Metro Times, December 14, 2022

We received responses to freelancer Steve Panton’s article about Arts Extended, a Black arts organization in Detroit that could very well be the oldest.

Hi just want to say that the article written by Steven Panton Nov.25, 2022 was outstanding. As an artist and other artist found it to be very timely and wonderfully written. Thank you. —Maria Barrow, artist (via email)

Awesome! Amazing women. Great to know them. —Debra White-Hunt, Facebook

wish could see younger picture of each one of them below the image that stands before us. Without their passionate determination don’t think we as Artist today would be where we are. They set the pattern long time ago. Dr. Cledie looks really artsy in her outfit. Love this photo, great piece of Detroit Art history!

Rosemary Summers, Facebook

Hi Lee, it was great to see the article in print, and thanks so much for publishing it. have got lot of great feedback on the piece, and think it will go on to become an important reference on a significant part of Detroit’s art history. —Steve Panton, email

EDITORIAL

in the Detroit area.) Most back issues obtainable for $7 prepaid by mail.

Tlaib slams big polluters in Detroit for ‘ agrant disregard’ for residents

By Steve Neavling

U.S. REP. RASHIDA Tlaib fired off letters to two big polluters in Detroit on Friday, demanding protections for residents living near the facilities.

The letters — co-written by U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Environment — are addressed to U.S. Ecology and Stellantis, both of which have been cited numerous times for environmental contamination.

The letters follow a congressional field hearing in Detroit in August that focused on the two facilities and the role they play in environmental racism.

Detroiters living near U.S. Ecology’s hazardous-waste processing plant at E. Kirby and St. Aubin streets are inundated with dust, pollution, and noise. The plant has received about 35 violations since 2014.

“We are deeply concerned that your company’s actions have confined residents to their homes, some hooked up to breathing machines, because the

air outside is rotten, metallic, and fishy, filled with dust and volatile organic compounds,” Tlaib and Khanna wrote.

Despite the violations, nine of which came in the past two years, U.S. Ecology is requesting that Michigan environmental regulators renew its operating permit at the facility.

“This flagrant disregard for the health and well-being of people living near your facility will not be tolerated and should bear heavily on the State of Michigan’s upcoming decision regarding the renewal of your operating permit,” the letter states.

In the letter, the lawmakers questioned what the facility was doing to protect residents.

The lawmakers also wrote a letter to Stellantis, which operates a stenchspewing Jeep assembly plant on the city’s east side.

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) slapped Stellantis with seven air quality violation notices since Septem-

ber 2021. Most of the violations stem from stench emitting from the plant.

EGLE is working with Stellantis on a proposed consent order that would requite the automaker to address the nauseating smell that has been wafting from the plant for more than a year.

The lawmakers questioned whether the consent order is sufficient.

“Residents have already expressed disappointment with what they perceive as ‘a great PR move for the company’ that ‘does nothing for the community being impacted by the smells,’” the letter states. “We share residents’ concerns about whether a consent order will effectively hold your company accountable, deter future violations, and deliver clean air and a safe environment for nearby residents.”

Included in the letter are snippets from testimony from residents who live nearby.

“This plant is making us sick,” Robert Shobe, who lives near the plant’s emitting stacks, said at the committee,

according to the letter. “I am a cancer patient. I am physically disabled. I suffer from COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease]. When the smell comes down around my house, my eyes burn. I have a cough from smelling the paint. I feel a tightness in my chest. I have gotten headaches from the smell, and I have been living as a prisoner in my own house for well over a year.”

Pollution is a widespread problem in the majority-Black city. The University of Michigan School of Public Health estimates that air pollution kills more than 650 Detroiters a year — more than twice the number of residents killed by gun violence annually. Thousands more are hospitalized, and children miss a disproportionate number of days at school because of illnesses and asthma.

Despite the disparate impact of environmental contamination in Detroit, state regulators continue to allow companies to pollute.

R.I.P. Detroit soul singer J.J. Barnes, dead at 79

DETROIT SOUL SINGER J.J. Barnes has died, weeks after what he said would be his final performance. He was 79.

That’s according to his family, who told the Detroit Free Press that he died Saturday.

Barnes was featured on the cover of Metro Times in October ahead of an appearance at the Detroit A-Go-Go festival in Detroit.

The singer told freelance reporter Adam Stanfel that he was retiring from live music due to multiple health issues.

“I’ll never fully retire, but this might be the last in-person appearance I’ll ever make,” Barnes said. “I’m almost blind in one eye, I’ve got high blood pressure, and a bad foot. But I’ve still got my piano at home, and I play and write every day.”

After working with Detroit’s Ric-Tic Records, Barnes scored a hit in 1967 with

DSO bans attendee who shouted racial slur

THE DETROIT SYMPHONY Orchestra says it plans to ban an attendee for life for shouting a racial slur during a Friday performance.

“The DSO is deeply disappointed by an incident that took place towards the end of Friday night’s concert when an audience member shouted a racial slur,” the DSO said in a message posted to social media Friday evening. “Racism and bigotry have no place in Orchestra Hall, and behavior like this is unacceptable.

“Baby Please Come Back Home” on the Groovesville label, which landed on Billboard’s R&B chart and led to Barnes appearing on bills alongside acts like Otis Redding, James Brown, Deon Jackson, and Martha Reeves. Barnes later worked with Motown as a songwriter.

Barnes found a new generation of fans across the Atlantic thanks to the U.K.’s “northern soul” scene, which helped give Barnes’s career a boost in the ’70s and ’80s.

Barnes got another late-career boost many years later when Detroit rock ’n’ roll band the Dirtbombs covered the “Baby Please Come Home” B-side, “Chains of Love,” in 2001. That version of the song was featured in the acclaimed film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in 2007.

—Lee DeVito

We are currently investigating and will enact a permanent ban once we identify the ticketholder.”

The DSO added, “Live music is a profoundly human experience that taps into our emotions and provides us all with a sacred space for listening. We apologize that this space was violated. We appreciate our audiences so much and hope to see you back at Orchestra Hall soon.”

A representative from the DSO confirmed to Metro Times that the incident occurred during a concert by Cyrus Chestnut, a pianist from Baltimore who was performing the score from A Charlie Brown Christmas at Orchestra Hall.

—Lee DeVito

Dearborn man charged for ‘anti-semitic’ rant outside synagogue

A DEARBORN MAN was charged with two counts of ethnic intimidation after police say he harassed and threatened Jewish families outside of a Bloomfield Township synagogue and preschool earlier this month.

Hassan Yehia Chokr, 35, was arrested a day after his tirade outside Temple Beth El, where parents were dropping off their children for day care.

“Anti-semitic and racist threats, or ethnic intimidation of any kind, will not be tolerated in our community, and every such incident will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said in a statement.

Bloomfield Township police officers pulled over Chokr immediately after the incident, and he streamed the encounter live on Instagram.

“I was just asking people if they supported the state of Israel, and they were telling me, ‘Yeah.’ I was telling them, ‘How dare you?’” Chokr said.

He insisted he was there to “express my freedom of religion.”

“I proved my point and left,” he told an officer. “I didn’t start any problems.”

He then called two security officers at the synagogue “[n-word] bitches,” which he described as “slaves to the wrong master.”

Chokr declined to provide identification, saying he did nothing wrong.

Detroit is getting the world’s largest Kwanzaa kinara

FOR YEARS, DETROIT has celebrated the holiday season with an enormous Christmas tree and a 26-foot-tall Hanukkah menorah in downtown’s Campus Martius Park. But one of the largest Black-majority cities in the nation has not celebrated Kwanzaa with a large kinara — until now.

According to a press release, a 30-foottall kinara monument will be erected in Campus Martius Park for the first time this year, believed to be the largest in the world. The monument will be on display for the entire seven days of Kwanzaa, which lasts from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1.

A Motor City Kwanzaa celebration is planned from 3-4:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 26 at Beacon Park with a live virtual presentation by Kwanzaa founder Dr. Maulana Karenga, a performance by the

African drum and dance group Nanou Djiapo, a demonstration from AlkebuLan Warrior Martial Arts, and remarks by organizers and sponsors.

Officials will then lead a procession to Campus Martius Park for a kinara lighting ceremony at 5 p.m.

The events are free and open to the public.

The development comes two years after Metro Times asked why the city celebrated the holidays with a giant Christmas tree and a menorah, but not a kinara. At the time, the city’s director of arts and culture Rochelle Riley expressed interest in a kinara monument, and surmised that the reason the city had not pursued one earlier was due to financial constraints and a lack of corporate sponsorships.

The kinara monument is made possible by the City of Detroit, the Downtown Detroit Partnership, Alkebu-Ian Village, Councilman Scott Benson, and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

“The Downtown Detroit Partnership, known for programming and managing year-round placemaking initiatives and events within Downtown Detroit’s historic and transformational public spaces and parks, is proud to expand its recognition and inclusion of holiday traditions,” organizers said in a press release. “The creation of the kinara display brings the public together to embrace the city’s rich diversity in the award-winning Campus Martius Park, the site of Detroit’s point of origin now known as Detroit’s Gathering Place and a destination for more than 4.5

He also told the officer that he planned to go to another synagogue, but would not return to Temple Beth El.

The officer didn’t press him, and even gave Chokr a fist-bump before allowing him to go.

According to the group StopAntisemitism, Chokr hurled expletives and derogatory remarks at Jewish people.

The incident comes several days after rapper Kanye West made several antisemitic comments, including telling Alex Jones, “I like Hitler” during the right-wing conspiracy theorist’s show InfoWars

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel pledged Monday to pursue charges against people for hate crimes and domestic terrorism.

“Those who espouse hate and are motivated to commit crimes against specific populations or communities because of that bias threaten the values we hold scared as Americans,” Nessel said. “As Attorney General, I created a dedicated unit to investigate and prosecute bias-motived crimes. My Hate Crimes and Domestic Terrorism Unit works with federal and local law enforcement partners to ensure crimes of this nature are thoroughly investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. No one should fear for their safety because of who they are, where they worship, who they love — or any ot<her unique attribute that contributes to the diversity of our state.”

—Steve Neavling

million residents and visitors annually.”

While Kwanzaa is an African-American holiday, observers say everyone can learn from its seven principles, the Nguzo Saba: Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity), and Imani (faith).

“I have observed Kwanzaa annually for years and am happy to be part of the DDP Parks team to support all of the involved entities to bring this positive beacon to the heart of the city,” DDP producer Njia Kia said in a statement. “Everyone is welcome to embrace Kwanzaa’s principles, which are universal, and celebrate the lighting of the black candle signifying unity on Day One of Kwanzaa.” —Lee DeVito More information is available at alkebulanvillage.com/kinara.

NEWS & VIEWS

ter the famous animated ogre, during a heated exchange in a 2008 meeting.

The incident also recalled another from recent memory. In 2018, Michigan voters approved cannabis sales for adult use in municipalities that chose to allow them. Detroit has had medical cannabis provisioning centers after voters approved that measure in 2008, many of which were banking on the city to allow adult use sales so they could generate more money.

But four years later, Detroit still doesn’t have adult-use dispensaries, forcing customers to head to the suburbs (or the black market). That’s because efforts led by Council President pro Tem James Tate to allow adult-use sales in the city have stalled twice.

Tate was trying to help people from communities harmed the most by the racist war on drugs — like Detroit — by creating an ordinance that would give them a leg-up, offering long-time residents priority in licensing.

Detroit City Council, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good

By Lee DeVito

We love French words here in metro Detroit, even if most of us don’t pronounce them correctly. A phrase I’ve been thinking about a lot lately has its roots in a French proverb attributed to Voltaire (who apparently cribbed it from the Italians): “l’ennemi du bien est le bien,” or “the best is the enemy of the good.”

The phrase is used to describe how people can get caught up in chasing perfection, but as a result never accomplish anything — something that has been on my mind following recent developments from Detroit City Council and Mayor Mike Duggan, who have become embroiled in a public feud unlike any we’ve seen in recent years.

Last week, Duggan and City Council President Mary Sheffield traded barbs following Council’s 11th-hour decision during a Nov. 22 meeting to terminate a nearly $50 million contract with Transdev, a French company that provides transportation services for the city’s residents with disabilities. The move left among about 1,000 residents who rely on the services daily with an uncertain future, just as Council adjourned on its holiday break until the new year.

Adding insult to injury, the Federal Transit Administration said such a move was a violation of federal law.

Duggan was understandably pissed, leading him to issue this zinger: “We’re dealing with a dysfunctional City Council for the first time in nine years, I’ve got to get adjusted to that,” he told reporters at a news conference last Tuesday.

Sheffield responded to Duggan in a statement Wednesday, calling it a “travesty to arrive at a point that a fellow elected official deems it necessary to attack members of Council for faithfully discharging their duties and representing their constituents,” adding, “Unfortunately, intimidating that City Council is ‘dysfunctional’ or that the Administration has to clean up ‘Council’s mess’ is a false narrative, shameful and highly inappropriate rhetoric directed towards a duly elected body.”

Now, we think calling City Council “dysfunctional” for trying to do the right thing is unfair. (Recall that multiple members of the previous City Council were investigated by the FBI for corruption, and Andre Spivey and Gabe Leland were sentenced for bribery.) And it seems Council had good reason to give Transdev the boot, including alleged subpar service and for hiring drivers accused of sexual misconduct. Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero said she changed her

vote to reject the contract after reading communications from her constituents in the disabled community, as well as transit advocates.

“I believe we were presented with a false choice: either to pass a contract for a company with a poor history of service delivery or vote for a 70% reduction in services,” Santiago-Romero said in a statement. “It is the Administration’s job to do their due diligence to provide Council with an amended Transdev contract or an expedited process to seek other vendors. It is our job as Council to consider all options — beyond this one false choice — and be given the time and required detailed information to make the decision on behalf of the people this will most impact.”

Using executive powers available in public emergencies, Duggan was able to quickly line up a package of contracts with four other transit providers, though at a higher cost, up from $4.7 million to $5.8 million for six months, according to Axios The city will start looking for a better long-term paratransit service provider in 2023. Still, the resulting spat was quite possibly the worst since council president pro tempore Monica Conyers insulted council president Ken Cockrel, Jr. by calling him “Shrek,” af-

It was a nice idea in theory, but an absolute failure in practice. In March 2021, a resident who lived in the city for 11 out of the past 30 years sued, arguing that she would be denied a license due to the policy. A federal judge agreed, saying Detroit’s ordinance was “likely unconstitutional.” In April of this year, the city revised the ordinance by dividing applicants into “equity” and “non-quity” tracks so they aren’t competing with each other for limited licenses, but the ordinance also restricted the city’s existing medical dispensaries from converting their licenses to adult-use until 2027. Unsurprisingly, this drew even more lawsuits, though a judge eventually dismissed the suits.

So now dispensaries are, allegedly, finally on the way in Detroit. We’ll believe it when we see them. Suffice it to say the Motor City is late to the weed game, and due to oversaturation of the market, cannabis prices have since plummeted. So when Detroit’s dispensaries finally do open, it might not be as lucrative of a business. In the meantime, businesses that have been holding out for years for Detroit to open up its adult use cannabis market have been forced to give up their dreams, unable to wait any longer. That’s according to a June Politico cover story headlined “The Unintended Consequence of Trying to Give Black Marijuana Entrepreneurs a Head Start.”

Of course, Detroit City Council is not wrong to try and do better for the city’s residents. But in both instances, in holding out for better, City Council wound up leaving residents who are among the city’s most vulnerable with nothing, instead of a flawed thing.

Letter from the editor

Due to Detroit City Council, many residents are stuck playing a waiting game. CITY OF DETROIT

The billionaire’s press dominates censorship beat

Project Censored’s top 10 stories show just one pattern dominating all others this year

BY PAUL ROSENBERG, SENIOR EDITOR

Since its founding in 1976, Project Censored has been focused on stories — like Watergate before the 1972 election — that aren’t censored in the authoritarian government sense, but in a broader, expanded sense reflective of what a functioning democracy should be, censorship defined as “the suppression of information, whether purposeful or not, by any method — including bias, omission, underreporting, or self-censorship — that prevents the public from fully knowing what is happening in society.” It is, after all, the reason that journalism enjoys special protection in the First Amendment: Without the free flow of vital information, government based on the consent of the governed is but an illusory dream.

Yet, from the very beginning, as A.J. Liebling put it, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

In their introduction to Project Censored’s annual State of the Free Press, which contains its top censored stories and much more, Project Censored’s Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth take this condition head-on, under the heading, State of the Billionaire, in contrast to the volume’s title, State of the Free Press 2023 . Following a swift recap of historic media criticism highlights — Upton Sinclair, the aforementioned Leibling, Ben Bagdikian, Edward Herman, and Noam Chomsky — they dryly observe, “History shows that consolidated media, controlled by a handful of elite owners, seldom serves the public interest,” and briefly survey the contemporary landscape before narrowing their gaze to the broadest of influencers:

“In pursuit of their own interests and investments, media tycoons past and present, again and again, appear to be conveniently oblivious to the main frame through which they filter news — that of class, including class structure and class interests,” Huff and Roth write. “Consequently, they often overlook (or ignore) conflicts of interest that implicate media owners, funders, investors, and advertisers, not to mention their business clients on Wall Street and in Big Pharma, Big Tech, and the military-industrial complex.”

Every year, I note that there are multiple patterns to be found in the list of Project Censored’s stories, and that these different patterns have much to tell us about the forces shaping what remains hidden. That’s still true, with three environmental stories (two involving fossil fuels), three involving money in politics (two dark money stories), and two involving illicit surveillance. But the dominance of this one pattern truly is remarkable. It shows how profoundly the concentration of corporate wealth and power in the hands of so few distorts everything we see — or don’t — in the world around us every day. Here then, is this year’s list of Project Censored’s top 10 censored stories:

1Fossil fuel industry subsidized at rate of $11 million per minute

Globally, the fossil fuel industry receives subsidies of $11 million per minute, primarily from lack of liability for the externalized health costs of deadly air pollution (42 ), damages caused by extreme weather events (29 ), and costs from traffic collisions and congestion (15 ). And two-thirds of those subsidies come from just five countries — the United States, Russia, India, China, and Japan. These are key findings from a study of 191 nations published by the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, in September 2021. They were reported in the Guardian and Treehugger the next month, but have been ignored in the corporate media.

No national government currently prices fossil fuels at what the IMF calls their “efficient price” — covering both their supply and environmental costs. “Instead, an estimated 99 percent of coal, 52 percent of road diesel, 47 percent of natural gas, and 18 percent of gasoline are priced at less than half their efficient price,” Project Censored noted.

“Efficient fuel pricing in 2025 would reduce global carbon dioxide emissions 36 percent below baseline levels, which is in line with keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees, while raising revenues worth 3.8 percent of global GDP and preventing 0.9 million local air pollution deaths,” the report stated. The G7 nations had previously agreed to scrap fossil fuel subsidies by 2025, but the IMF found that subsidies have increased in recent years, and will continue increasing.

“It’s critical that governments stop propping up an industry that is in decline,” Mike Coffin, a senior analyst at Carbon Tracker, told the Guardian.

“The much-needed change could start happening now, if not for the government’s entanglement with the fossil fuels industry in so many major economies,” added Maria Pastukhova of E3G, a climate change think tank.

“Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies could lead to higher energy prices and, ultimately, political protests and social unrest,” Project Censored noted. “But, as the Guardian and Treehugger each reported, the IMF recommended a ‘comprehensive strategy’ to protect consumers — especially low-in-come households — impacted by rising energy costs, and workers in displaced industries.”

No corporate news outlets had reported on the IMF as of May 2022, according to Project Censored, though a

November 2021 opinion piece did focus on the issue of subsidies, which John Kerry, U.S. special envoy for climate change, called “a definition of insanity.” But that was framed as opinion, and made no mention of the indirect subsidies, which represent 86 of the total. In contrast, “In January 2022, CNN published an article that all but defended fossil fuel subsidies,” Project Censored noted. “CNN’s coverage emphasized the potential for unrest caused by rollbacks of government subsidies, citing “protests that occasionally turned violent.”

2Wage theft:

workers, immigrant and guest workers, and communities of color the most,” Project Censored explained.

Wage theft also includes worker misclassification as independent contractors — long the case with port truckers, and more recently gig workers. A 2014 study from the National Employment Law Center estimated that “California’s port trucking companies are liable to drivers for violations of wage and hour laws for 65 to 83 million each month, or 787 to 998 million each year.”

Lack of resources is largely to blame for the lax enforcement, Project Censored explained: “As of February 2021, the Wage and Hour Division employed only 787 investigators, a proportion of just one investigator per 182,000 workers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, Campbell and Yerardi noted. For comparison, in 1948 the division employed one investigator per 22,600 workers, or eight times the current proportion.”

stantial risk of injury to health or the environment.” They had previously been posted in a searchable public database called ChemView.

In 2017, the FBI reported the cost of street crime at about 13.8 billion, the same year that the Economic Policy Institute released a study saying that just one form of wage theft — minimum wage violations — costs U.S. workers even more: an estimated 15 billion annually, impacting an estimated 17 of low-wage workers.

One reason it’s so rampant is that companies are seldom punished, as Alexia Fern ndez Campbell and Joe Yerardi reported for the Center for Public Integrity in May 2021, drawing on 15 years of data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. “The agency fined only about one in four repeat offenders during that period. And it ordered those companies to pay workers cash damages — penalty money in addition to back wages — in just 14 percent of those cases,” they wrote. In addition, “The division often lets businesses avoid repaying their employees all the money they’re owed. In all, the agency has let more than 16,000 employers get away with not paying 20.3 million in back wages since 2005.”

We’re talking about some major companies. Halliburton, G4S Wackenhut, and Circle K Stores were among “the worst offenders,” they reported.

That report kicked off the center’s “Cheated at Work” series, which showed that “U.S. employers that illegally underpaid workers face few repercussions, even when they do so repeatedly. This widespread practice perpetuates income inequality, hitting lowest-paid workers hardest.”

“Wage theft includes a range of illegal practices, such as paying less than minimum wage, withholding tips, not paying overtime, or requiring workers to work through breaks or off the clock. It impacts service workers, low-income

Lax enforcement is “especially problematic” in some 14 states that “lack the capacity to investigate wage theft claims or lack the ability to file lawsuits on behalf of victims,” according to a 2017 Economic Policy Institute report. In contrast, the center’s report “mentioned local successes in Chicago (2013), Philadelphia (2016), and Minneapolis (2019),” Project Censored noted, but “workers’ rights advocates continue to seek federal reforms.”

“Since May 2021, a handful of corporate news outlets, including CBS News, covered or republished the Center for Public Integrity’s report on wage theft,” Project Censored noted, but “Corporate coverage tends to focus on specific instances involving individual employers,” while ignoring it “as a systemic social problem” as well as ignoring the “anemic federal enforcement.”

That could change, if Congress were to pass the “Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act of 2022,” which “would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to protect workers from wage theft, according to Ariana Figueroa of the Virginia Mercury,” Project Censored noted, concluding with a quote from Minnesota congressperson Ilhan Omar: “It is clear more DOL [Department of Labor] funding and additional federal reforms are needed in our localities in order to protect our most vulnerable workers.”

3

EPA

reports on dangerous chemicals

In January 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, stopped releasing legally required disclosures about chemicals that present a “sub-

In November 2021, as part of the Intercept’s “EPA Exposed” investigative series, Sharon Lerner reported that EPA had received “at least 1,240 substantial risk reports since January 2019, but only one was publicly available. The suppressed reports documented “the risk of chemicals’ serious harms, including eye corrosion, damage to the brain and nervous system, chronic toxicity to honeybees, and cancer in both people and animals,” Lerner wrote.

“The reports include notifications about highly toxic polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, chemical compounds that are known as “forever chemicals” because they build up in our bodies and never break down in the environment,” Project Censored noted. “The Environmental Working Group explains that ‘very small doses of PFAS have been linked to cancer, reproductive and immune system harm, and other diseases. For decades, chemical companies covered up evidence of PFAS’ health hazards.’” Their spread throughout the world’s oceans, along with microplastics, was Project Censored 5 story last year.

It wasn’t just the public that was kept in the dark, Lerner reported. “The substantial risk reports have not been uploaded to the databases used most often by risk assessors searching for information about chemicals, according [to] one of the EPA scientists They have been entered only into an internal database that is difficult to access and search. As a result, little — and perhaps none — of the information about these serious risks to health and the environment has been incorporated into the chemical assessments completed during this period.”

“Basically, they are just going into a black hole,” one whistleblower told Lerner. “We don’t look at them. We don’t

evaluate them. And we don’t check to see if they change our understanding of the chemical.”

Apart from the Intercept, “only a handful of niche publications have reported on the matter,” Project Censored noted.

However, in January 2022 Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a lawsuit to compel EPA to disclose the reports, following up on an earlier public records request which, the National Law Review reported, was “built upon information reported in a November 2021 article in The Intercept.” Just weeks later EPA announced it would resume posting the reports in ChemView, Project Censored noted. “Clearly, independent journalism contributed significantly to this outcome,” they said. “Had it not been for the work of investigative journalist Sharon Lerner at the Intercept, EPA whistleblowers would not have had a platform to share concerns that ultimately led the agency to resume these critical public disclosures.”

At least 100 U.S. representatives and 28 U.S. senators have financial interests in the fossil fuel industry — a major impediment to reaching climate change goals that’s gone virtually unmentioned by the corporate media, despite detailed reporting in a series of Sludge articles written by David Moore in November and December of 2021.

Moore found that 74 Republicans, 59 Democrats, and one independent have fossil fuel industry investments, with Republicans outnumbering Democrats in both chambers. The top ten House investors are all Republicans. But it’s quite different in the Senate, where two of the top three investors are Demo-

U.S. businesses suffer few consequences for stealing millions from workers every year

withheld

4At least 128 members of Congress invested in fossil fuel industry

crats, and Democrats’ total investments, $8,604,000, are more than double the Senate Republicans’ total of $3,994,126.

Topping the list is Joe Manchin (WV), with up to $5.5 million of fossil fuel industry assets, while John Hickenlooper (CO) is third, with up to $1 million. (Most reporting is in ranges.) Many top investors are Texas Republicans, including Rep. Van Taylor, with up to $12.4 million worth of investments.

“Most significantly, many hold key seats on influential energy-related committees,” Project Censored noted.

Senators include Manchin, chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Tina Smith (D-MN), chairs of the Agriculture Subcommittee on Rural Development and Energy, and Tom Carper (D-DE), chair of the Committee on the Environment and Public Works.

“Manchin cut the Clean Electricity Performance Program, a system that would phase out coal, from President Biden’s climate bill,” they added.

In the House, they explained, “nine of the twenty-two Republican members of the Energy and Commerce Committee are invested in the fossil fuel industry. As Project Censored detailed in the #4 story on the Top 25 list two years ago, these individuals’ personal financial interests as investors often conflict with their obligation as elected legislators to serve the public interest.”

Oil and gas lobbying totaled $119.3 million according to OpenSecrets, while 2020 election spending topped $40 million for congressional candidates — $8.7 million to Democrats and $30.8 million to Republicans. This came as the International Energy Agency warned that no new fossil fuel developments can be approved for the world to have a 50/50 chance to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, Moore reported. And, yet, “production of oil and gas is projected to grow 50 percent by 2030 without congressional action,” Project Censored noted. “The fact that so many lawmakers have invested considerable sums in the fossil fuel industry makes it extremely unlikely that Congress will do much to rein in oil and gas production.”

As of May 21, 2022, Sludge’s reporting had gotten no corporate coverage, repeating the whiteout of a similar report in 2020. “Corporate news outlets have only reported on the fact that clean energy proposals are stalled in Congress, not the financial conflicts of interest that are the likely cause of this lack of progress,” Project Censored concluded.

5Dark money intererence in

politics undermines democracy

The same group of conservative dark

money organizations that opposed President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nomination — Judicial Crisis Network [JCN], The 85 Fund, and their affiliated groups — also funded entities that played a role in the Jan. insurrection, according to a report by the watchdog group Accountable.US. They’re closely linked to Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, with money coming from Donors Trust (a dark-money group backed by the Koch network) and the Bradley Foundation.

“These dark money groups not only funded Leo’s network of organizations to the sum of over $52 million in 2020, but also funded entities in 2020 that played a role in the insurrection to the sum of over $37 million,” Accountable. US reported.

While there has been coverage of dark money spending on Supreme Court nominations, Igor Derysh at Salon was alone in reporting the related involvement in Jan. 6.

Just one group, JCN, spent $2.5 million “before Biden even named his nominee” Ketanji Brown Jackson, Derysh reported, “accusing Biden of caving in to leftists by promising a ‘Supreme Court nominee who will be a liberal activist.”

On the other hand, “JCN spent tens of millions helping to confirm Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, according to Open Secrets, and launched a $25 million effort to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett just weeks before the 2020 election,” he reported.

But more disturbingly, “Donors Trust has funneled more than $28 million to groups that pushed election lies or in some way funded the rally ahead of the Capitol riot,” while “Members of the Federalist Society played key roles in Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election,” including attorney John Eastman, architect of Trump’s plan to get Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election, senators Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who led the objections to the certification of Trump’s loss after the riot, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who filed a lawsuit to throw out election results in key states, effectively overturning Biden’s victory. In addition, 13 of the 17 other Republican attorneys general who joined Paxton’s suit were also Federalist Society members.

“It should worry us all that the groups leading the fight against Biden’s historic nomination of Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court are tied to the Jan. insurrection and efforts to undermine confidence in the 2020 election,” Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, told Salon

“The influence of dark money — political spending by organizations that are not required to disclose their donors — presents a major challenge

to the swift functioning of the judicial nomination and confirmation process, and the US government as a whole,” Project Censored noted. “[D]ark money deeply influences political decisions in favor of select individuals’ or groups’ agendas rather than in support of the public’s best interests.”

Rightwing dark money’s role in fighting Judge Jackson’s nomination and confirmation process was highlighted by Business Insider in February 2022, along with op-eds in both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post that covered the discussion of dark money during Judge Jackson’s confirmation hearings, and a March 2022 Mother Jones report. “However,” Project Censored noted, “none of the articles featured in the corporate press covered dark money supporting Trump’s Big Lie, the impact such funding had on promoting and reinforcing anti-democratic ideology, or the ramifications of how such dark money spending erodes public trust in government and the election process.”

6Corporate consolidation causing record inflation in food prices

“Corporate consolidation is a main driver of record inflation in food prices, despite claims by media pundits and partisan commentators to the contrary,” Project Censored reports. “The establishment press has covered the current wave of inflation exhaustively, but only rarely will discuss the market power of giant firms as a possible cause, and then usually only to reject it,” as they did when the Biden administration cited meat industry consolidation as a cause of price increases in September 2021, “treating administration attempts to link inflation to consolidation as a rhetorical move meant to distract from conservative critiques of Biden’s stimu-

lus program.”

But as Food and Water Watch reported in November 2021, “while the cost of meat shot up, prices paid to farmers actually declined, spurring a federal investigation.” That investigation is ongoing, but meat conglomerates

Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, Smithfield Foods, and JBS have paid just over $225 million to settle related civil suits in the poultry, beef, and pork markets.

That’s just part of the problem. A July 2021 joint investigation by Food and Water Watch and the Guardian “reported that a handful of ‘food giants’ — including Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Conagra, Unilever, and Del Monte — control an average of 64 percent of sales of sixty-one popular grocery items,” Project Censored noted. Three companies own 93% of carbonated soft drink brands; while another three produce 73 of the cereals on offer, and a single company, PepsiCo, owns five of the most popular dip brands — 88% of the market. Altogether, “four firms or fewer controlled at least 50% of the market for 79% of the groceries,” the Guardian reported.

It’s not just producers: “In an October 2021 article for Common Dreams, Kenny Stancil documents that food producers, distributors, and grocery store chains are engaging in pandemic profiteering and taking advantage of decades of consolidation, which has given a handful of corporations an ever-greater degree of market control and with it, the power to set prices,” according to research by the Groundwork Collaborative.

As for grocers, “Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the country, cited rising inflation as the reason for hiking prices in their stores even as they cut worker pay by 8 percent,” Project Censored noted. “Yet, as Stancil explained, Kroger’s CEO publicly gloated that ‘a little bit of inflation is always good for business.” That CEO earned 909 times what the median worker earned, while

U.S.

worker pay decreased by 8% in 2020, and “the company spent $1.498 billion on stock buybacks between April 2020 and July 2021 to enrich its shareholders,” the Groundwork Collaborative reported. Kroger was one of just four companies that took in an estimated two-thirds of all grocery sales in 2019, according to Food and Water Watch.

More broadly, “A report for the American Prospect by Rakeem Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, and David Dayen revealed that one of the most common inflation scapegoats, supply chain problems, is itself a consequence of consolidation,” Project Censored noted. “Just three global alliances of ocean shippers are responsible for 80 percent of all cargo... These shippers raked in nearly 80 billion in the first three quarters of 2021, twice as much as in the entire ten-year period from 2010 to 2020,” by increasing their rates as much as tenfold.

Supply chain consolidation reflects a broader shift in the global economy, the Prospect argued. “In 1970, Milton Friedman argued in The New York Times that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” Manufacturers used that to rationalize a financial imperative to benefit shareholders by seeking the lowest-cost labor possible.” This led to a surge in outsourcing to East Asia, and eventually China. “This added new costs for shipping, but deregulating all the industries in the supply chain could more than compensate.”

Occasionally articles touched on the issue of consolidation (mostly to debunk it), though there are a couple of opinion pieces to the contrary. “But these isolated opinion pieces were far out-numbered by the hundreds, even thousands, of reports and analyses by commercial media outlets that blamed everything but oligopolistic price gouging for the rising cost of groceries,” Project Censored concluded.

7Concerns for journalistic independence as Gates Foundation gives $319 million to news outlets

The list of billionaires with media empires includes familiar names like Rupert Murdoch, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and, most recently, Elon Musk. But, “While other billionaires’ media empires are relatively well known, the extent to which [Microsoft co-founder Bill] Gates’s cash underwrites the modern media landscape is not,” Alan MacLeod wrote for MintPress News in November 2021.

MacLeod examined more than 30,000 individual grants from the the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and found it had donated “more than $319 million to fund news outlets, journalism centers and training programs, press associations, and specific media campaigns, raising questions about conflicts of interest and journalistic independence,” Project Censored summarized.

“Today, it is possible for an individual to train as a reporter thanks to a

Gates Foundation Grant, find work at a Gates-funded outlet, and to belong to a press association funded by Gates,” MacLeod wrote.

“Recipients of this cash include many of America’s most important news outlets, including CNN, NBC, NPR, PBS and The Atlantic. Gates also sponsors a myriad of influential foreign organizations, including the BBC, The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom; prominent European newspapers such as Le Monde (France), Der Spiegel (Germany) and El País (Spain); as well as big global broadcasters like Al-Jazeera,” he reported.

“MacLeod’s report includes a number of Gates-funded news outlets that also regularly feature in Project Censored’s annual Top 25 story lists, such as the Solutions Journalism Network ($7.2m), The Conversation ($6.6m), the Bureau of Investigative Journalism ($1m), and ProPublica ($1m) in addition to the Guardian and the Atlantic,” Project Censored noted. “Direct awards to news outlets often targeted specific issues, MacLeod reported. For example, CNN received $3.6 million to support ‘journalism on the everyday inequalities endured by women and girls across the world,’ according to one grant. Another grant earmarked $2.3 million for the Texas Tribune ‘to increase public awareness and engagement of education reform issues in Texas.’

As MacLeod noted, given Bill Gates’ advocacy of the charter school movement — which undermines teachers’ unions and effectively aims to privatize the public education system — ‘a cynic might interpret this as planting procorporate charter school propaganda into the media, disguised as objective news reporting.’”

“[T]here are clear shortcomings with this non-exhaustive list, meaning the true figure is undoubtedly far higher. First, it does not count sub-grants — money given by recipients to media

around the world,” because there’s no record of them, MacLeod reported.

“For a tax-privileged charity that so very often trumpets the importance of transparency, it’s remarkable how intensely secretive the Gates Foundation is about its financial flows,” Tim Schwab, one of the few investigative journalists who has scrutinized the tech billionaire, told MintPress

Also missing were grants aimed at producing articles for academic journals, although “they regularly form the basis for stories in the mainstream press and help shape narratives around key issues,” he noted. “The Gates Foundation has given far and wide to academic sources, with at least $13.6 million going toward creating content for the prestigious medical journal

The Lancet.” And more broadly “even money given to universities for purely research projects eventually ends up in academic journals, and ultimately, downstream into mass media. Neither these nor grants funding the printing of books or establishment of websites counted in the total, although they too are forms of media.”

“No major corporate news outlets appear to have covered this issue,” only a scattering of independent outlets, Project Censored noted. This despite the fact that “As far back as 2011, the Seattle Times published an article investigating how the Gates Foundation’s ‘growing support of media organizations blurs the line between journalism and advocacy.’”

8

CIA discussed plans to kidnap or kill Julian Assange

The CIA seriously considered plans to kidnap or assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in late 2017, according to a September 2021 Yahoo! News investigation, based on interviews with more than 30 former U.S. officials, eight of whom detailed U.S. plans to abduct Assange and three of whom described the development of plans to kill him.

If it had been up to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, they almost certainly would have been acted on, after WikiLeaks announced it had obtained a massive tranche of files — dubbed “Vault 7” — from the CIA’s ultra-secret hacking division, and posted some of them online.

In his first public remarks as Donald Trump’s CIA director, “Pompeo devoted much of his speech to the threat posed by WikiLeaks” Yahoo! News noted.

“Rather than use the platform to give an overview of global challenges or to lay out any bureaucratic changes he was planning to make at the agency.”

He even called it “a non-state hostile

intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” a designation intended to grant the CIA wide latitude in what actions it took, while shielding it from congressional oversight.

“Potential scenarios proposed by the CIA and Trump administration officials included crashing into a Russian vehicle carrying Assange in order to grab him, shooting the tires of an airplane carrying Assange in order to prevent its takeoff, and engaging in a gun battle through the streets of London,” Project Censored summarized. “Senior CIA officials went so far as to request ‘sketches’ or ‘options’ detailing methods to kill Assange.”

“WikiLeaks was a complete obsession of Pompeo’s,” a former Trump administration national security official told Yahoo! News. “After Vault 7, Pompeo and [Deputy CIA Director Gina] Haspel wanted vengeance on Assange.” It went so far that “Pompeo and others at the agency proposed abducting Assange from the embassy and surreptitiously bringing him back to the United States via a third country — a process known as rendition,” they reported. (Assassination entered the picture later on.) Since it would take place in Britain, there had to be agreement from them. “But the British said, ‘No way, you’re not doing that on our territory, that ain’t happening,’” a former senior counterintelligence official told Yahoo! News.

There was also pushback from National Security Council (NSC) lawyers and the Department of Justice, which wanted to put Assange on trial. But the CIA continued to push for capturing or killing Assange. Trump’s “NSC lawyers were bulwarks against the CIA’s potentially illegal proposals, according to former officials,” Yahoo! News reported, but the CIA’s own lawyers may have been kept in the dark. “When Pompeo took over, he cut the lawyers out of a lot of things,” a former senior intelligence community attorney told them. “Pompeo’s ready access to the Oval Office, where he would meet with Trump alone, exacerbated the lawyers’ fears. [The NSC’s top lawyer John] Eisenberg fretted that the CIA director was leaving those meetings with authorities or approvals signed by the president that Eisenberg knew nothing about, according to former officials.”

“US plans to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange have received little to no establishment news coverage in the United States, other than scant summaries by Business Insider and The Verge, and tangential coverage by Reuters, each based on the original Yahoo! News report,” Project Censored notes. “Among US independent news outlets, Democracy Now! featured an interview with Michael Isikoff, one of the Yahoo! News reporters who broke the story, and Jennifer Robinson, a

human rights attorney who has been advising Julian Assange and WikiLeaks since 2010. Rolling Stone and The Hill also published articles based on the original Yahoo! News report.”

9 New laws preventing dark money disclosures sweep the nation

Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United relaxing campaign finance regulations, dark money spending has exploded, and now Republican lawmakers across the U.S. are pushing legislation to make it illegal to compel nonprofit organizations to disclose who the dark money donors are. Recentlypassed laws in Arkansas, Arizona, Iowa, Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia are based on model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which brings together corporate lobbyists and conservative lawmakers to advance special-interest business-friendly legislation.

“ALEC is deeply enmeshed with the sprawling political influence networks tied to billionaire families like the Kochs and the Bradleys, both of which use non-disclosing nonprofits that help to conceal how money is funneled,” Donald Shaw reported for Sludge on June 15, 2021. “Penalties for violating the laws vary between the states, but in some states could include prison sentences.”

“Shaw explained how these bills create a loophole allowing wealthy individuals and groups to pass ‘dark money’ anonymously to 501(c) organizations which in turn can make independent expenditures to influence elections (or contribute to other organizations that make independent political expenditures, such as Super PACs), effectively shielding the ultimate source of political funds from public scrutiny,” Project Censored summarized. “‘These bills are about making dark money darker,’ Aaron McKean, legal counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, told Shaw.”

The South Dakota law was overwhelmingly passed by the GOP-dominated legislature despite the fact that voters passed a 2016 ballot measure requiring disclosure of “the identity of donors who give more than $100 to organizations for the purpose of political expenditures,” a requirement the legislature repealed a year later, Shaw reported in February 2021.

There’s a federal impact as well. “In a March 2022 article for Sludge, Shaw documented that the federal omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2022 contained a rider exempting political groups that declare themselves ‘social

welfare organizations’ from reporting their donors, and another preventing the Securities and Exchange Commission from ‘requiring corporations to publicly disclose more of their political and lobbying spending,’” Project Censored noted, going on to cite a May 2021 article from Open Secrets about Senate Republicans’ “Don’t Weaponize the IRS Act,” that “would prevent the IRS from requiring that 501(c)(4) nonprofits disclose their top donors.”

Democrats and good government groups have pushed back. “On April 27, 2021, thirty-eight Democratic senators sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig urging them to roll back an anti-disclosure rule put in place by the Trump Administration,” Project Censored reported. “In addition, the Democrats’ comprehensive votingrights bill, the For the People Act, would have compelled the disclosure of all contributions by individuals who surpass $10,000 in donations in a given reporting period. The bill was passed by the House but died in the Senate.”

While there’s been some coverage of some aspects of this story — a Washington Post story about Democrats pressuring the Biden administration, the Associated Press reporting on South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s defense of her state’s law — except for regional papers like the Tampa Bay Times, Project Censored reports, “There has been little acknowledgment in the establishment press of the stream of ALEC-inspired bills passing through state legislatures that seek to keep the source of so much of the money spent to influence elections hidden in the shadows.”

brokers and online media outlets that depend on digital advertising, such as CNN, the New York Times, MSNBC, Time, U.S. News World Report, the Washington Post, Vox, the Orlando Sentinel, Fox News, and dozens of other media companies,” Fang explained. “The privacy push has largely been framed as a showdown between technology companies and the administration,” but “The lobbying reveals a tension that is rarely a center of the discourse around online privacy: Major media corporations increasingly rely on a vast ecosystem of privacy violations, even as the public relies on them to report on it.” As a result, “Major news outlets have remained mostly silent on the FTC’s current push and a parallel effort to ban surveillance advertising by the House and Senate by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.,” Fang concluded.

10

Major media outlets lobby against regulation of ‘surveillance advertising’

“Surveillance advertising” — collecting users’ data to target them with tailored advertising — has become a ubiquitous, extremely profitable practice on the world’s most popular social media apps and platforms — Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc. But now, as Lee Fang reported for The Intercept in February 2022, the Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, is seeking to regulate user data collection. Lobbyists for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, or IAB are pushing back.

“In a letter, IAB called for the FTC to oppose a ban on data-driven advertising networks, claiming the modern media cannot exist without mass data collection,” Fang reported.

“The IAB represents both data

“The IAB argues that targeted advertising — and, by extension, the siphoning of user data — has become necessary due to declining revenues from print sales and subscriptions,” Project Censored summarized. “Nondigital advertising revenue decreased from $124.8 billion in 2011 to $89.8 billion in 2020, while digital advertising revenue rose from $31.9 billion to $152.2 billion in the same period, according to Pew Research.” Complicating matters, “The personal information collected by online media is typically sold to aggregators, such as BlueKai (owned by Oracle) and OpenX, that exploit user data — including data describing minors — to create predictive models of users’ behavior, which are then sold to advertising agencies. The covert nature of surveillance advertising makes it difficult for users to opt out.” In addition, “The user information collected by media sites also enables direct manipulation of public perceptions of political issues, as famously happened when the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica tapped into personal data from millions of Facebook users to craft campaign propaganda during the 2016 US presidential election.”

“The corporate media have reported the FTC’s openness to new rules limiting the collection and exploitation of user data, but have generally not drawn attention to IAB lobbying against the proposed regulations,” Project Censored noted, citing articles in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post as examples. “[N]either outlet discussed IAB, its lobbying on this issue, or the big media clients the organization represents.”

Paul Rosenberg is a Los Angeles, California-based writer, senior editor for Random Lengths News and a columnist for Salon and Al Jazeera English

WHAT’S GOING ON

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

Wednesday, Dec. 14

Live/Concert

Latin Jazz Wednesday: Panamo 7 p.m.; The Blue LLama Jazz Club, 314 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; $15.

Musiq Soulchild 7:30 8 p.m.; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $49-$62.

Noah Jackson & Full Circle: Residency & Session 7:30 p.m. Cliff Bell’s, 2030 Park Ave., Detroit; $20.

Rebecca & The Strangers | Frankie Torres | Melissa Melehy 8 pm; Blind Pig, 208 S. First St., Ann Arbor; $10.

sunn O))) Shoshin ( ) duo 7 p.m;. Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $30.

DJ/Dance

(More than) Punk Nite w/ DJs Nips & Horrorshow 8 pm; Bowlero Lanes Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.

COMEDY

Improv

Planet Ant Theatre Hip-Prov: Improv with a Dash of Hip-Hop $10 second Wednesday of every month, 7 pm.

SPORTS Baseball

Wayne State Arena Motor City Cruise vs. Windy City Bulls $5-$150 7 pm.

Thursday, Dec. 15

Live/Concert

Alex Harding & Organ Nation 7:30 p.m. Cliff Bell’s, 2030 Park Ave., Detroit; $20.

Blackberry Smoke 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $35-$59.50.

Ellie Martin Quartet 8:30 p.m.; The Blue LLama Jazz Club, 314 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; $15.

Freedom Hawk, Crafted Conviction, Blood Castle, Solar Monolith, Locust Point p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff, Hamtramck 13.

Luminare 8 p.m.; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $29-$41.

Matthew Smith (solo acoustic) / 696 Blues Band (solo electric 7:30 p.m.; Trinosophes, 1464 Gratiot Ave., Detroit.

Samantha Fish • The Jesse Dayton Band 7 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $30.

Super Fly Toy Drive with The Flight Team | Louis Picasso & The Gallery | Slim Ready | Where She Creep | Johnny Lovelle | Ki5 7 pm; Blind Pig, 208 S. First St., Ann Arbor; $10 cover or toy donation.

Thursday Night Live Music Series At Three Cats Restaurant 6-9 p.m.; Three Cats Cafe, 116 West 14 Mile Road, Clawson; Free.

Karaoke/Open Mic

Opening

Karaoke Night with Supercoolwicked p.m.; Deluxx Fluxx, 1274 Library St., Detroit; $5 Before 11PM.

COMEDY

Improv

Ant Hall Thursday Night Live! A comedy variety show! Featuring a new lineup of comedy sketch revues, stand-up, improv, video, more, every Thursday night in the Ant Hall! $5.00 8-10 p.m.

Stand-up

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Clinton Jackson with Jeff Dwoskin and Jason Gilleran. $20.00 7:30-11 p.m.

Friday, Dec. 16 Live/Concert

Allen Dennard Quintet 8:30 p.m.; The Blue LLama Jazz Club, 314 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; $35-$75.

Béla Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart and Punch Brothers 7:30 p.m.; Hill Auditorium, 825 N. University Ave., Ann Arbor; $14+ (student tickets available).

Billy Davis Rhythm Machine & Mighty Michael w/ DJ Mike Ross 8-11:30 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; free.

EMORFIK 9:30 p.m.; Elektricity Nightclub, 15 S. Saginaw St., Pontiac; $15/limited. Free w/ RSVP before 11 p.m.

Farmington Chorus Winter Concert 8 p.m.; The Hawk - Farmington Hills Community Center, 29995 Twelve Mile Rd., Farmington Hills; $15 in advance $20 at the door.

Gimme Gimme Disco (18+) p.m.;

December 14-20, 2022 | metrotimes.com

Janet Jackson announces tour with a stop in Detroit

THERE ARE SUPERSTARS, and then there’s Janet Jackson.

The global icon took to social media to announce a new North American tour kicking off in the spring, with a stop in Detroit.

The “Together Again” tour is Jackson’s first in four years and celebrates several milestones for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Jackson will be celebrating her 50th year in show business, plus the 30th an-

Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $15.

HAPPY HOLIDAZE with Blind Liars | Living AI | Checker | Tears of a Martian | Out From Under | Channel 89 | Heat Above | Fatal Conceit | Lee Cleaveland and the Left Hand Band 7 p.m.; Blind Pig, 208 S. First St., Ann Arbor; $12.

Holiday Rock Show featuring Ronny Tibbs & the 305’s - The High Strung - Aaron Jonah Lewis 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $17-$20.

Home for the Holidaze Songwriter Showcase & Charity Drive 8-11 p.m.; Cadieux Cafe, 4300 Cadieux Rd., Detroit; $10.

James Carter Holiday Show 7:30 p.m. Cliff Bell’s, 2030 Park Ave., Detroit; $35.

Jeff “Skunk” Baxter 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $30.

Latin Late Night: DJ Josef Deas 10:30 p.m.; The Blue LLama Jazz Club, 314 S. Main St., Ann Arbor.

niversary of her album janet and the 25th anniversary of her album The Velvet Rope

Jackson isn’t coming alone. Rapper Ludacris will be joining the “Rhythm Nation” singer on tour.

The Together Again tour will stop in Detroit on May 24 at Little Caesars Arena. Tickets go on sale Friday, Dec. 16, at 11 a.m. on 313presents.com, livenation.com, and ticketmaster.com. —Alex Washington

Moon Boots p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $15-$20.

The Moxie Strings Holiday Show 8-10 p.m.; 20 Front Street, 20 Front St., Lake Orion; $25.

Supercrunch: A Grateful Dead Tribute w/ Big Salad 7-11:30 p.m.; The Parliament Room at Otus Supply, 345 E Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale; $15.

Whitney 7 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $20-$34.50.

James Carter Holiday Show 7:30 p.m. Cliff Bell’s, 2030 Park Ave., Detroit; $35.

DJ/Dance

Fast & Loose w/ DJ Nervous Recs + special guests p.m.-2 a.m.; Second Best, 42 Watson St., Detroit; free.

Minnesota Back 2 Earth Tour p.m.-2 a.m.; Tangent Gallery Hastings Street Ballroom, 715 E. Milwaukee Ave., Detroit; $20.

Miss Monique p.m.-2 a.m.; Leland City Club, 400 Bagley Street, Detroit; $20.

Trust The DJ w/ Blakito p.m.;

Deluxx Fluxx, 1274 Library St., Detroit; $5 before 11 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 17

Live/Concert

James Carter Holiday Show -18, 7:30 p.m. Cliff Bell’s, 2030 Park Ave., Detroit; $35.

Amino Acids with Norcos Y Horchata and abner. p.m.; Sgt. Pepperoni’s Pizzeria Deli, 4120 Woodward Avenue, Detroit.

Boys Of Fall p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $18.

East Side Still Alive (Birthday Bash) w/ DJ Soul-Lo p.m.; Bowlero Lanes Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.

Emo Night Brooklyn (18+) 8:30 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $15.

Former Critics, Riot Course, Seaholm, Parkway & Columbia 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $12.

Hot Mulligan 5 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $30.

James Carter Holiday Show 7:30 p.m. Cliff Bell’s, 2030 Park Ave., Detroit; $35.

Jovi (Bon Jovi tribute band) Infinity & Beyond (Journey tribute) 7 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $15-$80.

Latin Late Night: Nick Collins Trio 10:30 p.m.; The Blue LLama Jazz Club, 314 S. Main St., Ann Arbor, MATRODA 9:30 p.m.; Elektricity Nightclub, 15 S. Saginaw St., Pontiac; $20.

May Erlewine & The Motivations 8 p.m.; Blind Pig, 208 S. First St., Ann Arbor; $25.

The Polish Muslims | Holiday Show | w/ The Redones 7-11:30 p.m.; The Parliament Room at Otus Supply, 345 E Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale; $10.

Sadie Bass 8-10 p.m.; 20 Front Street, 20 Front St., Lake Orion; $22.

Sean Dobbins & The Modern Jazz Messengers Holiday Show 8:30 p.m.; The Blue LLama Jazz Club, 314 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; $15+.

Smells Like Nirvana 8 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $18.

Straight No Chaser 7 p.m.; Detroit Masonic Temple Library, 500 Temple St., Detroit.

Whitey Morgan 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit. $25+.

Local buzz

Got a tip about Detroit’s music scene? Hit us up at music@metrotimes.com!

DJ Minx returns to Spot Lite: It’s been a banner year for DJ Minx (real name Jennifer Witcher). Despite her 30-plus years behind the decks, the DJ has recently started to gain wider international recognition, with a career-spanning cover feature on DJ Mag last December and an entire stage dedicated to her during the 2022 Movement Festival. Minx returns to Spot Lite on Saturday for her popular, fan-favorite residency “DJ Minx and Friends.” To close out its first year, Minx is going out with a bang, inviting fellow electronic music legends Soul Clap to share the decks with her. Like their name implies, the DJ duo Soul Clap provide soulful, groovy dance tunes that share a kinship with Minx’s brand of soul-driven house and techno beats. Soul Clap contributed a remix on the recent reissue of Minx’s cult-classic “A Walk in the Park” single, so you can hear for yourself how well the artists compliment each other. If you like what you hear, head to the party this weekend at Spot Lite to dance to it all night long. Tickets are available on See Tickets.

Blue Hawaii head to Haute to Death: Although hailing from across the border in Montreal, Blue Hawaii gained many local fans after a raucous Detroit show at UFO Factory earlier this year. The electro-pop duo (consisting of distinctive production from Agor “DJ Kirby” and soaring vocals from Raphaelle “Ra” Standell-Preston) is returning for a victory

lap, hosted by Haute to Death for their last monthly party of 2022 at Marble Bar on Saturday. Blue Hawaii pairs anthemic vocals with a widevariety of dance music genres, usually treading into the disco and jazzy lo-fi house territories with the occasional trance remix thrown in. Their energy matches that of the typical Haute to Death night: freeform, warmhearted and glamorous. Expect plenty of audience interaction with some call and response from Ra, whose own dance moves and head-bobbing is nothing short of inspiring. Local support from rising DJ Psychick, plus the usual Haute to Death residents Jon and Ash, is worth the price of admission alone. Tickets are available on Resident Advisor.

Monday is the New Monday: When we first moved to Corktown in Detroit, our main way of meeting new people was going to music shows. We particularly enjoyed more casual events that were as much about the crowd as they were about the artists. We’re pretty sure that the Monday is the New Monday parties at Motor City Wine started around that time, 2017 or so, and it is that we met many of our future friends and collaborators in “the scene” for the first time. Current residents Shigeto, Kenjiro, Ryan Spencer, and Tammy Lakkis always bring the heat, and they have a rotating array of special guests that has proven to be pretty impressive as well. It’s a great spot to be at any time

of year, but particularly in the summer when the patio is open, setting the scene for one of the dreamiest weeknight parties you’ll ever go to. With good music, good people, good wine, and even good food when they host pop-ups, Motor City Wine is the place to be on a Monday night. Who knows, maybe your new best friend awaits you across the bar.

Willis Show Bar presents Ro Spit: You may know Willis Show Bar for its live music and elegant atmosphere, and you may know Ro Spit from his work in fashion including a recent collaboration with the Jordan brand, but if you haven’t seen the two in action together you’re in for a treat. While Willis continues to program live music for their early shows Thursday-Saturday, at night they have shifted to hosting an array of recurring and one-off DJ nights that bring an electric energy to the usually calm and collected space. Think fancy cocktail bar meets block party, dance floor in the corner, booths available for rent, with great music and delicious drinks flowing all night long. The classic feel of the space — which was open from 1949-1978 before reopening in 2018 — along with the incredible sound system make for an excellent listening experience. This Friday, Ro will be hosting a few friends to join him as he celebrates the one year anniversary of his Willis residency. Spots will fill up fast and the venue has limited capacity, so we recommend getting your tickets ASAP on Willis’s website, and be sure to check out the rest of their offerings this month and into 2023 (an honorable mention to the dueling pianos show on Thursday as well).

DJ Minx. VIOLA KLOCKO

By Broccoli and Joe Zimmer

MUSIC

‘Like an ouija board’

With the Imaginatron, Steven Pivalsky wants to make you move

By e

Steven Pivalsky hopes to wake people up, in more ways than one.

The primary catalyst for doing so would be the Imaginatron, which is technically a band, but it’s also an instrument, and possibly even an ambulatory dimension onto itself, too.

But Pivalsky, a longtime Hamtramck resident who’s technically been residing way over on the other side of the world for much of the past year, is also waking people up through coffee roasting he started out as a barista in Eastern Market several years ago and eventually became director of coffee for Germack, but is now currently working toward making some of his even bigger coffee bean dreams a reality very soon.

But we’ll get back to the coffee and Pivalsky’s world travels a little later on. For now, let’s get back to the Imaginatron.

Like an ouija board

“It’s definitely about breaking down

the barriers,” Pivalsky says, referring to his proclivity, as a singer (and conjurer?) to spend nearly the entirety of an Imaginatron performance off the stage, weaving around audience members like the instigator of history’s most gentlest mosh pit until he’s essentially loosened up a critical mass of previously stock-still bystanders and coaxed them into joining a sort of dance that feels ceremonial and is conducted entirely by impulse. “There’s this term to explain it that I don’t actually say out loud a lot, but it’s u like an ouija board?” he says. When you go to an Imaginatron show, whether you stay on the side lines, or if you let yourself get swept up, you’ll nevertheless observe, he says, “these u propulsions to where, at some point, you don’t know who’s moving it anymore.”

If you went to your first Imaginatron show, which could possibly be the one coming up this Saturday at the Old

Miami, it would appear as though Pivalsky is the conventional lead singer of a band e the Imaginatron, where he prompts his Korg Electribe sampler to churn out quasi-psychedelic warblings, pulses, and bloops around with the expressive instrumentations of the virtuosic guitarist Nik Landstrom and versatile drummer Dan Paterson. In the live setting, this trio creates something that would almost sound like what a conventional music journalist might describe as being a blend of experimental electro-rock and darkly danceable post-punk, or maybe a deconstructionist-disco. But, frankly it’s weirder, woolier, and distinctly more whimsical than anything ever associated with those genre terms.

The Imaginatron, though, in the simplest terms, is “this all expansive t that exists at all times, everywhere,” Pivalsky says. “I’ve always tried to be a little more tactile, a little more grounded, and somewhat

more coherent when talking about an Imaginatron versus the tu Imaginatron.”

At this point, you can either conclude that it’s something impenetrably esoteric, or you can decide that you e e e in the Imaginatron, “because it’s more so an instrument unto itself,” Pivalsky reiterates. “An instrument that you can play anywhere, anytime, across all realities. The point of it is to get people who are there (at a show) to y it. It’s already there in front of you.

He adds, “And [an Imaginatron show] is a lesson in how to play that instrument. And like any first lesson, let’s say it’s ballet, you’ll be timid at first as you try it out. And then you can even see that in the people who’ve never been to an Imaginatron show, who aren’t sure yet, compared to someone who seen us before and might already know how to start playing it pretty fast. But there’s also no

The Imaginatron in 2017.

BRIAN ROZMAN

right way to do it because we engage with so many different realities, people can play in all these different ways. The intent of the Imaginatron is just to connect us to all possibilities.”

Pivalsky says that “the point of the Imaginatron” was never to be a band, but rather “...a trebuchet that launches us into these other experiences.” And it’s the notion of soul-broadening exer e e that overlaps with Pivalsky’s other life, his coffee life, where he’s been traveling through southeast Asia with Thomas J. Ameloot, founder of CoLabOps Coffee & Beverage Training, where they’ve been serving as educators and quality-graders of Arabica coffee beans. This, of course, could be an entirely separate article itself, but the point is that Pivalsky speaks to us while standing in the middle of a bustling night market in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which was just one of his many stops along this educational, coffee-centric tour of his, which also included Tokyo and Laos. (He’s come a long way since Easterm Market, really.)

“There have been so many moments, traveling the world, where I’m just like, t t e ” he says. “I was recently in Laos, riding on the back of a motorcycle with a guy who couldn’t speak English, and I couldn’t speak Laotian, but we hung out all day as he took me around to different coffee farms. We didn’t know what we were saying to each other until he showed me a coffee tree and I pointed and said, ‘typica?’And he shouted, ‘Yes, typica!’ We both looked at each other and laughed, but then started using coffee terminology to connect.”

Pivalsky riffs on that word, e t “Things are starting to come together,” he says. “Imaginatron and the coffee life are becoming more aligned in a way that I’ve been waiting for, for a long time.” If all goes to plan, Pivalsky and Ameloot will open up a brick and mortar coffee business in Hamtramck by late 2023. But the coffee coincidentally led to other connections, too.

“I played a show in Bangkok the last time I traveled for [coffee qualitygrading education], and that’s because I met a dude who ran an electronic music venue there, which, when I saw it — it felt very DIY and felt very Detroit, and felt like e!” he says.

Pivalsky says he was keen to genuinely connect with the music and arts scene in Bangkok, even if his visits there were limited, so he asked this gent if he could play a solo set (just Pivalsky and the drum machine) at his venue but this guy came back with a counter offer to instead play Bangkok

Street Noise, an underground, floating outdoor festival that happened to be coming up. “Definitely that ” Pivalsky shouted.

“But then I saw on social media that [fellow Detroit-based artist] Kirsten Carey [aka Throwaway] posted that she was in Tokyo on a student visa, studying Shamisen [guitar], and that she was going to be in Bangkok that same week and that she would be looking for things to do,” he says. “So I responded, ‘Do you wanna play a show?’” Carey, a fellow traveler, did indeed wind up sitting in on guitar for a very improvisational set with Pivalsky later that week, during a raucous night set, in the middle of the streets of Bangkok.

A mandatory holiday jamboree

Now, there’s a theatrical narrative surrounding this weekend’s show at the Old Miami. It seems the Imaginatron has been “acquired by a large corporate entity,” Pivalsky says, and it’s been turned into “the Imaginatron Moving Company.” He added, “I’m actually not technically or legally involved with it, anymore we have a new front man, this guy named Spazoz. Spazoz is like this entrepreneur who’s expanded his empire to every reality and he’s good at using the Imaginatron in a way that I never really considered he uses it for r t. He’s really good at moving things from reality to reality. He keeps growing it! He’s expanding, now, even into non-realities!”

That’s the gist of this upcoming show, conceptually speaking. You’ll see the drama of Pivalsky, Landstrom, and Paterson losing any influence whatsoever over the Imaginatron, as it falls into the clutches of a corporate autocrat. “It’s a holiday party that’s mandatory, too,” Pivalsky says. “Everyone in the universe is an employee [of the Imaginatron], so it’s an intergalactic office party. Everybody should be there and, frankly, everyone to be there…”

But the Imaginatron is not all that you’ll see at the Old Miami this Saturday. Pivalsky reverently remarked upon the “Imaginatron-esque presence of the other high-energy acts also on the lineup,” which includes the punk group Burn Maralago, hip-hop provocateur JP from the HP, and Planet Ant improv specialists Zelkin and Belkkin performing skits between sets.

e tr y t ry y ree t Bur r r t e e t e Be t rt t tur y e t t e e etr t er

‘Things are starting to come together’

A different take on Lebanese cuisine

By Jane Slaughter

After your visit the Leila software sends you an email: “How likely are you to recommend Leila to others? 1-10.” I object to the question — no room for nuance! My nuanced answer is that I would recommend Leila to others if they want alcohol with their Lebanese food, if they want to try some dishes not usually seen in our area’s abundance of Lebanese restaurants, and, especially, if money is no object. If they’re just going to order what most guests are ordering (see below), don’t bother.

When I mentioned to an acquaintance that I was about to visit Leila (pronounced Layla), she made a little face like, “Why?” Her view was that it wasn’t worth it to pay twice as much as the norm. If you go to Leila, don’t order the same things you order in Dearborn and expect them to be twice as good. Order what you don’t find on other menus, sit back, and enjoy your wine.

Because, according to manager Taylor Cramer, the most-ordered items, after the Lebanita cocktail, are hummus, spiced fried potatoes (batata harra), and a mixed grill of shishes.

Really, Detroit diners? You’re splurging at a fancy downtown place and that’s as far out as you want to venture?

You can get hummus and falafel anywhere! Consider instead something off the beaten path, like moghrabieh, which is lavender-braised chicken with couscous. It’s lemony yet bland, one-note yet rich, and it could have used more chicken. Actually, I liked this better the next day as takehome, once the flavors had had time to settle, but it’s a revelation in any case. Unique.

Or eggplant fettah, a real carnival of flavors including chickpeas, lamb confit, and yogurt, though it was disappointingly light on eggplant. Though this is on the “hot mezze” menu, it’s big enough for an entrée, and I raved about it throughout the meal.

Likewise garlic confit, tender halfburnt cloves mixed with tomatoes and basil in a soy reduction, with lots of sauce for sopping. This was different, and I loved it.

I remarked to a staffer that this was the first time I’d had ribs in a Lebanese restaurant. He said that was a fre -

quent comment; the ribs are a transfer from the Eid family’s other Lebanese restaurant, the long-lived Phoenicia in Birmingham. Apparently patriarch Sameer Eid learned to love ribs long ago during his time in Austin. I found the ribs too dry, though, and the meat sparse, and the barbecue sauce on the side was standard-issue. You have better places to eat ribs in Detroit.

Leila is obviously not halal, but there is one halal dish on the menu, the $72 Creekstone Ribeye with Lebanese zip sauce.

Reverting to the Lebanese tried and true: the mixed grill is lots of meat, two skewers each of shish tawook, shish kafta, and shish kebab. The chicken is nicely charred and the lamb in the shish kafta is succulent, with some fatty bits I appreciated. Here’s to more lamb on area menus! The ribeye in the kebab was not super tender, plain but good. This is all served with excellent house-baked pita to soak up the juices and sauces, including a fine whipped toum. Skip the side of rice with boring tomato sauce.

Hummus & Hashwi is another “available elsewhere” dish, along with fattoush, baba ghanouj, mjaddara, arayes, and sujuk. It foregrounds ground lamb and pine nuts in a warm, smooth, and creamy concoction that does the chef proud. The mjaddara is also fine — who doesn’t like caramelized onions? — and it’s surrounded

by a tabbouleh-like mix that includes jalapeños.

For dessert, one night we ordered a cigar roll, which is a normal baklavah. And another it was a Lebanese sundae, which is ashta ice cream made with orange blossoms, a few pistachios, and “fairy floss” — like cotton candy but less ethereal.

That popular Lebanita, the biggest seller on the menu, is tequila, spiced pear, almond, honey, and lemon juice, and the other cocktails share a propensity to sweetness. The daiquiri includes za’atar and baking spice!

There’s arak, too, distilled from grapes and anise seeds and tasting of licorice. Leila’s wine list is very long, $11-$19 by the glass, $38-$475 by the bottle, and there’s one Lebanese pilsner. I liked an appropriately bitey Prosecco and a mild Côtes du Rhône.

Lighting is dim, with black tables, banquettes, and napkins, the gloom relieved by enormous chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling windows on trendy Capitol Park.

Consider Leila if you’re looking for something different — but then don’t just go and order the $10 fries.

If

TOM PERKINS

Detroit City Distillery’s tasting room is now a ‘Whiskey Winter Wonderland’

By Lee DeVito

FANS OF DETROIT City Distillery’s award-winning spirits can now enjoy them in a cozy holiday-themed setting the Eastern Market company is calling a “Winter Whiskey Wonderland.”

Beyond the festive lighting, the distillery’s tasting room has also released a new holiday menu with 15 new craft cocktails.

“Think of this as a personal invitation to a fantastic Christmas house party with way better booze,” Detroit City Distillery co-owner Michael Forsyth says. “Our bartenders really pushed themselves to create some inventive and creative cocktails for the occasion. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but right now, my two are the Claus for Vacation and Fizzions of Sugar Plums, and pretty much everything on the whiskey side of the menu. Grab your friends for a drink and revel under the lights ”

Claus for Vacation features Gilded Age Vodka infused with peppermint and almond tea, strawberry, fernet, and heavy cream, while Fizzions Of Sugar Plums includes Shopkeeper’s Gin, aperol, lemon, honey-plum tea jelly, and bubbly.

Other new menu items include the Coquito, a frozen drink with Puerto Rican egg nog with Summer Rum, coconut, sweet condensed milk, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon, as well as the 40 Thieves, a mix of Four Grain Bourbon, hot apple cider, thieves spice blend with rosemary, cassia, clove, and lemon peel served hot.

The distillery also says the space will host pop-ups from local chefs. DCD’s award-winning bourbon, whiskey, rye, gin, and vodka will also be on sale for holiday gifts.

Detroit City Distillery’s Tasting Room is located at 2462 Riopelle St. More information is available at detroitcitydistillery.com

Karl’s closes doors ‘for now’

SO MUCH FOR brunch at Karl’s. The popular throwback diner inside Detroit’s Siren Hotel has closed its doors.

Karl’s had been operating inside the hotel for three years and was known for its retro vibes, including a vintage Wurlitzer jukebox.

It was founded by two-time James Beard Award semifinalist Kate Williams. Williams also ran Corktown spot Lady of the House, which closed in early 2021.

WDIV reports Karl’s last day was Tuesday, Nov. 29.

The restaurant confirmed the closure in an Instagram post on Monday.

“Detroit: After three years of tunes on the Wurlitzer, and too many coffee refills to count, Karl’s is closing up shop at The Siren Hotel for now,” the restaurant said. “We want to thank every guest who has made one of Karl’s booths a home over the years. Stay tuned for updates and in the meantime: See you this season at Candy Bar, The Siren Caf , Albena, Paramita Records, and Sid Gold’s?” —Randiah Camille Green

New Order Coffee reopens with new location and owner

AFTER CLOSING DURING the pandemic, New Order Coffee Cafe has made its return to metro Detroit by way of St. Clair Shores.

New Order Coffee’s “cereal milk lattes,” cold brews, and electric-roasted coffee are being served at a new location at 25107 Jefferson St. The company originally opened stores in Detroit in 2017 and in Royal Oak in 2019 before shuttering in 2020.

The cafe’s original owner, Liz Rose, has passed the ownership baton to Patrick Seeney, who has been part of the company since its inception. Seeney has continued to sell the cafe’s roasted beans at local farmer’s markets and online after the physical shops closed.

“Since New Order first came to fruition, it has built such a fiercely loyal customer base. I’m so thankful we’ve been able to keep the business going by selling our custom roasted coffee beans,” Seeney said in a press release. “I’m even more thrilled to bring back the in-person New Order experience back to Metro Detroit this winter.”

The new St. Clair Shores location features walk-up coffee service and patio seating, in partnership with its neighbor Baffin Brewing. In addition to lattes, espresso, and fresh-roasted coffee, the cafe features pastries by local baker Kristen Berger Martinez and Detroit Cookie Co.

New Order Coffee is open from 7 a.m.-3 p.m. from Tuesday-Sunday and 8 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. More info is available at newordercoffee.com.

—Randiah Camille Green

COURTESY PHOTOS

Black-owned cannabis company Viola launches ‘Grandma’s Kitchen’ edibles

By Lee DeVito

VIOLA BRANDS, THE cannabis company co-founded by former NBA player Al Harrington, has launched a new line of edibles inspired by his late grandmother.

The “Grandma’s Kitchen” products are now available in Michigan at Puff Cannabis locations in Hamtramck, Madison Heights, and Utica.

The company was founded in 2011, named after Harrington’s grandmother, who used cannabis to treat her glaucoma.

“Prior to her passing, Grandma Viola was only able to medicate through various infused foods and we wanted to bring to market a product that would allow everyone to enjoy our premium products,” the company said in a statement. “Our Vegan and Gluten Free Chef inspired treats are made with plant-based ingredients and a precise dose of THC to provide a consistent high. The non-GMO treats are naturally flavored with no chemical ingredients to fit any diet and provide the perfect balance, not too sweet and

not too tart.”

The company adds, “Since we wanted to bring these products to market in honor of Grandma Viola, we started with four flavors that reminded us of her.”

Those include “Auntie’s Punch,” a sativa hybrid based on fruit punch (“No family gathering at Grandma’s was complete without a big pitcher of auntie’s punch,” the company says); “Uptown Espresso,” a caffeinated coffee-flavored sativa (“Every morning for Grandma was started with a hot cup of coffee with just a bit of sugar”) “Paradise Island,” an indica hybrid (“One of Al’s fondest memories with Grandma was their trip to the islands”); and “Big Apple Dreaming,” a strong indica that tastes like green apples (“Grandma was known all around for her apple pie”).

The 10mg gummies are shaped like Viola’s logo and come in plastic tubes that include additional guidance on how to use them. For example, “Auntie’s Punch” says it’s for “good times,” while “Big Apple Dreaming” says it’s

for “lights out” — the powerful gummies can be used to induce sleep.

The company will celebrate a launch party at the Puff Cannabis Madison Heights location (2 Ajax Dr., Madison Heights puffcannabiscompany.com) on Friday, Dec. 16 with an in-store activation and a live DJ.

Viola also says it plans to launch the products in Arizona, California, and Colorado early next year.

can get a free jar of joints for donating winter coats for kids

MICHIGAN DISPENSARY CHAIN

Puff Cannabis is giving out free joints for a good cause.

The company will give a jar of its “Baby Jeeter” pre-rolls to customers who donate coats and jackets for children ages 3 to 12 as part of its “Jackets for Joints” campaign.

All of the chain’s locations are participating in the promotion, including its Madison Heights, Hamtramck, and Utica stores. The campaign runs through Sunday, Dec. 18 while supplies last.

“I recognize that due to the times we live in, many children throughout the state of Michigan need warm jackets and coats and our ‘Jackets for Joints’ program will come to the aid of many of those little ones,” Puff Cannabis founder Justin Elias said in a statement. “I hope we can collect and give away thousands of warm jackets and coats this winter in order to keep our children warm.”

The donated coats and jackets will be donated to local churches and other community organizations, the company says.

Puff Cannabis says it donated more than 1,700 Thanksgiving turkeys during a recent promotion.

re r t e t ucannaco.com.

—Lee DeVito

The Reef drops ‘Reefopoly’ promotion

CANNABIS PROVISIONING CENTER The Reef is hosting the most interesting game of monopoly we’ll probably ever play.

“Reefopoly,” as they’re calling it, gives you the chance to win $100,000 cash, a Caribbean cruise for two, or (more importantly) free weed for life.

Technically it’s an ounce of free weed every month for the next 20 years, so not exactly “for life,” but still, we’ll take it.

To play Reefopoly, you have to buy The Reef brands Cheap $#it or Blooominati to receive a scratch-off game piece with a code that you enter online. You’ll have to collect several game pieces to win the lifetime supply of weed, but instant prizes like preroll packs and an eighth of flower are also available.

Reefopoly is active for the next six months at The Reef’s Detroit and Muskegon locations. It was inspired by the McDonald’s Monopoly promotion.

“The Reef Cannabis Dispensary has been front and center in the industry from the beginning and we feel this fun game where we give our existing and new customers a way to win once-in-a-lifetime prizes is appropriate and will be a lot of fun,” Reef general manager Chris Campbell said in a press release. “And with The Reef reimbursing the ‘state and doctor visit fees’ for existing and new patients, everyone can join in the fun! Each time McDonald’s, the leaders in the burger industry, do this promotion, they are very successful.”

Proceeds from Reefopoly will be donated to children’s charities in Detroit in Muskegon. More info is at reefopoly.com.

—Randiah Camille Green

You

COURTESY PHOTO

CULTURE

Artist of the week

Judy Bowman’s ‘Gratiot Griot’ exhibit is straight up Detroit swag. And it’s all made out of paper.

By Randiah Camille Green

This revitalized Metro Times feature will highlight a different artist each week. Got someone in mind you think deserves the spotlight? Hit us up at arts metrotimes.com.

Anyone can make a collage with magazine and paper cutouts, but no one can do it like Judy Bowman.

The mixed-media collage artist has a knack for finding complex prints and swatches that perfectly match her subjects. She captures the scruffy texture of a man’s beard, the funky pattern on a jazz man’s jacket, and the swagger of a young father with illustrious paper sourced from all over the world.

She patches the cutouts together in a way that makes the viewer do a double take, as they ask, “wait, she made all this out of paper?”

Bowman was born and raised in Detroit’s Black Bottom neighborhood, just off Gratiot Avenue. It’s probably why her work has so much soul in its depiction of Black life, music, and culture.

Her collages recreate familiar scenes for anyone who grew up Black, like adults playing a spirited game of cards while the kids goof off on the other side of the room, or a group of old heads dressed to the nines with their suits, fedoras, and Rolexes like they’re heading

to an Isley Brothers concert.

This piece, appropriately named “Detroit Swagger,” is one of Bowman’s newest works which debuted in her Gratiot Griot exhibit this October.

Surprisingly, Gratiot Griot is the art veteran’s first solo museum show and combines both new and older pieces.

And the work doesn’t just lie flat. Pieces like “The Golden Time of Day” (which we’re pretty sure was named after the Maze and Frankie Beverly song) hang off the canvas, almost as an invitation to viewers.

When you hear the word “collage,” you may think of something you’d

make at a Friendsgiving craft party. But Bowman’s work is far from that. The depth of highlights and shadows she recreates in her subject’s skin alone sets her apart.

Bowman’s work appears in permanent collections at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Historical Museum, Georgetown University Library, and the Flint Institute of Arts. Homegirl has also exhibited nationally with the Eric Firestone Gallery, was a 2018 winner of the Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series at SCOPE Miami, Art Basel, and is a 2021 Kresge Visual Arts Fellow.

In West African traditions, a “griot” is a storyteller who preserves the cultural legacy and histories of their people.

Bowman is the Gratiot Griot: an artist who uses collage to put the stories, sights, and sounds of the Blackest city in the country (that’s Detroit) on paper.

Gratiot Griot is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Detroit (aka MOCAD) until March 25, 2023; 4454 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313- 832-6622; mocadetroit.org.

COURTESY OF MOCAD

At Cinema Detroit this week, two tales of parents and daughters

By George Elkind

At the end of most years, so much film work lands that a lot passes Detroit and its viewers by. But sometimes we get lucky, as we have this week — thanks to a slate of strong and complementary programming at Cinema Detroit. A pair of two new independent works distributed by A24 — each about daughters at different stages of their lives, and their relationships to their parents — showcase the sentiments and experiences of each filmmaker (both writers) underneath fine, plain veils of fiction. Aftersun and The Eternal Daughter paint contrasting senses of self felt respectively at the dawn and crest of life.

Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun opens on Sophie (Frankie Corlo), a girl of 11, pressing her father Calum (Paul Mescal) to speak into the camera, commemorating his birthday as he approaches — it seems too quickly — my own age of 31. We quickly find that the recording is bound to be more than just a curio, an early, probably miniDV record (as made clear by its blown-out, almost searingly bright images and shallow plane of focus) of both a shared moment and a document of its own medium and time. It soon emerges that Calum’s parenting style has skewed mostly absentee, making the trip to Turkey documented (by Wells and Sophie both) a kind of performative moment of visitation, an instance of a father enacting presence for a daughter he’s long ago left.

The whole film doesn’t look like Sophie’s footage, but it does owe something to it, pursuing a pressurized sense of intimacy in which objects, often visible only as blurred and looming shadows, frequently carve up and into the foreground of the frame. At times these forms are architectural. At others they’re remote but human, conveying a sense of reserve the film trades in throughout: granting just the barest sense of access to what goes on within even the people we care for most.

Though this strained sense feels bidirectional, with both Calum and Sophie attempting to muster some aura of a close bond they may not quite yet have, the film hews decidedly closer to Sophie’s perspective. Through her eyes or something like them, Calum appears burdened by both her presence and her absence, experiencing some hazy blend of failure, guilt, and responsibility — and thus seeming, while affectionate, relatively remote. In one telltale scene, Calum sways woozily with a cigarette outside the glass doors of their darkened hotel room (evoking a key moment from 2018’s Burning) as the camera peers over the bed and outside. The only sound we hear is Sophie’s nocturnal, peaceful breathing from the interior space of the foreground, placing them in separate worlds within the medium of film’s domain. Confining Calum to the sphere of image and Sophie to a space of sound, they’re isolated from one another in a way it seems only the work of filmmaking itself, in joining the two (in either Charlotte Wells’ or Sophie’s hands) can ever really hope to bridge.

The film oscillates throughout between moments like this and ones more convivial, moving between the wary and the tender with Charlotte’s sense of need spanning the two modes. Leaving much to speculation, Aftersun doesn’t promise any more than it can really offer, keeping its proceedings at a watchful distance even at the points where it seems most obliged to share and give.

More brimming in spite of its buttoned-up appearance is Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter, which manages to expand upon the self-reflexive world laid out in her pair of Souvenir films while standing firmly on its own. Starring her old friend Tilda Swinton as Julie, a filmmaker vacationing with her mother Rosalind (also played by Tilda Swinton, more on that soon) as

she works on her next script, the two find themselves in a nearly empty and sparsely staffed remote hotel ahead of (yes) Rosalind’s birthday. The atmosphere produced there, wooded as it is and beset by fog, echoes the Gothic works of past mid-century filmmakers, most notably Michael Powell’s 1945 I Know Where I’m Going! but suggesting, too, the resourceful horrors of Cat People and The Leopard Man’s ingenious Jacques Tourneur.

This sense of haunting vibrates between, as most potential ghost stories do, on some emotional or experiential frequency between that of freighted memory and the spectral supernatural, drawing little distinction between the two. Faces are rumored to appear in windows of empty rooms, mysterious figures pass through common spaces, and shadows and fog embroil themselves in a turf war outside. A dog even, in one scene, starts acting strange. Hogg renders this atmosphere with her trademark attention to architecture as a vector of mood, capturing through impeccable decor and framing the everevolving (though sometimes nearly embalmed) feel of the spaces the film inhabits.

For Julie and Rosalind, that “feel” of mostly peaceful, almost cozy hauntedness is wrapped up in personal and familial history, dating back to the time of the film’s key influences, just after the Second World War. (The sense is underlined, too, by the fact the film’s sole shooting location doesn’t look to have changed much since.) Within this context, amid the whirl of history we all

move within, Julie and Rosalind carefully regard each other as characters in a way that’s about far more than some kind of actorly gimmick, embodied beautifully by Swinton and Hogg’s work here.

Each time the characters — two Tildas, as mother and daughter — sit or lay across from one another, they address and regard one another to an even greater degree than do most parents and children, as reflections of themselves. In looking at each other, they attempt both to be present and (in Julie’s case especially) to project a future while living in some key, confusing manner in the past. In this context, the two manifest a credibly thorny, deeply conflicted relationship animated by a sense of differing needs, a tension Swinton calls forth through carefully controlled performances. When the frequent brittleness of Julie’s demeanor eventually seems to crack, this sense evidencing itself more fully, the film reaches a new sentimental pitch. I mean this not negatively, but instead to credit a perfectly calibrated achievement in emotional rendering — expressive as anything that might be improvised within the film’s patiently anticipatory fabric. Capturing just as well as in The Souvenir films (in which Tilda acted opposite her own real-life daughter) the depth, burdens, and reservations inherent to family obligation, it’s a miracle Hogg’s film achieves such weight while managing still to breathe so well. Beneath each film’s vacation in air of coziness lies a sense of discontent: a stirring force in both.

Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal in Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun. A24

CULTURE

Savage Love

The birthday boy

By Dan Savage

There is more to this week’s Savage Love. To read the entire column, go to Savage.Love.

: Q I’m a 50-year-old cis straight female writing with a question about my son. He’s 19 and in college. I’m a single mom and we are very close.When he was eight, I found him on my laptop looking at videos of “strong women” wrestling with men. Since then, that’s all he looks at online and fantasizes about. There is a particular woman he follows. For a fee, you can wrestle with her. She engages in other acts as well (BDSM), butaccording tomy son, sex is not permitted. He says her website is very clearabout this.He assures me she’s legit and has only positive online reviews. I asked to look at her website, but he was reluctant to show me due to embarrassment. I didn’t push it. Then for his upcoming birthday he asked if I would split the cost of a session with this woman:$600! My r t er r ety y e listen to too many true crime podcasts, but I’m worried that something bad will happen to him and I’ll never see him again. I know that many people visit sex workers and live to tell the tale. And now, as I sit here writing this, I realize that it’s sex workers who are the more vulnerable ones. So, maybe his safety is a non-issue. Still, I’m his mom and I worry. My other concern is that engaging with this woman may mess him up sexually. He hasn’t had any prior sexual experiences and I’m worried that if this r t e er e e t make ordinary, real-life pedestrian sex uninteresting for him in the future.

I have no one to talk with about this which is why I’m reaching out to you. I’ve always maintained an open and non-judgmental relationship with my son, but I’m really struggling with this. He already has an appointment and I’m super ambivalent about this and need your reassurance.

—They Grow Up So Fast

: A “I’ve always been kinky,” journalist and author Jillian Keenan wrote in her 2016 memoir Sex With Shakespeare. “My fetish appeared early, long before I knew anything about kink or the diversity of sexual lifestyles. As a child, I pored over any book that mentioned spanking, paddling, or thrashing. Tom Sawyer and The Whipping Boy went through many early reads, as did, believe it or not, key entries in the Oxford English Dictionary . I looked up the definitions for spank, paddle, thrash, and whip so often that, after a few years, my dictionary automatically fell open to those pages.”

Keenan’s memoir tracks her two lifelong obsessions: the plays of William Shakespeare (way kinkier than your high school English teacher ever let on) and her love of spanking, obsessions that have intersected and informed each other in surprising ways throughout her life.

Reading Sex With Shakespeare might give you some comfort, TGUSF. Because Keenan, who like your son was raised by a single mom, found a community of like-minded kinksters as an adult, found love and lost love and found love again, and along the way made a name for herself as a fearless foreign correspondent. And like Keenan, TGUSF, your son is kinky and always has been. Now, not every pre-pubescent child’s obsession becomes a full-blown kink in adulthood; if that was the way it worked, there would be a lot more dinosaur fetishists out there. (And there are some!) But your kid’s kinks, like Keenan’s kinks, were hard-wired early and a first sexual experience that’s strictly vanilla won’t erase them. He is who he is, TGUSF, and while dating is going to be a little bit more of a challenge for him, TGUSF, you son is gonna have a much easier time finding likeminded perverts out there — friends,

play partners, and potential romantic partners — than kinksters did before the Internet came along.

All that said, I don’t think you should get your son a sex worker for his birthday (or go halfsies on one), TGUSF, and I don’t think your son should’ve asked you to. Being close is fine — being close is wonderful — but you can be close and have or establish healthy and appropriate boundaries. “There are things a mother has a right not to know,” my mom liked to say. She knew her kids, once we were adults, were out in the world taking risks and exploring our sexualities and making mistakes and sometimes getting into trouble. Mom was there for us when the shit hit the fan, but she didn’t want to know where we were, who we were with, or what we were getting up to at all times. Because she didn’t wanna worry more than she, as a mom, was going to anyway. So, when I called my mom once from a sex dungeon in Berlin (on her birthday!), and she asked where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing, I lied to her.

If your son is old enough to book a session with a sex worker, TGUSF, he’s old enough to pay for it himself. And if he needs to talk about it with someone and he doesn’t have a friend he can confide in about his kinks, well, that’s what Reddit and Twitter and sex-advice columnists are for. His sex life isn’t your business, and he shouldn’t make it your business. Also not your business: how your son chooses to spend his birthday money. If he spends his birthday money on a PS5, that’s something he could share with his mom. If he spends his birthday money on a sex worker, that’s something he should lie to his mom about. If your son doesn’t know he should lie to his mom about that kind of stuff yet — if he doesn’t know there are things a mom has a right not to know — then you’ll have to tell him.

P.S. My first sexual experiences were exactly what my mom wanted them to be — very straight and very vanilla — and they didn’t make any less gay or any less kinky. That’s just not the way it works.

Send your question to mailbox@savage.love. Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love.

CULTURE Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES: March 21 – April 19

Aries painter Vincent van Gogh was renowned for translating his sublime and unruly passions into colors and shapes on canvas. It was a demanding task. He careened between torment and ecstasy. “I put my heart and soul into my work,” he said, “and I have lost my mind in the process.” That’s sad! But I have good news for you, Aries. In the coming months, you will have the potential to reach unprecedented new depths of zest as you put your heart and soul into your work and play. And hallelujah, you won’t lose your mind in the process! In fact, I suspect you will become more mentally healthy than you’ve been in a long time.

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20

“The soul is silent,” writes Taurus poet Louise Glück. “If it speaks at all, it speaks in dreams.” I don’t agree with her in general, and I especially don’t agree with her in regard to your life in the coming weeks. I believe your soul will be singing, telling jokes, whispering in the dark, and flinging out unexpected observations. Your soul will be extra alive and alert and awake, tempting you to dance in the grocery

store and fling out random praise and fantasize about having your own podcast. Don’t underestimate how vivacious your soul might be, Taurus. Give it permission to be as fun and funny as it yearns to be.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

The coming weeks will be an excellent time to expand your understanding about the nature of stress. Here are three study aids: 1. High stress levels are not healthy for your mind and body, but low to moderate stress can be good for you. 2. Low to moderate stress is even better for you if it involves dilemmas that you can ultimately solve.

3. There is a thing called “eustress,” which means beneficial stress. It arises from a challenge that evokes your vigor, resilience, and willpower. As you deal with it, you feel hopeful and hardy. It’s meaningful and interesting. I bring these ideas to your attention, dear Gemini, because you are primed to enjoy a rousing upgrade in your relationship with stress.

CANCER: June 21 – July 22

Long before he launched his illustrious career, Cancerian inventor Buckminster Fuller was accepted to enroll at Harvard University. Studying at such a prestigious educational institution was a high honor and set him up for a bright future. Alas, he was expelled for partying too hard. Soon he was working at odd jobs. His fortunes dwindled, and he grew depressed. But at age 32, he had a pivotal mystical experience. He seemed to be immersed in a globe of white light hovering above the ground. A disembodied voice spoke, telling him he “belonged to the universe” and that he would fulfill his life purpose if he applied himself to serving “the highest advantage of others.” How would you like a Buckminster Fuller-style intervention, Cancerian? It’s available if you want it and ask for it.

LEO: July 23 – August 22

On the plus side, this time next week, the days start getting a little longer. We’ll be bitching about the heat before you know it my fickle amigos.

Leo-born Judith Love Cohen was an electrical engineer who worked on NASA’s Apollo Space Program. She was also the mother of the famous actor Jack Black. When she was nine months pregnant with Jack, on the day she went into labor, she performed a heroic service. On their way to the moon, the three astronauts aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft had encountered a major systems failure. In the midst of her birth process, Judith Love Cohen carried out advanced troubleshooting that helped save their lives and bring their vehicle safely back to Earth. I don’t expect you to achieve such a monumental feat in the coming days, Leo. But I sus-

JAMES NOELLERT

pect you will be extra intrepid and even epic in your efforts. And your ability to magically multitask will be at a peak.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

When you’re at the height of your powers, you provide the people in your life with high-quality help and support. And I believe you could perform this role even stronger in 2023. Here are some of the best benefits you can offer: 1. Assist your allies in extracting bright ideas from confusing mishmashes. 2. Help them cull fertile seeds from decaying dross. 3. As they wander through messy abysses, aid them in finding where the redemption is. 4. Cheer on their successes with wit and charm.

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

A blogger named Daydreamydyke explains the art of bestowing soulful gifts. Don’t give people you care for generic consumer goods, she tells us. Instead, say to them, “I picked up this cool rock I found on the ground that reminded me of you,” or “I bought you this necklace for 50 cents at a yard sale because I thought you’d like it,” or “I’ve had this odd little treasure since childhood, but I feel like it could be of use to you or give you comfort, so I want you to have it.” That’s the spirit I hope you will adopt during the holiday season, Libra — as well as for all of 2023, which will be the year you could become a virtuoso gift-giver.

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21

In 1957, engineers Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes invented threedimensional plastic wallpaper. No one bought the stuff, though. A few years later, they rebranded it as Bubble Wrap and marketed it as material to protect packages during shipment. Success! Its new use has been popular ever since. I suspect you are in a phase comparable to the time between when their plastic wallpaper flopped and before they dreamed up Bubble Wrap. Have faith in the possibility of there being a Second Act, Scorpio. Be alert for new applications of possibilities that didn’t quite make a splash the first time around.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

I applaud your expansive curiosity. I admire your yearning to learn more and more about our mysterious world as you add to your understanding of how the game of life works. Your greed for interesting experiences is good greed! It is one of your most beautiful qualities. But now and then, there come times when you need to scale down your quest for fresh, raw truths and work on integrating what you have already absorbed. The coming weeks will be one of those times.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

Better than most, you have a rich potential to attune yourself to the cyclical patterns of life. It’s your birthright to become skilled at discerning natural rhythms at work in the human comedy. Even more fortunately, Capricorn, you can be deeply comforted by this awareness. Educated by it. Motivated by it. I hope that in 2023, you will develop your capacity to the next level. The cosmic flow will be on your side as you strive to feel the cosmic flow — and place yourself in closer and closer alignment with it.

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

Anne, a character in a book by L. M. Montgomery, says she prefers the word “dusk” over “twilight” because it sounds so “velvety and shadowy.” She continues, “In daylight, I belong to the world . . . in the night to sleep and eternity. But in the dusk, I’m free from both and belong only to myself.” According to my astrological assessment, you Aquarians will go through a dusk-like phase in the coming weeks: a time when you will belong solely to yourself and any other creature you choose to join you in your velvety, shadowy emancipation.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

My Piscean friend Venus told me, “We Pisceans feel everything very intensely, but alas, we do not possess the survival skills of a Scorpio or the enough-is-enough, self-protective mechanism of the Cancerians. We are the water sign most susceptible to being engulfed and flooded and overwhelmed.” I think Venus is somewhat correct in her assessment. But I also believe you Fishes have a potent asset that you may not fully appreciate or call on enough. Your ability to tune into the very deepest levels of emotion potentially provides you with access to a divine power source beyond your personality. If you allow it to give you all of its gifts, it will keep you shielded and safe and supported.

This week’s homework: Make a prediction about the best thing that will happen in your life during 2023.

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