top ten

4 Yarn Bomb Flash Mob

Yarn bomb flash mob—try saying that five times fast. (We can’t. We tried.) Never fear, proper pronunciation is not required to participate in this event, hosted by Up North Arts, Inc. of Cadillac. The arts nonprofit is encouraging residents to do some spring cleaning in their closets and drop off knitted and crocheted items. In turn, Up North Arts will cut up the old pieces and turn them into bright tree scarves to dress up the neighborhood. Yes, we said tree scarves—they’re meant to make the pine stumps in front of the nonprofit’s building look springy and bright! Local knitting and crocheting experts will also be on hand to teach basic skills to those interested in learning the craft. This is just about the cutest and coziest flash mob we’ve ever heard of, and you’ll have two (free) chances to participate: April 15 and April 29 from 1-4pm. Learn more and register online at upnorthartsinc.com/events.

Hey, read It! Anywhere You Run

It’s the summer of 1964, and Violet Richards is in serious trouble. As a Black woman in Jim Crow Mississippi, one wrong move could spell disaster, and Violet’s just killed the white man who raped her. Before the trail can lead back to her, she flees with the help of her wealthy boyfriend, but a dangerous stranger is hot on her heels. Meanwhile, her sister Marigold—a law school hopeful and voting rights activist—heads north when the cops come asking questions. Marigold is in her own kind of trouble; she’s pregnant, and her new husband isn’t the father. Can the sisters outrun their secrets? From Publishers Weekly “writer to watch” Wanda M. Morris comes sophomore novel Anywhere You Run . Rife with Morris’s complex plotting and pages of meticulous research (which she hammers home with ties to the infamous Summer Freedom murders), this tight-paced thriller has the makings of an instant classic.

No, it’s not Skittles—it’s dinner! Up North Pride is pairing renowned local chefs with each color of the rainbow for a seven-course meal during their Taste the Rainbow event on Saturday, April 15. Dinner will be followed by a dance party with music by 2Bays DJs and live go-go dancers. Tickets for the full experience are $200, or you can attend the dance party for $20. Get details and tickets by visiting upnorthpride.com. 2

Even on a chilly spring evening, the vibes at Bay Harbor’s NOMAD—and the sunlight streaming in through the building’s floor-to-ceiling windows—are plenty warm and inviting. The restaurant’s menu has an array of small plates and snacks made for sharing, but if you’re extra hungry (or want leftovers to take home), we recommend leveling up with the Faroe Island Salmon “Carbonara” ($36). Udon noodles are the base of the dish, peppered with a touch of heat from the gochujang sauce, aka a sweet and spicy red chili paste. The noodles are topped with kimchi, scallion, seaweed salad, and pea shoots, so you know you’re getting your veggies. But wait—there’s more! A sunny side up egg, crispy bits of lardon, and a generous slab of salmon complete the dish. Get it while the winter menu is still available at 795 Front Street in Bay Harbor. (231) 881-9090, nomadbayharbor.com

Faraway Flavors

If you’re hungry for a taste of Spain but don’t have the miles to make the transcontinental flight, hop in the car instead and travel to Palette Bistro in Petoskey. On Friday, April 14, at 6:30pm, the restaurant will host a Galician Wine Dinner, a five-course food vacation to the Galician region of Spain. Your tour guides will be Chef Daniel Travis and special guest Inma Pazos, who will use her wine expertise to help you explore the exceptional wines of the Iberian Peninsula. As for the food, expect pickled shrimp, jamón serrano, black pepper and mushroom rubbed filet, macarrones con chorizo, and melindre doughnuts. Yum! Dinner and four wine pairings comes out to $85 per person, plus tax and tip. To book your reservation, head to MyNorthTickets.com and search “Galician Wine Dinner.” Contact Palette Bistro, (231) 3483321, with any other questions.

Looking for Employees?

Who isn’t? That’s why we’re gearing up for our spring “Now Hiring” issue, which will be online and on newsstands May 15. This issue includes a special section, sponsored by Munson Healthcare, with job listings from across the region. Now through May 1, you can submit your open positions to help fill those critical summer jobs—and the year-round ones, too— as we head into the busy season in northern Michigan. There is no limit to the number of positions you may submit, though we do not guarantee publication of all jobs. To submit a job posting, head to northernexpress. com/jobs. You’ll need to have the following information handy: employer name, position title, position type, pay range, city, a brief description, and a contact email or phone number. (Note: Only jobs in Northern Express’ 13-county northern Michigan readership area will be considered. If you’re not sure if your business falls in that area, drop us a line at info@northernexpress.com.)

Stuff We Love: Robotics Rockstars

A Traverse City team is headed to the VEX Robotics World Championships—the largest robotics competition on the planet—later this month. The allgirls Wings of Woodland Middle School team meets weekly after school and has competed in several tournaments in the region over the last school year. Their hard work paid off, and they got their ticket to the Dallas showdown after winning the Create Award at the Michigan State Championship in March. Now, the three-person team will go up against dozens of other groups from across the country and beyond. This year’s competition involves a game called Slapshot, which is a bit like curling mixed with air hockey…played by robots. (In short, it sounds awesome.) Woodland robotics coach, Alex Bloye, said of the team, “I am amazed at the technical skills the girls bring to the work, and more importantly the problem solving and collaboration skills they demonstrate.” Let’s go Wings of Woodland!

Finding Joy All Around Us

The National Writers Series and Interlochen Center for the Arts welcome acclaimed author and poet Ross Gay. new book, Inciting Joy considers what might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love. Taking a clear-eyed look at humanity’s sorrows, Gay shows us how the study of joy might just help us survive.

Join NWS and ICA at Interlochen’s Corson Auditorium, April 12 at 7:30 p.m. (+ livestream option) for a conversation with Gay and guest host Ari Mokdad, NWS education director.

For in-person tickets, go to interlochen.org/rossgay

For livestreaming tickets visit NationalWritersSeries.org

Though Tolkien’s “all that is gold does not glitter” quote probably wasn’t about viniculture, it did inspire a beautiful bottle of wine at BOS Wine in Elk Rapids. Opened in 2021, BOS uses biodynamic farming to make world-class wine on Michigan soil. This week, our gold star (pun intended) goes to the All That Is Gold Riesling (2021). Made from Old Mission Peninsula grapes, this vintage features riper fruit, which lends just a touch of balancing sweetness to an otherwise highly-acidic sip. The result is a gorgeously off-dry wine driven by stone-fruity flavors of peach skin, honeysuckle, and navel orange and held together by a crisp backbone and a delightfully weighty palette. Pair a glass with a protein-rich snack (we recommend a stacked cheese board), and let your golden hour commence. Grab a bottle ($26) at BOS Wine in Elk Rapids (135 Ames St.), or order online at boswine.com. (231) 498-2073.

Peripheral Targets

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle

It isn’t clear what Republican office holders support other than guns and Donald Trump, but it is crystal clear what they don’t support. They seem to think their beloved base only responds to the negativity they produce in abundance.

Let’s start with businesses and schools trying to undertake diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, which are supposed to provide fair treatment and full participation for everyone. It’s difficult to understand, at least in the abstract, why this isn’t a good idea. Surely they can’t embrace the opposite notions.

The opposite of diversity is sameness or homogeneity. So, same ethnicity, same skin color, same political beliefs, same life philosophy, same religion, same nationality, same everything. The opposite of equity is inequity, inequality, and favoritism. Who gets the favored, special treatment, and, more to the point, who gets to decide? Equity for all or just for some? Obviously, the opposite of inclusion is exclusion. Again, who gets included or excluded, and who gets to decide?

Transgender individuals are a tiny chunk of our population. Transgender students who wish to participate in athletics, where most of the controversy exists, are an even tinier cohort. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are a bit more than 15 million high school students and around 8 million participate in some form of school-sponsored athletic extracurricular activity. But only 1.9 percent of all students identify as transgender and only 14 percent of transgender boys and 12 percent of transgender girls participate in school athletics. So, the big controversy is focused on a scant 0.4 percent of all student athletes.

There are real issues aplenty on which Republicans could focus. But DEI, CRT, transgenderism, and drag shows are just peripheral targets that further no real cause and advance no serious policy...

There aren’t any GOPers advocating for homogeneity, inequality, or exclusion, at least not in so many words or publicly. But their nearly rabid opposition to DEI programs in general is concerning. Which is not to say progressives, who too often take a reasonable idea and push it to the extreme, haven’t made some easy targets.

The most recent example, a shameful episode at Stanford Law School, has been wellpublicized. The school’s Federalist Society chapter invited a conservative federal judge to speak where he was greeted with heckling. Front and center was the associate dean for the DEI programs not being the least bit inclusive or attempting to tolerate a diversity of opinion. Instead, she did nothing to quiet the hecklers and lectured the judge on the errors of his judicial ways.

DEI hopes to provide opportunities for traditionally marginalized groups but can’t itself become exclusive and discriminatory. If it doesn’t include everyone, it has betrayed its own name.

DEI isn’t the only Republican target in their current iteration of the culture wars. There’s critical race theory (CRT) they see behind every book, incident, or lesson that references our country’s history with slavery and racism. There’s LGBTQ+ issues that seem to dismay and frighten them, especially as it applies to anything involving the transgender community. Not to mention drag shows, which have somehow percolated to the top of the conservatives’ hit-list.

Opposition to teaching our students about racism and slavery is even more troubling, especially since so many politicians think any such honest exploration of our history is evil CRT. (Critical race theory, developed for college and university courses intended to foster debate, is not taught in U.S. K-12 public schools.) If we can’t honestly discuss our long and ugly relationship with slavery and post-slavery racism, then we cannot teach U.S. history at all. History absent facts is a dishonest fantasy created by dishonest politicians. If those facts and the truth bother our students, so much the better. (In Germany, all students take a trip to a still-standing concentration camp so they fully understand the horrors perpetrated therein.)

It is a bit of a mystery how drag shows got on this list given their tradition, lack of danger or criminal activity, and likely constitutional protection. (If stripping is a protected form of speech, then so too must be drag shows.) Cross-dressing has a very long history going back to the Aztecs, ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks. Charlie Chaplin dressed in drag in his silent movies, and Milton Berle was famous for it on early television. There is no statistical connection between drag shows and criminality, and those activities most certainly pose no threat to our children despite what some politicians would like us to believe.

(You know who does pose a threat to our children? According to the Child Assessment Center, most assaults against children occur in the home of the victim or the perpetrator and are committed by a relative or acquaintance of the victim.)

There are real issues aplenty on which Republicans could focus. But DEI, CRT, transgenderism, and drag shows are just peripheral targets that further no real cause and advance no serious policy; they serve only to frighten the faint of heart into votes or campaign contributions.