Story and Photos
by Christopher Thompson

How often do we stop to think about how much time and work went in to getting the fresh produce on grocery store shelves? To most of us it’s as if it appears by magic, but those who grow produce know how just much work goes into farming. An understanding of all that goes into it helps us all appreciate our food that much more. The volunteers and staff of Earth Works Garden, an urban farm in Detroit, enjoy working intimately with the Earth to produce healthy, fresh foods.

In 1998, a Capuchin friar by the name of Brother Rick Samyn started Earth Works in order to help give the community a better understanding of food. He was concerned that people were wasteful because they were unaware of the time and labor put into growing food. Brother Rick shared the food with a local soup kitchen to help reconnect the people with the food. And that’s why the Capuchin soup kitchen is a part of the Earth Works organization and sits across the street from the garden. Program Manager Rod Toneye says that the Capuchin soup kitchen provides about 2200 meals a day, and some of that food comes from the Earth Works gardens.

Because of a lack of supermarkets in Detroit, Toney believes that these urban gardens are essential for Detroit. Hedescribes Detroit as a “food desert” (see website below), that is a place devoid of healthy foods and outlets to procure them. Negative perceptions about Detroit contribute to a lack of supermarkets and other grocers, which hurts Detroit not just financially, but nutritionally. Despite a great deal of poverty in Detroit, Toneye notes, there is paradoxically high amount of obesity. This is because Detroiters have limited choices and access to healthy foods. What they do have are inexpensive fast food joints or corner stores with junk food and what little produce they might have, having sat on the shelves for weeks. What choices do impoverished Detroiters have? Toneye says that there is a market nearby with good fresh produce, but even he can’t buy any of it – it’s too upscale. Why should healthy food only be for the wealthy?

Toneye takes the issue of health and community to heart because of his involvement with the community. He says, “If people are involved in the community, they have more pride in it. They don’t like the crack houses.”

Earth Works is doing a lot to help the community as Patrick Crouch, Greenhouse and Field Production Coordinator explains. It provides gardeners with over 40,000 transplants, which fills about 600 flats. These flats contain partially grown plants that farmers can purchase for a very low price. All in all, the amount Earth Works provides is enough to serve about 150 community gardens plus 120 home gardens. Some of their produce goes to local markets, where vouchers are given away for free through a program called Project Fresh and used to purchase Michigan-grown food. Along with those services and more, Earth Works provides plenty of educational resources for people of all ages. Every week they have two classes where children can work in the gardens and later make a meal with the vegetables they grow. There are other youth programs that work more closely with businesses and setting up stands to sell fresh veggies. Apiaries, or bee hives, sit near the gardens and are an aid in learning about the importance of bees in the ecosystem.

For those looking to contribute and learn a bit about gardening, there are plenty of opportunities for volunteers to come and help out. The volunteer gardening schedule follows the growing season – from March until the first frost in Fall. Of course, the schedule varies depending on the weather, but there is usually a lot of work, so volunteers are always welcome. Days working there are very busy. For example, when this writer spent the day with them, on Wednesday in early August, the gardens were weeded and then prepared for Fall planting. Many vegetables were harvested, including beets, turnips, and radishes. Workers laid compost across empty gardens to prepare for planting more crops. At the end of the morning, when volunteers were dirty, they got to take home a share of the harvested veggies. Overall, it’s a very intimate, friendly setting.

The volunteers enjoy the intimacy, and there are many reasons they help out:

Altruism: Rosemary Spatafora, who volunteers with her husband, Dennis, says, “It’s good for my soul.” She also remarks, “It benefits other people and is good stress relief. There are good people here.”

Environmental: Will Ahee, who is 19 and just graduated from high school, likes working in the city. He says, “In Detroit, there’s lots of vacant land, and gardening provides a better connection to the land.”

Religious: Steph Maxson is studying to become a Metropolitan Community Church pastor.  She says, “We are called in part to feed the hungry and care for our earth. What better way to do both of those things?"

Educational: Jonathon Simmons, 12, who has volunteered for the past few weeks with his mom, says, “I feel happy. I’m learning stuff I never saw before. I’m learning different things every time I come.”

It’s easy and fun to get involved with Earth Works. Volunteer days are every Wednesday and Saturday from 9 am to noon. It’s as easy as showing up at the Capuchin soup kitchen and saying that you want to help out in the garden. If working with the Earth and gardening is your passion then Urban Farm Worker Lisa Richter’s words should be an inspiration: “If you have a passion, you have to get involved.”

If gardening is your passion, then what are you waiting for?

To learn more about the organization, find contact information, and join the e-mail list, then visit the website at http://www.earth-works.org/. For more information on Food Deserts in Detroit, visit http://www.marigallagher.com/.

Chris Thompson is a tireless intern for thedetroiter.com and a proud volunteer at Earth Works Garden.

By Christopher Thompson

Imagine: It’s a sunny, Friday summer evening and you’re driving down Woodward Avenue. The light turns red and you stop at the intersection at Kirby when a very tall man wearing black and wielding a giant crop leads his three dinosaurs across Woodward. This man speaks a strange language and the dinosaurs roar and rumble as they curiously observe their surroundings. They cross the street and the light turns green. You just drove past the Detroit Festival of the Arts, and what a festival it was.

The above act, Sau’rus, came from the Close-Act Visual Theatre, which is based in the Netherlands. Men on stilts, who were hidden by veils, wore the dinosaur outfits with long necks and jeweled heads. Although it was obvious to adult spectators that there were people in the suits, some children clung to their moms for dear life. These dinosaurs, all acting with comedic intent, walked through the crowds terrorizing the unsuspecting and unaware.

There were plenty of great shows at the Festival, along with some great art. Just as the University Cultural Center hoped to draw attention to their organization in co-hosting the event (see our preview feature on the Festival), the artists who showed up hoped to spread word about their art. Those who attended the Festival saw some great acts, and for those who didn’t go or didn’t get to see every thing, here’s a quick rundown of a few of the acts in town on just the first Friday evening.

Lelavision, a music and dance group, played several of their ingeniously designed instruments while performing humorous choreography. One instrument was a spinning metal tube with a wide bottom and narrow top. The two performers climbed upon it as it spun and plucked strings attached to it and then one performer fell inside, where he began playing music from within. The most impressive instrument, though, was a giant harp that lay on its side. The performers wore gloves and rubbed their rears and hands against the strings in order to create music. They played a jig, a game of catch with sound, and some tug of war. Apparently, they have several more neat instruments, including some that are much too large to lug around. For more information on Lelavision, visit their website at lelavision.com.

A few international bands had a chance to play some music and sell their CDs. This included the Screaming Orphans, an Irish pop/rock band consisting of four Irish girls, who played guitar, bass guitar, drums, and accordion for their own stuff, and then pulled out a violin and an Irish drum to play traditional Irish music. Another band was a Cambodian pop/rock band called Dengue Fever. The only Cambodian in the group, admittedly, was the singer Chhom Nimol, a pop star in Cambodia who is relatively unknown in the U.S. Nimol sang in her native language as the band played both their own music and covers of other Cambodian bands. There were plenty of other bands at the Festival during the whole weekend, with a mix of music from around the world.

Another big draw was Osadia, a pair of hair sculptors from Spain who pulled people from the audience and created intricate designs in their hair. They painted the hair and shaped it into whatever design they saw in their heads, just like a sculptor looking at a block of marble and seeing their work of art within it. Some patrons walked away with stuffed toys in their hair, but everyone walked away with a smile on their face. Osadia’s final hair sculpture was done on a bald man, who very happily walked away with a Mohawk made of koosh balls. To see more information on this pair, visit osadiaonline.com.

If you missed the Detroit Festival of the Arts this year, you missed out on a lot of diverse cultural experiences, so be sure to come next year when the Festival returns with some old favorites and new shows and plenty of fun for everyone.

Chris Thompson is the Motor City’s hardest working intern.

By Chris ThompsonIt’s time again for the Detroit Festival of the Arts, which means among other things, art and music from all over the world, international street performers, and the building of a 75-ton sand sculpture! This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, June 8, 9, and 10, the University Cultural Center Association (UCCA) and Wayne State University (WSU) present the 21st annual Detroit Festival of the Arts on Cass Avenue, Woodward Avenue, John R. Road, and Brush Street.

This family friendly event will bring together artists from around the corner to the other side of the world, from Detroit’s own poet Kawita Kandpal to a band from the Sierra Leone refugee camp, called Sierra Leone, to the Mexican American violinist, born in Oaxaca, Lila Downs. Artist booths will line Cass Avenue, where over 100 artists will put their work up for sale. Wayne State University’s campus will hold the Youth Artists Market, where there will be over 50 interactive activities for children, as well as puppet and pirate shows. Festival Special Events Director of UCCA Maureen Riley promises, “We guarantee you will come and find something you have fallen in love with.”

In providing a place for artists from around the world to perform so audiences can enjoy new flavors of art, the organizers of the festival first and foremost seek to promote Detroit, as well as attract new people to the University Cultural Center. This art-filled weekend in Detroit will be, Riley says, a magical environment where people of all ages, socio-economic statuses, and races will come together in a diverse group. She adds, “Nobody but the Festival brings this kind of stuff.”

The Detroit Festival of Arts began in 1987, when Wayne State University’s “Welcome Back Festival” merged with the UCCA’s own festival, “September Song.” More recently the festival was moved to June because the early summer month provided a better time to bring together people outside of the campus population. The move has proved positive, as it has enjoyed more success under the nicer summer weather and less family scheduling conflicts.

Area museums will be involved to help bring the arts community together as well, offering membership discounts during the Festival, and some museums will hold special events, such as the Charles H. Wright Museum showing a documentary about Sierra Leone as a companion to the band’s performance, and the DIA will host a mini-golf course and a 1926 European animated film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed. This Detroit tradition promises a great arts experience and lots of fun for everyone. Come out and support Detroit and arts from around the world.

The Festival is free for all ages. For more information visit the website at http://detroitfestival.com/

The poster for the Festival this year features artwork by Detroit artist Charles McGee. Read more about him here.

Interview by Leyland DeVito

Joe Zainea is quite literally the father figure of the Majestic Theater center, a conglomeration of two music venues, a restaurant, and a bowling alley that he runs with his two sons. A funny old raconteur, it didn’t take much to get him to sit down with contributor Leyland DeVito and tell some stories about the fall (and rise) of Detroit during the course of his time in the business.

What can you say about living and working in Detroit?

“Cool cities” is what we’ve always strived for down here. I can go back to the 1950’s, when people were abandoning the city and leaving for the suburbs, there were a small quarter of people down here that struggled to keep Detroit alive. The decline culminated in the Eighties. Everybody left town, even the affluent African-Americans… I guess the Reagan economic system “trickled down” to the African-Americans and they did the same thing as anyone else, they left for the suburbs.

So we were left from ’88 to ’94 with downright indigents. Couldn’t make any money with them. Our sons graduated from college, and David told me, “If you want me to work here…” It turned out to be the wisest thing, because he tripled the price of bowling and it offended the indigents and they left. They also hit the Mile roads, by the way. There’s nothing secret about the Mile roads. Everybody aspires to be on a higher and higher Mile road. I call it the “Mile Road Syndrome”.

If racism can kill a city, so can elitism. I live in Detroit, on the border with Grosse Point. Same neighborhood my father and mother built the house in 1919. Our roses are blooming. Our garden is beautiful. The house is built like a brick castle. And guess what? I paid for it 35 years ago. So my peers who moved to Grosse Point wonder, “How do you get to go to Europe twice a year?”

Our value system is all screwed up. I just love my street. It looks beautiful. It doesn’t make any difference how big your house is. What matters is what’s in your heart, your mind, your intellect, and your soul. They have it all backwards.

How long have you been at the helm of the Majestic Theater center?

My dad bought the bowling alley in 1946. I’m not at the helm. I have two sons. My son David is the general manager and my son Joe is the chef, neither of which you could operate this business without. Are they at the helm? I think they are. I do the bookkeeping and the buying and the selling and the hell raising. That’s my duty as a 73 year old.

What improvements have you noticed in your long time here?

It’s you people, the young crowd. They’re breaking away from their parents, their ideology, thinking, “All the things I love are back in Detroit”. The Art Institute, the clubs, the restaurants. They don’t understand, but the young kids do, and that’s who I give credit too. I’ll take the young any day of the week.

I remember when I was 18 I had to lie to my parents to come down here to see the Rock City Festival.

You loved that? We did that. We got a sponsor because we were doing pretty good from bar sales. The beer company that sponsored us is suffering a decline in their business all over, but they’re not suffering a decline in Midtown, Detroit. Business in Midtown is up! But they can’t afford to give us the money to do another show like that. That was a free concert. Pretty nice, wasn’t it? You know where I was during that? I was in Greece and Turkey. It’d be nice to have another one. We still have the name registered.

The Majestic Theater and the Magic Stick upstairs are my favorite venues in the city. You guys book so many great local, national, and international acts. When did this become a place for younger music?

That’s from our sons coming into the business. If I didn’t change, chances are I’d be out of business. I had a nice Lebanese restaurant, it was called “The Gnome Restaurant”, but it wasn’t wide enough appeal to a mass crowd. So my sons came in, they switched it to all American, with some Arabic food, some Mediterranean food. My son Joe learned new techniques of cooking international foods, and then all of a sudden all these young kids start showing up. And where are the people my age at 10 o’clock at night? They’re beddy-bye in the suburbs watching the boob tube and getting ready for bed. And where are their children? They’re not even in the house at 10, they’re going out for dinner. We had to change with the clientele, and that’s simply what made the difference.

What about the history of the Majestic Theater?

Originally it was the largest theater built in the world for the purpose of motion pictures. The architect, C. Howard Crane, went on to build the Fox Theaters around the country and maybe ten more theaters downtown. As they built movie theaters in the suburbs, this place became more of a kung-fu, open-up-all-night, twenty-five-cents-a-ticket place. Then it was closed as a theater and turned to a church. The owner was a notorious preacher, and a fraud, so he got kicked out, and then they turned the theater into a photographic studio to make commercials for the auto industry. Then that whole industry left Detroit for California. The theater was vacant for about 10 years. For a time we rented it to a manufacturer of trophies and silkscreen T-shirts.

When did it become a place for younger music?

We bought the building in 1984 and took the theater and turned it into an underground club. You had to come in through the back door, through the alley. We painted all the walls black, the floor black, and we had 1,000 kids crammed into there just shakin’. We had raves. But the house doesn’t make any money on raves. We decided to go more of a musical route. We brought in Sheryl Crow, Richard Thompson, some hot shows. Upstairs [in the Magic Stick], the White Stripes, Blanche, the Von Bondies, that’s more recently.

That was a turning point. The young people move into the city, buying the lofts, and as they do, their parents are becoming more curious. And then since the Super Bowl, there are 20 new pubs and restaurants. I’d say that that was a turning point too, and that helped.

What’s in the future for the complex?

We put a new roof on the building, so there’s no more water leaking. We just signed a contract for a new air conditioning and ventilation system that we never had before. That’s going to be a huge plus, we have thirteen concerts booked for the summertime. The theater has not had air conditioning. When it was built, the sign said it was “air cooled’. What they did was take huge blocks of ice and put them in the basement, and this great big propeller fan blew across the ice and sent the cool air up to the ceiling, and then it came down, almost like raindrops.

The Majestic Theater also promotes non-musical artists as well. There are always paintings and photographs on the walls. How else does the center promote non-musical artists?

That was my son’s plan in 1992 to change the art on the wall every three to four weeks. We never charge a fee, we just ask when they have the opening they bring responsible spenders to do some bar business. Quite a few of our staff are actors from Wayne State and University of Detroit with their own gigs. Because it’s a restaurant business we make it adjustable for them to go off a do a show and come back because there’s enough of them. Also, I think it adds a nice flair, having an actor wait on you.

For more info on the Majestic Complex located from 4120 to 4140 on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, check out their website here or call (313)833-9700
http://www.majesticdetroit.com/
4120-4140 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI

Leyland DeVito is studying illustration at Detroit's College for Creative Studies. He can be reached at flyingtreemonkey@aol.com.

Joe Zainea photos by Micaela Ruiz.

By Christopher Thompson

With the surge of zombie flicks pouring out of Hollywood, you might be relieved to see the Detroit Science Center’s exhibit, Our Bodies: The Universe Within, where the undead don’t try to eat human flesh. Instead, these specimens on display provide a creatively educational way to show those of us who are not scientists what it looks like underneath that skin of ours. With 135 anatomical displays of all parts of the human body, and 20 human bodies stripped of their skin and seemingly brought to life in animated poses that reveal various parts of their insides, you will see the whole inside of the human body and then some. And these aren’t fake bodies and body parts, either—they’re just as real as you or me.

Two similar traveling exhibits, “Body Worlds” and “Bodies…The Exhibition,” have stirred up some controversy over whether there was consent given to use these bodies for science. There seems to be less controversy here at the DSC as these bodies (all from China) were all donated with the consent of the individual to be used for the purposes of scientific research. And they’ve been put to good use, creating this great window into what makes us tick.

Some years ago, researchers at the University of Michigan, developed a way to preserve bodies called plastination that doesn’t produce any odor or any potentially carcinogenic toxins. In plastination, water and fat is replaced with reactive, pliable plastics that allow the body to be manipulated into different positions before hardening. The process takes anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 hours to complete, and leaves the specimens dry and odorless.

Every part on display is from a real human, with the exception of the eyes, which would be cloudy even after plastination. The musculoskeletal system and the internal organs are the major focuses of the exhibit, and it’s impressive to see all of those organs crammed in a tiny area of the human body. The exhibit also looks at the genitalia, tendons, nerves, and arteries.

In fact, the arteries are one of the neater parts of the exhibit. To make these blood vessel specimens, the plastination process must be put to quite creative use. As with the rest of the body, the blood vessels of a specimen are filled with the plastic. The difference comes after the hardening of the plastic. Acid is then dumped over the bodies, which dissolves everything except for the plastic, leaving behind a map of the arteries, later painted bright red or green or blue. The end product quite resembles a coral reef. This plastic is pliable, but brittle, and underneath the blood vessels exhibits there are plenty of broken bits of the plastic fallen to the floor.

At the end of the major part of the exhibition is the prenatal gallery, which has displays of aborted fetuses, several of them in the third trimester of life in the womb. Despite the controversial subject matter, these are impressive to look at, though, because their translucent skin allows one to look at all of their developing insides. There is also a final, small, “part two” of the exhibition that has a familiar sight for those who have seen the Jennifer Lopez movie, The Cell, and the scene with the horse thinly sliced into numerous sections. Here, it’s not a horse, but a human that’s run through a vertical mandoline. After this final display, there’s a chance to leave clever and witty comments to share with other visitors.

This exhibit is something everybody should see. And luckily the DSC has decided to extend its run of the show, due to record breaking attendance over the last month, to September 3, 2007. Tickets are $24.95 for adults, $22.95 for seniors, and $19.95 for children. There’s also an IMAX film to watch in the Dome theatre called The Human Body. In order to see that, adults must pay an additional $3.00, and seniors and children must pay an additional $2.00.

Visit www.detroitsciencecenter.org for more information.

Chris Thompson is thedetroiter.com’s tireless, intrepid intern.