoken from the lips of a registered sex offender to the ears of a famous Hollywood actress in a sunny Savannah, Georgia, kitchen, there’s bound to be something deeper underneath this basic baking tip. They’re too peculiar a pairing in too abnormal a circumstance for her remark to be anywhere near surface level.

You see, they’re making a movie out of a local woman’s headline-grabbing affair with a middle school student, and Elizabeth is starring as the lead. Gracie is the inspiration for that role. This unassuming middle-aged mother with strawberry blonde hair plastered the covers of pulpy grocery store tabloids in the early 1990s. The cause of all the hubbub? Her criminal relationship with a seventh grader (and, later, the birth of her children with him). The couple — now married — has carved out a cozy niche amidst the antebellum homes and Spanish moss, away from the harsh spotlight of media frenzy.

Now, in the opinions of those who’d rather not dwell on it, some uppity Hollyweird celeb has come to tear down the facade.

It’s not surprising that Elizabeth’s arrival has people nervous. It’s been decades since what happened… happened. Why dig it all up again? While she’d never admit it to anyone but herself, this is undoubtedly Gracie’s position. She and her husband Joe (Charles Melton) have established as much normalcy and security as possible for their family in the wake of such a controversy. Alas, as is the duty of any good (albeit kooky) housewife in the Hostess

Movie star Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) asks convicted sex offender Gracie (Julianne Moore) uncomfortable questions. © MAY DECEMBER PRODUCTIONS 2022 LLC

City of the South, Gracie welcomes her guest with open arms, tight lips, and a guarded attitude.

Whether it comes from the film’s unsettling score, its jarring interludes with creepy-crawly close-ups, or all those backhanded pleasantries being exchanged, there’s an energy that feels volatile in the world of May December.

It was hard for me to shake the feeling that, at any moment, someone or something was going to blow. To some extent, this may be what daily life feels like in wealthy suburbs. It’s beyond a small inkling, though. Past all the polite conversations, the fake smiles, and the please-and-thank-yous, Elizabeth’s investigative digging into Gracie’s troubled past starts to feel worse than bad manners. It feels dangerous.

As Elizabeth searches for the most honest angle to embody the role of Gracie, Gracie works to make sure it’s never found. With not-so-subtle shades of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and Ingmar Bergman’s Persona — not to mention the urtext for this type of film, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo — May December takes what we know about the trope of the blonde/brunette doppelgänger and uses it to tell a story about telling a story. While Haynes’s interests

34 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

here are decidedly not as nightmarish as Lynch’s or Bergman’s (and far less twisty than Hitchcock’s), he still explores the age-old idea of dark doubles through the visual motif of hair color (plus plenty of reflections, twins, and mimicry to drive the point home).

Haynes also toyed with this hair color thing in his 2015 Carol. The age gap romance, too. And yet, if ever there was an anti-Carol, it would be May December. Haynes traverses similar themes across both films, but the approach is much more lurid than languid this goround. Forget about the gentle, literary aesthetic Haynes so beautifully brought to the pair of star-crossed lovers in midcentury New York. His latest offers the kind of outrageously brash take on sexual promiscuity more often found in a Lifetime movie. I don’t mean to use that Lifetime label as an insult, either.

Until recently, the network was one of the only places I could find shamelessly sensual, hilariously campy melodramas en masse. The tides are turning, however — and it’s not just Haynes’s doing.

From film historian Karina Longworth’s recent deep-dive into the erotic thrillers of the ’80s and ’90s on her podcast You Must Remember This to the return of genre greats like Adrian

Lyne and his underrated (and, I must say, unceremoniously dropped) Hulu release Deep Water, May December fits snugly into a growing trend. Right when I feared the subgenre dead, Haynes has used his auteur status to bolster the erotic thriller — and, in doing so, quenches modern audiences’ very real thirst for sinister, seedy, seductive fare. It’s one of his strongest, most intoxicating works to date.

To be clear, Haynes is not some provocateur hoping to resuscitate a sordid style of film for shock value alone.

May December is more complex, more layered, more intelligent than that.

Above all else, it’s a titillating exploration of the nuances of truth. Elizabeth and Gracie, the film’s doubles, can be seen as the two sides of the scandalous story. There’s the version Gracie tells — her truth, no matter how honest or dishonest that may be — and there’s the objective truth that Elizabeth seeks.

The story being told and the reality of what actually went down are not the same. Cover-ups, threats, deception, bottled emotions … all come with the price of protecting some form of truth or another. Remember: when telling a life story, you do it nicely, ‘cause it really does matter how it looks.

metrotimes.com | November 29-December 5, 2023 35

CULTURE Savage Love

What Was Lost

By Dan Savage

Q: About ten years ago, I was in a

serious relationship with someone I loved more than I had ever loved anyone before. I hoped to spend my life with her. But I was deep in the closet, and the process of coming out annihilated large parts of my life, including our relationship. I dumped her and tried to tell myself she wouldn’t understand. In the years that followed, I came into my own as a proud and potent goddess, but I felt haunted by how I’d pushed my ex away.

The regret that marked her absence tinged all my emerging triumphs.

In the chaos of the early pandemic, I sent a simple email, curtailed into a modest how-are-you, and she sent a brief-but-cordial reply. I didn’t take offense. It was kind of her to reply at all. But some months later, she reached out, asking to meet. Apparently, her boyfriend had dumped her, and it reminded her of how I’d dumped her.

Despite my nerves, we had a simple afternoon in a park gabbing about poetry and ethics, laughing easily. I didn’t make any overtures. Regarding the past, I said only that I regretted how I’d left things. She replied quickly, “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s not like our relationship really had a future.” Yikes!

It’s been a few years and she’s become a close friend. We go hiking, drinking, we go on double dates with our partners — me and my wife, her and her new boyfriend. And yet… I still think about her every day. Even my wife knows I’m crazy about her! (We’re poly, it’s not an issue.) I’m writing because I don’t know what to do. For almost ten years I’ve tried to get over her, but I have proven stubbornly head-over-heels. I’ve tried separation, several types of therapy, even fiery rituals, but I still wake up with her name on my lips. I worry that if I were to broach the totality of my feelings, it would alienate her all over again. What’s a gal to do?

—Confounded Heartfelt Amorous Damsel

A: You mention coming out, you

mention transitioning, you mention being an out-and-proud goddess now — so, you’re a trans woman who had to end what the world perceived to be a

cis-het relationship before you embarked on your transition.

And based on your ex’s reaction when you reconnected and apologized for dumping her (“It’s not like our relationship really had a future!”), CHAD, along with the fact that your ex has only ever dated men (or people she had every reason to believe were men), it sounds like your ex is a straight cis woman. Which means you couldn’t be the goddess you are now — you couldn’t. have the life you have now (to say nothing of the wife you have now) — if you were still with your ex, CHAD, because you couldn’t be her partner and yourself at the same time.

I’m going to crawl out on a limb and guess that however bumpy your transition may have been, the trade-off was worth it. You lost some things — including a romantic relationship with your ex — but you gained so much more.

If seeing your ex socially — if having her in your life — is too painful, well, don’t see her socially. If you want to tell her that you miss the relationship you once had and still have feelings for her, you can do that without blowing up the relationship you have with her now.

Lots of people who are friends with their exes have said or heard variations on, “If things had been different, things could’ve turned out differently,” and remained friends.

You weren’t the person you thought you were when you were with your ex — or you weren’t the person you were coerced into pretending to be — but you had important and meaningful experiences before you transitioned.

Feeling sad about what you may have lost as a consequence of transitioning takes nothing away from what you’ve gained. But the intensity of these feelings for your ex— waking up every day thinking about her — makes me wonder whether she’s a symbolic stand-in for everything else you lost. Maybe a few sessions with a good therapist could put your feelings for your ex into perspective.

P.S. If what you mean by, “We’ve silently agreed to uphold a narrative that we’re just old friends,” is, “I’m being shoved into a new closet,” that’s not good. If never acknowledging that you were in a relationship is the price of admission you have to pay for her friendship, it may be too steep a price to pay. Awkwardness is fine… shame isn’t not.

Q: I’ve been going to the same barber (a woman) now for almost eight years

36 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

now. We always have nice heart-toheart conversations and I’ve loaned her money in the past (single mom), and she’s called to ask for advice on some life stuff a couple of times. She’s also asked me about my dating life, my kid, work, etc. My concern is if I was to ask her out, it would most likely make things awkward, and I don’t want to lose her as my barber. We also have a big age gap, although I know for a fact that she’s dated men my age. I fear screwing up our professional relationship, yet I am so attracted to her it gives me butterflies. I have risked dropping innuendos now and again, but she’s never picked up on them.

I honestly can’t tell if she’s interested or not. She says nice and courteous things, which make me feel good, but I understand this part of customer service. But I’m not sure it’s only that.

—Joe Haircut

A: It’s only that.

When someone confides in us about their love life — particularly when that someone is a woman in a service industry — that’s usually a sign they don’t see us as a potential love interest.

Women in service professions who rely on tips will sometimes share stories about disastrous dates, shitty exes, and heartbreaks with male clients not to signal romantic interest, JH, but to signal romantic disinterest. Basically, if the woman who’s cutting your hair or pouring your beer treats you like one of her girlfriends, JH, she doesn’t see you — and doesn’t want you to see yourself — as a potential future boyfriend.

Which is not to say she doesn’t like you or doesn’t consider you a friend. She clearly does. But don’t confuse choosing to ignore your innuendos for failing to pick up on them; and those stories about how dating clients always ended in disaster are offramp if you ever do ask her out. (“I’m so sorry — I can’t date clients anymore after all those disasters I told you about. The usual?”) As dickhavers, JH, we have to be on our guard against motivated reasoning, AKA “dickful thinking,” and this is definitely a case of motivated reasoning.

Q: I’m involved with a married man.

No, I don’t think his wife knows. I’ve discussed ENM with him, but I can’t force him to tell her. Theirs is not a healthy relationship. At this point, he’s staying for the sake of their child. Once their kid goes to college he wants to separate/divorce. They stopped sleeping together years ago. Literally: they don’t sleep in the same room at night. They’re basically separated yet live under the same roof. They barely speak save when it comes to running the household or parenting. (I’m pretty sure their kid, a teenager, can sense the marital discord,

and might even prefer the parents to separate officially, instead of dragging this out for their sake.) But my lover, the kid’s father, is really scared that he might lose custody in a divorce. There’s probably no good way to break it to your spouse, however estranged you are, that you want to make it official, that living together but barely speaking, barely being roommates isn’t much of a marriage. I expect to really be with him after all this — so please keep in mind that I’m not looking to benefit here. But I do want to help him get through this transition period. What can he say or do to end the marriage in an ethical and kind way?

—Yet Another Other Woman

A: All you know is what he’s told you.

I’m not suggesting — as others would — you can’t believe a single thing this man says because he’s cheating on his wife. What I am suggesting is that his marriage may be less dysfunctional than he’s made it seem. He and his wife might not fuck or even sleep in the same room — they even may be on the same page about separating the second their kid heads to college — but their relationship sounds low-conflict. For all you know, YAOW, they may have successfully pivoted to a companionate marriage.

As for why he would play up tension at home…

Men who have affairs are seen as bad guys — even when they’re not cheating their wives out of anything their wives want — and he may be making his marriage sound more dysfunctional than it actually is to elicit your sympathy (and your pussy), YAOW, and because he doesn’t want to seem like the bad guy.

As for your plan to encourage him to end his marriage now...

If your lover is planning to file for divorce once his kid is in college and his kid is already a teenager, well, then the end (of this marriage) is nigh. (Assuming he means it; that could be another line he’s feeding you — needlessly, as you don’t want to be with him.) If you’re comfortable fucking a married man — if you’re willing to help this man do what he needs to do to stay married and stay sane — go ahead and fuck this guy. But just as he shouldn’t make his marriage sound worse than it actually is to rationalize or justify the morally ambiguous choice he’s made (fucking you), you don’t need to talk him into broaching the subject of ENM with his wife and/or ending his marriage to rationalize or justify the morally ambiguous choice you’ve made (fucking him).

Got problems? You know you do! Send questions to mailbox@savage.love!

Podcasts, columns, and more at Savage.

Love.

metrotimes.com | November 29-December 5, 2023 37

CULTURE Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny ARIES: March 21 – April 19 As a child, I loved to go to a meadow and whirl around in spirals until I got so dizzy, I fell. As I lay on the ground, the earth, sky, and sun reeled madly, and I was no longer just a pinpoint of awareness lodged inside my body, but was an ecstatically undulating swirl in the kaleidoscopic web of life. Now, years later, I’ve discovered many of us love spinning. Scientists postulate humans have a desire for the intoxicating vertigo it brings. I would never recommend you do what I did as a kid; it could be dangerous for some of you. But if it’s safe and the spirit moves you, do it! Or at least imagine yourself doing it. Do you know about the Sufi Whirling Dervishes who use spinning as a meditation? Read here: tinyurl. com/JoyOfWhirling and tinyurl.com/ SufiSpinning.

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20 Your power creature in the

Grey, cold, windy, with an early dark; you’re going to need some cheering up… fortunately, we know a place.

WHISKEY

IS THE

LIFE OF MAN

coming weeks will not be an eagle, wolf, bear, or salmon. I don’t advise you to dream of being a wild horse, tiger, or crocodile. Instead, I invite you to cultivate a deep bond with the mushroom family. Why? Now is a favorable time to be like the mushrooms that keep the earth fresh. In wooded areas, they eat away dead trees and leaves, preventing larger and larger heaps of compost from piling up. They keep the soil healthy and make nutrients available for growing things. Be like those mushrooms, Taurus. Steadily and relentlessly rid your world of the defunct and decaying parts — thereby stimulating fertility.

My dormant potentials and drowsy passions are stirring as I behold you waking up and coaxing out your dormant potentials and drowsy passions. Thank you, dear!

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22 Virgo journalist Sydney J. Harris offered advice I suggest you meditate on. He wrote, “Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” I bring this to your attention because now is a favorable time to take action on things you have not yet done — and should do. If you put definitive plans in motion soon, you will ensure that regret won’t come calling in five years. (P.S.: Amazingly, it’s also an excellent time to dissolve regret you feel for an iffy move you made in the past.)

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20 Gemini novelist Geraldine McCaughrean wrote, “Maybe courage is like memory — a muscle that needs exercise to get strong. So I decided that maybe if I started in a small way, I could gradually work my way up to being brave.” That is an excellent prescription for you: the slow, incremental approach to becoming bolder and pluckier. For best results, begin practicing on mild risks and mellow adventures. Week by week, month by month, increase the audacious beauty of your schemes and the intensity of your spunk and fortitude. By mid-2024, you will be ready to launch a daring project.

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22 In contrast to false stereotypes, Medieval Europeans were not dirty and unhygienic. They made soap and loved to bathe. Another bogus myth says the people of the Middle Ages believed the Earth was flat. But the truth was that most educated folks knew it was round.

And it’s questionable to refer to this historical period as backward, since it brought innovations like mechanical timekeepers, moveable type, accurate maps, the heavy plow, and illuminated manuscripts. In this spirit, and in accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to strip away misconceptions and celebrate actual facts in your own sphere. Be a scrupulous revealer, a conscientious and meticulous truth-teller.

CANCER: June 21 – July 22 Cancerian neurologist and author Oliver Sacks worked with people who had unusual neurological issues.

His surprising conclusion: “Defects, disorders, and diseases can play a paradoxical role, by bringing out latent powers, developments, and evolutions that might never be seen in their absence.” In not all cases, but more often than seemed reasonable, he found that disorders could be regarded as creative — “for if they destroy particular paths, particular ways of doing things, they may force unexpected growth.” Your assignment is to meditate on how the events of your life might exemplify the principle Sacks marvels at: apparent limitations leading to breakthroughs and bonanzas.

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21: Scorpio poet John Berryman said, “To grow, we must travel in the direction of our fears.” Yikes! I personally wouldn’t want to do that kind of growth all the time. I prefer traveling cheerfully in the direction of my hopes and dreams. But then I’m not a Scorpio.

Maybe Berryman’s strategy for fulfilling one’s best destiny is a Scorpio superpower. What do you think? One thing I know for sure is that the coming weeks will be an excellent time to re-evaluate and reinvent your relationship with your fears. I suggest you approach the subject with a beginner’s mind. Empty yourself of all your previous ideas and be open to healing new revelations.

LEO: July 23 – August 22 I am falling in love with how deeply you are falling in love with new ways of seeing and understanding yourself. My heart sings as I listen to your heart singing in response to new attractions. Keep it up, Leo! You are having an excellent influence on me.

38 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21 Sagittarian poet Nina Cassian said, “I promise to make you so alive that the fall of dust on furniture will deafen you.” I think she meant she would fully awaken the senses of her readers. She would boost our capacity for enchantment and entice us to feel interesting emotions we had never

experienced. As we communed with her beautiful self-expression, we might even reconfigure our understanding of who we are and what life is about.

I am pleased to tell you, Sagittarius, that even if you’re not a writer, you now have an enhanced ability to perform these same services — both for yourself and for others.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19 “Sometimes I get lonesome for a storm,” says Capricorn singer-songwriter Joan Baez. “A full-blown storm where everything changes.” That approach has worked well for her. At age 82, she has released 30 albums and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She has recorded songs in eight languages and has been honored by Amnesty International for her work on behalf of human rights. If you’re feeling resilient — which I think you are — I recommend that you, too, get lonesome for a storm. Your life could use some rearrangement. If you’re not feeling wildly bold and strong, maybe ask the gods for a mild squall.

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18 Science educator Neil deGrasse Tyson tells us that water molecules we drink have “passed through the kidneys of Socrates, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc.” The same prodigious truth applies to the air we breathe: It has “passed through the lungs of Napoleon, Beethoven, and Abraham Lincoln.” Tyson would have also been accurate if he said we have shared water and air that has been inside the bodies of virtually every creature who has ever lived. I bring these facts to your attention, Aquarius, in the hope of inspiring you to deepen your sense of connectedness to other beings. Now is an excellent time to intensify your feelings of kinship with the web of life.

Here’s the practical value of doing that: You will attract more help and support into your life.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20 I am saying a prayer for you.

I pray to the Fates that you will not accept lazy or careless efforts from others. You won’t allow their politeness to be a cover-up for manipulativeness.

I also pray that you will cultivate high expectations for yourself. You won’t be an obsessive perfectionist, but will be devoted to excellence. All your actions will be infused with high integrity. You will conscientiously attend to every detail with the faith that you are planting seeds that will bloom beautifully in the future.

Homework: Read inspirational insights about your astrological sign in my new book: bit.ly/AstrologyReal.

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40 November 29-December 5, 2023 | metrotimes.com