The Grosse Pointe Artist Association May Need To Relocate

The Edward Frohlich Trust may not last forever
For the past 72 years there has been an association for artists in our community. This group is collectively know as the Grosse Pointe Artists Association and has recently obtained more visibility in the community thru the generosity of the beneficiaries of the Edward Frohlich Trust. [...]

Memorial For Arts Advocate E. Ray Scott at The Gem Theatre

Saturday, February 27th, 11am

E. Ray Scott
It was Saturday, Feb. 6, when the cheerful, tuxedoed members of Detroit’s Players Club gathered for their monthly show of plays at their historic Playhouse. The mood quickly sobered when they heard that Player E. Ray Scott had died at 86. As Executive Director of the Michigan Council for [...]

How Can a “Music of the Spirit” Die?

Amiri Baraka – “Whether African Song, Work Song, Spiritual, Hollers, Blues, Jazz,
Gospel, etc., no matter the genre, the ideas contained in Afro-American art, in the
main, oppose slavery and desire freedom.”
Jazz is dead! Here we go again. The recent Wall Street Journal article by Terry Teachout, (the journal’s drama critic? Why is he writing about [...]

Wind Turbines can and should be the next “classic” piece of art!

Guest Editorial
By John Breco
A vertical axis wind turbine called a Windspire rotates in Copemish.
The 30-foot-tall generators are virtually silent. (John L. Russell Special
to The Detroit News)
I can’t help but wonder how many “electric” shocks we, as a society, need before we wake up.  Gas at $4 a gallon. Brownouts and blackouts during summer and winter. [...]

Letter To The Editor: Prelude To A Very Long, Hot Summer?

Shamus Cooke: “The alarm bells should be ringing day and night about what’s being prepared at General Motors — the ripple effects could produce tidal waves.”
The Obama administration has made clear its plans for GM: the Chrysler bankruptcy was the “test case,” and now Obama’s Wall Street buddies inside the Auto Task Force plan to [...]

Letter to the Editor: Strip Auto Despair From The Front Page

It’s time to strip the auto industry stories of despair from the front page.  With bailout money in place, the situation seems to be going in some direction and a higher power will ultimately determine its fate.  Plenty of great things are happening in the City and region, but have become “white noise” lost in [...]

Moving On…

“It’s time to move on, it’s time to get goin’.” – Tom Petty

Six years ago, my brother John had the notion for a virtual magazine about theater and art, and as we started discussing and dreaming up what it could be, it soon blossomed into a publication on arts and culture to serve Detroiters. [...]

Distracted

It seems for the last few months, I’ve been checking and rechecking the Free Press website, curious to see what’s new with the mayor that hour. For a while there, I was also back and forth between the freep.com and the New York Times online, seeing what was up with New York’s now-departed governor.

I’ve [...]

Green Spaces – Central Parks

I’m running through the streets of New York and its Central Park in a pretty steady downpour. Dodging puddles, soaked through, I can’t help but reflect upon Detroit.
No, no, I’m not contemplating the eerie similarity between newspaper headlines in the two cities about sex scandals of major political figures that have bookended my leaving Detroit [...]

Bucket of Change

I once described Crystal Lake to long time friend and Crystal-lite herself as being “almost idyllic” she turned and corrected my statement – “is Idyllic” she said.
After almost 30 years of summering at Crystal it has become the annual definitive punctuation point of my life, as each year comes around to meet the next. Savoring [...]