Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I really should read my own blog.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

In my day, never was longer.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Republicans in disarray!

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

You are here: Home / Popular Culture / Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Michigan!

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Michigan!

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In case you’re new to Medium Cool, BGinCHI is here once a week to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in.  We’re here at 7 pm on Sunday nights.

A 16×12 oil painting on flat panel by Stephanie Schlatter painted on location inside Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in plein air. https://www.stephanieschlatterart.com

For this week’s Medium Cool, we’re going to do something a bit different.

I spent most of the week in Michigan – in Muskegon and Grand Rapids – so I thought it might be fun to talk about all things Michigan.  Arts and Culture-related, of course!

From its music (Detroit), to its actors (Jeff Daniels), writers (Jim Harrison, Bonnie Jo Campbell, and so many more), artists,  and physical beauty (see image above), Michigan has a rich cultural history.

The image above was painted by Stephanie Schlatter, check out her website.

If this turns out to be fun, we can have one of these for other states every once in awhile.

~BG

Reader Interactions

177Comments

  4. 4.

    BGinCHI

    @raven: ​
      Great photo. A lot of commercial fishing out of there in the past as well, I think. First time I’ve spent time there. Some really great food, coffee, and drink, and a fabulous cheese shop.

  6. 6.

    sab

    @raven: In my mispent youth I used to practice law in Grand Rapids. The Muskegon Bar Association got banned from a restaurant one time for excessively rowdy behavior. Weird place, but it did have Lake Michigsn nearby. Grand Rapids was more staid but still fun.

  7. 7.

    raven

    @sab: Proly the BLT! One time we spent the day perch fishing and caught a ton. We went to “Crayons” and got hammered and decided we didn’t want to clean the fish so we did what anyone would do. We dumped them over a hedge in a lawyers building!

  9. 9.

    BGinCHI

    @sab: ​
      GR is a nice town. Lots of amazing people and also some rich assholes. Great beer and food culture. Cider too (Vander Mill).

  12. 12.

    Mike in Oly

    When I think of Michigan I think of Motown – and my favorite Motown sound has always been The Supremes. My parents were quite young when I came along and they always had the pop music of their time playing as I grew up. My mom had all of the Supremes records, and when I first started paying attention to music, from the POV that I could have a choice in the matter, I played them all. As a little gay boy I was just captivated with the beautiful singers, the lush vocals, and their insanely catchy pop hooks and melodies. They were a transition between the music my parents listened to and the new music coming out I was attracted to as a young teen and set me off on a lifetime of seeking out music new and old. I will still stop and let a Supremes song play anytime I come across one on the radio dial (so rare these years) and they will always hold a special place in my heart.

  13. 13.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories were set in Michigan. You have to go through the UP to get to Isle Royale. Okay, I am pretty much done.

  16. 16.

    sab

    @BGinCHI: Did you ever see the Grand Rapids American Pie Lip Dub? That was fun to watch because years after leaving I still recognized a lot of the people.

  19. 19.

    BGinCHI

    Before I forget I want to mention Anatomy of a Murder (1959, dir. Otto Preminger), filmed entirely on location in MI. A really fabulous example of a studio film not ruined by shooting on the backlot.

  25. 25.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us

    I grew up in Grand Rapids. One of it’s gems is The Meyer May house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and immaculately restored by Steelcase. Vertigo Music is a great brick and mortar music store. Reed’s Lake is nice for a scenic walk. Lots of breweries.

    Sleeping Bear Dunes is great and I really like the Lake MI shore pretty much for it’s entire run but from Saugatuck to Leeland it’s at its very best.

    As for Detroit, Hitsville is a must see. A great day would be to start at the art museum, have lunch at Chartreuse or Jolly Pumpkin brewery, then walk up through Wayne State University to the Fisher Building, which just go in and see the main lobby – it’s spectacular. Then on to Hitsville to see where all the Motown greats did their thing. Then to either Selden Standard for upscale gormet fare or Buddy’s Pizza for the original Detroit style pizza. You’d have to drive or catch a ride to Buddy’s. Selden you could walk to if you have the energy left but it’s a bit of a trek back past the art museum.

  26. 26.

    Anne Laurie

    Totally coincidental — I’m re-reading my copy of Michigan So Far, by one of the most criminally under-rated cartoonists of our time, Dick Guindon.

    My google-fu is not up to the challenge of finding ‘A typical conversation about small towns in Michigan’, but all these years after my sojourn as a Michigander, yes I have been known to use my right hand as a map…

  27. 27.

    BGinCHI

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us: These are great recommendations. I’ve driven through Detroit so many times, but never stopped. Need to make it a point to get there and see some stuff.

    Love the MI coast too. All of it that I’ve seen. And for those who’ve never been to Sleeping Bear Dunes, you should really try to get there. It’s a gorgeous spot, with clear blue water, giant dunes, lots of birds, and lovely towns around it. Also isolated enough that it’s really never badly crowded.

  28. 28.

    BGinCHI

    @Anne Laurie: ​
    Didn’t know you were a Michigander!

    OK, this thread officially dedicated to you.

    ETA: Or I misread and you lived there, or live there now…..

  30. 30.

    Fake Irishman

    @Anne Laurie: 

    YES. Spent nine years there for grand school in Ann Arbor. Still point to the fleshy part of my palm below my thumb to let people know where it is.

  31. 31.

    GregMulka

    Grew up at the tip of the index finger. Visited my parents this summer before spending almost a week with friends in the Grand Rapids area. Took this picture of one of the lighthouses about five miles from my childhood home.

    I do miss the Great Lakes.

  33. 33.

    Anne Laurie

    @BGinCHI: I lived in — and mostly enjoyed! — Michigan from 1973 till 1989.  So my memories are long out of date, but I will always remain found of the Mitten State.

    (Not least because Spousal Unit grew up there, at the base of the top joint of the little finger, aka a bedroom suburb of not-yet-trendy Traverse City.)

  34. 34.

    Scout211

    @BGinCHI:

    We really enjoyed Sleeping Bear dunes when we went there one summer while visiting my sister who has a second home (cabin?) not far from there. We must have hit a big touristy period though, because in our experience it was very crowded. We did enjoy it, though.

    What we really enjoyed on that visit was the awesome blueberries we purchased from a blueberry farm.  Yum!

  37. 37.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I grew up in Detroit. My PhD is from Wayne State. When I was working on my dissertation , my son went to a nursery school on the WSU campus, which is across Woodward from the Art Institute. They used to take the kids over there for an outing. They’d run into the lobby to stick their arms in the pool and retrieve coins people had thrown. The kids’ favorite parts were the armor and the mummies.

    There used to be a bar/restaurant near WSU called The Traffic Jam that had the best tex/mex burgers. I wonder if it’s still there.

    My only brush with MoTown is that my great aunt lived across the street from Little Stevie Wonder when he was indeed little.

  40. 40.

    Mike in Oly

    @Steeplejack (phone): Oh, that is a nice detail to note.  Their vocals were a masterclass in harmony and timing.  ‘Come see about me’ is such a great track. I think of it as a prelude to ‘Back in my arms again’.​
    ​
    ​

  43. 43.

    Fake Irishman

    @BGinCHI:

    sleeping Bear Dunes is worth a trip, as are many of the wineries in the Old Mission Peninsula nearby. If you try the dune Climb just be aware it’s about a 3-mile hike over shifting dunes to the beach. My now spouse and I had our first fight over whether attempt it. So did two couples who we were friends with on separate trips

    traditional gender stereotypes applied all three cases.

  49. 49.

    citizen dave

    My wife and I, lifelong Hoosiers, love going to Michigan.  We have no particular ties there, but the whole state is lovely.  I’m recalling the first time we stayed on Mackinac Island at a B&B, and watched a videotape of the movie Somewhere in Time, filmed at the Grand Hotel.  It’s a really corny/sentimental time travel love story, starring Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour and Christopher Plummer.

    Love the Jeff Tweedy/Wilco (Chicago band) jamming song, Kidsmoke, with these lyrics:

    “Spiders are singing in the salty breeze Spiders are filling out tax returns Spinning out webs of deductions and melodies On a private beach in Michigan

    Why can’t they wish their kisses good Why do they miss when their kisses should Fly like winging birds fighting for the keys On a private beach in Michigan”

    The fairly recent Comedy Central series Detroiters had some funny moments.

    Bob Seger of course one of the all time great mainstream rockers

    Every December 7 I recall seeing The Who in the Pontiac Silverdome in 1979, four days after the Cincinnati tragedy.  They played to the “small” side of the place, around what would be the 30 yard line.  Still a massive crowd on the floor where I was, Daltrey telling everyone to take 3 steps back every so often.  Of course, the GA floor wasn’t where the Cincinnati tragedy happened, it was at the doors to that arena.

  50. 50.

    Ksmiami

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Jack Whites record company opened a huge facility and my friends chocolate place is next door. There’s just been a Renaissance in Detroit and the new Red wings arena is awesome

  53. 53.

    japa21

    As a kid, we would go from either Illinois, originally, and then Wisconsin via the ferry to stay with my grandparents for a couple weeks every summer. They had a house on the hills overlooking Lake Michigan just north of Pentwater. Lovely area. We would go blueberry picking, spend nights around a fire on the beach. The stairs down weren’t so bad, but they seemed to lengthen when we had to walk back up.
    The grandparents had to sell it in the late 60’s. We kids were very upset at our parents for not buying it, but it was not to be.
    Went to college at MSU. That was more “meh” than anything else.

  55. 55.

    Coppersmith

    I grew up between Grand Rapids and Muskegon. There was a movie called Scarecrow, with Al Pacino and Gene Hackman that did some filming in the orchard behind my house.

  57. 57.

    sab

    One Labor Day three of us managed to swim in all the Great Lakes on the same day. We started out near the Mackinaw Bridge where we gor both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, crossedeastward through Michigan, crossed into Canada at Sarnia and got Lake Huron, then down into Ontario where we got Lake Erie and on to Toromto where we got Lake Ontario. They had an E Coli warning at that beach but we jumped in anyway and kept our heads above water.

    The Macinaw part was in the dark, but everything else was in daylight. The sun was setting in Toronto.

  58. 58.

    Fake Irishman

    @delk:

    great deli, great coffeehouse. They have a bake house where I learned to bake bread. Excellent classes. Still use their pizza dough  a decade later. excellent service. Anarchist founders. They’ll answer any questions you have about Oliver oil or crackers or basalmic vinegar or canned sardines.

    and anyone here who wants to can use their mail order catalogue for all sorts of goodies. Flat shipping.

  59. 59.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Ksmiami: Where is the new Red Wings arena? My Dad was Canadian and we used to go to hockey games a couple of times year. As I recall, the steps outside the hockey arena were very steep because they squeezed it into a slightly too small area near the river

  63. 63.

    sab

    @Fake Irishman: Well that is cool. I will put that on my list, since Northern Lights aren’t likely

    ETA Embarrassed I spelled Macinac like I pronounce it, not like it is correctly spelled.

  65. 65.

    Dan B

    My aunts had a cottage they inherited in the dunes between South Haven and Benton Harbor.  It was a turn of the century development with no roads, only paths and pedestrian bridges over the little steep valleys between the forested over dunes.  Benton Harbor had a great old amusement park that Satby knows of.

    A few years ago my brother took his wife, a Seattle native, to see the resort.  She was shocked that 9n the flight from Chicago to Kalamazoo (or somewhere like that) that mid flight you could not see either shore.

  69. 69.

    sab

    My junior year abroad in Durham UK one of my fellow American students was from Holland Michigan. She spent her whole year trying to convince the English that the “ch” in Michigan is soft like “sh” since the spelling was basically French, and not pronounced hard like the “ch” in “much.” The Scots just laughed at us. “You want to hear a hard “ch”.”

  71. 71.

    Dan B

    A great place to visit in the Detroit area is Cranbrook Academy.  Much of the campus was designed by Eliel Saarinen, father of Eero, designer of the Pan Am terminal at JFK.  It’s interesting to see the transition between the architecture of the more staid 1800’s and the early 20th century, and then the 50’s and 60’s when Eero and others broke the mold.

  73. 73.

    sab

    @Omnes Omnibus: How and where, when I can’t get spouse interested in anything but Cape Cod and Hawaii, neither of which is likely? Northern Lights are far from Ohio. Apparently we just had them but the usual clouds were there.

  77. 77.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Enough of this Michigan shit…. WisDems are doing a comedy fundraiser roasting Ron Johnson. Link. Any money donated gets you in, but they are asking for $20.22. It is just starting.

  78. 78.

    sab

    @Omnes Omnibus: I cannot pronounce Scots phonetically. I just don’t have the capability. And Gaelic is pronouncible, but only Highlanders and linguists can figure out their phonics. Extremely logical but (therefore)  nowhere close to any variety of English.

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    @sab

    Hoping someone then turned it around to inquire if she was shamping at the bit to fly home for Shristmas (or, if applicable, Shannukah).

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’ve ended up spending a good chunk of my life in Michigan. When I was not much more than a year old, my parents and I moved to Grand Marais (in the U.P.), where my dad — who was 4-F — had two gigs: he taught music, English, and history at the local high school, replacing three young men who had joined the Army; and he had a commission to compose an oratorio or cantata or something on the “Hiawatha” text. I have no memories of G.M., but evidently my first solid food was venison from a deer my dad shot, which lasted our small family through the winter.

    Starting the summer I turned 5, and for the next half-dozen years, I was packed off to a farm in Gratiot County every summer for three months. When they were old enough, my siblings joined me. Didn’t much like the family we stayed with, but I became skilled at milking, churning butter, gathering eggs, and similar agricultural chores. And when I was 11, I spent a couple of months in Saugatuck, which was fun.

    In my 30s, I took a job in Flint as classical music announcer/cultural affairs producer for the local NPR station, the now-defunct WFBE-FM. I adored everything about that job! When the grant funding for the position eventually ran out, I took a job as general manager of the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra, but that wasn’t nearly as good a fit :-(

  86. 86.

    tom

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Traffic Jam is still there, though sadly it has gone downhill. The area around Wayne State has really grown in the past decade. Many apartment buildings, condos, bars, restaurants, galleries, and so forth.

  88. 88.

    sab

    @Omnes Omnibus: ” American Pie” was actually a popular song then. The New Yorkers kept trying to tell the Brits that in America “McLean” is pronounced “McKleen”, and the Midwesterners kept saying no it’s not, it’s pronounced “McLane” but the Brits didn’t want to believe us because that wasn’t exotic enough, and we sounded more like Canadians than New Yorker Americans. They were all watching Kojak.

  89. 89.

    Heidi Mom

    All that I know of Michigan comes from Steve Hamilton’s wonderful mystery series featuring Alex McKnight, a former Detroit cop who’s relocated to a little town on the shore of Lake Superior, where he runs a hunting camp and drifts into being a private detective.  The first book in the series, A Cold Day in Paradise, won the Edgar Award for best first novel.  The books are great at evoking the snow, the lake, and the local Ojibwe culture.

  90. 90.

    debbie

    My grandparents used to spend summers in Clearwater. The water in fact was crystal clear.  We used to stay in Frankfort on the ocean with a lighthouse we’d fish from. I can almost smell the Solarcaine that never helped with sunburns. Very different than Ohio.

  92. 92.

    sab

    @SiubhanDuinne: My Ohio husband was stationed in NE Michigan when he was stationed there during his stint in the Coast Guard. He still wishes he had made a career of it.  Fifty years later he still regrets it.

  93. 93.

    Mike E

    @Steeplejack (phone): In the comments: “True rivals to the Beatles” and how their hits “hegemony” in ’64 was “Beatlesque”…Luther Vandross’ take on the Supremes in the BBC 90’s Rock and Roll documentary: “We had our Beatles already, thank you!”

  95. 95.

    sab

    @NotMax: There’re only two ways: Mingus or Menzees

    ETA Mingus being correct. My Swiss German married last name has three pronunciations in Ohio alone, and people are really stubborn about which is correct, even within families.

    ETA Absolutely nobody in Switzerland or anyone else in the world spells it like Americans do in the Midwest. Weird.

  96. 96.

    prostratedragon

    I think I’ve told my own silly story about searching for the Northern Lights in Michigan, which “convinced” me and my friends that what they are actually is an hallucinatory symptom of severe cabin fever. One night during a fairly bitter cold spell we heard that the Lights were expected to be at a peak, so at least 6 of us piled into an old land yacht and drove west out of the city, hoping to get away from the city lights. We drove and drove, finally got out of the car on some farm road, no houses immediately visible, and stared north. Our conclusion after a few minutes was that we were looking at the lights of Chelsea.

  97. 97.

    Mike in Oly

    @Steeplejack (phone): Thanks! I’ll check that out.​
     

    OH! The Number Ones! I love this series. I’ve been slowly working thru it but form 80s forward. Guess I need to go backward too. Thanks for the reminder!

  98. 98.

    Mike E

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: My family lived in Wayne during the 50’s, that’s where my eldest sisters grew up, Garden City is where my brother and sister #3 were born. My European mom spoke English with a Midwestern accent even though she lived the longest spell in PA.

  99. 99.

    sab

    @prostratedragon: So are they still also on your list? Should we go to Alaska, N Canada or Iceland in search of them? I am in favor of Iceland, because that would otherwise be amazing.

  100. 100.

    citizen dave

    How could I forget one of my very favorite shows, Joe Pera Talks With You, on Adult Swim.  Season 3 just began (although I don’t have the capability to see it yet).  Although Joe is from Buffalo and lives in New York, the show takes place and is made in the UP, Marquette and environs.  It’s a pleasure to watch, unlike just about everything being made today.  They nail so many midwestern things

    OK, just figuring out that on the Adult Swim website, you can watch all the episodes, even the new ones: https://www.adultswim.com/videos/joe-pera-talks-with-you

    If you’re a Who fan, Season 1, Joe Pera Reads You The Church Announcements is a must watch.

  102. 102.

    prostratedragon

    @sab:  I think that’s where we would have to go, or at least how far, to escape light pollution. It’s a date!

  109. 109.

    Omnes Omnibus

    “Ron Johnson is the name you tell a hooker just before you kill her.”  From the WI fundraiser.

  110. 110.

    sab

    @Omnes Omnibus: My grandmother was from Wisconsin. I love the state. You have just given me the wedge for successful planning.

    ETA Prostratedragon: I am still game for Iceland. They have amazing beaches and also hot springs. Some of them at the beaches.

  116. 116.

    sab

    I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel very very remiss in not saying how much I like Stephanie Schlatters paintings. I am old. I have no wall space left in my house. But I should avoid blowing by artists I like a lot just because I personally can’t/or shouldn’t buy it.

  117. 117.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mike in Oly: I grew up in Grosse Pointe, outside of Detroit, and I totally get the Motown love. I had much older sisters who became young adults during the 60s, and I grew up listening to their Motown and Ray Charles records, as well as folk music and the Beatles (yeah, it was the 60s, all right). My sister Toni used to tell me about dressing up and going down to the Motown Christmas shows (I believe at the Fox Theater). For something like $5 (which admittedly was a pretty stiff cover at the time), you could see Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, the Supremes, the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops…the list just went on and on. *And* “Little Stevie Wonder”!

    Somewhere I read that Smokey Robinson, I think it was, received a letter from a white teenage girl in GP talking about how she and her friends had to sneak around to listen to his records, because their parents were that freaked out about RACE MUSIC. That could have been my sisters’ story. Ah, Grosse Pointe…home of redlining. Yeah, I know it’s more integrated there now, but man, I would never go back.

  118. 118.

    currawong

    @Heidi Mom: I love these books. I found one in a library in Melbourne and have since read them all. The UP is a place that’s now on my bucket list to visit.

  120. 120.

    BGinCHI

    @sab: I do too, and thanks for the reminder. I googled “Sleeping Bear Dunes artist” and her stuff came up.

    Really like her compositions.

  121. 121.

    citizen dave

    @BGinCHI: I received a newsletter from Joe Pera the other day.  He’s been doing quite a bit of media (for him) related to Season 3.  It’s such a lovely yet really funny show in a certain low-key lane.  I was reading the other day how each season is a story arc, partly because the adult swim shows are only around 10 minutes long per episode.  Which makes it easy to watch a season of shows

    Joe Pera also has a book out on Tuesday “A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing but Using the Bathroom as an Escape”  I ordered it a couple of hours ago.  It was supposed to be out last year but the cover was misprinted (offset), so they and the publisher agreed to reprint.  Joe thought it would be wrong for a book about relaxing to have such an obvious error on the cover

    Can’t help it, his Buffalo Bills piece is a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sEHv-iKrYU

  124. 124.

    Miss Bianca

    @Anne Laurie: GUINDON!! He used to have a daily (or was it weekly? Damn memory!) ‘toon in the Detroit Free Press.

    My favorite was the two old ladies who were looking at the UM logo and one saying to the other in a puzzled manner, “It says ‘Go Blue'” – and the next frame them holding their breaths and going blue. Fo some reason, (maybe as a non-jingoistic UM grad who always resented the whole WOLVERINES!!11!! BS), that struck me as hysterical.

  125. 125.

    Fake Irishman

    One great Michigan artsy thing to do is go to the State or Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. Both show artsy movies and some live music. The Michigan is a huge 1920s theater that is run by a foundation.
    There is a house organist on staff. One Halloween I went to a showing of the original Nosferatu silent film from like 1922. The organist gave a talk beforehand and performed his own composed score with the movie. It was great
    The State used to show cult and modern classic films in addition to the usual artsy fare. I was surprised at how much fun it was to see Jurassic Park in a packed house with a crowd that was into it. I went with two buddies, one who had never seen the movie. Worth it for all of us.

    Doubly so because the projectionist had entrepreneurially dig up previews for various 1990s blockbusters and spliced them at the beginning.

  126. 126.

    cope

    We had an uncle who lived in Petoskey where he was part owner of a radio station.  Living in northern Illinois, we visited him multiple times.  Petoskey stones, sailing his Sunfish in Little Traverse Bay, camping in the city campground, catching and eating lots of fish…good times for sure.  Also, the occasional day trip to the dunes.  Earlier in my life, we had relatives of my mother who lived in Livonia whom we visited a couple of times.  Nothing but good memories of my times in Michigan. I will leave it at that.

  130. 130.

    Fake Irishman

    I’d also be remiss for not mentioning the Diego Rivera mural (ie the entire grand hall) at the Detroit Institute of Art that puts you in the center of the Ford factory at River Rouge. His depiction of the Assembly Line and the complicated intricacies of modern industry as well as the social and even environmental contexts of it is worth sitting there and staring for several hours. Good place to get centered and reflect on What It All Means.

    The audio tour is worth it. And I hate audio tours.

    might be the single most impactful work of art I’ve seen in my life.

  133. 133.

    sab

    As a fifth or sixth or seventh generation Ohioan * Wasn’t born here, but almost everyone else in my family was, we could certainly not get so many compatriots jumping in for the place

    ETA Go wolverines!

    Seriously? Buckeyes never killed anyone except on the sportsfield.

  134. 134.

    Fake Irishman

    @raven:

    that is an amazing fish. The last time I was in western Michigan (at South Haven) and I was out for a run through the town, I jogged down the long pier by the river. I passed a fisherman and I asked him how things were going. He handed me a net and asked for some help ….and we successfully landed a 20 pound Sheepshead, the favorite Junk fish of Great Lakes anglers around the world. We both cracked up, but the thing was legitimately huge.

  139. 139.

    sab

    @raven: How cool was that? I tried to see them in Cleveland and nada. Not as bad as trying to see the megarubber ducks in Pittsburgh, but very close. Both cases had to arrive by boat.

  140. 140.

    Fake Irishman

    @BGinCHI:

    There are a lot of nice little breweries in the state. So many in fact that I’m pretty sure I had a good time at two Michigan Brewers’ Guild festivals though I can’t recall many specifics of what happened at either of them.

  141. 141.

    sab

    @sab: I showed them to my husband, and he sunk his head and said which one are we buying. Yikes. We have no wallspace. We have no money. Can you not look at a work of art in its own terms and say you like it a lot even though it cannot ever be yours.

    ETA He does avtually like them a lot.

  143. 143.

    Gary K

    @BGinCHI: My wife and I rented a suite in a house in California this summer for a 2-week visit. As we subsequently learned, our host was the son of Otto Preminger. But he didn’t know that before his mid-teens. He was raised in Manhattan and on the road by his mother Gypsy Rose Lee.

  144. 144.

    MattF

    Late to the party– I had good friends from grad school who lived in Kalamazoo. They were biochemists who worked at Upjohn– the company is now gone (and the friends have moved to California and retired), but I believe the old Upjohn pill factory is where Pfizer now manufactures its COVID vaccine. Used to visit them, we’d go to Ann Arbor to buy deli, go to Chicago to see the Art Institute.

  146. 146.

    Albatrossity

    Later to the party as well, but I spent some time in Detroit a while back and was blown away by the Art Deco architecture of some of the buildings, and the Diego Rivera murals in the art museum. Definitely worth the trip!

  147. 147.

    sab

    @Fake Irishman: I very much hope your are embarrassed. Youneed to get out!  These are a wonder of the world, even though when you see them they are just very flat oceans. And huge and freshwater.

    Mostly flat oceans are a problem to sailors? Who knew?

  148. 148.

    marcopolo

    @Omnes Omnibus: As someone who has been to Isle Royale many times and hiked all ~120 miles of trail there, I have to correct you and add you can also get to the island from MN.  Boats leave from Grand Portage and seaplanes from Grand Marias.  Of course, my family always drove up to Copper Harbor and took the boat (I think it was the Isle Royale Queen version II and III–the current one is iV) from there (though we always stopped in Houghton we never took the Ranger or the seaplane from there).

  149. 149.

    Gary K

    Likewise late to the party — but I need to shout out the name of my favorite place in Michigan: the Interlochen Center for the Arts. For nearly a decade I’ve been going to the Adult Chamber Music Camp in August (unfortunately in abeyance in 2020, but resumed this year). I have many camp friends — really serious friends, despite the fact that we only see each other one week a year. That week flies by.

    If you’re a fan of classical music and anywhere in the vicinity (outside of Traverse City, not far from Great Bear), check out what’s on their concert calendar. For our mid-August camp they have a first-class string quartet and many other talented faculty; I especially recommend the concerts of that week.

  154. 154.

    Cowgirl in the Sandi

    @Ksmiami:

    This reminds me that before I retired, I taught web development and one of my students was a rabid Red Wings fan.  His student web site was for the Red Wings and unbeknownst to me, he signed  me up for Red Wing materials.  For years, my college mailbox was filled with Red Wing offers.

  155. 155.

    Fake Irishman

    @Gary K:

    one of my dearest grad school friends was a serious student there for years in junior high and high school. I met up with her and her husband in Philly once for an orchestra concert and she looked down from our perch behind the performers and noted casually that one of her friends from camp was the horn player.

  156. 156.

    Fake Irishman

    @sab:

    to be clear, I meant the Tall Ships. I have seen quite a bit of the Great Lakes during my life and am better for it.

  157. 157.

    Fake Irishman

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    this is cool. One of my mom’s favorite life adventures was when she hiked the island during nursing school in the late 1960s. She’s never been camping before. She took the seaplane.

  158. 158.

    Fake Irishman

    Ok,
    Looks like I’m talking to myself here. I’ll just drink the last Bell’s Summer ale, clean up the empties (and cash them in for 10 cents in Michigan) and turn out the lights….

    One final thought: Michigan probably has the coolest motto of any state: “if you seek a beautiful peninsula, look around you.”

  159. 159.

    Madeleine

    I live in NYC, which I mention only because the very best smoked salmon is found in a little shop named Tracklements hidden on the back side of the Kerrytown Markets in Ann Arbor. I went to grad school at UMich and returned years later to join the faculty. I ate a lot of Tracklements salmon—and other great food from that shop! I see a Christmas mail order in my future.

  161. 161.

    Steeplejack

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    Damn it, that Stereogum site is pure crack cocaine! I got pulled into the undertow at “Come See About Me” and have spent the evening progressing through 1964-65. Now up to April 24, 1965: Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, “The Game of Love.” An amiable bit of fluff from a time when giants walked the earth.

  162. 162.

    prostratedragon

    @Fake Irishman:  Steven Ball? I was fortunate enough to see showings of The Battleship Potemkin and Metropolis that he accompanied. He got a long and well-deserved standing ovation at the end of the latter.

    Some other peak Michigan Theater experiences for me were a showing of Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc with a live orchestra playing the music of Richard Einhorn, a performance by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and a live Once on This Island. There were many others, it’s a great institution.

  164. 164.

    sab

    @Fake Irishman: I understand. Embarrassed I never saw the Tall Ships either, although I theoretically should have been able to. We don’t all actually live  near a harbor, even if we live near a great lake.

  168. 168.

    Gretchen

    When I was in high school in Detroit Bob Seeger played a sock hop I went to at Catholic Central.  At least a few years ago, he lived in the northern suburbs and popped into his local bar to have a beer.

  169. 169.

    Gretchen

    1. When I was in high school in Detroit we had to attend “cultural events”.  They got us gigs as ushers at the Bonstelle and the Hillberry theatres so we could see shows for free.
  173. 173.

    Captain C

    Even though the music is associated with Europe these days, techno was born in Detroit in the early ’80s (as House was being born in Chicago).  I’ve been getting into it lately:  True People, the Detroit Techno Album is a good compilation to start with; you can hear a bunch here on YouTube.  Drexciya is one of the best and most interesting artists that I’ve found; they have some interesting themed albums and an air of mystery about them.

    From the linked article:

    That night, Stinson described the theme of Drexciya’s music as “an infinite journey to inner space within, and to find the beauty that’s inside and bring it out.”

    ****
    A quarter century after their first 12″ was released, and 15 years since Stinson’s passing, Drexciya’s legacy is more enduring than ever. Thanks to a series of reissues, most of Drexciya’s music – a funky hybrid of electro and Detroit techno – is now readily available to a new generation of fans. The group released a series of eight impeccable EPs on different labels from 1992 to 1997, bouncing from Detroit imprints Shockwave, Underground Resistance and Submerge to the UK labels Rephlex and Warp, culminating in the 1997 Submerge compilation The Quest, which was heralded as their final transmission. After a hiatus, however, three albums were released under the Drexciya name from 1999 to 2002, two on the German label Tresor and one on Clone, plus four more albums credited to a series of different aliases that were apparently linked to the Drexciya project by Stinson’s concept of “Seven Storms.”
    But Drexciya’s reach goes far beyond their musical output and into the realm of the fantastic. Through a series of clues and missives, the group’s records introduced the sci-fi saga of the undersea civilization of Drexciya, whose water-breathing residents were the descendants of pregnant African women cast overboard in the Atlantic during the Middle Passage – a fable that writer Greg Tate calls a “revisionist look at the Middle Passage as a realm of possibility and not annihilation.” Inspired by this provocative mythology of a so-called “Black Atlantis,” wave after wave of artists, writers and filmmakers have spawned a fertile ecosystem of speculative fictions and imaginative interpretations that has flourished far downstream from electronic music circles.

  174. 174.

    columbusqueen

    I just hope the Detroit Airport is better than it was 20 years ago, when I went up to catch a midweek non-stop to Heathrow. Thought was a dumpster fire.

  177. 177.

    tam1MI

    Dead thread, but I couldn’t let it pass without giving a shout-out to my home town Lansing, Michigan! A great place to visit, and a great place to live!

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