Metro Times 09/28/22

NEWS & VIEWS

Feedback

We received the following email in response to last week’s review of Detroit’s Bar Pigalle restaurant.

Is that a serious article? How in the hell do you write a review of a restaurant without mentioning the chef? Have y’all ever done this before I know staffing is tough these days... especially for washed up has been rags....but not even mentioning the Chef in a half-assed review of a new establishment is comically amateur.

Amateur is a French word... maybe the friend that took it in high school can help define it for you. Au revoir.

—Lowell Ahee II of St. Clair Shores

Editor’s note: We added the chef’s name and background to the online version of the article. And now for a palate cleanser...

Dear Lee: In 2015 you wrote a piece about my late husband’s exhibition of car design drawings at Lawrence Tech.

The first line has been my mantra since his death in 2018, “If artist and collector Robert Edwards could have his way, classic automobiles would be among the treasures on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts.” Robert got his way.

It was wonderful to read the follow-up MT story this week about the DIA’s new department generously funded by the Harris Foundation, which will include 91 works from our collection. Thanks for the great story.

—Julie Hyde-Edwards

News & Views

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Informed Dissent

The Incision

Cover Story

An oral history of EXAT, the legendary experimental night at Zoot’s Coffeehouse .........14

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NEWS & VIEWS

Missing the mark

ShotSpotter surveillance tech sought by Detroit police is unreliable, invasive, and discriminatory, critics say

By Steve Neavling

Racial justice advocates are pushing back on the city of Detroit’s proposal to use more than $8 million in federal pandemic relief funds on a controversial surveillance technol ogy for the police department.

Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration wants to expand the city’s use of ShotSpotter, a technology that relies on a network of sensors to detect gun shots.

Detroit police have praised the sys tem as a key component of the depart ment’s efforts to combat escalating gun violence, saying it enables officers to arrive faster to a scene than if they waited for a 911 call.

But activists and some elected of ficials say the technology is unreliable, invasive, and racially discriminatory. They also question why the city would purchase the technology using money intended to ease the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’ve seen an increase in shootings, but we know that’s attached to the stresses of the pandemic,” Detroit activ ist Tristan Taylor tells Metro Times

“Instead of dealing with those conse quences, we are just going to throw more Black people in prison.”

Taylor and others support using the COVID-19 relief funds on resources that address the root causes of poverty and violence instead of expanding law enforcement’s reach in already overpoliced neighborhoods.

Taylor points to the lack of invest ments at places like the city-run Butzel Family Center on Kercheval, which could be a powerful resource for parents, children, and seniors with the right amount of funding.

“The community center is underuti lized,” Taylor says. “There is almost no programing for people. The hours are extremely limiting. It’s closed on the weekend. It could be a safe haven for people to go to. And it could be a relief for parents looking for child care.”

The city began using ShotSpotter in a few neighborhoods in 2020, but Duggan’s administration wants to vastly expand it, citing increasing gun violence.

But to move forward with a larger

system, the Detroit City Council must approve it.

After dozens of residents spoke out against ShotSpotter on Tuesday, the council postponed voting on the tech nology until next week.

“Our residents need investment in truly affordable housing, physical health care, reliable transportation, clean air and water, green spaces, child care, local markets with fresh food, produce, and jobs with fair wages,” Councilwoman Gabriela SantiagoRomero said at a news conference earlier this month. “We need to support preventative solutions, programs and initiatives, not reactionary ones. ShotSpotter has shown inadequate evidence of improving safety, reducing crime, or promoting positive relation ships between residents and the police.”

To drum up support for ShotSpotter ahead of the next council meeting, the city pulled out all the stops at a com munity forum Thursday. Police officials featured the city’s gunshot victims on replica tombstones and a slideshow with tear-jerking music.

Critics dismissed the props as tacky and manipulative.

“That was exploitative because it ap pealed to people’s fears, traumas, and emotion,” Kamau Clark, a Detroit organizer for We the People Michigan, tells Metro Times. “It was very clear that the narrative they wanted to make was that they tried everything, and they are at a loss and throwing up their hands. They weren’t giving people the space to share their concerns about ShotSpotter.”

During the meeting, Detroit Police Chief James White defended the sys tem, calling it “race-neutral” and saying gun-related incidents have declined in some areas covered by the system.

“It triggers on the percussion of a firearm, period,” White said. “It’s not spotting Black spots. It’s not spotting Hispanic shots. It’s not spotting white spots. It spots shots. Responsible use of it will save lives.”

Critics disagree.

“The technology exacerbates already existing racial disparities,” Clark said. “It’s largely in Black and Latino neighborhoods.”

Among the concerns is that police responding to gunshots are bracing for a potential violent encounter. People in the vicinity of the gunshots could be mistaken for suspects, and the system increases encounters between cops and Black people, which raises the risks of police-involved shootings and brutality.

Clark says the city is getting desper ate because it doesn’t have the support of a majority of council members.

Critics of ShotSpotter question why the city wants to expand the technology at a time when other cities, including San Antonio, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina.; Trenton, New Jersey; and Troy, New York, have canceled their contracts with the company behind the system.

Other cities, like St. Paul and Grands Rapids, have rejected the technology.

An Associated Press investigation found numerous flaws in the system and found that it can mistake the sounds of fireworks or cars backfiring for gunshots.

In a lawsuit filed against Chicago police, a man says he was charged for a murder he didn’t commit after police relied almost solely on the technology to arrest him. The charges were later dismissed.

In August 2021, Chicago’s Office of Inspector General’s Public Safety issued a damning report that found that data from the police department “does not support a conclusion that ShotSpot ter is an effective tool in developing evidence of gun-related crimes.”

The report also found that ShotSpot ter rarely leads to evidence of gun crimes.

Detroit wants to use COVID-19 relief funds on a controversial gunshot detection system.

STEVE NEAVLING

Detroit sneaker shop launches app with a portion of the proceeds going to DPSCD

By Alex Washington

THE LAST TIME we spoke with Frederick Paul II, he was preparing to open his sneaker store Fahrenheit 313 on the Livernois Avenue of Fashion. Paul’s grand opening was March 13, 2020, the same day Governor Whitmer announced the closure of K-12 schools and three days before businesses began to close due to the COVID-19 pan demic.

While many businesses were forced to close their doors during the pandem ic, Paul’s sneaker shop survived despite the odds being stacked against him.

“Our grand opening day was great but then literally we shut down the next week, so for me it was like you know, it was just survival at that point ,” says Paul. “Like, we worked so hard to get here, and we’re not gonna let this stop us. It was just about using our resources and being creative as soon as the store had to shutdown.”

During the shutdown, Paul began to work on developing the store’s online presence, which would eventually build not only his customer base, but a com munity. Paul relied heavily on social media to keep his customer engaged creating conversational polls on Ins

tagram and relying on online sales to continue to build.

Two years later, Paul is now ready to expand the community with the release of his app Fire Exchange. The app al lows sneaker fans to not only engage with each other and discuss the latest sneaker news and trends, it allows them to have exclusive access and perks at Fahrenheit 313. One of the exclusive perks is the Backroom, a function on the app that allows subscribers to view the backroom inventory of Fahrenheit 1 before it hits the floor.

“Customers come in all the time and say, ‘Hey, is this all the inventory you have? Can I see what’s in the back?’ That’s essentially what it’s going to be, a peek into our vault, and first dibs on the inventory that we get in store,” says Paul.

Paul says the idea for the app came from the customers who can’t easily access his store, but still want to be interact with the owners and other sneaker fans.

While the app is free to download, the monthly subscription is $15, with $3 of that being donated back to the Detroit Public Schools Community

District. The Renaissance High School graduate says this is just the beginning of his plans to continue to grow and give back to the community that educated him.

“No matter how big we get, we’re al ways going to make sure we’re donating back to the city; and we want people to actually be able to see where those dollars are going and the impact that’s being made,” says Paul. “I feel like, it’s really important to start with the youth — the children in the schools. We have to start young with teaching them certain things, things that I didn’t get necessarily growing up in [Detroit public schools.]”

Paul said he admires the way Big Sean gives back to local students and would like to contribute in a similar way, whether it’s offering entrepreneur ial courses or internships for students. Paul says he is even developing a design challenge for students to be able to submit their own original designs, with the winner being rewarded with their own piece of merchandise that sold in his store.

Fahrenheit 313 is located at 20114 Livernois Ave., Detroit; fahrenheit313.com.

Detroit challenges U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates

THE CITY OF Detroit is suing the U.S. Census Bureau, claiming it undercounted residents in the predominantly Black city.

The city claims in the suit filed in U.S. District Court that the city’s population grew in 2021. If true, it would mark the first time the city’s population has increased in seven decades.

The lawsuit takes aim at the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 population estimate that suggested the city lost 7,150 residents last year.

Since the bureau no longer al lows challenges to its population counts, the city’s only recourse was to file a federal lawsuit, ayor Mike Duggan said.

“The Census Bureau used a for mula to estimate Detroit’s popula tion that showed the city losing more than 7,000 residents from just one year prior,” Duggan said in a statement Tuesday. “Any formula claiming the city is still losing population defies facts and com mon sense, given the thousands of newly constructed and renovated housing units in the city, as well as increases in residential utility connections. Activity like this does not happen when more people are leaving the city than moving in.”

The suit claims the Census Bureau violated its own policies by unilaterally preventing challenges. The city also says the bureau re fused to review any evidence of an undercount or demonstrate how it arrived at its estimate.

In the lawsuit, the city is urging the court to force the bureau to share its formula for arriving at the count.

Citing evidence from U.S. Postal Service delivery records, DTE Energy residential account data, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department records, and Detroit Land Bank Authority occupancy data, the city contends Detroit gained tens of thousands of resi dents in 2021.

The Census Bureau, without notice, stopped allowing cities to challenge population estimates this year. The lawsuit argues that

COURTESY PHOTO

the bureau’s own administrative rules allow challenges to annual estimates.

“The Census Bureau’s failure to follow its own program rules, and the conclusive evidence that Detroit’s population rose from 2020 and 2021, provide clear ustification for a court to order the ureau to fi the 2021 undercount so Detroiters can get their fair share of federal funds,” said Conrad Mallett, the city’s corporation counsel.

During the decennial count in 2020, the city’s population declined 10.5% over the past decade.

Detroit’s Black population was hit the hardest. While the Hispanic, Asian, and white populations grew over the past decade, the number of Black residents declined from about 586,000 to 500,000 between 2010 and 2020, according to the data.

The Census Bureau acknowledged that the 2020 figures undercounted the nation’s Black population by 3.3% and the Hispanic population by 5%.

Detroit’s Black and Hispanic populations account for more than 84% of its total population. Based on the bureau’s admission of under counts, the city’s population would have been undercounted by more than 20,000.

For each resident missed in the census tally, the city misses out on roughly $5,000 a year for resources ranging from Medicaid and food stamps to foster care and education

assistance.

etroit officials have long com plained that residents are under counted in the decennial count. With thousands of vacant houses, numerous multi-family apartments, high poverty, sparse internet access, and a large population of immigrants and people of color, Detroit is the tough est city in the U.S. to count, according to an Associated Press analysis.

About 86% of the city’s population resides in hard-to-count neighborhoods.

As a result of the 2020 census count, Detroit no longer has the highest percentage of Black resi dents, as it did in 2010. Gary, Indi ana, and Jackson, Mississippi, now have larger shares of Black residents, according to the census.

An accurate count is also impor tant because it determines whether states gain or lose congressional seats, and Michigan lost a seat in each of the last three census counts.

“Census undercounts have alarm ing real world consequences that deprive cities like Detroit of their fair and intended share of critical fund ing for schools, hospitals, affordable housing, and more,” said U.S. Rep. renda . awrence, outhfield. “If the census is not accurate, then the annual population numbers that guide hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid to communities and families are not accurate either.”

–Steve Neavling

GOP candidate Tudor Dixon jokes about Whitmer kidnapping plot

TOO SOON? REPUBLICAN candidate for governor Tudor Dixon made a joke about the kidnapping and murder plot against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at a campaign event on Friday — which, of course, Whitmer’s office did not find funny.

Dixon, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, made the remarks during a campaign event at the American Polish Cultural Center in Troy on Friday while criticizing the Democratic governor for policies that Dixon argues led companies to move jobs out of state.

“The sad thing is that Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you’re ready to talk,” Dixon said, The Detroit News reports.

Questlove is making a

J Dilla doc

THE STORY OF the late, influential etroit hip hop producer J Dilla is getting the documentary treatment, and some big names have signed on to the project.

The Hollywood Reporter reported Thursday that Roots drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, who earned an Oscar for his 2021 documentary Summer of Soul, is leading the project, called Dilla Time

The forthcoming doc is based on the 2021 biography by author Dan Charnas, Dilla Time: The Life and After life of Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm. Questlove will once again partner with Sum mer of Soul producer Joseph Patel, who will produce and co-direct with Darby Wheeler in partnership with Scenario Media.

The project, which has been granted the blessing of Dilla’s estate, is described as “part biography, part musi cology, and part musical meditation, featuring insight from some of the most influential and innovative voices of modern music.”

Dilla, whose career was cut short when he died in 2006 of a rare blood disease at the age of 32, had worked with acts like Slum Village, the Pharcyde, Erykah Badu, Common, and other big names in hiphop through his work in the collective the Soulquar ians.

“We trust the judgment of Ahmir, Joseph, Dan, and Scenario to elevate Dilla’s life, music, and legacy to their rightful place in the canon of music’s great inno vators and their film is the only documentary pro ect we have endorsed,” the estate said in a statement.

In a statement, Questlove said it was an honor to be a part of the project.

“Explaining musical genius is my mission. To be able to tell the world about the musician that had the most influence on me is a dream come true,” he said. “ ot just on me, but on an entire generation of musicians that everyone knows and loves. J Dilla was our teacher. And what he taught us was how to feel rhythm in a way we had never felt before. I’m so honored to be a part of bringing his story to the world through this documen tary.”

Last year, Metro Times published a Dilla Time excerpt about how Dilla and T3 of Slum Village landed a record deal thanks to NBA player John Salley and producer R.J. Rice.

—Lee DeVito

“For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.”

According to The Detroit News, the remarks drew applause from a crowd of about 300.

In a statement, Whitmer comms director Maeve Coyle said Dixon’s joke should dis ualify her from office.

“Threats of violence and dangerous rhetoric undermine our democracy and discourage good people on both sides of the aisle at every level from entering public service,” Coyle said. “Governor Whitmer has faced serious threats to her safety and her life, and she is grateful to the law enforcement and pros ecutors for their tireless work.”

She added, “Threats of violence — whether to Governor Whitmer or to candidate and elected officials on the other side of the aisle — are no laugh ing matter, and the fact that Tudor Dixon thinks it’s a joke shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office.”

On Twitter, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel agreed. “This statement is repugnant,” she wrote. “@GovWhitmer is the victim of a very serious plot to kidnap and assassinate her. Anyone who would make light of such an effort is not fit to hold public office at any level.”

Dixon has so far showed no remorse. “From the woman who wants a drag queen in every classroom…” she said in response to the tweet by Nessel, who is lesbian.

The FBI announced in October 2020 that it had thwarted a plot involving 14 men, many tied to a local militia group, who planned to kidnap and murder Whitmer and overthrow the state government.

Last month, a federal jury convicted Adam Fox and Barry Croft for their roles in the plot.

—Lee DeVito

Informed Dissent

It doesn’t take a prophet to see where white Christian nationalism is taking the Republican Party

By Jeffrey C. Billman

As a child, I attended a funda mentalist parochial school, one of those primarily white private schools founded in the South after the civil rights movement for reasons that, of course, had nothing to do with race; don’t be silly.

The school brought in speakers to tell us, as 13-year-olds, that dinosaurs roamed Noah’s Ark, Bigfoot is real, and God watches us masturbate. (I should probably bring that up with my therapist.) It’s possible the years have twisted my memory, but I recall a Bible teacher telling us Salem’s witches had it coming. I definitely remember a high school history teacher — also a football coach, naturally — informing us that the Civil War was really about tariffs.

On the other hand, I — slow, short, not terribly coordinated, occasion ally stoned — was a two-sport varsity athlete, so I suppose there’s an upside to everything.

In any event, the experience left me with a lifetime’s worth of the evan gelical version of Catholic guilt and a strange fascination with fundamental ist politics.

I’ve watched with morbid curiosity as those who purported to be the only true followers of Jesus volunteered to be co-opted by a reactionary strain of American conservatism, as the same

crowd that had fits of apople y over a president’s affair became loyal foot soldiers for a libertine con artist. Psychologically, the attraction isn’t hard to explain: Fundamentalists and right wing populists both score off the charts on measures of authoritari anism. Even so, it’s been interesting to see how the merger — which was underway since the mid-20th century but reached its zenith under the Trump administration has affected both religion and politics.

Recently, Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay Research published their semiannual The State of Theology survey, a poll that seeks to “take the theologi cal temperature of the United States to help Christians better understand today’s culture and to equip the church with better insights for discipleship.”

Its findings were remarkable, espe cially coming from a fundamentalist organization.

“Despite the clear teaching of scrip ture,” the survey reported, nearly half of evangelical Christians said that God “learns and adapts to various situa tions.” Nearly two-thirds reject the notion of original sin, which the survey attributes to the “influence of human istic philosophies and worldviews.”

A majority — 56% — of evangelicals believe God accepts people of multiple

faiths, up 14 points from the 2020 sur vey, 43% deny the divinity of Jesus, and 26% say the Bible isn’t literally true.

There are literal heresies for Christians who do not merely attend evangelical churches but espouse core evangelical beliefs.

But while evangelicals’ theological views have grown less fundamentalist, more than 90% of evangelicals still hold to fundamentalist teachings on abortion and sex outside of marriage. The percentages that see both as sins have risen in recent years, in fact.

At the same time, however, 28% of evangelicals say that the Bible’s con demnation of homosexuality no longer applies — not a lot, but up from 11% in 2020 — and 37% agree that “gender identity is a choice,” up from 22% two years ago.

ounger evangelicals are significantly more liberal on those two questions, but not on abortion or premarital sex.

I’m not sure what to make of that dichotomy. Perhaps wider acceptance of and greater exposure to LGBTQ in dividuals has caused some evangelicals to rethink their adherence to Bronze Age understandings of human sexuality and gender, while a generation of True Love Waits shaming is still working its magic. Or it could be that evangelicals, like religion itself, are full of contradic

tions.

But two things strike me as true: One, modern evangelicalism is as much a cultural identity as it is a set of cohe sive religious beliefs, and this cultural identity is fully enmeshed in the Republican Party. Two, while evangelical ism is forgetting its catechism, America is losing its faith.

A recent Gallup poll found that only 81% of Americans said they believe in God, the lowest level in the survey’s history and down from 92% in 2011. Church attendance is collapsing. Increasing numbers of Americans say they have no religious affiliation and millennials and Gen Zs are the least religious generations this country has ever seen.

It doesn’t take a prophet to see where this is headed.

It’s no coincidence that the oncefringe idea of Christian nationalism — the idea that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and the separation of church and state is a myth — is taking hold on the far right, with figures like oug astriano, the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis embracing or flirting with it.

In a recent survey, 61% of Repub licans said they wanted Congress to declare the United States a Christian nation, though 57% of Republicans also said (correctly!) that the Constitution doesn’t allow such a thing. (In other words, a not-small number of Republicans want Congress to do something they know is unconstitutional.) More than three-quarters of evangelical Republicans want Congress to establish a national religion, so long as it’s theirs; fewer than half of other Republicans do.

Unsurprisingly, older Republicans are keen on a Christian state; they’re more likely to be evangelicals. Also unsur prising is the role of white grievance: 59% of Americans who think white people are discriminated against are good with Christian nationalism.

Like fundamentalism, racial griev ance is a branch of the authoritarian ism tree.

Donald Trump intuited that evan gelical leaders would — after a few promises — overlook his past sins and fall in line. They did.

They didn’t sell their souls for noth ing. They got Roe overturned, after all. But in their fealty to Trump, they turned their religion into a cultural identity that served Trump’s political movement.

In the process, they did neither God nor American politics any favors.

Get more at billman.substack.com.

Modern evangelicalism is as much a cultural identity as it is a set of cohesive religious beliefs, and this cultural identity is fully enmeshed in the Republican Party. SHUTTERSTOCK

NEWS & VIEWS

The Incision

‘The pandemic is over.’ But, is it?

By Abdul El-Sayed

It’s been more than two and a half years since the first CO I 1 lockdowns swept the world. Two and half years of lost parents and spouses, lovers and friends. Two and a half years of lost wages and opportunities, economic strife and frustration. Two and a half years of downs and ups, surges and ebbs.

I understand the urge to declare the pandemic over. ut pandemics have a way of frustrating our optimistic urges. And yet that didn’t stop President iden from making that declara tion on 60 Minutes last week.

Contrast that with what World ealth Organi ation ecretary en eral Tedros Adhanom hebreyesus had to say earlier in the week “A

marathon runner does not stop when the finish line comes into view. he runs harder, with all the energy she has left. o must we. We can see the finish line. We’re in a winning position. ut now is the worst time to stop running.”

The fundamental difference here is what these messages re uire of us. Where iden’s message signals that the end is here that we have noth ing more to do hebreyesus signals that what we do now may dictate how fast we finish. o what does it mean to run through the finish line

irst, it means recogni ing that the course may veer. ight now, we are watching A. , the dominant omicron subvariant, recede. Cases, hospitali a tions, and deaths are down though they remain unacceptably high at an average of 1 deaths per day over the past two weeks.

The fact that cases are down is great news, because every single year of the pandemic thus far has seen a fall surge but one does not appear to be taking hold right now. cientists thought that if there were to be a surge, it would likely be a A. surge. Our fall vac cination campaign was built on that assumption, which is why both Pfi er and oderna are offering bivalent boosters, including another dose of the original vaccine m A and one tailor made for A. .

The decline of A. without a new omicron subvariant coming behind it suggests that the omicron subvari ant surges original omicron, A.1, A.2, A.2.12.1, A. , and A. may have left behind enough anti omicron

immunity to prevent the ne t subvariant from pen etrating. ut that doesn’t mean that we may not see an entirely new variant emerge something that doesn’t rely on the omi cron chassis but instead evades our omicron spe cific immunity. The fall is ust getting started, after all.

y declaring the pandemic over, iden undercuts his own admin istration’s efforts to urge Congress to fund efforts to actually end it. A few weeks ago, they re uested 2 billion to support, in part, vaccines, testing, and treatments.

The vast ma ority of hospitali ations and deaths to CO I right now are occurring among people who have yet to receive their first doses of vaccine, rather than those who are waiting to receive their fourth. That should force us to ask bigger uestions about how we continue to fight this pandemic. The hard part is the central uestion of motivation. The folks who are most protected in this moment are also the ones who are most likely to take the threat seriously and seek another course of the vaccine, while those for whom the threat is greatest have cho

sen to leave themselves vulnerable. unning through the finish line also re uires us to recogni e the toll of the race. The lasting impact of CO I isn’t only in the million Americans who’ve died and the millions more they’ve left behind. It’s also in the mil lions more suffering with long CO I . or them, the pandemic isn’t over for many it’s ust beginning. And the fact that we lack a firm understanding of what causes long CO I , how to prevent it, or how to treat it suggests that prematurely declaring the pan demic over may foreclose on the work we yet need to do to answer these basic uestions.

inally, every marathoner analy es their races to prepare for their ne t one. This pandemic e posed ma or

holes in our public health infrastruc ture. Indeed, it made them far worse. As I’ve written, monkeypo a disease that is far easier to prevent than CO I demonstrates ust how poorly prepared we are for the ne t ma or pandemic.

I understand the political incen tives President iden is facing. The pandemic is not broadly popular and declaring it over is good politics going into a contentious midterm election. et the price of premature declarations could be high. Worse, it hampers the ability to truly bring the pandemic to an end.

Originally published Sept. 20 in The Incision. Get more at abdulelsayed. substack.com.

President Biden declared the pandemic over on 60 Minutes last week. But pandemics have a way of confounding predictions. SHUTTERSTOCK

EMPLOYMENT

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FOR THE HEADS

DETROIT’S UNDERGROUND DANCE EVENTS OF THE ‘90S are ustly storied but one of the decade’s most consistently attended and long term impactful was small, insider heavy, and not intended for dancing at all.

BY MICHAELANGELO MATOS VINTAGE PHOTOS COURTESY CLARK WARNER

AT perimental and Ambient Techno ran every onday night at the legendary oot’s Coffeehouse. ounded in late 1 2 by an olomon, who three years later would sell the business to two of its employees, Aaron Anderson and cott ichalski, oot’s hosted performances by everybody from is ame Is Alive to Windy Carl, leater inney to the ountain oats. And beginning around 1 nobody remembers the precise date until the place closed early in the fall of 1 , AT whose final night was that ept. 2 decisively thickened the oot’s musical pot.

AT’s promoter was Adriel Thornton, already a seasoned party thrower who’d put together the ambient side rooms for legendary events like evin aunderson’s ourney Through the ardcore tate Theater, ept. , 1 2 he also operated pace 1 , a bouti ue for his own designs, as well as a fre uent rave map point, below oot’s. The event’s regular s, Carlos ouffront and Clark Warner, have gone on to illustri ous careers behind the decks. AT also hosted sets by a slew of electronic music royalty both local Carl Craig, ichie awtin and international Autechre . This was where the scene’s movers and shakers congregated after a weekend of partying, often to strategi e.

AT attracted a listening crowd, or was a social crowd with the music in the background “At was at times was both,” says Thornton. It was a lot more besides, as he and several residents and regulars attest.

An oral history of EXAT, the legendary ’90s experimental and ambient techno night at ZOOT’S COFFEEHOUSE

Above: DJ Clark Warner perfoms at Zoot’s.

PATRICK RUSSELL [DJ]: Zoot’s was great. It was ust a little coffee shop near the Wayne tate niversity campus.

CLARK WARNER [EXAT RESIDENT DJ]: If you’ve seen the documentary Searching for Sugar Man, it looks like the house that odri gue lives in. It was one of these classic etroit Woodbridge homes, which was the area of Wayne tate campus.

AARON ANDERSON [ZOOT’S EMPLOYEE, 1993-95, AND CO-OWNER, 1995-98]: or years, I thought of it as a leftover thing from beatniks and hippies. I remember there being one in irmingham, called the an rancisco Coffee hop. ut there weren’t many in the city.

ADRIEL THORNTON [EXAT PROMOTER]: At the time I was going to Wayne tate. It legit was the only coffeehouse I think that was it, I literally cannot think of another one that was around, at least in downtown.

WARNER: ou went to the coffee house to either read a book or pick up someone. It wasn’t a singles bar, but at the same time it was a place where cool people were going to hang out, because who the fuck wants to go spend on a cup of coffee

THORNTON: I remember at the time trying to e plain to somebody what a coffee shop was “It’s not ust coffee.” I would go there to read maga ines go to a bookstore and then sit there and flip through my Wallpaper

COLLEEN DURENO [ZOOT’S EMPLOYEE; TO DETROIT IS IT, OCTOBER 2019]: oot’s opened as a coffee shop, but I don’t remember much coffee ever being served. There was no li uor license yet there was lots of beer and occasionally other things.

SEAN HORTON [DJ]: The owner was friends with everybody. There were a lot of college students. It held about 0 people.

ANDERSON: I think I saw a sign that said capacity was 1. I know we fit up wards of a hundred and a half in there for concerts.

DURENO: The property was worthless and people with money didn’t often venture down to that area.

CARLOS SOUFFRONT [EXAT RESIDENT DJ]: It was a house. ou’d go upstairs to the front door. Then you would walk straight alongside the stair case to order coffee. And to the right, in the front of the house, was the stage, which was elevated probably four or five inches from the main floor. It was an old, creaky wood floor.

SARAH VIDOSH [EXAT REGULAR]: A lot of furniture mismatched tables and chairs, book shelves. lyers everywhere.

ROB THEAKSTON [EXAT REGULAR]: The coffeehouses’ other advantage was that they were automati cally all ages venues.

ANDERSON: I think there was a need in the city, across multiple scenes, for an alternate venue that was all ages and a little bit more comfortable and non traditional.

VIDOSH: There was a wide range of music that was there.

THORNTON: It was poetry readings, it was shows it was ust a variety of things that were ongoing.

ANDERSON: There was a on undays, maybe an occasional rock band here, some acoustic things, when I started definitely not s.

“Twenty-five dollars a night.”

VIDOSH: It was really awesome that Aaron was so open to everything. That period of the Cass Corridor was like the Wild West.

ANDERSON: I’d ust come back from a cross country road trip. It was like, “I want to work here.” And I sort of hung around long enough until they hired me. It was still weekly potluck dinners, things like that.

SAM FOTIAS [PROMOTER]: It was very diverse groups of people hanging out the rock people, the art people, the college kids.

VIDOSH: I don’t think that there was a ma or distinction between the indie kids and the techno kids. A lot of the indie kids that were in bands eventually wound up at dance parties anyway.

ANDERSON: I grew up in etroit. The techno scene is ust part of it. I went to school dances and they were playing odel 00. I owned Cybo

“The only coffeehouse in downtown.”

tron’s 1981 debut] “Clear” on 12-inch as a kid. I knew that stuff.

I also went to school with Sam Fotias. We both went to Cass together. He had been, early on, of the world that moved from Detroit techno to the rave scene. One time when we were catching up, he’s like, “I do these par ties. Come on down and check them out. It’s the new thing. I’ll get you in the door.” I grew up with techno, I had been exposed to the rave scene and knew people in it.

an olomon started the coffeehouse, ran it for about three or four years, and decided that he wanted to do something else. I think at the time he wanted to try and get an architecture degree.

THORNTON: Dan’s roots were more in the punk scene. Zoot’s was his dog.

ANDERSON: I started working there late ’93. I worked there for about a year and a half, and then an offered it to his employees — so Scott Michalski and I went for it and got it — it was ’95. For $10,000 and a monthly pay ment and assumption of all debts, Scott and I took over. Our parents lent us the money.

THORNTON: I remember me and Clark Warner sitting. I said, “Hey, what about an ambient night?” As much as I was a fan of the dance floor stuff, I was really into ambient. So was Clark. I may have played around with the name, like “The Study” or something like that. It was really about bending your ear towards those sounds. In what we would call “the Library,” which was the second room on the way to the

bathroom, there was a TV, so we would also play like movies back there, just for visuals. The whole point was to come and chill.

SOUFFRONT: He booked Clark Warner and myself as the residents.

ANDERSON: From the get, I think it was pretty well attended. It had its own built-in crowd. The whole party scene in Detroit was so alive at that time. In the Midwest, rave was at its peak.

THORNTON: I was already, at that point, a pretty established rave pro moter in the city, so it made sense: We all loved ambient music at the time. And Zoot’s was all about it. It really did

cater to all the undergrounds.

ANDERSON: It was $25 to get the room for a night. Basically, anybody with a good or interesting idea could book there for $25 a night.

“EXAT was for the heads.”

SOUFFRONT: Adriel was more an idea guy. He doesn’t really have any gear. So I brought the gear. I would always bring through turntables and a mixer, and I’d bring a CD player as well. You couldn’t adjust the pitch, but this is am bient, so it wasn’t making really rigorous beat-matching mixes or anything.

ROBERT GORELL [EXAT REGULAR]: Carlos was the sweet est but also most intimidating guy to me, because his knowledge was totally encyclopedic even back then. Every

time I went there, I heard tons of music I’d never heard before. That was also the beginning of when Clark was doing operations for M_nus. EXAT was for the heads

DEREK PLASLAIKO [DJ]: Whenever Clark would play down there was always pretty memorable. He seemed to have themes going on. It wasn’t just ambient — he would throw in some old classic rock thing that was really mellow.

THEAKSTON: They would play Bio sphere and Higher Intelligence Agency. But then they would turn around and play Derrick May and Ten Second Dynasty, another Detroit space-rock band. And then Clark would drop something like the Beatles’ “Flying,” from Magical Mystery Tour

THORNTON: There might be ten of us there, lounging and really listening

Clockwise from top left: DJ Derek Plasaiko (right) and Margaret Meyers; DJ Scott Zacharias; EXAT promoter Adriel Thornton (left) and Greg Campbell.

to it, and someone coming up to the decks, looking to see what that record was, and then having a conversation with Carlos about it for ten minutes.

RUSSELL: That’s where you would see kids from the weekend sometimes. They’d be hanging out on the steps there.

HORTON: It was the first time I really felt as though you could exchange ideas musically, you could communicate socially. You’re not in a loud club or an environment when you can’t talk.

VIDOSH: I remember making out with Derek Plaslaiko one day in a back room.

PLASLAIKO: I remember making out with Sarah Vidosh in the bathroom several times. That was always like, “Yeah, what the hell, let’s go make out.”

ANDERSON: There is cool footage of Zoot’s that a woman uploaded to You Tube. ulie was a coffee shop local who was an obsessive videotaper. She went in and taped like, an entire night just walk ing around AT. he was a film geek who hung around the coffee shop and if there was something interesting going on, would bring her camera and tape it.

MATTHEW HAWTIN [DJ]: The ambient coffeehouse thing we did a coffeehouse night in Windsor, and there was also Zoot’s in Detroit. There was one in Toronto, too — that seemed to be a place where that music was acceptable but it was a Monday or Tues day night, after the weekend, everybody wanted to get together again, not have a crazy night but just congregate. I guess maybe people would just Facebook about it now.

THEAKSTON: It was all these little pockets of different club nights ad Hatter and Zoot’s — from 1994 to 2004 that were just as important to continu ing the whole Detroit narrative as the big clubs like Motor. Motor had its place, but Motor wasn’t necessarily a place where you could be innovative.

SOUFFRONT: EXAT became a venue for anyone who was in town playing that weekend from out of town, who still happened to be in town, we would invite and say, “Hey, if you if you want to play to a sitting audience, you can.”

DAVE WALKER [MW-RAVES

POST, MAY 14, 1996]: Why pay big bucks to see “DJ Trance” or whatever in a roller rink thirty miles north of the city when you can see guys like Stacey Pullen, Claude Young, Carl Craig, Mike Huckaby, etc., playing at Zoot’s or the

Shelter or Galligan’s for $2 to $5 during the week?

PLASLAIKO: Kenny Larkin played live down there one time.

THORNTON: Another standout for me was, Autechre came by to play after they played another promoter’s party that weekend. From what I understand, they actually stayed because they wanted to come to EXAT and play.

PLASLAIKO: I remember talking with Autechre that night for a while. I asked a stupid question: “Do you have any advice for aspiring young producers?” And they told me, “Yeah — buy a piece of gear, learn it for months on end, and when you think you’ve learned everything else, go learn a couple more months. And then when you think you’ve learned all everything else, again, go a couple more months after that — and then buy another piece of gear.” That scared me off of production for a few years.

News ran a story by freelance writer Irvin Jackson, detailing drug use and stoned-out, sexually promiscuous mi nors partying at a 1315 Broadway party, a block away from the 1515 Broadway site. . . . TV2’s Amy Jacobsen reported that she was broadcasting from an underground “rave” party just days after the bust. That report, complete with downward, dark, and jerky camera angles, was actually filmed at oot’s Coffeehouse during normal hours.

FOTIAS: Every Monday, we had our Detroit promoter meetings there. It would be me, Dean [Major], Adriel; Rich would come every once in a while; our buddy Jason Vetrano who did parties, our other buddy Alan Bogl. Because there wasn’t email, Facebook, or mes sage boards, that’s how people convened and talked about, “I’ve got these dates,” or, “What are we going to do about this police situation?” — face to face.

VIDOSH: I’ll never forget: Richie Hawtin came to an EXAT on Monday for a super-important rave meeting between all of the promoters. He was about to sit down and said, “You should be in here, Sarah.” I was trying not to fucking smoke the floor when I ran in there.

[Fotias], all the promoters in the city; there was quite a few DJs. I distinctly remember us coming up with a plan right there, really, to not discuss our scene with them. I potentially would be the spokesperson. When we saw the final piece, they legit tried to make like they were at a rave. It was so stupid. It was like, “Well, that’s some fucking creative editing right there.”

“But that’s only sustainable for so long.”

THORNTON: Zoot’s was still one of those things where you kind of had to know what it was. And it catered to such a niche crowd — the ravers, some punk kids, and hip-hop kids. But that’s only sustainable for so long.

ANDERSON: I was a terrible business owner. We’re 23-year-old business owners, you know? We knew the ins and outs, at least, of how to make drinks and have events and promote. But the other end of it was not good. I was pretty wild in my twenties. That didn’t really mix it up as a business owner.

THORNTON: I just remember having this conversation with Aaron at one point about him being annoyed because they kept finding spoons in the bathroom, burnt up from the bottom.

ANDERSON: EXAT was active right until the end.

VIDOSH: I can’t believe I’ve had these friends for almost 30 years. Those same people are the people that I was going to EXAT to see.

PLASLAIKO: That’s how I got closer with all these people. These people are still family to me.

Encore: May 2000

BRENDAN ROHAN [WRITER; ORBIT, APRIL 1995]: On March 5, 1995, I was swept up in the massive police raid that netted hundreds of kids and a smattering of drugs. My crime? Trying to have a good time. . . . The week before the event, The Detroit

THORNTON: After the raid, Channel 2 — I’m not sure if they hit me up or if they hit Zoot’s up. But either way, we knew they were coming. And I think we might have been having a quoteunquote “scene meeting.” I remember Richie there. Matt was there, Sam

RUSSELL: Carlos ouffront’s three hour set at 2000 on ouffront’s YouTube page] — he was playing the Underground Stage and it rained pretty heavy all morning. Fluorescent lights were on the whole time. Carlos played the broadest spectrum of what he was about, front to back. is AT stuff from Zoot’s, B-12, super-pretty early stuff. It kept getting weirder and weirder and weirder and weirder, and the last 45 minutes were all jams: Kraftwerk, Liasions Dangereuses, Boards of Canada — it became this super-intense thing. It definitely was my favorite set of the weekend.

“A superimportant rave meeting.”

Thornton and Aaron Anderson outside the former Zoot’s.

PHOTO:

WHAT’S GOING ON

OPENS SAT, 10/1

OPENS SAT, 10/1

Sue the T. rex

Tyrannosaurus rex was one the kings of the dinosaurs, and among existing fos sils, Sue is the queen. That was the name given to one of the largest and best preserved specimens of the prehistoric creature ever found, named after explor er Sue Hendrickson, who discovered the fossil in South Dakota in 1990. While the real fossil is on display as part of the permanent collection of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, a cast of the 13-foot-high, 40-foot-long dino skeleton is on display at Cranbrook’s Institute of Science starting Saturday. The traveling exhibition includes a history of how Sue was discovered and excavated, computer animations showing how Sue moved, a fleshed out model of a T. re battling the duck-billed herbivore Edmontosau rus, replicas of other animals and plants that lived during the Late Cretaceous period, and even a chance to hear scientists’ best guess of what Sue’s growl could have sounded like. The exhibi tion is presented in both English and Spanish and is on view through April 30, 2023.

—Lee DeVito

The Cranbrook Institute of Science is located at 39221 Woodward Ave., Bl m el ill ien e. ran r .e . i e ar a r adults, or $9 for Institute of Science an ar em er an r il ren n er r eni r l er an .

Ghosts on the Balcony

There won’t be any movies at the Bir mingham 8 theater this October, but it will be full of tales of murder and mayhem when it transforms into a haunted attraction. The allegedly haunted theater will fully lean into its spooky reputation as it becomes “Ghosts on the Balcony,” a haunted walkthrough including areas of the historic building that have never been open to the public.

Ghosts on the Balcony chronicles the fictional e perience of theater proprietor Mr. Baldwin, a caretaker who has worked there for 50 years and has some gruesome stories to share. An announcement by Emagine Entertainment, which purchased the Birming ham 8 last year reads, “this is not for the faint of heart… this will scare you to death, just like what happened to Mr. Baldwin’s family, friends, and many patrons of his theatre!”

They’re laying it on a little thick but the building, constructed in 1927, is known for freaky, unexplained activ ity. Guests have reported encounters with apparitions, hearing disembodied voices and footsteps, seeing doors open and close by themselves, and other paranormal activity.

And who better to mark the attrac tion’s opening than Michael Myers himself? Well, the actor who plays him anyway — James Jude Courtney. Courtney will “slash” the ribbon at a private opening ceremony on Thursday before heading over to Emagine Palladium to

host a screening and Q&A of all een Kills at 7 p.m. Courtney played Michael Myers in 2018’s all een, 2021’s al loween Kills, and the forthcoming finale to the cult horror franchise all een Ends

—Randiah Camille Green

Ghosts on the Balcony will run Oct. 1-31 a e Birmin am . l ward Ave., Birmingham (with toneddown version appropriate for children r m .m. emagine-entertainment. m. i e are .

SAT-SUN,10/1-10/2

Detroit Harvest Fest & Food Truck Rally

The autumn equinox has ushered in cooler weather and everything pump kin spice, and this weekend the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy will celebrate it all. This weekend, the Dequindre Cut will be packed with food trucks, live music, a pumpkin patch for the kids, trick or treating, bouncy houses, ax throwing, a petting zoo, and too much more to list. And when we say packed, we mean it — the harvest fest’s debut last fall drew more than 50,000 people. That means long lines for food and crowds, so get there early to avoid mak ing the same mistake we did last year.

If you want to beat the crowd, there’s also the Soirée on the Greenway masquerade on Friday, Sept. 30. This evening fundraiser will feature several food trucks and live performances plus the unveiling of Detroit artist Ivan Montoya’s new mural on the Dequindre

Cut. Tickets are $75.

The Harvest Fest itself will have more than 50 food trucks including Fork in Nigeria, Cajun Soul Sistas, Cousins Maine Lobster, Real Taco Express, offering everything from vegetarian to West African cuisine. New this year is the “Cirque de Freightyard” carni val experience at the Dequindre Cut Freightyard with psychics, tarot card readers, carnival games, circus busker performers, and a specialty cocktail. This is where the adults can hang out in between taking the kids to trick or treat along the cut. There’s literally some thing for the whole family, including a costume contest for dogs and cats on Saturday. Costumes are encouraged for humans too.

—Randiah Camille Green

r m a.m. .m. a r ay . 1-Sunday, Oct. at the Dequindre Cut in e r i . mi i n i a er n an ree for children under three, seniors, active duty military, and veterans. For more information see detroitriverfront.org.

SUN, 10/2

Second Annual Ike Blessitt Hamtramck Baseball Classic

Former Detroit Tiger Ike Blessitt was born and raised in Hamtramck, and was discovered by major-league scouts in the 1960s while playing at the Ham tramck Stadium, the historic home of the Negro League Detroit Stars. That’s also where he’ll be celebrating his 73rd birthday this Sunday. The event will feature a daytime doubleheader featuring four teams composed of Ike’s Detroit Tigers Fantasy Camp alumni and players from the Detroit Men’s Senior Baseball League, with special guests expected to attend including 1984 World Series champs and former Tigers Juan Berenguer and Barbaro Garbey, as well as Detroit techno DJ Kevin Saunderson. The event is also an opportunity to e perience the field’s newly restored grandstand, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Hamtramck Parks Conservancy and the Ike Blessitt Athletic Academy. While Blessitt has fallen on hard times in recent years, he has been keeping the spirit of baseball alive by teaching youths on Detroit’s Eastside how to play baseball.

—Lee DeVito

The event is from 1-7 p.m., Sunday, . a e i ri am ram a i m an ree am ram hamtramckparks.com. Tickets are $12 a en r . lay re i ra i n re ire .

Select events happening in metro Detroit this week.

A dinosaur named Sue.

COURTESY PHOTO

MUSIC

Hungry like the wolf

By L. Kent Wolgamott

In February, Wolf Alice took the BRIT Award for Group of the Year.

A couple months earlier, the indie rock band was named Best Festival Headliner by the NME Awards.

In June 2021, it released its third album, Blue Weekend, to universal acclaim, garnering a Mercury Prize nomination. It didn’t win that presti gious award given to the best album released in England or Ireland, but the band’s 2018 second album, Visions of Life, did.

So it’s no surprise that the group — formed in 2010 as an acoustic duo by singer llie owsell and guitarist off Oddie, who were joined two years later by bassist Theo Ellis and drummer Joel Amey — is getting tagged with acco lades like “the U.K.’s best band.”

In late March, Wolf Alice came to the . . for the first leg of the band’s North American “Blue Weekend” tour,

which continues with a second leg this fall. Ellis recently talked with music writer L. Kent Wolgamott about the band, Blue Weekend, and the tour via Zoom.

So what’s it feel like to be called England’s best band?

I think you probably don’t believe in it. Or think about it too much be cause you’ve probably become a bit of a wanker if you’re saying you are the best band in Britain.

It’s very nice for people to say things like that, really cool. But we are a band in Britain. And we’re having a good time being a band in Britain at the moment. I don’t think there’s any best or worse. There’s some great, great other bands knocking around at the moment. There’s some fantastic ones. So we’re one of many.

The thing that I love about your band and especially this record — which is great — is you can’t just pigeonhole your music. Is this a dream pop band or shoegaze band or a grunge band or a punk band? All those things come in. So how did those pieces come together?

I think because we like a lot of different types of music between the four of us. … We’re on the precipice of a gen eration where we started consuming music in a non-genre-based way. ... Just because you listened to guitar music now doesn’t mean that you can’t listen to rap or listen to punk. I listen to pop and can admire aspects of folk.

There’s such a cross pollination, that we’re inspired by a lot of differ ent things. I think there’s a danger of it sounding a little bit confusing when we do it, if we go between genres too

The accolades for U.K. act Wolf Alice are rolling in — but they’re not letting it get to their heads

Wolf Alice performs at Saint Andrew’s Hall on Tuesday.

JORDAN HEMINGWAY

abrasively, but I think the new record (shows) maturity (in) learning how to touch on all those things that we like without it sounding like chaos. And just being inspired, isn’t it, you know?

Did I read somewhere that you re ally didn’t play bass when you joined the band?

Yeah, but that’s kind of romantic because I played guitar. I didn’t play the bass, but I played the guitar. Joel is the way more extreme case as he did not play the drums and he just started play ing the drums.

You two seem to lock in pretty well together. Do you feel like that, like this is a real section?

I think we’re more of a section than we are individuals in a way because of that fact that we picked up our instruments together at a similar time. And neither of us have really played with anyone else. It’d probably be interesting to see what it’s like playing with other people. But I’ve only ever recorded and played with Joel. So we’re kind of joined at the hip musically in that sense. It’s a shame we hate each other so much.

From the band that I saw at SXSW six, seven years ago, what do you think is the biggest change, the biggest development?

We’ve gotten older, I don’t mean that like the fact that we do look older but like, you know, we’ve all learned while doing this as a career, which has enabled us to grow as musicians and songwriters and performers. So I think we’ve honed the tools that we needed to get the ideas out of our heads effec tively, if that makes sense.

We’ve kind of better equipped ourselves, whether that’s putting a live show together or whether that’s kind of knowing how to say something in a song supported by the right instrumentation … So in a way of saying, we’ve gotten better at what we do … I am a better bass player than I was years ago. I ust think we’ve grown in confidence in that way. And I think we’re feeling re ally strong as a band where we are right now. It’s really fun to be in this band.

How does the musical mix work live? Can you do a show without it being ‘where the hell are they going now?’ Or is that part of the show?

I’m really proud of the set we’re playing at the moment. I wish you could come tonight and get a taste of what the show’s like. We’ve got an amazing extra member on stage, called Ryan Malcolm … He is doing a lot of extra support with keys and vocals and a lot of other stuff. o we kind of got a little bit of e tra muscle from him. We kind of carved the set list out based on a similar way you would flow with a track list, to kind of take you on a bit of an emotional journey or at least that’s what we’re thinking or trying to achieve.

Between the two legs of your tours this year, you have played a lot of cities in the states, more than some British acts play.

I think it’s important to us to be able to go to as many different places as possible and, you know, play places that we haven’t been before because I think you can get stale doing that. And, yes, America is a big-ass place. So if you want to go everywhere, you’ve got to go everywhere. It takes a lot of time. And it’s really fun, being able to go and still discover new places where we’ve been touring on and off for seven years or something.

Wolf Alice performs at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 4 at Saint Andrew’s Hall; 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; 313-961-8961; saintandrewsdetroit.com. Tickets are $30.

On the day of my first trip to ung u rothers umplings and oodles, I was reminded of the absur dity of the national food media. As I raved to friends about the hand pulled noodles, soup dumplings, and “Chi nese burritos” that ung u roth ers does in Westland, The New York Times published its list of “ 0 places in America we’re most e cited about right now,” which included reya, an upscale eatery in etroit’s ilwaukee unction neighborhood.

o disrespect to reya it deserves the accolade, and I wrote a glowing review of it but the Times list was another reminder that the food world is geared toward the well connected. The chefs at ung u are dropping bombs, but national institutions like The New York Times and the ames eard oun dation are unlikely to point their atten tion toward a nondescript strip mall in a place like Westland, ichigan.

It’s a bit of an in ustice because this is undoubtedly one of if not the best new restaurants in etroit. To be fair to the Times, ung u rothers opened uietly, and no one in the local food media beyond an Instagram influencer

seemed to notice.

New noodz

By Tom Perkins

I’m also partial to Chinese noodles, which belong in the pantheon of the world’s food genres, and in metro etroit, there’s a bit of a dearth. Among the only other spots in town to get them is ung u’s owners’ other restaurant, ung u oodle ouse, in adison eights. Though it’s a bit of a sister res taurant situation, the menus are uite different, and my allegiance goes to ung u rothers, if I have to choose.

Perhaps the best bites were in the ei ing classic fried sauce noodle, built off a minced, fried pork bathed in a dark, sweet, viscous yellow bean paste with a deep umami component and plenty of ginger and garlic. ushrooms, bean sprouts, carrot, and cucumber are in the mi , but it’s the fresh, thin, long, springy wonton noodles that drive it home.

The hot pepper oil noodle is the spot to go if you want a bit more spice. It’s not hot in a “ ust bit into a habanero” way, but there’s plenty of chili in the chili oil, tons of garlic, and my mouth seemed to tingle ust a bit from ichuan peppercorns. It’s intense in its heat, but in the best kind of way, and the oil also offers hints of ginger and sesame. The

menu said it came with wide, flat, hand ripped noodles, but ours arrived with what I believe to be lo mein, which was no problem. ung u does them right, and the dish is rounded out with long shreds of cucumber, carrot, bean sprout, and cabbage that provide cooling and crunchy components.

The “mild” in the ichuan mild spicy noodle soup could be open for debate as the definition of “hot” or “spicy” is, of course, sub ective, but this is, to my palette, an accurate description despite the glistening dots of deep red chili oil in the rich broth that suggest other wise. ung u makes an eight hour beef and chicken bone broth, and it’s got plenty of depth. It’s filled with long, thin wonton noodles, peanuts, corn, bok choy, green onion, and crumbles of salty pork.

It’s hard to pass up a menu op tion like the “Chinese burrito” with a flaky pancake shell that’s slightly chewy while crisp on the e terior, and wrapped around thin sliced beef not unlike a lunchmeat with cucumber, carrot, and cilantro, almost giving it a banh mi uality. ut it’s also filled with sweet, dark sauce like hoisin and

Kung

Brothers

and Dumplings

35624 Warren Rd., Westland 734-725-3177

Wheelchair accessible

is clearly Chinese. A similar shell in the beef pancake holds bursts of broth with a fragrant, super flavorful beef patty that tastes like it was marinated with my best guess here soy, black vin egar, garlic, green onion, and Chinese spice. The noodle casing in the soup dumplings and pan fried dumplings are done to perfection.

The restaurant is small and simple with a handful of tables and fairly uick service, and offers a range of e cellent bubble teas. It was uiet, with ust a few other diners during each trip, but that’s likely going to change soon as word gets out.

Kung Fu Brothers Noodles and Dumplings is one of southeast Michigan’s best new restaurants.

TOM PERKINS

Southwest Detroit Restaurant Week returns for Hispanic Heritage Month

SOUTHWEST DETROIT IS one of Detroit’s most culturally rich neighborhoods, full of Mexican, Honduran, and Venezuelan cuisine.

The area will showcase its diverse (and delicious) culture during South west Detroit Restaurant Week from Sept. 30 to Oct. 9, coinciding with Hispanic Heritage Month.

Twenty-one participating restau rants will join the event’s return for its third installment after a two-year hiatus.

ach restaurant will offer a “heri tage dish” celebrating the owners’ and chefs’ Latin roots that will only be available for the week.

La Jalisciense’s special dish is shrimp cooked in lemon sauce with

red onion and cucumbers, while El Rey de las Arepas will be serving chicken and wa es, and Asty Time will have creole meatballs.

If you’re looking to try several dishes in one trip, check out the food truck rally hosted by Corktown’s Batch Brewing Co. on Oct. 3. It won’t have all 21 restaurants, but 12 will par ticipate including local faves Los Dos Amigos and Taqueria El Rey, whose building was destroyed in a fire ear lier this year.

Batch Brewing has been hosting Taqueria El Rey in their kitchen as a popup on Mondays and Tuesdays since the restaurant closed. Melissa Fuentes, the daughter of Taqueria El Rey owner Eliseo Fuentes, told Eater

Fried chicken fave Chick-fil-A opens Southfield location

FRIED CHICKEN CHAIN Chickfil A is continuing its e pansion into metro Detroit, opening its latest res taurant on Thursday in outhfield. The new restaurant is located at 2 0 Telegraph d., oining 10 other Chick fil A locations in the etroit area. The store will offer dine in, drive thru, carry-out, mobile carry-out, and mobile drive-thru service.

According to a press release, the restaurant is owned and operated by Matthew Leverett, who grew up in outhfield and says the store will create 1 full time and part time obs in the community.

“ outhfield has been my home for the majority of my life, and it’s a dream come true to serve and give back to this community that I know and love,” Lev erett said in a statement. “As Owner Operator of Chick fil A outhfield, it is my vision to become outhfield’s beacon of food and hospitality and my

ultimate goal is to invest back into the community that raised me and has always supported me.”

To that end, Leverett is recognizing 100 “local heroes” making an impact in the outhfield area by providing them with free Chick fil A meals for a year.

The Atlanta-based chain, owned by a devout Baptist family, has faced backlash and calls for boycotts for donating to charities with anti-LGBTQ stances, leading to a shift in Chick fil A’s philanthropy in recent years.

Detroit that the family plans to open a food truck on Vernor Hwy. and 24th St. around Thanksgiving. A new brick-and-mortar location in Lincoln Park will eventually follow.

Over at the Batch Brewing food truck rally, Southwest-based Cafecito Alvarez will be serving non-alcoholic drinks, while the brewery will provide the booze.

Beyond food and drinks, the Wayne Health Mobile Unit will be onsite offering blood pressure screenings, CO I 1 and flu vaccinations, and COVID-19 PCR tests, with services provided in Spanish.

For more information, see swdetroitrestaurantweek.com.

—Randiah Camille Green

Detroit diner Rose’s Fine Food and Wine is for sale

YET ANOTHER BELOVED Detroit restaurant is up for grabs.

Eastside Detroit diner Rose’s Fine Food and Wine was listed for sale at $600,000 Thursday. A future buyer would inherit the property and busi ness, including all kitchen equipment and its liquor license.

O’Connor Real Estate, who is handling the sale, posted the listing on social media, echoing the com munity’s love for the corner restaurant with its outdoor patio, herb garden, and housemade baked goods.

“ ike everyone in etroit, we adore Roses and hope to see someone new carry the torch that has lit up this very special corner in the East Village for the last eight years,” the post reads. “Thank you for feeding us, oses ” Rose’s has received national praise over the years from the likes of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Bon Ap pétit. I t was opened in 2014 by Lucy Car naghi and Molly Mitchell, who were applauded for offering employees a 1 starting wage during the pandemic.

Rose’s Fine Food and Wine is locat ed at 10 1 . efferson Ave., etroit rosesfinefoodandwine.com.

—Randiah Camille Green

Detroit’s Freya made NYT restaurant list

IT MAY NOT look like much from the outside, but inside Freya’s got it going on.

The new-ish Detroit restaurant made The New York Times list of “ 0 places in America we’re most excited about right now.”

ocated at 2 2 . rand lvd., the ilwaukee unction oint serves a fi ed price, five course tasting menu with pescatarian, vegan, omnivore, and gluten free options.

Some highlights include quail in molasses and maple brine, sweet corn agnolotti with walnut pesto, and lamb loin.

New York Times writer rett Anderson wrote reya’s vegan pri fi e menu is “particularly impressive” and called the restaurant’s dishes gorgeous and skill fully balanced.

“ ocated in a neighborhood where the bones of the city’s past economic might are still visible, Freya’s resourcefully repurposed building is a sign of more recent resilience,” he writes. “Inside, the soundtrack is chosen by din ers from a collection of vinyl records listed in a bound volume, like bottles of wine otor City artists are well represented. And still the thing that feels most Detroit about the place is its food.”

Freya opened in November of 2021 and is the only Michigan restaurant to make the list. Its sister bar ragonfly, which is located in the same building, provides cocktails for the restaurant.

Both are operated by the same owners of Chartreuse Kitchen Cocktails, Sandy Levine and Douglas Hewitt.

—Randiah Camille Green

—Lee DeVito

The outhfield store will partici pate in the Chick fil A hared Table Program, which redirects surplus food from the restaurant to local soup kitchens, shelters, food banks, and nonprofits. The company will also donate 2 ,000 to eeding America on behalf of the new restaurant, which will be distributed to partners in the greater etroit area to help fight food insecurity.

Detroit’s Los Altos is one of 21 restaurants participating in Southwest Detroit Restaurant Week.

FEATHERSTONE

Detroit’s Good Cakes & Bakes expands

The bakery will use a former abandoned building for a commercial kitchen, office, fulfillment center, and community baking classes

By Darlene A. White

When April Anderson realized that she had outgrown her small bakery on Detroit’s Westside, she thought adding a simple wall could resolve the problem. That project soon grew into an expansion of the busi ness that will see Good Cakes Bakes open a second location inside a nearby 5,600-square-foot formerly abandoned building.

“I was resistant at first, but it was totally worth it,” says Anderson, cofounder and pastry chef of Good Cakes Bakes.

The project is being led by local interior design strategy studio Concetti, which is helping Anderson and her wife and business partner, Michelle, to bring their dream bakery to reality. Good Cakes Bakes previously partnered with Concetti in 2020 to redesign their current brick-and-mortar store on Detroit’s historic Avenue of Fashion.

“With Good Cakes and Bakes, we are their design partner,” says Concetti

CEO and principal designer Rachel Nelson. “[We’re] really aiming to be a partner not only through the aesthetics of brand and design, but we are actually their partner in anticipating and creat ing this space that is going to anticipate client and employee needs.”

In 2020, the bakery was geared more toward creating a sitting area for customers to enjoy sweet treats, instead of the size of the kitchen space and the actual working space. After much suc cess in that space and positive feedback from customers, the Andersons knew it was time to make a change that would include an expansion of their business.

“To make this [project] happen, we take the time to get to know how April and Michelle are going to use the space, how their employees are going to use the space, and ultimately every decision comes back to supporting that func tion,” says Nelson.

Concetti and the Andersons worked collectively, redesigning the new

bakery. They say the groups continue to have weekly meetings and meet-ups for the renovation project. Anderson says that it has been estimated that the new development project will cost over $300,000.

The new building will feature a commercial kitchen, office, fulfillment center, and teaching kitchen for baking classes.

Nelson says at Concetti, one of their main focuses is community.

“It’s all about the people and the businesses that we collaborate with each day, and that’s why our partner ship with Good Cakes Bakes means so much to us, since they are so com munity-focused,” she says. “It allows us to do what we are most passionate about, which is supporting local initiatives and forming partnerships that bring us together to learn, grow, and celebrate as one.”

The new bakery is located at 16180 Meyers Rd. in Detroit, not far from the

Good Cakes Bakes store one Livernois Avenue. It will be Concetti’s biggest commercial project to date.

The new bakery is anticipated to open by spring 2023.

“We are all about working with our client as co-creators and collaborators, so no matter how big an undertaking of a project is we never lose sight of our human-centric approach,” Nelson says. “For this project we are taking into con sideration the entire employee journey from when they park their car to when they exit the building after a shift. It is through our three-phased design process that we create an efficient safe space that makes them feel good. April and Michelle are incredibly involved in everything. We have weekly meetings, and we really took the time to study other successful fulfillment operations.”

Anderson adds, “We are looking forward to the positive impact that new expansion will have on the Detroit community.”

The business continues to em ploy people that are returning to the community after being incarcerated. Anderson explains that she and her son were both previously incarcerated, but once he returned home, she was able to offer him a ob at the bakery.

“It’s a great feeling being able to help people,” says Anderson.

“It will help the community by add ing over 20 new jobs,” she says. “In addition, we will offer baking classes, which our customers have requested and have a ‘pay what you can’ option.”

She adds, “This experience has been truly amazing. Even though we had an ideal of what to expect because of the last remodel, this has been better because we get to work from a raw space to totally design it our way. The Conc etti team is wonderful with designing, but they are also great teachers. We continue to learn valuable information about designing with purpose from their team.”

Once the new bakery opens, cli ents will have access to products with wholesale accounts, and baking classes will also be available at the bakery for customers and their families.

“With this new bakery, I am looking forward to more space to fulfill orders, expansion of nationwide shipping, and bringing our community into our bakery home,” says Anderson.

“Detroit deserves spaces like this,” Nelson says. “Not just in the suburbs, in the city and the community deserves to see successful Black women doing what they do best. There is nothing more powerful than that.”

Good Cakes Bakes is located at 19363 Livernois Ave., Detroit; more information is available at goodcakesandbakes.com.

Good Cakes & Bakes on Detroit’s historic Avenue of Fashion is growing.

COURTESY PHOTO

Cannabis companies teamed up to commission LGBTQ+ mural in Ferndale

By Steve Neavling

A VIBRANT, INTERACTIVE mural celebrating the LGBTQ+ community in Michigan has enlivened the side of a brick building in downtown Ferndale.

The 40-foot by 25-foot mural, titled Polychromatic Super You, was conceptualized and installed by metro Detroit-based LGBTQ+ artist Joey Salamon, whose hypnotic work often features a rainbow color palette and three-dimensional geometric shapes.

JARS Cannabis, a leading marijuana retailer in Michigan, and HYPE Cannabis, a caregiver-owned cannabis brand, commissioned the mural as an extension of their collaborative “JARS x HYPE: Smoke with Pride” campaign that originally launched during Pride Month in June.

The mural, which was unveiled earlier this month, is emblazoned on the side of a brick building at 258 W. Nine Mile.

“It’s always an extra bonus when I get to create artwork with the main intent to showcase LGBTQ+ representation. For companies such as JARS and HYPE to invest in projects like this, it not only adds visibility, but it helps to create a connection to the community,” Salamon said in a statement. “For them to hire me for this specific pro ect and give me free rein on design, it not only shows their trust in my process, but it also shows their openness to having a queer artist freely express themselves without restrictions on something that is not only personal to me but also to many others in Ferndale and beyond.”

It was curated in collaboration with Chicago-based Beauty Brawn, which specializes in custom art and mural and installation creation.

“Beauty Brawn is both proud and honored to have partnered with JARS and HYPE for their Smoke with Pride initiative as we wholeheartedly advocate for and support movements which bring awareness to inclusivity, positivity, and philan thropy,” Lindsey Meyers, co-owner of Beauty Brawn said. “Through the curation of ‘Polychromatic Super You’ we sought to engage viewers in a joyful, interactive, and unique visual experience. The mural highlights Joey Salamon’s vibrant and colorful personality, incredible artistic vision and talent, and generous spirit of heart which he brings to Ferndale and to cities all across America.”

The mural incorporates digital technology to drive awareness and solicit dona tions to support the LGBTQ+ community in metro Detroit. The mural includes a plaque that features a QR code that allows visitors to scan to donate to Detroit’s LGBTQ+ safe haven, the Ruth Ellis Center, and to learn more about JAR’s initiative and resources.

Cannabis company Bloom City Club opens Ypsilanti dispensary

ANN ARBOR’S BLOOM City Club dispensary has opened a new location in Ypsi.

The new spot is located at 121 E. Michigan Ave., Ypsilanti, and opened earlier this month.

“Our flagship location is nearby in Ann Arbor so it just makes sense to bring the Bloom experience to our neighboring community,” says Ypsilanti location general manager Bri Donisi in a statement. “We’re excited to bring the personalized service, relaxed atmosphere, and

community involvement that Bloom is known for to Ypsilanti.”

The new dispensary, which is open for adult-use customers age 21 or older, is celebrating with a “Bloom Moon” party on Sunday, Oct. , the first in a series of par ties planned to coincide with the full moon. The first 100 customers spending at least $100 will receive gift bags worth at least $100 in cannabis products and accessories.

“The Bloom Moon parties are de signed to be 4/20 style events every

full moon,” says operations manager Angie Marshall.

Bloom City Club will also have a vendor booth at Ypsilanti’s upcom ing Canna Jam festival, a cannabis consumption event planned for Riverside Park on Saturday, Oct. 8. Customers can purchase discounted tickets to Canna Jam at the dispen sary.

The company has a third loca tion in Sturgis. More information is available at bloomcityclub.com.

—Lee DeVito

JOEY SALAMON

CULTURE

When celebrity feels hollow

By George Elkind

Totally singular and happy to wallow in that fact, Andrew Dominik’s new opus Blonde, adapted for etfli from the 2000 oyce Carol Oates novel of the same name, treats the life, mind, and persona of Marilyn Monroe as something to pu le over e haustive ly, as a monument intended to resonate beyond itself. With its depiction hinging on the notion of performing as an egodisrupting, dissociative act, and with Ana de Armas’s performance making the veneer of stardom (and contentment) seem e cruciatingly thin, Blonde be comes a long parade mostly of abjection inflicted by cruel and absent partners, patriarchs, and perhaps also something within the woman born orma eane Mortenson herself.

While its too-scattered emotional highs and luminous, constantly e peri mental photography lend it qualities worth recommending, the film remains deeply off balance in a way that might be deemed fitting, but still feels psycho logically thin, suggesting that some thing didn’t make the emotional leap from page to screen or footage to final cut). Dominik or his supervisors, unfor tunately, fail to take the pulse of this in his direction of the edit, condemning the film to a loop of repetitious scenes which eventually cheapen one another through their shared likeness, weaken ing the film by its end.

Though the film provides ample competition a score from ick Cave and Warren Ellis, dazzling photography

from Chayse Irvin , Ana de Armas’s starring performance inevitably must hold its center. Playing off the dual identity premise posited by the script, which suggests “Marilyn” to be a sort of potent, captivating fiction and orma ean an oft repressed, wounded creature constantly sacrificing to fuel the screen they’re both latched to, Blonde pitches Marilyn as a starlet and then star who’s eager to please but pained by the effort. De Armas slips into the role with vigor, foregrounding this attendant hurt; Dominik allows us glimpses of her act ing roles only in glimmers (and often then only through distancing long shots of slavering cinemagoers looking on with us . In these rare glimpses in which we get to see what Marilyn can do on screen (in movies, that is — within the world of the film we’re invited less to partake emotionally in what she’s doing from moment to moment than to mull over the conte t that surrounds each film’s shoot and release.

The circumstances of Mortenson’s life remain, in Dominik’s telling, remarkably dire. From an upbringing shepherded until she’s shooed off by her mentally ill and spiraling single mother to casting sessions in which producers e tract grotes ue conces sions from her for roles), the materials of Mortenson’s life seem as though they should pollute what we see in her performances. But for the most part, they seem hidden beneath a fragile but briefly gleaming veneer for us as view

ers, her crowd-pleasing antics in which she tends to engage mostly sit beside her life with a kind of residual ironic dissonance. Echoing at turns Naomi Watts in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (but with less vigor in her happy moments) and Laura Dern from his Inland Empire (at her most lost bits), de Armas settles for something that isn’t quite new it’s just tuned a little differently. In moments of oy, de Armas’s Norma seems raspy and desperate, as though gasping for air after time spent underwater starved of real connection. Clinging to a stubborn vein of hope, the mystery driving her character is less what troubled Marilyn/Norma than what keeps her going — dying at just 36, it seems almost miraculous in watching that she didn’t go much sooner.

The film’s photography flatters all this while doing so much more, unifying the film alongside de Armas’s performance with a wide array of visual motifs. ew aspect ratios and filters flicker through the picture throughout, with most frames proving absolute models of care and refinement. Irvin shoots most scenes with a shallowfocus lens, forcing actors into an almost flattening space of confinement if they want to stay in focus through a whole scene. Frequently, some piece of them (a foot perched atop a stool, a gesturing hand against a back wall) will hang too far or close to the lens, just beginning to fuzz and blur. The suggestion here

Blonde

Rated: NC-17

Run-time: 166 minutes

is twofold One, that the presentation of the characters even to us onscreen is necessarily flattening, both to us and to the audiences for movies within the film, and, two, that the nature of this compression is both delicate and distorting, altering those who e peri ence it on both sides of the projected frame. Alongside this, Blonde deploys a kind of signature filter, silvery blue with flushes of peach, or pink within it what’s been done is beyond me technically, but it’s used here to create images that prove breathtaking for their com ple ity and refinement.

A youthful love affair provides the visual and emotional summit of the film, a m nage trois and the out ings surrounding it giving Norma rare moments to bask in something that feels emotionally direct: for what seems the first time since childhood, her guard falls down. Treating a dalliance rumored in the star’s life as credible, Dominik and his team manage to capture both the richly felt resonance and the fleeting superficiality of a well timed fling. Cutting together scenes at diners with ecstatic se ual contortions, Irvin pulls out all the stops to make the most of each actors’ figures, abstracting them in prismatic images with a deft air of creativity in a way that feels embrac ing, and thriling to behold. It’s scenes and moments like these the film’s flights, reveries, and standalone im ages — that make Blonde a film worth watching. celling at these in a way it can’t seem to manage or even want to with psychology, Dominik seems best when dealing with the fragility — how ever troublingly gendered that concep tion of arilyn orma’s flickering, often faltering image. Throughout (and maybe to his credit), he seems a bigger believer in “the image” than “the real.”

Were Dominik free to do just that, wheeling through abstract meditations on a tumultuous public-private life and focusing on variously charged surfaces, Blonde would likely soar. But across its running time, Blonde’s script and struc ture often feel by-the-numbers when considered beside the vitality of its images and performance. With drably re uisite cameos and scenes the story behind the famous skirt shot) fea turing and dragging the film down, no amount of editorial and visual tinker ing can e actly liberate Blonde from the obligations and easy logics of etfli ’s e pectations for a biopic production like this. But for those willing to wait, there’s a good bit here — and it looks better in the end than most anything you could put it ne t to.

Ana de Armas stars as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde

NETFLIX

Savage Love CULTURE

Fair shares

By Dan Savage

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

:Q 42-year-old dad here. I’ve been married for 12 years, and my marriage has been somewhat turbulent. But a er me affair ne ere my i e re e my e rien an era y we reconnected, righted ourselves, and started a wonderful family. We both identify as bisexual now, and we are ethically non-monogamous. My question is this: my wife never seeks out other lovers, but often do. She thinks looking r e n a i r an n ry i . e i re en ly e e e me ly a e a e er le e er nly a n a er ne a e i an er le. e al in l ame me en a ermi i n r a e me ne el e. e an e en in e ry e eem e a ain i in ra i e. e communicate well and she continues i e me ermi i n al ay a er shaming me), and check in regularly only to have her act annoyed when inform her of each new adventure. am not sure what to do.

—Often Practicing Ethical Nonmonogamy

:Q Has it occurred to you that maybe… just maybe… your wife doesn’t wanna hear about each and every one of your adventures? Or any of them? mean, it seems clear to me she doesn’t want to hear about them. It’s all right there in your letter: your wife doesn’t enjoy discussing your dates, your hooky r a en re e . an ye y er i in a in er an ellin er. ou mention “some affairs” earlier in your marriage, OP , back before you came out to each other as bise ual and opened your relationship. ut you only share the details of one your wife fucked your best friend . That had to hurt. I’m glad you two got into therapy, managed to work through the fallout, got to a better place, and decided to start a family together. ut I feel like I don’t have all the relevant information

here like whose idea opening up was yours and your wife’s state of mind when she agreed guilt racked which means I have no choice but to speculate

ou’ve been married 12 years, you started a family sometime after that turbulent period, which means your kid or kids are still young and may be very young. our wife could be inter ested in other se partners but lacks the energy for them right now, seeing as she’s doing udging from your let ter way more than her fair share of the parenting. I mean, if you’re constantly running off on dates and hookups and having adventures and leaving her home alone with the kid s , it’s possible that your wife is annoyed with you and you’re reading her annoyance as slut shaming.

And if you proposed opening up the relationship and she agreed to it af ter she fucked your best friend may be she doesn’t feel free to say no when you ask for permission to fuck someone else, which could also leave your wife annoyed. Annoyance that, again, you could be reading as slut shaming.

At any rate, OP , if I were married to someone who agreed to open the relationship but who seemed annoyed or upset or slut shamed me whenever I asked for their O to go fuck someone else, I would have a few uestions for my spouse o they want an open rela tionship at all id they ever o they still And if they did and still do, would they prefer a A T “don’t ask, don’t tell” arrangement over a T “tell me fucking everything arrangement

I think a few check in check up sessions with your couples’ counselor are in order here. aybe your wife’s feelings have changed, after having a kid or kids . Or maybe your wife cheater though she was would prefer a monogamous relationship after all.

Or, hey, maybe your wife is happy for you to fuck other people but would like to see at least while your kids are young you dial back your adventur ing and dial up your dadding.

ut I can only speculate. our wife knows. Ask her.

:Q My wife likes to suck cock. But not my . e n e a e ra in in a e y ay an e i e i all r n with me, she says, because we love each other too much. We have a wonderful, loving, and creative sex life otherwise. n ye ea er y. e a my ff er men i a en n e r i e a year an a e er e e ff y er men i ne er a en . in in men want no-strings-attached blowjobs from a hot married woman is obviously easier an n in men an i e no-strings-attached blowjobs to married men. e li e in a ery ay ar e n ele area. m rai an not the least bit bisexual. But more than n e e een ffere a l y ay men a my ym e l er r m i a ene an e ne ly een em e to close my eyes and think about it being a woman. My wife isn’t comfortable with the idea because she thinks gay men are likelier to have STIs and she doesn’t want me bringing anything home. think she’s being a bigot. —Seeking Understandable Compromise Knowing Erections Rarely Sucked

A: I hope the guys lining up to suck your cock at the gym will forgive me for this

Go to Savage.Love to read the rest. questions@savagelove.net. Listen an n e a a e e a . ll an n i er a e an a a e.

CULTURE Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES: March 21 – April 19

Poet Susan Howe describes poetry as an “amorous search under the sign of love for a remembered time at the pitch-dark fringes of evening when we gathered together to bless and believe.” I’d like to use that lyrical assessment to describe your life in the coming days — or at least what I hope will be your life. In my astrological opinion, it’s a favorable time to intensify your quest for interesting adventures in intimacy; to seek out new ways to imagine and create togetherness; to collaborate with allies in creating brave excursions into synergy.

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20

Social reformer Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) had a growlery. It was a one-room stone cabin where he escaped to think deep thoughts, work on his books, and literally growl. As a genius who escaped enslavement and spent the rest of his life fighting for the rights of his fellow Black people, he had lots of reasons to snarl, howl, and bellow as well as growl. The coming weeks would be an excellent time for you to find or create your own growl ery, Taurus. The anger you feel will be

especially likely to lead to constructive changes. The same is true about the deep thoughts you summon in your growlery: They will be extra potent in helping you reach wise practical deci sions.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

“Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind,” wrote Gemini poet Gwendolyn Brooks. I love that advice! The whirlwind is her metaphor for the chaos of everyday life. She was telling us that we shouldn’t wait to ripen ourselves until the daily rhythm is calm and smooth. Live wild and free right now! That’s always good advice, in my opinion, but it will be especially apropos for you in the coming weeks. Now is your time to “endorse the splendor splashes” and “sway in wicked grace,” as Brooks would say.

CANCER: June 21 – July 22

“Don’t look away,” advised novelist Henry Miller in a letter to his lover. “Look straight at everything. Look it all in the eye, good and bad.” While that advice is appealing, I don’t endorse it unconditionally. I’m a Cancerian, and I sometimes find value in ga ing at things sideways, or catching reflec tions in mirrors, or even turning my attention away for a while. In my view, we Crabs have a special need to be self-protective and self-nurturing. And to accomplish that, we may need to be evasive and elusive. In my astrological opinion, the next two weeks will be one of these times. I urge you to ga e directly and engage point-blank only with what’s good for you.

LEO: July 23 – August 22

Tips to get the most out of the next three weeks: 1. Play at least as hard as you work. 2. Give yourself permis sion to do anything that has integrity and is fueled by compassion. 3. Assume there is no limit to how much generous joie de vivre you can summon and ex press. . ondle and nu le with eager partners as much as possible. And tell them EXACTLY where and how it feels good. 5. Be magnanimous in every gesture, no matter how large or small. 6. Even if you don’t regard yourself as a skillful singer, use singing to transform yourself out of any mood you don’t want to stay in.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

In the coming weeks, you should refrain from wrestling with problems that resist your solutions. Be discerning about how you use your superior ana lytical abilities. Devote yourself solely to manageable dilemmas that are truly responsive to your intelligent probing. P.S.: I feel sorry for people who aren’t

healthy transformations. The truths you discover may rattle routines and disturb habits, but they ultimately lead to greater clarity and authenticity. Now is an e cellent time to emphasi e this aspect of your nature.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

JAMES NOELLERT

receptive to your input, but you can’t force them to give up their ignorance or suffering. o where you’re wanted. Take power where it’s offered. editate on the wisdom of Anaïs Nin: “You cannot save people. You can only love them.”

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh was born under the sign of Libra. He said, “The root-word ‹Buddha’ means to wake up, to know, to understand; and he or she who wakes up and under stands is called a Buddha.” So according to him, the spiritual teacher Siddhartha Gautama who lived in ancient India was just one of many Buddhas. And by my astrological reckoning, you will have a much higher chance than usual to be like one of these Buddhas yourself in the coming weeks. Waking up will be your specialty. You will have an extraor dinary capacity to burst free of dreamy illusions and murky misapprehensions. I hope you take full advantage. Deeper understandings are nigh.

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21

I invite you to be the sexiest, most intriguing, most mysterious Scorpio you can be in the coming weeks. Here are ideas to get you started.

1. Sprinkle the phrase “in accordance with prophecy” into your conversa tions.

2. ind an image that symboli es rebirth and revitali ation arising out of disruption. Meditate on it daily until you actually experience rebirth and revitali ation arising out of disruption.

3. Be kind and merciful to the young souls you know who are living their first lifetimes. . Collect deep, dark secrets from the interesting people you know. Employ this information to plan how you will avoid the trouble they endured. 5. Buy two deluxe squirt guns and two knives made of foam rubber. se them to wage playful fights with those you love.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

There’s an ancient Greek saying, “I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed.” I regard that as a fine motto for you agittarians. When you are at your best and bright est, you are in quest of the truth. And while your quests may sometimes disturb the status quo, they often bring

Let’s imagine you are in your office or on the ob or sitting at your kitchen table. With focused diligence, you’re working on solving a problem or improving a situation that involves a number of people. You think to yourself, “No one seems to be aware that I am quietly toiling here behind the scenes to make the magic happen.” A few days or a few weeks later, your efforts have been successful. The problem is resolved or the situation has improved. But then you hear the people involved say, “Wow, I wonder what happened It’s like things got fi ed all by themselves.” If a scenario like this happens, Capricorn, I urge you to speak up and tell everyone what actually transpired.

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

To honor your entrance into the most expansive phase of your astrological cycle, I’m calling on the counsel of an intuitive guide named Nensi the Mercury Priestess. She offers the following advice. 1. Cultivate a mindset where you expect something une pected to happen. 2. antasi e about the possibility of a surprising blessing or unplanned-for miracle. 3. Imagine that a beguiling breakthrough will erupt into your rhythm. 4. Shed a few preconceptions about how your life story will unfold in the next two years. 5. Boost your trust in your deep self’s innate wisdom. 6. Open yourself more to receiving help and gifts.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

Author Colin Wilson describes sex as “a craving for the mingling of consciousness, whose symbol is the mingling of bodies. Every time partners slake their thirst in the strange waters of the other’s identity, they glimpse the immensity of their freedom.” I love this way of understanding the erotic urge, and recommend you try it out for a while. You’re entering a phase when you will have e tra power to refine and expand the way you experience blend ing and merging. If you’re fu y about the meaning of the words “synergy” and “symbiosis,” I suggest you look them up in the dictionary. They should be featured themes for you in the com ing weeks.

This week’s homework: What’s the best change you could make that would be fairly easy to accomplish?

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