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metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
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NEWS & VIEWS
Feedback
R ead er s r esp ond ed to th e d eath of P atr ic k L y oy a, a 2 6 - y ear - ol d B l ac k man kil l ed by a ran Ra i s oli e o er
I’m not saying what the o cer did was right but why was the man fighting with the o cer following blatant defiance of orders? — P al mer P aul ooked him up on tis. Felon on parole, did not want to go back to jail so he decided to run. ould have been avoided. Not saying the o cer was right either but the news won’t talk about that. — C l ar k H il l , F ac ebook hite cops have plenty of patience when
the perp is white. Not so much when the perp is not white. — V er d el l S tr ong, F ac ebook And what a coincidence is body cam dysfunctions right before he shoots it goes black. — L el and L antz , F ac ebook why even need an autopsy? we all saw the video. only thing that will come from an autopsy is they will say he was high or something stupid — L el and L antz , F ac ebook
E d itor ’ s note: D ue to c ir c umstanc es bey ond our c ontr ol , l ast week’ s issue d id not in lu e e rey Bill an s nfor e D issent c ol umn orry
Vol. 42 | No. 27 | April 27-May 3, 2022
News & Views Feedback ............................... 4 News ...................................... 6 Best of the Rest ..................... 7 Informed Dissent .................. 8 The Incision......................... 10
Editor in Chief - Lee DeVito Digital Content Editor - Alex Washington Investigative Reporter - Steve Neavling Staff Writer - Randiah Camille Green
Feature The Arab American National Museum gets far-out art installation........................... 12
Associate Publisher - Jim Cohen Regional Sales Director Danielle Smith-Elliott Multimedia Account Executive Jessica Frey Account Manager, Classifieds - Josh Cohen
What’s Going On Weekly calendar................... 18
Business Support Specialist - Josh Cohen Controller - Kristy Dotson
Publisher - Chris Keating Associate Publisher - Jim Cohen
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Music Feature ................................. 20 Food Review ................................. 20 Bites ..................................... 21 Weed One-Hitters .......................... 22 Culture Film ...................................... 24 Savage Love ......................... 28 Horoscopes .......................... 30
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NEWS & VIEWS Two Trump pics win GOP endorsements
Karamo, DePerno are both 2020 election deniers B y A l l ison D onah ue, Michigan Advocate
Two candidates on Satur-
day rode endorsements from former President Donald Trump to win the majority of Michigan GOP delegates’ votes for secretary of state and attorney general at the early convention in Grand Rapids. Both Secretary of State nominee Kristina Karamo and Attorney General nominee Matt DePerno have denied the 2020 presidential election results, catapulting the once-unknown Republicans to the top of GOP delegates’ list. If elected, Karamo would be the swing state’s chief elections o cer with major implications for the 2024 election and DePerno has vowed to prosecute political enemies, including his opponent, Attorney General Dana Nessel. The convention, which spanned into the evening, was at times chaotic, with controversies over balloting for the AG race and several GOP leaders complaining about the nominees’ electability in November against Nessel and Secretary of State J ocelyn Benson. “Seems like a forensic audit is in order,” tweeted Greg McNeilly, former chair of the DeV os-funded Michigan Freedom Fund, referencing a familiar cry of Republicans who still insist Trump won in 2020. Karamo, an educator from Oak Park who spoke at a Q Anon convention, won in a landslide with 70% of the total vote beating out hesterfield Township lerk indy erry and state ep. eau LaFave (R-Iron Mountain). In her victory speech, Karamo exhorted delegates to vote for DePerno. She also said afterward that she was looking to get the support of independents and “soft Democrats.” DePerno, an attorney who gained notoriety after pushing election fraud conspiracies about Antrim ounty’s 2020 presidential election results, ultimately won the party’s endorsement for attorney general, but had a much closer race against former House Speaker Tom Leonard. “Today marks the first step towards taking back our state and our country. I am eternally grateful to the freedom-
SOS and AG nominees Kristina Karamo and Matt DePerno.
loving patriots of the convention who put their trust in me to be their standard bearer,” DePerno said in a statement. “Together, we will create a red wave to wash over the Wolverine state this fall. My general election opponent, Dana Nessel, is a socialist Soros sycophant, out of touch with Michigan voters. In November, he will be out of time as well. I look forward to continuing to campaign across the state.” Karamo and DePerno also earned the unheard-of nomination from Michigan P o hair Meshawn Maddock as chairs traditionally stay neutral another big boost to their candidacies. Maddock is a close ally of Trump. Trump congratulated Karamo and DePerno notably hours before DePerno had o cially won saying that the two candidates will continue to question the results of the 2020 election, which President J oe Biden won by more than 154,000 votes in Michigan. “I will back them strongly,” Trump said in a statement. “Michigan is one of the worst on election fraud and corruption, and they will put an end to it. At the same time, they’ll get to the bottom of the 2020 election fraud!”
Chaotic voting process
The lively endorsement convention was held at the De os enter in rand
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ALLISON R. DONAHUE
Rapids, with several of the 10 GOP candidates hoping to oust Gov. Gretchen Whitmer attending, including businessman Perry J ohnson, right-wing commentator Tudor Dixon, and Michigan State Police apt. Mike rown. But the AG and SOS nominations were the main event. In the first round of voting, DePerno garnered 49% of the delegates’ votes, Leonard received 40% of the votes and state ep. yan erman ommerce Twp.) received 11% of the votes. Since none of the candidates for attorney general passed the 50% of the votes threshold, which would have automatically won them the party’s endorsement, delegates had to stick around for a second round of voting. After the first round, erman was eliminated and endorsed Leonard ahead of the runoff election, making the case that he believed DePerno would lose to Nessel. Shortly after the second round of voting began, Maddock paused voting because of a confusion with the ballots. The ballots did not match how the names were listed on the projector screen in the large conference center where the voting was taking place. This comes as Maddock is a key figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election he lost, serving as a fake
elector to the lectoral ollege. She has attended a Lansing protest calling for a so-called “forensic audit” and also was in ashington, D. ., for a protest before the J an. 6, 2021, insurrection. DePerno ended up with 55% of the votes in the runoff, beating eonard, who received 45% of the votes. Leonard conceded, but did not mention DePerno in his statement. “I’m deeply humbled and encouraged by the profound support of so many Republican delegates throughout Michigan who put their confidence in me. While this race did not turn out the way we had hoped, J enell and I will always be grateful for their support of our positive, issue-focused campaign,” Leonard said in a statement. “Their support means the world to us, and it was an honor to fight alongside so many dedicated people. In the months ahead, I’ll continue working with fellow Republicans to elect conservative candidates up and down the ticket.” Many Democrats noted the irony of the convention’s ballot confusion as Karamo and DePerno are known for pushing conspiracies about election fraud. Nessel commented on the ballot confusion at the convention in a tweet Saturday. “Even I am at a loss for words at this ridiculous turn of events,” Nessel tweeted. “Running the State of Michigan is a serious business and these are clearly not serious or competent people. God help us if this party takes over our executive o ces.” There were some issues at the convention with media, as some outlets, like the Michigan Advance, weren’t granted credentials, although an Advance reporter was able to obtain them on Saturday. Some reporters said they were given “Whitmer Protection Team” badges. Another convention will be held in August where precinct delegates will o cially nominate the candidates to represent the party in the general election. S ee f ul l stor y on metr otimes.c om O r iginal l y p ubl ish ed by Mic h igan A d v anc e. I t is r ep ubl ish ed h er e with p er mission.
NEWS & VIEWS Best of the Rest
Democrat McMorrow’s rousing anti-hate speech leads to $250,000 in donations in one day B y S tev e N eav l ing
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow raised more than $ 250,000 from 6,200 contributors in less than 24 hours after a rousing anti-hate speech aimed at a Republican who falsely claimed she wanted to “groom and sexualize kindergartners” her campaign tells Metr o T imes. The nearly five minute speech went viral on social media on Tuesday, leading to what may be a record single-day fundraising haul for a state senator in Michigan. By comparison, the Royal Oak Democrat raised less than $ 100,000 in all of last year, according to campaign finance records. A video of the speech amassed more than million views on Twitter as of Friday afternoon. In a live video on Twitter Friday morning, McMorrow said she’s received positive feedback from all over the world. “It has been overwhelming in such an ama ing way how positive and heartfelt the responses have been,” McMorrow said. “It all really means a lot.” State Sen. Lana Theis, the Brighton Republican who made the preposterous allegations in a fundraising email, got the opposite of what she wanted: She inadvertently enriched a Democrat’s campaign war chest. It wasn’t immediately clear how much she raised from the email. Theis refused to apologize and baselessly claimed McMorrow made the speech to raise money. “Sen. Morrow is not naive about politics and fundraising,” Theis said in a statement. “I know that because it took her mere minutes to turn her Senate floor speech into a plea for campaign donations.”
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.
ther epublicans have been silent. Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, larklake, said his o ce doesn’t plan to comment. In her speech, McMorrow fired back at the culture war “nonsense” that Theis and other Republicans are peddling to distract from their failure to solve many of today’s problems. “People who are different are not the reason that our roads are in bad shape after decades of disinvestment or that healthcare costs are too high or that teachers are leaving the profession,” McMorrow said. “I want every child in this state to feel seen, heard, and supported, not marginalized and targeted because they are not straight, white, and Christian. We cannot let hateful people tell you otherwise to scapegoat and deflect from the fact that they are not doing anything to fix the real issues that impact real people’s lives.” The speech made the rounds in Washington D.C., where the hateful rhetoric from Republicans is intensifying. U .S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., thanked McMorrow for “fighting back against these shameful attempts to fan the flames of bigotry and division. And thank you for fighting to build a future for all of our kids.” David Axelrod, a former senior
COURTESY PHOTO
adviser in the bama administration, called the speech “a pretty forceful takedown of Q Anon-style bile coursing through our politics.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton retweeted what she called an “incredible speech.”
Mask mandates lifted for local transit authorities in metro Detroit Local transit authorities across metro Detroit are no longer requiring face coverings after a federal judge struck down the mask mandate aimed at slowing the spread of COV ID-19. The Q LINE, the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT), and the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transit (SMART) announced they won’t require masks, but are still encouraging passengers to wear them. “Q LINE strongly encourages riders to wear masks when abroad the streetcar,” the Q LINE tweeted last week. “Ambassadors will have masks available for anyone who wants one, but the system will not require masks. Transit Police will not ticket or remove people from streetcars who declined to wear a mask.” In a separate statement, DDOT said it will continue “to recommend that transportation riders, operators, and
employees wear masks, especially in areas that do not allow social distancing. owever, masks are no longer re uired in any circumstance regarding public transportation. The [ Centers for Disease ontrol and Prevention continues to strongly recommend the use of face masks in indoor public transportation settings.” In a tweet, SMART wrote, “The mask mandate is no longer in effect while riding SMART. Please be patient as we work to update the info on our buses and signs. Customers are encouraged to wear masks while waiting for and riding the bus if they choose to do so.” The Wayne County Airport Authority, which operates Detroit Metro Airport and Willow Run Airport, also said masks won’t be required in its airport facilities. The decisions come after J udge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Florida judge who was appointed by President Donald Trump, struck down the mask requirement on airplanes, trains, buses, and other public transportation last week. Less than a week earlier, the CDC had extended the mandate through May 3. The Biden administration is considering appealing the decision. —S t ev e N ea v l in g
metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
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NEWS & VIEWS Informed Dissent
Keep your mouth shut and the checks coming, or else By e rey
Bill an
Let’s get this out of the way: For a half-century, the state of Florida has prostrated before the tourism industry — Disney in particular, but the Mouse isn’t the only one — like a condemned man begging for a reprieve. It’s not just the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a neat piece of corporate welfare given in 1967 in exchange for a promised “city of the future” Disney never built. It’s also the sucker’s deal mandating that tourism taxes — one of the state’s biggest revenue generators — can only promote tourism, and not, say, help the state’s underfunded schools, and the way the legislature fought minimum wage increases and any kind of pro-worker regulations for decades. I could give examples all day, but you get the point. Disney said jump, and generations of politicians asked, “How high?” So, in any other context, the Florida legislature abruptly changing course and eliminating Reedy Creek — Disney’s own little fiefdom, essentially might be a positive development. But what’s happening can’t be extricated from its context. And its context is terrifyingly Orwellian. Florida’s Republican lawmakers didn’t act because they don’t believe in bestowing public benefits to private entities. They did it to send a message, a not so veiled threat: Public benefits are for loyal subjects only. Disney (belatedly) objected to Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law, on account of Disney being an entertainment company and employing a lot of gay people who are not thrilled about being made a political punching bag by the state’s dollar-store Trump of a governor. When Florida passed the law anyway, Disney said it was “pausing” campaign contributions to both political parties. (When you’re a multibillion-dollar conglomerate, make sure you piss everyone off. The second Disney turned off the financial spigot, ov. on DeSantis be-
Florida legislature’s abrupt elimination of Disney district is a mob shakedown by statute.
gan fundraising off of “woke” alifornia corporations, and his lieutenant governor went on Newsmax to accuse Disney of “sexualizing children,” because we live in a Q Anon chatroom now. And now Florida is using the force of law to punish Disney for publicly disagreeing with a public policy and (temporarily) declining to line Republican lawmakers’ pockets. Lest there be any doubt, in that Newsmax appearance, the lieutenant governor admitted DeSantis would stop attacking Disney if Disney stopped being “woke.” There are a few arguments that this law is unconstitutional — the lieutenant governor’s interview will feature prominently in most of them, I suspect — and if they have legs, bet on Disney’s lawyers to outclass Florida’s. Also, the fact that this law will o oad billion of Disney’s debt and more than million of its annual obligations on the Orlando area — meaning a likely 25% property tax hike for the surrounding Orange County — is the icing on the shit sandwich. (That Orlando votes for Democrats, meaning Democrats will bear the brunt of DeSantis’ tantrum, is no doubt a bonus.) But as with everything in DeSantis’ perpetual War Against the Woke, what actually happens after the media turns its attention to the next manufactured crisis is irrelevant. Appearing to take action — to be the brave soul standing up for the forgotten straight white Christian against the barbarian hoards, even if the actions themselves are ruinous — is the ticket to DeSantis’ political future. And so a state that declared itself the embodiment of freedom not only
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refused to impose vaccine or mask mandates during a public health crisis. It denied private businesses the right to do the same on their own property, turning them into foot soldiers for COV ID denialism. And so Florida banned math textbooks — math! — because they teach “critical race theory,” meaning they have graphs about actual, real-life surveys on “Measuring Racial Prejudice,” and factual information might make white children uncomfortable. And so Florida’s Department of Health has decided that being transgender is just a phase. Last week, it issued guidelines that said, based on what it called “generally lacking” evidence, trans people under 18 should not be allowed to medically or hormonally transition — a probable precursor to Texas’ policy of pursuing child abuse cases against the parents of transgender youth. But Florida goes a step further. Not only should transgender kids be denied gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy. But “social gender transition should not be a treatment option.” In other words, transgender and nonbinary teenagers should not be allowed to use the “wrong” pronouns, sayeth the bureaucrats. In other words, these guidelines seem to write trans kids out of existence. Never mind that mainstream medical and psychiatric associations think this is crazy. Never mind that it will literally kill children. DeSantis needs his hits on Hannity, so c’est la vie. Back to the matter at hand. Let’s discuss what Florida is broadcasting with its attack on one of its largest
SHUTTERSTOCK
employers and, until recently, political contributors. Support the Party, and the Party will support you. Oppose the Party, and the Party will punish you. Bear in mind that Disney did nothing to harm the state. Its CEO expressed an opinion and announced that it was “pausing” political contributions — both actions protected by the First Amendment. It didn’t eliminate the Florida Resident Discount or threaten to move EPCOT to Colorado. It embarrassed DeSantis. Or, more precisely, since embarrassment requires shame and DeSantis has none, it provided him with another outlet to channel grievance. So it became another thermonuclear culture war. That we’ve jumped into an Orwellian netherworld should be obvious, but it’s worse than that. This is a mob shakedown in statute. It is telling every other business in the state the rules of the road. Keep your mouth shut and the checks coming, or else. And so long as Florida remains America’s unfortunate appendage, don’t think this idea won’t travel — to Texas and Georgia and other states with right wing governments and influential businesses that don’t toe the line on the culture war of the week. Because if DeSantis succeeds in bullying Disney the way he bullies queer 12-year-olds, no business — no person — in these states will be free to oppose the regime without risking the regime’s wrath. And that, friends, is what actual cancel culture looks like.
metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
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NEWS & VIEWS The Incision
How a ‘not qualified,’ overzealous judge just rewrote public health law as we know it B y A bd ul E l - S ay ed
I was hoping I wouldn’t have to
write about COV ID for a while. But last week, some Trump-appointed judge from the heart of Florida submitted a deranged Facebook rant as a legal opinion, which could have far-reaching impacts on public health efforts nationwide. So here we are. First, some context. In the apocryphal words of Mark Twain: The reports of the pandemic’s demise are greatly exaggerated. COV ID cases have been rising for the past two weeks. And, right on cue, COV ID hospitalizations have followed, ticking upward over the past several days. To be sure, cases appear to be rising slowly — at least as far as we know. PCR testing facilities — the ones that actually report their numbers to the public health authorities — have been decommissioned across the country. Over the past month, reported testing has declined by about 20% . But test positivity has almost doubled. That suggests that we are almost certainly undercounting our current caseload. Needless to say, this isn’t the best time to be pulling back on COV ID precautions. Indeed, as I’ve written previously, the major downside of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new masking policy — which conditions masking recommendations on COV ID cases, hospitalizations, and the proportion of hospital beds occupied by COV ID patients — is that the metrics are lagging indicators. That sets up a scenario where masking guidelines might only kick in after COV ID has had weeks to spread unfettered. As a result of recent rising cases, the CDC extended masking requirements on public transit, including airplanes and airports. On Monday, J udge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle struck it down in, what I have to say, is the most poorly written, loosely reasoned, and clearly politically motivated legal ruling I have ever read. Before we cut into the ruling itself, a word about this judge. A member of
the Federalist Society, she clerked for J ustice Clarence Thomas (whose wife Ginni tried to overthrow our democracy). She was appointed by Donald Trump after he lost his election to J oe Biden. The youngest of his appointees, the American Bar Association declared her “not ualified” owing to “the short time she has actually practiced law and her lack of meaningful trial experience.” She was confirmed on a party line vote by the lame duck Republicancontrolled Senate. It’s only fitting that she represents the “middle district of Florida.” U .S. public health law gives the government the powers to “make and enforce such regulations as [ ...] are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession,” and “may provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation ” What the judge from the middle of Florida had to say is worth reading in full. Let me walk you through that legal word salad. Textualists like to try and situate a pivotal word in a piece of law in its own socio-temporal context, often turning to dictionaries from the time period in which the law was written in this case for definitions. Not the approach I would take, but fair enough. The judge found two definitions for “saniti e,” which she identifies as the pivotal word in this law. One definition involves actively cleaning something, and the other involves simply keeping it clean. Here’s where it gets downright silly: first, she arbitrarily decides that only one, rather than both, of these definitions can apply here. Second, she conveniently chooses the one that precludes the obvious intent of the mask mandate. Obviously masks don’t actively clean anything. Rather, they keep the air clean of the virions that cause CO-
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Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s opinion read like a Facebook post, not a ruling.
V ID-19. But J udge Mizelle jumps hoops to explain why, despite the fact that that’s clearly a definition of “saniti e” contemporaneous to the moment the law was written, it somehow doesn’t apply here. Her opinion is so poorly reasoned as to be laughable. I teach graduate-level public policy, and if a student submitted this to me, I would have marked them down for lazy and arbitrary logic. The audacity of this isn’t just that the fate of millions of travelers hinges on absurd logic. It’s that this rant of a legal opinion now sets precedent that severely limits the powers of the federal government to respond in times of public health emergency. J udge Mizelle’s decision doesn’t just hamper our ability to deal with this pandemic — it neuters the government to deal with future threats to our health, too. Critically, the J ustice Department is set to appeal the ruling. They had to —
PUBLIC DOMAIN
otherwise, they’d be surrendering some of our country’s most foundational public health law as we know it. The tell here is that they’re not requesting a stay, meaning that it’s not as much about reinstating the transit mask mandate right now, it’s about addressing the absurd precedent this judge would be establishing if this ruling stands. Nearly a million people have died in the U .S. during this pandemic. And the tragic, brutal irony of this is that despite it, the pandemic hasn’t redoubled our commitment to build the necessary tools and infrastructure to get it right next time. Instead, it has been further eroded. The mix of mendacity and incompetence on display in this ruling is a big reason why. O r iginal l y p ubl ish ed A p r il 2 1 in T h e I nc ision. G et mor e at abd ul el say ed . substac k.c om.
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FEATURE
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Yemeni artist Alia Ali blasts off with far-out, futuristic installation at the Arab American National Museum
space invader by Lee DeVito
t
Artist Alia Ali gives a tour of her new installation “al-Falaq,” which fills the atrium at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn. ARAB AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM
he new art installation at Dearborn’s Arab American National Museum, “al Fala ,” defies any easy explanation. ooking like a cross between a spaceship and an octopus, the sculpture’s foot tentacles twist across multiple floors of the museum, with computer screens in the place of suction cups. Its glowing “head” is suspended feet above the ground in the museum’s atrium. It really has to be seen to be believed and to be fully understood. Its creator, Alia Ali, recently gave a tour of the installation which she describes as a “museum within a museum” when it made its debut last month. Ali was born in in emen to a emeni father and a osnian mother, both linguists who spoke seven languages between them, she says. In the s, both of her ancestral homelands became ravaged by conflict, and in , her family moved to amtramck in metro Detroit, since her grandfather got a job at hrysler. “During this time, I remember thinking of this word alien,’ being an alien, and what does it mean to be have extraterrestrial powers of being of two cultures and speaking two languages,” Ali says while looking up at her sculpture, adding, “only to later on find out that being an alien in this country legally only meant that I was subhuman.” Ali wound up getting a scholarship to study art and political science at ellesley ollege in Massachusetts. In ,a new civil war broke out in emen, and while Ali was studying for her masters in fine arts at the alifornia Institute of Arts, do ens of emeni children were killed in a Saudi led airstrike on Aug. , .
Ali says she found herself shaken by the incident, and became transfixed by the conflict. “After seeing all of this, I started looking at oogle,” she says. “I became uite obsessed with looking at oogle. hen you type in emen,’ all I would see was images of suffering.” ut Ali says she was also unable to find out much about emen from looking at books, either, since its history was written by coloni ers. “ hen I started looking at books, I saw that the history wasn’t the history that was written by us, because we come from an oral history,” she says. “I saw how language was manipulated. I never saw it as a tool. Actually, I saw it as a weapon, how one person can change a story, choose to erase something, or choose to include something else, or choose to interpret.” Those experiences resulted in the launch of what Ali describes as her emeni Futurism body of work, which she says is inspired by Afrofuturism, a sci fi inspired art movement once described by Detroit born arts curator Ingrid aFleur as “a way of imagining possible futures through a lack cultural lens.” “ hat inspired this was rage, pure rage,” Ali says, “to turn something that’s toxic to me, toxic to my community, toxic to how we see each other, into something beautiful.” She says with her art, she wants to create a new narrative for emeni people. “If all emenis kind of exist in this sort of dystopian present constantly, only to hold onto this beautiful nostalgia of only looking to the past, then therefore the only thing as you’re going to look forward to is a dystopian future.” She adds, “Don’t exist within the narrative that is set for you, because you only exist in a place of position of defending something, you will only be responding to someone else. Start an entirely new narrative completely.” She describes “al Fala ” as “a monument for emenis, first and foremost.” She also describes it as a bit of a criti ue of
metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
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Resembling a cross between a spaceship and an octopus, “alFalaq” has 35-foot tentacles that extend throughout the floors of the museum, outfitted with 81 computer screens. Ali describes it as a “museum within a museum.” ARAB AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM
the Arab American National Museum; despite the fact that people of Yememi ancestry are one of the largest groups in metro Detroit’s Arab-American population, the museum had few objects representing Yemen, she says. Ali says the sculpture’s shape is inspired by spiders, considered sacred in Islam because they are said to have spun a web over the entrance of a cave where Muhammad was hiding, protecting him from enemies, as well as the elusive glass octopus, a rarely seen creature spotted in the depths of the Arabian Sea. The outer space theme was also inspired by a 1997 news report that three men from Yemen had sued NASA, arguing that its Pathfinder spacecraft and Sojourner rover were trespassing on the planet that rightfully belonged to them. The ancient Sabaeans, who lived thousands of years ago in modern-day Yemen, worshiped the planets. “We inherited the planet from our ancestors 3,000 years ago,” they told the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Thawri. The lawsuit was laughed off in the est. “It’s a ridiculous claim,” CNN reported NASA news chief Brian Welch saying after laughing. “Mars is a planet out in the solar system that is the property of all humanity, not two or three guys in Yemen.” CNN ended its brief report with a joke: “There was no word on whether they had paid the appropriate inheritance taxes.” “People mocked and laughed, like, who are these primitive people?” Ali says. “In fact, they’re heroes, because what does it mean to not only occupy our land, but now there’s also an occupation of our myths and dreams?” The sculpture’s 8 1 tablet screens, located across its tentacles, incorporate a number of references from Yemeni pop culture (the late singer Ofra Haza, a Yemenite-J ewish star known as “The Israeli Madonna,” is featured) as well as Arabian folklore (including creatures like jinns, or genies, represented by a glitch effect on the screens . Perhaps controversially, the screens also include images of Yemeni artifacts gleaned from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “These are objects that still are considered looted,” Ali says, saying that they were stolen from Yemen by British colonizers in the 20th century. “So this project also becomes about questioning the militaryindustrial complex, but also the museum-industrial complex, as it is sort of hand-in-hand with war.” The project was commissioned by the AANM, with support of the Mellon Foundation. The project involved a large team of artists and fabricators to bring it to life, including an architectural consultant, an electrician, an animator, and an installation team. Installation took four days to complete, Ali says. It will be on view for two years in the AANM, which reopened in J anuary after being closed to the public for nearly two years due to the pandemic. Ali says she hopes that the art installation will inspire other Yemeni people the way she has been inspired by her research into Yemeni culture. “To me, this is a letter from our ancestors to the future,” she says. “Because if I can feel 3,000 years ago, then surely we can imagine ourselves 3,000 years from now.” T h e A r ab A mer ic an N ational Museum is l oc ated at 1 3 6 2 4 Mic h igan A v e., D ear bor n; 3 1 3 - 4 2 9 - 2 5 3 5 ; ar abamer ic anmuseum.or g.
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FUNK NIGHT (monthly) w/ Soul Controller / CRATE DIGGA / Chedda Bob Doors @9 $5 Cover
Sat 4/30
SOMETHING ELEGANT (monthly) Lady DJ Dance Party! Doors @9 $5 Cover
Mon 5/02
FREE POOL Tues 5/03
B. Y. O. R. Bring Your Own Records You Can DJ! 9pm NO COVER!
Sat 5/07
OFFICIAL PATIO GRAND OPENING PARTY! TALK DERBY TO ME w/ Blues Musician Howard Glazier Mint Julep Specials/KY Derby hats welcome 4-6pm $5 cover BOOZE PROMOS ALL DAY! FOOD - Mizz Ruth’s Grill (Detroit soulful eats)
NEON PARTY feat. Versace James / METAWAV. / Workout Plan / Smith & Reckless LIVE GLOW PAINTING by Justin Cinquemani Doors @9 $5 cover Coming Up In May:
5/5: Happy Cinco de Mayo! HORNITOS & MODELO PROMOS! Free Tamales! 5/6: Big Deal/Poison Tongues/ Doubt It!/Love Loss 5/8: Happy Mother’s Day! 5/13: Feast For Crows/VERSUS VERSUS/We Will Rot/Punch Out 5/14: The High Strung/Muggs/Duende 5/15: Strictly Fine/ TBA 5/20: NWRH/Bathroom of The Future/ Josie Palmer/Monk is King 5/21: Dude/second hand drugs/ Alluvial Fans 5/30: MEMORIAL DAY Pig Roast JELLO SHOTS always $1
metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
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16 April 27-May 3, 2022 | metrotimes.com
metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
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WHAT’S GOING ON exhibited at Habatat Detroit Fine Art during the show, which will kick off with a free gala on Saturday. The show will be on display until uly . —R a n d ia h C a mil l e G reen T h e f r ee gal a goes f r om 8 - 1 0 p .m. on S atur d ay at H abatat D etr oit F ine A r t; 2 2 0 0 F er nl ee A v e., R oy al O ak. S h ow r uns th r ough J ul y 2 9 .
SUN 5/1 Fam Jam Block Party
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
COURTESY PHOTO
S el ec t ev ents h ap p ening in metr o D etr oit th is week. S ubmit y our ev ents to metr otimes.c om/ c al end ar . B e sur e to c h ec k v enue websites f or C O V I D - 1 9 p ol ic ies.
THURS 4/28 Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
Tell us what you gonna do when it ain’t nowhere to hide. We’ll tell you what, you’re gonna meet at the crossroads for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. Though the group’s last album was released in 2017 (though it only featured two of the group’s five members , they are still active and considered one of the greatest hip-hop groups of all time. We just hope Bizzy Bone doesn’t throw any bottles like he did at the V erzuz battle with Three Six Mafia, which he later apoligized for. —R a n d ia h C a mil l e G reen D oor s op en at 7 p .m. and at 8 p .m. at S ound B oar d C asino; 2 9 0 1 G r and R iv er 3 1 3 - 3 0 9 - 4 7 0 0 ; sound boar T ic kets star t at $ 3 7 . 2 1 + .
th e gig star ts at Motor C ity A v e., D etr oit; d d etr oit.c om/
FRI 4/29
a profound sadness after her untimely death, would be an understatement. Snowden’s legacy continues to be celebrated, however, this time with an exhibit of self portraits called C h r onic l e. The series of paintings featuring abstract silhouettes of the artist opens with a reception at M Contemporary Art on Friday. Fellow Detroit artist Senghor Reid writes about the series in his essay, “From Steps Into Shadow”: “In her C h r onic l e drawings, ilda endeavored to make a record of her existence devoid of any facial features of identifying physical traits, except for her profile and the interplay of her hair. In this she was able to strip down her visual narrative to include only the impression of her existence in space and the energy of her light expressed through use of color.” —R a n d ia h C a mil l e G reen O p ening r ec ep tion is f r om 6 - 9 p .m at M C ontemp or ar y A r t; 2 0 5 E . N ine Mil e R d ., F er nd al e; mc ontemp or ar y ar t.c om; 3 4 7 6 6 5 - 7 0 1 1 . R uns th r ough May 2 8 . Masks ar e r eq uir ed f or entr y .
FRI 4/29
Comedy Night with Gilda Snowden: Chronicle Seth Meyer To say that Gilda Snowden left an impression on Detroit’s art world, and
Forgotten arvest will present its th Annual Comedy Night and fundraiser
18 April 27-May 3, 2022 | metrotimes.com
on Friday. This year’s event will feature special guest comedian Seth Meyers. Proceeds from the evening’s ticket sales will go to supporting Forgotten arvest’s efforts to fight food insecurity in metro Detroit. The organization provides food to over , metro Detroiters in need each year. The charitable evening also includes an auction for a $ 500 London Chop House gift card, Detroit Tigers Suite Package, tickets to the Rooftop Party for the Detroit Fireworks with an overnight stay the Siren Hotel, and much more. —R a n d ia h C a mil l e G reen D oor s op en at 7 p m. at th e F ox T h eatr e; 2 2 1 1 W ood war d A v e., D etr oit; 3 1 3 - 4 7 1 7 0 0 0 ; 3 1 3 p r esents.c om. T ic kets r ange f r om $ 3 5 to $ 1 7 5 .
SAT 4/30 Habatat Detroit Year of Glass50 Exhibit
Artists from around the world will show their skills working with the glass medium at the Habatat Detroit Fine Art’s International Year of Glass50 Award Exhibition. The exhibit’s towering sculptures and intricate abstract works are enough to make visitors do a double-take, wondering, “wait, that’s glass?” More than 500 artworks will be
On Sunday, the city of Berkley with have the ultimate heavy metal parking lot at Flipside Records’ new location. The longstanding vinyl and memorabilia store recently relocated to downtown Berkley from Clawson, where it operated for decades. The Fam J am Block Party, which takes place in the shop’s parking lot, will feature live music, food trucks, family-friendly martial arts sessions, and more to welcome Flipside to the neighborhood. The shop will also be offering limited edition releases, promotional items, and deals up to off in the week leading up to the party. —R a n d ia h C a mil l e G reen F am J am goes f r om noon to 4 p .m. on S und ay at F l ip sid e R ec or d s; 3 0 9 9 C ool id ge H wy ., B er kl ey ; sho i si ere or s o
WED, MAY 4 Galactic Brewery Experience with Chef Nikita Sanches
May the Fourth be with you, nerds. This uno cial S tar W ar s-themed dining experience will see Rock City Eatery’s Nikita Sanches serving up family style meals inspired by that galaxy far, far away, including Naboo Salad, Grilled Endor Bird, Grogu’s Pasta, J et-Roasted Krayt Dragon with Tatooine Rice, and more. “I’m using a lot of produce and ingredients that look like something from outer space,” Sanches says. “It’s going to look fun, it’s going to taste good, and it’s going to have uni ue flavor profiles. The goal is to kind of just have a fun time and check out for a couple hours from our cra y lives that we’re living nowadays.” osplaying as your favorite character is highly encouraged. —L ee D eV it o S eatings at 6 p .m. and 8 p .m. at B atc h B r ewing C o.; 1 4 0 0 P or ter S t., D etr oit; bath c r ewingc omp any .c om. T ic kets ar e $ 6 6 and c an be p ur c h ased onl ine.
4/29 LEWIS BLACK: OFF THE RAILS
AUGUST 23
BIG GIGANTIC
SEPTEMBER 6
LIL NAS X
5/6
JESSE MCCARTNEY
5/8
ACTION BRONSON, EARL SWEATSHIRT, THE ALCHEMIST, BOLDLY JAMES
5/10 SIMPLE PLAN & SUM 41 w/ Set It Off
5/11 JAMES ARTHUR w/ Nina Nesbitt
5/13 RYAN HURD
w/ Morgan Wade
APRIL 27
KALEO
W/ BONES OWENS
APRIL 30
SEVENDUST
5/14 TECH N9NE
w/ Joey Cool, X-Raided, Mayday!
5/20 THE OFFSPRING w/ Blame My Youth
5/21 GIRLS GOTTA EAT MAY 2
SPOON
W/ MARGARET GLASPY
MAY 7
INTERPOL & TYCHO W/ MATTHEW DEAR
5/26 RAY LAMONTAGNE w/ Sierra Ferrell
metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
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FOOD The carne asada sings at La Jalisciense B y T om P er kins
Chorizo and potato pambazo.
In the realm of Detroit’s elite
tacos, carne asada is underrepresented. J ust haven’t found many that dazzle, as they seem to be an afterthought that lives in the shadow of so many excellent al pastors. But not at La J alisciense, where the asada pops. My suspicion is that La J alisciense enlivens it with a citrus-heavy marinade and uses a more tender cut of beef. Regardless, La J aliscience produces some of Detroit’s finest carne asada tacos, and that seems to be the name of its the game at the restaurant: the menu is standard, offering traditional aliscan fare that’s not hard to find in Detroit, but they make the standards really sing like few places in town. The al pastor is salty, slightly sweet, and the chorizo is bright, while the carnitas is moist and rich with a lightly crisp exterior. La J aliciense is located in a grocery store of the same name, and the V argas-Lopez family has operated the
TOM PERKINS
V ernor restaurant for about eight years. The interior is generally bare-bones with the exception of a replica beach bar in the corner that adds a festive element, and is part of a recent makeover that included a new facade. On both visits the restaurant was entirely staffed by kids who didn’t seem to be old enough to drive to work. But look — they run a tighter ship than most, the service was excellent. Good work, kids. Tacos aside, the goat birria is a bigflavored crowd pleaser. ike the best birria, La J aliscience’s version is a deep and rich stew with goat that’s fall-apart tender, and flavored with garlic, onion, cumin, oregano, and a range of other spices and aromatics. It’s brightened with guajillos chile, which is more tangy and fruity than spicy. Beef seems to be more common in birria in the U .S., but the goat reigns at La J alisciense. Get it in taco or stew form, and liberally add cilantro and diced onion.
20 April 27-May 3, 2022 | metrotimes.com
La Jalisciense 3923 Vernor Hwy, Detroit 313-551-0522 lajalisciensedetroit.com 9 a.m.-9 p.m. daily $2.99-$15.99 Handicap accessible
Another banger is the pambazo, a volcanic-red sandwich whose bread is first dipped in a guajillo chile sauce, then fried. The name comes from the word pan basso, or “low-class bread,” made with extra lard or butter. The telera rolls are soft and similar to French bread, and it’s all enough to make one wonder why more sandwich bread isn’t dipped in hot sauce and fried. The sausage and potato version comes with La J aliscinece’s excellent chorizo with hunks of potato, shredded lettuce that provides a light crunch, crema, and crumbles of soft queso fresco, the latter of which add a
welcome cooling element to the lively package. It’s hard not to think of Steak-umms in the “dried meat,” or cecina (which isn’t actually all that dry) — sheet-thin strips of steak served with sauteed onions and rice and beans. But imagine if Steak-umms were actually good and held a Mexican vibe from a chile-driven marinade, then were wrapped up in the warm corn tortillas. The chile rellenos does what a chile relleno should, which is to offer two big pasilla chiles swimming in a bright red ranchero sauce and stuffed with soft, melted, gooey Oaxacan cheese. The dessert menu is robust – cakes, milkshakes, churros, and more, and choose from a range of mocktails and fruit drinks like horchata, pineapple, cantaloupe, tamarind, hibiscus, mango, lime, and cucumber. And the bar has everything from the Tecate to micheladas to a spiked horchata with banana liqueur served on the rocks.
FOOD Bites
The Michigan Squeeze Station is building a healthy community in Southwest Detroit B y R and iah C amil l e G r een
“This is the real booster shot,” Denisse Lopez says about the bright orange drink she serves at her cafe the Michigan Squeeze Station. The spicy concoction, called the “Obamacare wellness shot,” features turmeric, ginger, lemon, and cayenne pepper, and Lopez swears by its immunity-boosting powers. Lopez opened up the Michigan Squeeze Station to make healthy food available to the Southwest Detroit community at an affordable cost. The menu features wraps, smoothies, and fresh-pressed juices all priced between $ 6 and $ 8 . The cafe, located at 6716 Michigan Ave., is sometimes affectionately referred to as “the Squeeze.” We’ve all heard Detroit called a food desert. For many Detroiters, more often than not, eating healthy means driving outside the neighborhood and spending extra money. When there’s a McDonald’s on seemingly every other corner and you have a family to feed, the choice between a $ 2 burger and a $ 12 fresh-pressed juice is obvious. That isn’t a problem at the Squeeze, which Lopez operates with co-owner Diane Brown. While the Obamacare shot has a kind of silly name, Lopez says the point is that they wanted to make it available to everyone. She tells Metr o T imes they end up giving away a lot of shots and fresh juices, which are made in-house every morning, because of their short shelf life. Brown even gives us some to take home and protests when we offer to pay. Their generosity doesn’t stop there. The S uee e partners with non profit HelpKitchen to give free meals to families and people in need. The cafe gets anywhere from 9 to 100 customers a day coming in for the HelpKitchen meals. And while it doesn’t cost the customer anything, HelpKitchen pays the Squeeze for each item, so they don’t
The Michigan Squeeze Station owners Diane Brown and Denisse Lopez.
lose any profits. “The people from HelpKitchen told us at first the catch is they could only pay $ 6 for each item, but all our items cost around that anyway, so it worked out for us,” Lopez says. “We get to feed the community, and use that money to pay employees, buy a new juicer, things like that.” The cafe is pretty quiet when we visit on a recent morning and Lopez pours wellness shots for us and the workers. But by around 11 a.m., the place gets a rush of people coming in for their HelpKitchen orders. Brown and Lopez greet almost all of them by name, checking in with them about their day, and putting smiles on their faces. Community is the name of the game here, not only through food but by supporting other businesses and entrepreneurs. The space is wide open to creatives, fitness teachers, artists, and whoever else wants to hold their events there. They have something planned for nearly every day of the week from a knit and chill circle to an art/rap battle party hosted by the Gallery Club. The biggest event at The Squeeze, however, is the annual two-day Infused Fest, which is 4/20 friendly. The cafe gets a special event license for the occasion to sell infused beverages — all their usual coffees, teas, and smoothies, but with a touch of THC. The fest takes over the long outdoor patio behind the cafe with food, DJ s,
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performances from local rappers, and 4/20-themed goodies. Artists, bakers, herbalists, jewelry makers, and more set up tables to sell their handmade products in and around the tiny shop. “It’s a staple of the Squeeze Station because we are advocates for marijuana,” Lopez says. “We have a Latino base clientele and in our Latin community marijuana is still really taboo. But then I had all these Latinos coming in who are older senior citizens asking me for advice because they don’t want to be on medication anymore, and they want to sleep naturally, and it feels good to have this platform to be able to spread the love and the knowledge to my community.” This year, the first day of the fest was held on Sunday, April 10, with another installment held on Sunday, April 24. e can attest the fest is off the chain. The first day was full of sunshine, feel good vibes, and some damn good food. Lopez says the second day is usually even bigger with more music performances and people coming in and out, since it’s closer to 4/20. Pop-ups and events are what helped the Squeeze stay open during the COID pandemic, after first opening in 2020 not knowing what was coming. “Everything shut down two days later,” Lopez says. When winter came and restaurants had to switch to takeout only, Lopez and Brown brought in other food vendors for pop-ups.
“They would do their own promotion online and have pickups here,” she says. “So their customers were coming to our place to pick up food, and some of them would buy a juice or something to go on top of that. And even if they wouldn’t buy anything from us, now they know we are here. So that helped us a lot.” When the weather’s warm, the cafe still hosts free fitness classes like yoga, cardio drumming, and booty camp in the outdoor space. It’s a win-win for local instructors who get paid to host their classes there, and for the cafe which gets business from hungry students after the classes end. It sounds corny, but the Squeeze feels like home — well, if your home was a low-key cafe serving smoothies and wraps in biodegradable containers. Lopez and Brown feel like the community mothers, always reminding you to take your turmeric shot. They plan on eventually opening up a three-story building, which they have already purchased, with a dance studio, commissary kitchen, o ce space, and potentially a marijuana-grow facility. “We’re working on a bigger building right now over on Grand River about 25 minutes from here,” Lopez says. “It’s gonna be community-based, community-minded, everything that we have planned for the Grand River location is to help our community thrive. We have a lot of plans and this place is too little to do it all.”
metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
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WEED One-Hitters
Detroit started accepting application for cannabis businesses on 4/20 B y S tev e N eav l ing
Nearly two-and-a-half
years after recreational marijuana sales began in Michigan, the city of Detroit finally began accepting applications for some adult-use cannabis business licenses last Wednesday — or 4/20, the uno cial annual cannabis holiday. The city’s newly formed ce of Marijuana entures ntrepreneurship opened up the online application process for unlimited recreational marijuana licenses for processors, grow operations, safety compliance labs, and event organi ers. The city has not yet begun accepting applications for dispensary licenses but is expected to soon announce when it will. “We are so excited to announce the opening of our Adult se Marijuana icensing program,” Megan Moslimani, director of Marijuana V entures and ntrepreneurship of the ivil ights Inclusion and pportunity Department I , said in a statement. “ e are confident and proud of the space that we have carved out for social equity applicants to take part in this billion dollar industry.” After lawsuits and many delays, the Detroit ity ouncil approved a new ordinance on April to allow recreational marijuana businesses to open in the city. No date has been set yet for when the city will begin issuing licenses. The Detroit ity ouncil must make that decision based on recommendations by I . Some in the industry believe the ordinance will draw more lawsuits and potentially cause additional delays in the process. The Detroit ity ouncil shocked the cannabis industry in November 2019 when it passed a last minute ordinance preventing recreational businesses from opening. The reasoning was well-intentioned:
The Reef is a medical marijuana dispensary in Detroit that plans to apply for a recreational license.
Detroit wanted to ensure that its longtime residents, who have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs, could be given priority to get involved in the industry before wealthy outsiders saturated the market. At the time, council members said the goal was to create new regulations by J anuary . Instead, it took the council more than a year to draft an ordinance that would give licensing preferences to longtime Detroiters. But in J une 2021, a federal judge ruled that the ordinance was probably unlawful because it “gives an unfair, irrational, and likely unconstitutional advantage to long-term Detroit residents over all other applicants.” The council returned to the drawing board and took nine more months to approve a new ordinance, which creates two tracks for licenses so that “e uity” and “non e uity” applicants aren’t competing with each other. nder the new ordinance, a total of retail licenses will be available, half of which will be reserved for social equity applicants.
Ypsilanti is holding a cannabis expungement fair
An psilanti dispensary is teaming up with the city to help people charged with cannabis crimes get their criminal records expunged. The expungement fair will take place from noon p.m. on Sunday, May at the ellFlower psi, located at ashtenaw Ave. “ e know that a person’s prior criminal offenses can create barriers in life like housing and employment,” the ellFlower founder Trent Mc urren
22 April 27-May 3, 2022 | metrotimes.com
said in a statement. “As cannabis is now legal in Michigan, we need to undo the harm that cannabis prohibition caused people.” The event is made possible through a partnership between the ellFlower parent company Scout annabis, the reat akes xpungement Network N , the ashtenaw ounty Prosecutor’s ce onviction Integrity and xpungement nit, and psilanti ity ouncil, which unanimously approved funding for the event. The ity of psilanti Police Department will be on hand to provide free fingerprinting, necessary for people to go through the expungement process. rgani ers urge interested people to preregister before April at scoutcanna.com expunge. This helps screen people who are eligible for expungement. The process can take months to complete. N is covering all costs of the process. Scout annabis is also selling concentrate products co branded with N to help raise money for the expungements. The products will be sold all year long at the WellFlower’s psilanti and Manistee stores, with a portion of proceeds going to N. —L ee D eV it o
Green Pharm opens newest recreational dispensary in Hazel Park
A new recreational marijuana dispensary opened in a el Park this week, offering a large selection of flower, edibles, and concentrates. reen Pharm is the eighth recreational dispensary to open in a el
STEVE NEAVLING
Park. The store is located at . Nine Mile d. wned by reen Pharm annabis, the dispensary is the company’s fifth location in Michigan. The other recreational or medical dispensaries are in Detroit, ay ity, alkaska, and Traverse ity. reen Pharm annabis plans to open additional dispensaries in Alpena, Iron ity, Allegan, and Mancelona. “ e are thrilled to be in a el Park,” reen Pharm partner ruce ello said in a statement. “The city has been good to work with and we appreciate it a el Park is very business friendly. eing here also gives us an opportunity to contribute to local organizations such the a el Park Promise one while serving customers with quality products.” The dispensary expects to hire employees and reach million to million in sales in the first year. reen Pharm offers hundreds of cannabis products, including do ens of strains of flower, cartridges, and concentrates, and more than types of edibles. a el Park ity Manager d lobucher said recreational dispensaries, which charge a 10% excise tax for all marijuana purchases, are a big help for the city’s budget. “Because of legal, regulated and licensed cannabis, the ity of a el Park is able to collect , annually in fees from dispensaries such as reen Pharm,” lobucher said. “As we do, we are better able to balance our budget while meeting obligations of nearly a million dollars a year in legacy costs associated with retiree health insurance and pensions.” S t ev e N ea v l in g
metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
23
CULTURE What’s up, doc?
With Freep Film Festival and more, documentaries of all stripes land in metro Detroit B y G eor ge E l kind
It’s a big week for documentary here in metro Detroit. The Freep Film Festival’s screenings and events stretch from Wednesday, April 27 to Sunday, May 1, across venues including Frame in Hazel Park, the Detroit Film Theatre, the Redford Theatre, and the Michigan Science Center, among others. They’re chased, too, by a separate, unrelated screening of landmark labor documentary T h e W obbl ies playing Cinema Detroit (another participating festival venue) on May 1, and a revival there the weekend after of F l int, a 2021 Freep selection focused on the city’s ongoing water crisis. ith festival offerings encompassing activist profiles, policy investigations, fringe subcultures, and glimpses into the lives of both working artists and restauranteurs, there should be something playing to call to virtually anyone. While not everything playing Freep was available for advance review, what follows is a rough guide to the festival’s many offerings. Opening the festival is G r ad ual l y , T h en S ud d enl y : T h e B ankr up tc y of D etr oit, which dives into the story of not only the city’s 2013 bankruptcy but the ensuing fallout, ranging from the appointment of an emergency manager to the delicate negotiations over the city’s policies and assets. An eye for local history, too, is present in A mer ic a Y ou K il l Me, a long-delayed premiere focused on effrey Montgomery, a civil rights advocate whose trajectory as an activist was galvanized when his boyfriend was murdered outside a bar in meto Detroit in what was dismissed then by investigators as “just another gay killing.” Following the late firebrand’s career in state-level and national activism, the film looks to explore the crucial work of his career alongside its personal costs. Warmer-looking but hardly frictionfree is Beth Elise Hawk’s B r eaking B r ead , an Israel-set feature on the A-Sham Arabic Food Festival in Haifa, focused on the struggles of crosscultural collaboration between Arab and J ewish chefs there to bridge divides while making some gorgeous meals. Tenser by comparison is B ad A x e, a personal documentary focused on director David Siev’s own Asian-American fam-
Still from Gradually, Then Suddenly: The Bankruptcy of Detroit.
ily in the Michigan town of the same name. Homing in on the family’s experience as minority restaurant owners in the Thumb, the film documents their struggles to keep their business standing amid the reactionary environment of COV ID-19’s early days in America. Touching on subjects both culinary and martial is Ramin Bahrani’s Sundance documentary 2 nd C h anc e, which focuses on the life of eccentric entrepreneur Richard Davis, who fell out of Detroit’s pizza scene before going on to invent the bulletproof vest in 1969. To its credit, 2 nd looks to be a probing rather than a celebratory look, taking its subject’s trajectory in the body armor business for an opportunity to consider tiers of power, celebrity, and mythologies of self-starting in a broader social context. ffering similar space for considering such themes is R iotsv il l e, U S A , Sara Pettengill’s examination of a fictional town built for anti uprising training exercises by the U .S. military. Probing past the pyrotechnic theatrical-
24 April 27-May 3, 2022 | metrotimes.com
ity of their maneuvers, the film looks to dive into the narratives used to justify even the most forceful measures of topdown militaristic control. ne standout working off similar themes (which was available for review) is J enny Perlin’s B unker , which moves between multiple underground former military and nuclear encampments retrofitted in various styles by a variety of doomsday-prepping men. “Survival is not everyone’s agenda,” says one, suggesting his work in a half-furnished dome to be a kind of calling, before lolling about on a couch. Taken like the other men with dreams of selfsu ciency, those depicted vary in their tone, competency, and even a little in their tastes, though the latter range only so far. This last bit is striking as part of the film’s visual fabric, which consists of many roving tours. While the millionaires it makes its subject — “hard–working self-made people,” insists one dealer — have the means to turn their spaces into anything they
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could wish, their bunkers are always outfitted as sparse caverns or endless, stale McMansions: outfitted with signifiers of luxury ping pong tables or survival (endless masks and weaponry), but no vectors of real color or of life. The fantasies they realize are never pastoral or edenic, despite all that’s available to them, and the men — who even when married seem to wish that they were single — always appear alone. Framed by contrast around a small but lively array of women dogsledders, Anu Rana’s Mush er frames dogsled racing in the Keewenaw Peninsula as a lifestyle choice, a year-round preoccupation, and a collaborative venture more than a competitive one. Focused on racers as young as 11 alongside one with grandchildren by the movie’s end, Mush er ’s action is calmer than you’d think, highlighting the the day-today rhythms of preparation in which racers engage long before they hit the snow-covered trails for one of U pper Michigan’s annual CopperDog races.
Still from 2nd Chance.
(These top out at 150 miles — so far shorter than the Iditarod — but still present a formidable challenge.) “We live for winter,” one woman says before a tour of a dog team’s hay-and-barrel living uarters. The film has many of these, each a stripped-down showcase of pastoral DIY craftsmanship presented with clear authority but little pretense. These rhythms — of training and entertaining dogs, of delivering new litters and maintaining homes — and, finally, of a community rising to support each racer, all in concert with the seasons – manage to be sweet and calming while retaining a little mystery. When one racer suggests that the race itself provides a kind of exercise in mindfulness, it’s easy to believe her. Likewise anchored by small-town life, I r on F amil y centers on J azmine Faries, an early-30s woman with Down syndrome who puts on a yearly theater showcase of her own collaborative work. With productions rooted in her own independent-minded, whimsical creativity and elaborate workshopping sessions with her brother and her mom, Faries’ show tra cs routinely in the idea of a fantasized “double life.” Through this, the show manages to speak both to the limits of her surroundings — a heavy television and pop-cultural diet, a tiny dating pool, a sometime lack of understanding by those around her, and even di cul-
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ties in maintaining a healthy diet — as well as to all that she receives in both familial and community-based support. Casting dreams and art-making as invigorating (if rarely circumstancealtering), it’s hard in watching to know if Faries might have a better life beyond Iron River itself if she found a path to one. There’s little question, though, that she’s making the most of what she has, which might ultimately be the only thing that counts. A more politically engaged portrait can be found in David J . Ruck’s T h e E r ie S ituation, orbiting around recent environmental and water-rights activism of residents along Lake Erie. When industrial agricultural dumping precipitates toxic algal blooms near Toledo in 2017, recreation opportunities, wildlife, and water quality all take a hit. Research, aid efforts, and court battles all swiftly follow in a conflict begging uestions that resonate with issues of governance, sustainability, and climate change more broadly. What results is a sprawling case study of the negotiations between activists, policymakers, and industry in making a world that can work for each of them. As might seem natural considering its fraught subject, the film offers some sense of promise but few easy comforts. F ul l sc r eening d etail s ar e av ail abl e at free fil festi al o
metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
25
CULTURE A (very) mixed blessing
‘Father Stu’ is a film as rife with contradictions as the Church itself B y E il een G ’ S el l
Google “Mark Wahlberg
Catholic,” and before you type out the third letter, “Mark Wahlberg Calvin Klein” delightfully autocompletes. That the actor’s faith is still outshined by the 1992 underwear campaign that transformed him from rapper “Marky Mark” to fashion icon is perhaps of no surprise. After all, this is the guy whose breakout film role was playing porn star “Dirk Diggler” in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 opus B oogie N igh ts, the high-school dropout who for decades has epitomized the blue-collar American Adonis — from a philosophizing firefighter in I H ear t H uc kabees (2004) to a working-class boxing contender in T h e F igh ter (2010). More surprising for some may be that ahlberg’s latest film F ath er S tu, based on the true story of Stuart Long, a priest diagnosed with a muscular degenerative disease — is a natural choice for the actor. Written and directed by Rosalind Ross and funded in part by Mel Gibson, this unlikely tearjerker with a reverent twist has, despite tepid box o ce returns, drawn viewers to theatres in droves over Easter weekend, especially in highly Catholic cities. And the film’s odd appeal makes sense. Imagine if Dirk Diggler was twenty years older, and instead of heading to Hollywood from the South Bay, trucks out from rural Montana as a welterweight past his prime. Imagine if, instead of finding fame in rated movies, he converts to Catholicism in hopes of impressing a devout Hispanic woman (who, according to his supermarket coworker, is a certified “dime piece”). Imagine if, rather than cavorting with a mishmash of ’70s centerfolds and wannabe film stars, his makeshift family was comprised of the workingclass immigrants and seminarians at a local Catholic church. Still with me? The wildest part about F ath er S tu is that, at some level, it’s about the same thing as PTA’s masterpiece: a desultory white guy too charismatic for his own good, too unrefined for a typical , seeks, and finds, validation in a world wildly different from his own. But unlike Dirk, Wahlberg’s Stu is redeemed rather than demoralized, through the gradual realization that drinking and brawling
Mark Wahlberg in Father Stu.
his days away might not be the best way to get the girl (or stay out of jail). “Life’s going to give you a gut full of reasons to be angry, kid. You only need one to be grateful,” says a stranger concerned for Stu’s standing appointment at the local bar. “That’s the most fucked ratio since the number of marshmallows in Lucky Charms,” is Stu’s response, characteristic of the droll profanity that laces much of his speech. Witnessing Stu’s sputtering spiritual awakening can be very entertaining — not least for the heathens among us. Encouraged by girlfriend Carmen (Teresa de Ruiz), Stu is baptized, teaches Sunday school, and, following a near death experience after a motorcycle crash, realizes he is called to reject a life of profligacy and become a priest. The film’s wry, ohnny ash style approach to sin and salvation proves a refreshing departure from both movie culture that paints believers as morons and the Christian media machine that relies on little but cringey platitudes. That this Mel Gibson enterprise can be only enjoyable, but moving, is as undeniable as it is uncomfortable to admit. A known sexist, Trumpy antiSemite, Gibson is nevertheless brac-
26 April 27-May 3, 2022 | metrotimes.com
COURTESY PHOTO
ingly convincing as Stu’s vitriolic father — perhaps even more so given that he plays a character not all that different from himself. And here it’s imperative to emphasize that, while this movie is quite good at what it’s doing, what it is actually doing isn’t always — or even usually — that good. Stu is ostensibly saved through his faith and steely endurance of great physical suffering, suggesting that manning up and kneeling down are one and the same. But along these same lines, the secular world is conflated with emasculating depravity: a gay booking agent pressures Stu to give him head, a trans sex worker solicits Stu’s attention outside a ramshackle motel. Stu takes advantage of Carmen’s bottomless reserve of patience, only to brusquely jilt her for the priesthood. In so many ways F ath er S tu is as rife with contradictions as the Church itself. On the one hand, Stu’s evolution from screwball narcissist to suffering saint follows a traditional “great man narrative” based on the idea that, with an iron will and refusal to take no for an answer, any person (read: man) can be “great” and exceed society’s expectations. On the other, Stu’s ascension to
Father Stu Rated: R Run time: 124 minutes priesthood is only made possible by the extended kinship network he’s established with fellow seminarians and Los Angeles parishioners; when the diocese refuses to ordain him for what can only be called brutally ableist rationale, his community rallies to change its mind. In that respect, F ath er S tu seems more to indict the Church as a corrupt, hierarchical institution than champion it as sanctuary; so, too, is Stu rewarded for relying on others more so than defying the odds on his own. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” claim the beatitudes that so many Catholics and Christians are raised on. When honoring the spirit of this credo, F ath er S tu seems to unwittingly advance a philosophy utterly at odds with what has become of much of American Christianity today. But when it kowtows to individualism and hypermasculine pride, no amount of holy water can wash away the stain.
metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
27
Savage Love
CULTURE Q:
I ’ m a h eav y sl eep er , and my wif e knows th at, but not so h eav y th at I d on’ t wake up wh en sh e p er iod ic al l y mastur bates nex t to me and h as th e bed sh aking p r etty h ar d . S h e d oesn’ t know th is wakes me. H ow d o I h and l e th is? o o er a han or a i the next time? T al k to h er wh en sh e’ s not h av ing h er moment and ask if sh e f eel s l ike our sex l if e is l ac king? O r j ust l et it go and c ontinue to p r etend th at I ’ m stil l asl eep wh en th is h ap p ens? O ur sex l if e seems h eal th y to me oth er wise. —N oc t u rn a l I n c id en t s Tha t E ru p t N ec essit a t e I n q u iries To E l u c id a t e
A : The wife masturbating in the
middle of the night isn’t by itself evidence your sex life is lacking, NITENITE. She’s most likely waking up horny at 3 a.m. and rubbing one out to get back to sleep. You can and should tell her over breakfast — with a loving and supportive smile on your face — that you sometimes wake up when she’s masturbating, and that you’re happy to help her out. But if all your wife wants and/or needs at 3 a.m. is a quick orgasm, she may not be interested in a full-blown sex session. And if “helping her out” means she’s obligated to get you off before she can go back to sleep, NITENITE, don’t be surprised if she passes (and slips out of bed the next time she needs to have a wank).
Q: G
ay man h er e with a q uestion about top p ing. I was a top with my c ol l ege boy f r iend but switc h ed to being mostl y a bottom in my ear l y 2 0 s. I ’ m in my l ate 3 0 s now, and r ec entl y got out of a d ec ad e- l ong r el ationsh ip , so I ’ v e been d oing a l ot of ex p l or ing and r ed isc ov er ing wh at I want in bed . W h il e I ’ m v er y ex p er ienc ed as a bottom, I f eel a bit l ike a fish out of water when to in T h e guy s I ’ v e f uc ked h av e al l been v er y c omp l imentar y , so it d oesn’ t seem to be a p r obl em with my tec h niq ue, but it’ s j ust not as intense f or me. A l so, I ’ m unc ut an fin that if ushin ee insi e someone th en my f or eskin p ul l s al l th e way bac k wh il e I ’ m insid e to th e p oint that it hurts his is es e ially a roble when a uy ri es e with a new boy f r iend wh o h as enj oy ed bottoming f or me, but al l of th is is kind of p l ay ing with my h ead so I c an’ t j ust r el ax and enj oy my sel f wh en top p ing. S h oul d I j ust ac c ep t th at top p ing isn’ t f or me? —S u b p a r O rg a sms F rom Top p in g
A : You could accept that topping isn’t for you and swear off topping forever but that seems a little dramatic, SOFT, and a whole lot drastic. How about
B y D an S av age
accepting this instead: while you prefer bottoming to topping and your orgasms are better when you bottom, you also enjoy topping occasionally, so long as you don’t push too far in and/or get ridden too hard. You might also wanna accept the compliments you’ve been getting about your topping skills/style. Instead of assuming the guys you’ve topped are lying to you, give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re telling the truth: you’re a good top and bottoming for you is a good time. And with more experience, SOFT, you’re likelier to get even better at it, earn more praise, and grow to enjoy topping more.
Q:
I am a 6 0 - y ear - ol d woman wh o h as h ad a l ot of l ov er s. My c ur r ent l ov er d oes not enj oy c unnil ingus, wh ic h h ap p ens to be th e onl y r el iabl e way to et e o ow an a e unnilingus mor e enj oy abl e f or h im? I th ough t about getting a c an of wh ip p ed c r eam to “ sweeten th e d eal , ” but wil l th at wor k? —E x c it in g A d d it iv es Tha t M a ke E a t in g P u ssy A L a rk
A : It won’t work.
First, putting whipped cream on your clit and labia isn’t good for pussy — and since whipped cream rapidly melts after being applied to the body, EATMEPAL, it’s not going to look sexy or taste good for long. Minutes after emptying that can of whipped cream, you’re gonna look and smell like a newborn puked on your lap. hocolate sauce, flavored lubes, whipped cream — none of those things have the power to turn someone who doesn’t like eating pussy or sucking dick into someone who does. Pussy is not a sundae, dick is not a candy bar. If cunnilingus is the only thing that reliably gets you off, it’s a new lover you need, EATMEPAL, not a dairy product.
Q:
I ’ m a mal e wh o is c ur ious about wear ing a mal e c h astity c age. I ’ m on bl ood - th inning med ic ations and I v er y r ar el y get er ec tions d ue to my h eal th issues, but I want to ex p er ienc e th e f eel ing of wear ing a c age. A r e th er e any lon ter e e ts fro wearin a o c age f or sh or t p er iod s of time th at I need to know about? I am j ust c ur ious h ow it woul d f eel wear ing one. — L ookin g I n t o M y st eriou s P l ea su res
J OE NEWTON
A:
ou’ll be fine, IMP. I’ve spoken to a few urologists over the years about the risks of chastity cages for men, and their only concern was potential damage to the erectile tissues when a dick gets hard or tries to in the confines of a cage. If you rarely get hard — or don’t get hard randomly — there’s no danger in wearing one even for extended periods of time, so long as it’s not too tight, LIMP, and you keep it clean.
Q:
I ’ m a 2 0 - y ear - ol d woman wh o j ust star ted a new j ob. O ne of my new c owor ker s is a 2 0 - someth ing man wh o d oesn’ t sp eak muc h E ngl ish , but h e’ s mad e it v er y c l ear th at h e’ s attr ac ted to me. I f ound h im on F ac ebook and r eal iz ed h e h as a gir l f r iend in anoth er c ountr y . S o, as it tur ns out, h e’ s in a th r ee- y ear - l ong r el ationsh ip , but h e c an’ t be with h er c ur r entl y . I ’ v e al way s c onsid er ed men in r el ationsh ip s to be stri tly o li its but e ot an intense c r ush on th is man and wanna get with h im. I ’ m onl y inter ested in h ooking up . I ’ m not l ooking f or a c ommitment f r om h im at al l . S h oul d I l et h im know I am attr ac ted to h im too and p ossibl y r uin h is r el ationsh ip ? —P ossib l e W rec kin g B a l l
A: U
nless you’re planning to post to Facebook about fucking this guy and tag his girlfriend back home, I don’t
“The wife masturbating isn’t by itself evidence your sex life is lacking. She’s most likely rubbing one out to get back to sleep.”
28 April 27-May 3, 2022 | metrotimes.com
see how fucking you — even if he’s not supposed to be fucking anyone while they’re apart — will automatically ruin his relationship. Here’s hoping he’s allowed to fuck other women while they’re separated like this, PWB, and here’s hoping she’s allowed to fuck other guys. But even if he were to break the rules to get with you, PWB, it doesn’t mean that he would break her heart so long as you’re capable of being discreet.
Q:
I l ear ned th at y ou h el p ed p egging get its name. B ut is th er e a name f or a man using a str ap - on on a woman? —S t ra p p ed O n D u d e
A : In 2001 my readers decided — in
a free and fair election — to give the name “pegging” to the act of a woman fucking a man in the ass with a strapon dildo. Some pegging purists have argued that the word should continue to mean that and only that, but language evolves and changes. These days women peg men, men peg women, women peg women, men peg men, and enbys peg all comers.
Q:
I s it O K to get a q uic k “ h ap p y - end ing” massage onc e a month if y ou ar e getting al most no sex in th e mar r iage? —R eev a l u a t in g U n d erst ood B ou n d a ries
A : It’s OK with me. A sk q uestions@ sav agel ov e.net! L isten to D an on th e S av age L ov ec ast! F ol l ow D an on T witter @ F akeD anS av age! C ol umns, p od c asts, books, mer c h and mor e at sav age.l ov e!
CULTURE ARIES (March 21-April 19): I recommend you adopt a limitation that will enable you to claim more freedom. For example, you could de-emphasize your involvement with a lukewarm dream so as to liberate time and energy for a passionate dream. Or you could minimize your fascination with a certain negative emotion to make more room for invigorating emotions. Any other ideas? You›re in a phase when increased discipline and discernment can be liberating. TAURUS: April 20 – May 20 “Imagining anything is the first step toward creating it,” wrote author and activist Gloria Steinem. “Believing in a true self is what allows a true self to be born,” she added. Those are excellent meditations for you to focus on right now, Taurus. The time is ripe for you to envision in detail a specific new situation or adventure you would like to manifest in the future. It›s also a perfect moment to picture a truer, deeper, more robust version of your beautiful self — an expanded version of your identity that you hope to give birth to in the coming months.
GEMINI: May 21 – June 20 Gemini author William Butler Yeats won a Nobel Prize for Literature, so I conclude he had considerable talent and wisdom. But he cultivated interests and ideas that were at variance with most other literary figures. For example, he believed fairies are real. He was a student of occult magic. Two of his books were dictated by spirits during séances. In the coming weeks, I invite you to draw inspiration from his versatile repertoire. Welcome knowledge in whatever unusual ways it might materialize. Be eager to accept power and inspiration wherever they are offered. For inspiration, here’s a Yeats quote: “I have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know.” CANCER: June 21 – July 22 You know what›s always good for your well-being? Helping people who are less fortunate and less privileged than you. To enhance your health, you can also fight bigotry, campaign against the abuse of animals, and remedy damage to the natural world. If you carry out tasks like these in the coming weeks, you will boost your vigor and vitality even more than usual. You may be amazed at the power of your compassion to generate selfish benefits for yourself. Working in behalf of others will uplift and nurture you. To further motivate you, here are inspirational words from designer Santiago Bautista: “I am in love with all the gifts of the world, and especially those destined for others to enjoy.” LEO: July 23 – August 22 “There is a moment in each day that Satan cannot find,” wrote author and artist William Blake. Here’s how I interpret his poetic words: On a regular basis, you become relatively immune from the debilitating effects of melancholy, apathy, and fear. At those times, you are blessed with the freedom to be exactly who you want to be. You can satisfy your soul completely. In the next six weeks, I suspect there will be more of these interludes for you than usual. How do you plan to use your exalted respite from Satan’s nagging? VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22 Poet Louis Little Coon Oliver (1904–1991) was a member of the indigenous Mvskoke people. He declared, “I do not waste what is wild.” That might mean something different for him than what it would mean for you, but it’s an excellent principle for you to work with
30 April 27-May 3, 2022 | metrotimes.com
Free Will Astrology By Rob Brezsny 1. Be bold about seeking help and support. 2. Be aggressive about accessing your creativity. Expand your imagination about what might be therapeutic.
in the coming weeks. You will have more access than usual to wildness, and you might be tempted to use it casually or recklessly. I hope that instead you harness all that raw mojo with precision and grace. Amazingly, being disciplined in your use of the wildness will ensure that it enriches you to the max and generates potent transformative energy.
CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19 “To uncover what is hidden in my soul might take me a week or two,” my friend Allie told me. I told her she would be lucky if her brave and challenging exploration required such a short time. In contrast, some people I know have spent years trying to find what is buried and lost in their souls: me, for instance. There was one period of my life when I sought for over a decade to find and identify the missing treasure. According to my astrological analysis, you will soon enjoy multiple discoveries and revelations that will be more like Allie’s timeline than mine: relatively rapid and complete. Get ready! Be alert!
LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22 I suspect you will have the skills of an acrobat in the coming weeks — at least metaphorically. You will be psychically nimble. Your soul will have an exceptional ability to carry out spry maneuvers that keep you sane and sound. Even more than usual, you will have the power to adjust on the fly and adapt to shifting circumstances. People you know may marvel at your lithe flexibility. They will compliment you for your classiness under pressure. But I suspect the feats you accomplish may “ feel surprisingly easy and breezy!
AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18 A Thai cook named Nattapong Kaweenuntawong has a unique method for cooking the soup served in his Bangkok restaurant. At the end of each night, he saves the broth for use the next day. He has been doing that daily for 45 years. Theoretically, there may be molecules of noodles that were originally thrown in the pot back in 1977. In accordance with current astrological omens, I urge you to dream up a new tradition that borrows from his approach. What experience could you begin soon that would benefit you for years to come?
SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21 A Tumblr blogger named Af-70 gives copious advice. From his wide selection of wise counsel, I have selected six tips that are right for your needs in the coming weeks. Please study the following counsel. 1. “Real feelings don’t change fast.” 2. “Connect deeply or not at all.” 3. “Build a relationship in which you and your ally can be active in each other’s growth.” 4. “Sometimes what you get is better than what you wanted.” 5. “Enjoy the space between where you are and where you are going.” 6. “Keep it real with me even if it makes us tremble and shimmer.”
PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20 Pisces-born Casimir Pulaski (1745–1779) was a Polish nobleman and military commander. As a young man, he fought unsuccessfully to free Poland from Russian domination. Driven into exile, he fled to America, arriving during the Revolutionary War with Britain in 1777. General George Washington was impressed with Pulaski’s skills, making the immigrant a brigadier general. He distinguished himself as a leader of American forces, exhibiting brilliance and bravery. For that excellence, he has been honored. But now, over two centuries later, his identity is in flux. DNA analyses of Pulaski’s remains suggest he was an intersex person with both male and female qualities. (Read more: tinyurl.com/PulaskiSmithsonian.) I bring this to your attention, Pisces, because the coming months will be a favorable time to question and revise your understanding of your identity. May you be inspired by Pulaski’s evolving distinctiveness.
JAMES NOELLERT
SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21 Consider putting a sign on your door or a message on your social media that says something like the following: “I’ve still got some healing to do. While I’m making progress, I’m only partway there. Am open to your suggestions, practical tips, and suggestions for cures I don’t know about.” Though the process is as yet incomplete, Sagittarius, I am proud of how diligent and resourceful you have been in seeking corrections and fixes. My only suggestions:
This week’s homework: Make a guess about when you will fulfill your next sweet ambition.
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metrotimes.com | April 27-May 3, 2022
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