Melissa Giannini

From Real Detroit Weekly:

STAGE & CANVAS
Stage & Canvas (July 20, 2005)
By Robert del Valle
Jul 20, 2005

http://www.realdetroitweekly.com/article_89.shtml

M.F.I.C.
If nothing else the current inhabitant of the Manoogian Mansion has succeeded in making even the worst 8 Mile-phobic suburbanite look back wistfully to the time when Coleman A. Young ruled the roost. A combative, acerbic, confrontational, pugnacious and downright mean bastard when he was crossed, Young nevertheless was a grown-up — a descriptive quality that seems sadly absent from the Motor City now. Citizen Young is a glance in the rear view mirror for all of us who can’t forget or don’t remember those glory days of Detroit feudalism. Written by Odell Waller and starring Dexter Mays, it’s the in-house attraction at 1515 Broadway until the end of the month. Please call 313.965.1515.

Press Leak
Permit us to raise your culture level a tad further and inform you about Box, a seasonal magazine published locally that will give you a broad spectrum of aesthetic opinions from the likes of Melissa Giannini, Michael Segal, Yuka Takamatsu, Greg Kiewiet and Grace Lee Boggs. It’s out there — and if it isn’t, be patient. It’ll show up sooner or later. Also in the wings is the first-year anniversary issue of Baboon of Sickness. Couldn’t figure out what the prof was talking about when he was discussing chaos theory or dadaism? The truth is between the baboon’s … pages.

Ya-Ya Sisterhood Meets Madame Defarge?
Knitting is a craft, ergo it’s an art — and that’s all the excuse we need to give a respectful mention to Knit Detroit, a weekly get together at Royal Oak’s Sweetwater Café that has been sweetly described as a Stitch ‘n Bitch session for ladies who feel the need to needle. Call 248.233.4502.

The Subjects at Hand
Portraiture is the true key to understanding a painter’s style and philosophy. How an artist depicts his contemporaries — or how he renders himself on a canvas — affords an insight into those qualities that the artist deems important in the context of truth and beauty. Over 75 insights await your perusal in East Lansing right now and the insights bear some pretty impressive names — Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Renoir, Kollwitz, and others. Artists Portray Artists: Selections from the Kresge Art Museum Collection will grace the walls of the Kresge until the close of the month. 517.353.9834 or artmuseum.msu.edu.

Or Press the Pound Key
Angst in the workplace is a staple for both dramatists and comedy writers, so the odds are pretty much in your favor that the offering at Ypsi’s Dreamland Theatre will provoke either catharsis or a bladder incident. Jess Rowland’s So Long, Differently Thinking People features a promising composer who pays the rent with muzak chores, an evil corporation fiddling with everyone’s destiny and a pivotal scene involving a fax machine and someone’s lunch. Think Office Space on a different plane of surreal logic. And call 734.657.2337 for muzak-free assistance.

True All-Stars
Our country’s story is filled with ironic twists, but few more poignant than the one that occurred when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. Robinson’s victory marked the slow demise and eventual disappearance of the Negro Baseball Leagues, and only now are writers and historians discovering what was quietly lost in the intervening years since. The aptly named Shades of Greatness show at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is a special exhibit of 35 original works of art, all of them focusing on that vanished time and the men who were (and continue to be) legends. The innings last until Sept. 4. Also on display is Tyree Guyton: An American Show. Guyton here utilizes the symbolic meaning of the flag to express both an observation about national identity and myriad questions that are prompted by that identity. Feel free to answer those questions — or add some of your own — before and after Oct. 30. The Charles H. Wright Museum is located at 315 E. Warren in Detroit. Please call 313.494.5800. | RDW

From Metro Times:

Familiar faces
MT contributors’ new works
By Michael Jackman
10/5/2005

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=8297

John Dicker is a sometime critic in Metro Times’ pages, a book reviewer, alt-weekly reporter and the author of this year’s The United States of Wal-Mart (Penguin, $12.95, 256 pp.). As expected, the book is a close look at the controversial company. But rather than some predictable lefty rant against an evil multinational corporation, Dicker uses the crisp conventions of good business reporting to great effect in sizing up the discount giant. Wal-Mart culture is centered upon the P-word — price — as the great driver of consumer decisions.

Dicker is obviously a gifted reporter, but there’s an odd choice of voice for United States, with such up-in-your-grill language as “we’re all Wal-Mart’s bitches” and “a steady diet of whoop-ass.” This effort to give social criticism some streetwise swagger dispels another P-word that has long haunted those who critique power: pantywaist. There’s no “whining” or “complaining” in this tough-talking attitude. But another P-word is nowhere to be found: polemics. By avoiding them, Dicker can pose as a pragmatist.

At its best, this work recalls another great chronicler of American capital, Matthew Josephson, who dissected the 19th century Robber Barons with a similar zeal. But back in the 1920s, a writer like Josephson could freely quote Marx and condemn the depredations of the powerful. Until polemics return to fashion, we may have to settle for the sassy tongue.

Hippie astrologer Rob Brezsny peddles his predictions in this paper, and he too has a new book, entitled Pronoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings (Frog, Ltd., $19, 296 pp.). Those who enjoy Brezsny’s style — personal anecdotes, startling factoids and celebrity guff spun into astrological parables — will certainly find a wealth of kooky spirituality here. Brezsny, a longtime and fully converted Californian, is a source of endless feel-goodism, a booster for the human spirit, and one who has the ripe stink of Bay Area Zen deep in his bones. Though he has a knack for presenting topsy-turvy trivia that cracks the imagination back open, no doubt some will find his windy spirituality as irritating as a fog of incense. Philosophically speaking, his brand of “pronoia” was rightly ridiculed by French satirist Voltaire in the person of Dr. Pangloss, a philosopher who believed “All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds,” which Brezsny reupholsters here as “Life is a sublime game created for our amusement and illumination, and it always gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.” Not only is it preposterous, but, if it’s true, why read horoscopes in the first place?

Deranged comics creator Max Cannon has released a third collection of his weekly comic strip Red Meat in Red Meat Gold (St. Martin’s Griffin, $11.95, 112 pp.). Cannon’s shtick is archetypal ’50s Americana gone horribly wrong. This hilarious book is populated with dead clowns, futuristic milkmen and even a man gnawing on a finger, all with an eagerness to lampoon the white-bread archetypes Cannon favors. Cannon is a master of deadpan presentation, with panels so static and eerily unchanging, they make a Doonesbury strip look like Prince Valiant.

Former Metro Times music writer Melissa Giannini has a zine out called Box (self-published, $5, 34 pp.), which many will regard as a stylish and sincere effort from a well-meaning group of young, creative adults. It’s a music, arts and culture zine, long on music, with pieces on Afro-poppists Nomo, the Moldy Peaches’ Kimya Dawson and a cover story on Detroit electro-punks Adult. You get the sense that Giannini is writing about her friends, giving them a forum to display their photographs and publicize their music.

Visually, Box is a superior effort. One spread features an elegant illustration by our own contributing illustrator Davin Brainard opposite a photo of amusing anti-hipster graffiti. A break dancing guide on how to do the pinwheel is clever, well-designed and guaranteed to make the reader crack a smile, showcasing the design talents of the zine’s art director, Kelli Miller.

The writing, however, is often freighted with enough MFA-damage and precious prose to strain the patience of the most indulgent reader. What makes efforts like Box great is they give budding writers the opportunity to try things out, but not all experiments are equal. You can check the results for yourself by visiting their Web site at boxzine.net.