Buzz

Black Male Engagement (BME) winners announced

HuffPost Detroit Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Ten black men in Detroit -- and 10 more in Philadelphia -- are receiving grants valued at $5,000 to $40,000 for community projects as part of the Black Male Engagement (BME) program launched last August by the Knight and Open Society foundations.

Detroit's leadership award winners include a mentor, a lawyer, former prisoners who now teach literacy and media skills, an LGBT rights activist, entrepreneurs, and one comeback kid. That's a strong list.

Read the whole story here.

Knight Arts picks up Carrie Dickason's 'beautiful trash' at Public Pool

Knight Arts Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Since opening in late winter 2010, Hamtramck's Public Pool has hosted one edgy and different show after another, usually alternating group with solo exhibitions. The most recent solo show is by Cranbrook-trained Carrie Dickason, an Indiana native now living in the same neighborhood as the gallery.

We like the show, up through Feb. 25 (the artist is adding more elements to the works every Saturday, 1-6 p.m.) at the space at 3309 Caniff Ave. So does Knight Arts. Read all about it here.

'Godmother of African-American poetry' receives $50,000 prize from Kresge Foundation

Kresge Foundation Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Award-winning poet, editor, and educator Naomi Long Madgett -- who nurtured aspiring Detroit poets through her teaching, annual poetry award, and publishing company last week was named the 2012 Kresge Eminent Artist.

The award and $50,000 prize recognize Madgett’s decades of commitment to poetry by African-Americans, and promoting the study and appreciation of African-American literature in schools and universities.

That's only a fraction of the story. The rest is even better. Read it here.

'9 Businesses' highlights indie Detroit entrepreneurship

Vimeo Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Screened last week at Eastern Market's Signal Return, the short film 9 Businesses aims to give a taste of how small business energy can help catalyze, revitalize and inspire neighborhood life.

Need some inspiration? Watch this.

Alliance for Biking & Walking releases 2012 benchmarks

Alliance for Biking & Walking Tuesday, January 31, 2012

This report shows that increasing bicycling and walking are goals that are clearly in the public interest. Listen up, Detroit:

Where bicycling and walking levels are higher, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes levels are lower. Higher levels of bicycling and walking also coincide with increased bicycle and pedestrian safety and higher levels of physical activity. Increasing bicycling and walking can help solve many serious problems facing our nation.

Many of us know this already. But not all. Read the entire report here.

Business models with impact

GOOD Tuesday, January 31, 2012

We've made it a habit to check out what's cooking at GOOD magazine on a daily basis. Every Friday, GOOD gives some space over to a budding entrepreneurial leader with vision to present a 1-minute video.

Ahmad Ahskar is founder and chief operating officer of the Hult Global Case Challenge, an international competition that pits teams of business school students against one in another to develop social enterprise solutions to the world's most pressing problems.

Check out the video here.

Deadline approaches for 2012 Kresge Art Fellowships

The Kresge Foundation Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Kresge Foundation's call for applications from Metro Detroit's creative leaders in the literary and performing arts ends next week.

Kresge Arts in Detroit will provide 24 winners from Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties "whose commitment to innovation and artistic achievement are evident in the quality of their work" with a $25,000 stipend.

Applications must be filled out online and are due Feb. 1. The fellowships are funded by the Kresge Foundation and administered by the College for Creative Studies.

For more information, visit Kresgeartsindetroit.org.

Doc on corridor music legend Rodriguez rocks Sundance

Detroit Free Press Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Rodriguez has always been a mysterious figure, even in underground Detroit art and music circles. He was a fixture in the old Cass Corridor in the late-1960s/early-1970s, playing guitar and writing tunes about halfway between East Coast and West Coast (Bob Dylan and Arthur Lee of Love). He recorded his music, it made its way to South Africa, which embraced the son of Mexican immigrants as a poet-genius of gritty urban Americana.

Then, he was said to disappear. Only to be rediscovered by new generations of rockers. But let's not spoil the story any further.

Read more about the film here. Then get out and see it when it hits a Detroit screen near you.

'After the Factory' film contrasts Detroit with Polish city

HuffPost Detroit Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Documentary filmmaker Philip Lauri and cinematographer Steven Oliver got a chance to mix with creative filmmakers from a world-renowned film school -- which produced Andrej Wajda, Roman Polanski and many others -- and with the aid of producers and translators, the filmmakers launched a month-long cinematic investigation of Lodz, Poland.

The result is After the Factory, a tale of two cities an ocean apart but sharing a number of characteristics.

The film screens at the Detroit Film Theatre Feb. 2. Read all about the project here.

Web-based fellowship project ready to take on Detroit

HuffPost Detroit Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Early next month, Detroit welcomes three visitors who will spend an entire year developing web-based solutions to confront city issues head on.

Matt Hampel, Alicia Rouault and Prashant Singh were selected to be 2012 Detroit fellows for the national organization Code For America, a nonprofit that matches cities with civic-minded designers, coders, developers, engineers and a variety of cross-discipline problem solvers.

After finishing their initial training in San Francisco, the three fellows will come to Detroit on Feb. 3. They will spend a month talking to city officials and community residents about key issues and attending public events. Then they'll return to San Francisco, where they will spend the bulk of the year coming up with ideas and developing them, before returning to Detroit to test them with users. At the end of their fellowship, they will have built projects that are useful for the city and found residents to take responsibility for the projects' future sustainability.

That's just part of the story. Read it in its entirety here.

What is the Detroit brand? Experiencing people and place

Forbes Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Independent filmmaker Erik Proulx spent nearly two years traveling to Detroit to film Lemonade: Detroit, trying to find stories of reinvention that accurately reflect its brand. A brand, he says he could have never fully grasped without the first hand experience of being there.

Experience was the teacher for Proulx, as it is for us all.

He writes all about it for Forbes, no less. Great stuff. Read about it here.

AIA: Detroit part of "New Big Three" for practicing architects

American Institute of Architects Tuesday, January 24, 2012

In the voluminous, intriguing scholarly piece, writer Wellington Reiter describes Detroit, New Orleans and Phoenix as U.S. cities "that have visited the frontlines of the future and are reporting back to the rest of the us, a bit wobbly and worse for wear, but still standing and in some respects, regaining their footing."

The rest of his paper is even better. Read it here.

Dirtbombs 'Party Store' makes Flavorwire list of best album covers of all time

Flavorpill Tuesday, January 17, 2012

We admit it: anytime a story about the Dirtbombs -- or you name it, a plethora of Detroit musicians that have made an impact around the world -- comes across the wire, we're all over it. This one is especially cool, an argument that the Dirtbombs' Party Store possesses one of the top album covers of all time.

Read all about it -- then rock out to "Sharivari" with the help of this sweet video.

Bethany Shorb's 'ties that don't suck' make Etsy's list of 1,000 handmade sellers

Handmadeology Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Etsy, as many of you know, is an international marketplace made up of a community of artists, thinkers, doers, makers, sellers, buyers and collectors.

So it's none too shabby when you're biz places 20th out of 1,000, as did Bethany Shorb and her Cyberoptix line of ties. Look for her moniker, Toybreaker, hit it and check out Shorb's fab collection of hand-printed wearables, all produced in a studio on Techno Boulevard (that's Gratiot, on the southern edge of Eastern Market).

Michigan Municipal League touts economic importance of immigrants

MIchigan Municipal League Tuesday, January 17, 2012

A new report by the Immigration Policy Center shows Michigan's immigrant population growing, excelling educationally and contributing to the state's economy.

Using the latest census data, the report shows that in 2010, immigrants made up 6 percent of the state's population or 587,747 persons. This compares to 1990 when the figure was 3.8 percent.

Follow Model D's coverage of this topic in the pages of Model D in the coming months and read more about the Immigration Policy Center report here.