Midwest Guest

Where I live: Don Was, The Concert of Colors, and the great spirit in Detroit

You may know Don Was best these days as a Grammy Award-winning music producer, especially on the heels of his work on previously unreleased tracks included on the recent reissue of the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street", but promoting his hometown and its deep well of new and vintage talent remains particularly close to the metro Detroit native's heart.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Was about the upcoming 18th annual Concert of Colors (July 16 to 18) and what is a highlight of the three-day diversity and world music festival for me, the Don Was Detroit All-Star Revue.

Don Was at the 2008 Concert of Colors

Was' enthusiasm for the Revue, a "Super Session" featuring an eclectic bill of metro Detroit artists from multiple eras and musical genres was readily apparent to me when I watched him introduce each act and back many of them on bass during Revues in 2008 and 2009. His enthusiasm for the upcoming third annual Revue was every bit as apparent during my phone conversation with him.

Thornetta Davis and Don Was at the 2009 Concert of Colors

"It's my favorite night of the year," he said. "There's a great spirit and great music."

Was appeared on the main stage at the 2005 Concert of Colors with Algerian singer Cheb Khaled, who benefited from Was' talent as a producer on the "Love to the People" single for the US release of his "Ya-Rayi" album.

The festival's chill vibe impressed Was, but it was a post-concert dinner that really wowed him.

"I went out to dinner afterwards with [Concert of Colors founder] Ismael Ahmed, and we just clicked," said Was. "He's the man I wish I was."

So several years later, when his friend "Ish" asked Was if he'd like to put together a program Concert of Colors, the answer was an enthusiastic "yes!"

Ismeal Ahmed at the 2009 Concert of Colors

"The thing I love about the Concert of Colors is that it uses music as a metaphor for society," said Was. "It's like a band where the whole is more than the sum of its parts."

Was believes that the Concert of Colors is especially important to Detroit.

"I think it's amazing that while Detroit is in such an economically disastrous situation, the people here have such a great spirit. That great spirit can overcome adversity."

The ability of the Concert of Colors to persevere and continue to thrive over the past couple of years is also meaningful to Was.

"That bodes well for the future of the city," he said. "The Concert of Colors is a real testimony to Ish and the other organizers there."

Was produced the first Detroit All-Star Revue at the Concert of Colors in 2008. That first revue was a hit and quickly became a Concert of Colors tradition.

Concert of Colors Don Was Detroit All-Star Revue curtain call, 2008

This year's third annual Detroit All-Star Revue features performances from Alberta Adams, Dennis Coffey, Marshall Crenshaw, Doop & the Inside Outlaws, Electric Lion Sound Wave Experiment, Ingray, Motor City Horns, Niagara, Outrageous Cherry, Jimmy Ruffin, The Satin Peaches, SRC Gary Quackenbush, Jere Stormer, Sun Messengers, and Kim Weston.

"Part of the charm of the show is that it's meant to be a real collage of styles. This is the indigenous music of Detroit," said Was, noting that the Concert of Colors is a world music festival.

Was spends time throughout the year searching out talent for the Revues on the Internet, at clubs, through word-of-mouth, and through generally networking with friends.

Marshall Crenshaw grew up in Berkley around the same time Was grew up in Oak Park and is a long-time friend, while guitarist and legendary Funk Brother Dennis Coffey's wife provided the connection to Kim Weston. Jimmy Ruffin contacted Was earlier this year about producing something for him, and Was seized the opportunity to ask Ruffin if to appear in this year's Revue.

Encouraging pride in the "D" and nurturing Detroit's rich music scene are but two goals of the Revue.

"We want people to have fun and feel good when they leave," added Was.

Don Was at the 2009 Concert of Colors

 

Was spends a lot of time in Detroit and remains busier than ever these days.

He hosts "The Motor City Hayride" on Siirus XM Radio's Outlaw Country Channel every Saturday evening at 10 p.m., taping many of the shows here with guest including Tiger pitcher Nate Robertson, author Elmore Leonard, former UAW president Ron Gettelfinger, and singer Mitch Ryder.

Was also teams up with Ford Motor Company this year on a video contest aimed at finding new indie talent. The Gimme the Gig contest, tied to the launch of Ford's 2011 Fiesta, continues through December when Was selects a winner and produces some of their music.

Was, who won a Grammy Award for Producer of the Year in 1995 and who produced Bonnie Raitt's 1990 Grammy Award Album of the Year "Nick of Time", continues to work with a variety of artists in a variety of genres. Check out some of his recent projects and see clips from the 2008 and 2009 Detroit All-Star Revues at The Wasmopolitan Cavalcade of Recorded Music on My Damn Channel.

 

Thanks again to Don Was for a great interview and to Kim with the Concert of Colors for helping to make it happen.

 

Be sure to check out my earlier article, Concert of Colors lineup revealed with Zozo Afrobeat show at Detroit Institute of Arts, for more about the festival and links to the artists performing throughout the three-day event.

 

Note: "Where I live" posts are part of a series of periodic stories about special events and people in, and around, metro Detroit. "Where I live" posts are stories I'll post in addition to my regular schedule of stories about attractions around the larger Midwestern region. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Canyon Falls and Gorge: The "Grand Canyon of Michigan's Upper Peninsula"

Michigan has some pretty roadside parks, and one of the nicest has to be at Canyon Falls and Gorge, just off of U.S. 41 near Baraga on the Sturgeon River in the state's Upper Peninsula.

We discovered this spot while making the 10-hour drive from the Detroit area to Copper Harbor at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. The convenient location right along US-41 makes it a nice place to stop and stretch your legs before heading on north up the Keweenaw to one of the farthest reaches of the Michigan's U.P.

The trailhead for the walk back to Canyon Falls and Gorge is in a park with a parking lot, restrooms, a picnic area, and drinking water.

The walk out to the falls and back is a little less than 2 miles on level terrain, with a short stretch of boardwalk over some swampy areas. So, it's possible to can check out Canyon Falls and catch a quick picnic lunch before continuing on your way in less than an hour.

The trail takes visitors through mature hardwood forest along the river before arriving at the Canyon Falls.

We visited Canyon Falls during early September, well after spring when the water is highest, and just ahead of the fall color. It was still a scenic trip with several small rapids and waterfalls along the river, and good water flow at the 15-foot-tall Canyon Falls.

If you have a little more time to spare, you can continue a way past the falls on an older trail that leads further along a canyon with walls formed by straight line faults that give it a boxy appearance.

Travelers don't particularly know Michigan for deep canyons or gorges, making this gorge a pretty impressive sight for many visitors and earning it the nickname of "The Grand Canyon of the Upper Peninsula" or "The Grand Canyon of Michigan".  

Canyon Falls and Gorge is part of Michigan Technological University's research forest.

The roadside park is open on a seasonal basis, as the parking lot remains unplowed during the winter.

 

Want to learn more about Canyon Falls and Michigan's many other waterfalls? Check out A Guide to 199 Michigan Waterfalls by Laurie Penrose, a book we've found very helpful when traveling and looking for waterfalls.

 

Canyon Falls is quite near the shrine to Bishop Baraga, the first bishop of the Upper Peninsula and a priest known particularly for his work among Native Americans, who learned the native languages so he could author grammar, dictionaries, and prayer books for Native American readers. Check out my story about Bishop Baraga: the Snowshoe Priest.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Baraga

Portage Lake Lift Bridge connects Houghton and Hancock in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Portage Lake Lift Bridge, and the northern Michigan communities of Houghton and Hancock celebrated that milestone this past weekend at their annual Bridgefest.

The Portage Lake Lift Bridge is actually the third bridge to span the lake that pretty much divides the Keweenaw Peninsula into two pieces.

The discovery of copper in at tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula in the 1840s drew people to the area, but Portage Lake was an obstacle for traffic headed there from the south.

Ferries moved people, livestock, and goods across the lake much of the year, until the winter when traffic moved along marked paths on the ice.

Increasingly heavy traffic led county officials to green light a plan to raise money and build a bridge at the site in 1871. Problems with pilings on the north side of the lake and the bank panic of 1873 scuttled those plans.

Investors tried again in 1875, constructing a wooden swing bridge with a pivoting center span. That bridge opened for one day, before closing for a year after a land slide from a nearby stamp mill again caused problems on the north side of the lake.

Bridge construction and repairs cost a little over $50,000, and the bridge reopened in 1876.

A second level added to the span facilitated train traffic in the 1880s, a steam-powered steel span replaced the wooden draw portion of the bridge in the 1890s, and a track added to the upper level allowed street cars to cross the bridge.

In 1901, the King Bridge Company replaced the original bridge with a new steel swing bridge with a wooden center span.

In 1905, a steamer crashed into the bridge, knocking a large portion of the center span into the lake. The bridge reopened in 1906.

The fact that the swing section of the bridge was wooden, while the rest of the bridge was steel, caused some unique maintenance problems. The wooden section expanded during very warm weather, requiring local firefighters to wet it down so it would shrink and continue to move correctly. Frigid winter weather caused some of the gears and turning mechanisms to ice up and workers hacked the ice away to allow the swing span to turn.

The Michigan Department of Transportation set plans in motion to build a new bridge in the 1950s. The American Bridge Company, a division of U.S. Steel in Detroit, became the prime contractor to build a double-deck, vertical lift bridge to accommodate increased vehicle, rail, and maritime traffic.

The bridge, started in 1959 and completed in 1960, cost 11 to 13 million dollars to build. It contains more than 35,000 tons of concrete and 7,000 tons of steel. The lift span, suspended between two towers, weighs 2,220 tons. The bridge is the world's heaviest aerial lift bridge, and it is the only bridge of its type in Michigan.

Two decks allowed vehicle traffic to cross on the upper level, and heavier trains to cross on the lower level.

The center span sits as low as just four feet above the water, and operators can lift the span to an intermediate level at 32 to 36 feet above the water, or lift it all the way up to 100 feet above the water to accommodate the largest ships passing underneath it.

An accident just before the new bridge's opening narrowly was a sort of replay of the accident that closed the first bridge in 1875. This time, a ship barely managed to stop in time, snagging some underwater phone lines and disrupting phone service in the area for several days.

Train traffic dwindled to nothing over the years, and the last trains crossed the bridge in 1982, almost 100 years after the first trains crossed over the lake on the original wooden bridge.

Today, the bridge stays in the intermediate lift position nine months out of the year. That allows the smaller boats that make up most of the maritime traffic these days to pass under the bridge without lifting and lowering it. Operators lower the bridge to its lowest position for the winter so snowmobilers and skiers can use the lower level as cars and trucks traveling US-41 and M-26 still cross over on the upper level.

 

Want to learn more about Houghton County history? Check out Houghton County: 1870-1920 by Richard E. Taylor.

 

Fascinated with bridges and their history? Check out Historic Highway Bridges of Michigan by Charles K. Hyde.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Hancock

Things To Do
Houghton

Where I live: Detroit Symphony Orchestra's summer season strikes the right note for summer fun

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra kicked off their summer season this past weekend with showings of the Hitchcock thriller "Psycho" and the family fantasy film "The Wizard of Oz". Sure, you might catch these flicks on cable, but that simply can't compare to seeing them in a classic theater with a score played live by the DSO.

You don't always think about a film's scoring, but seeing "The Wizard of Oz" with the DSO and conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos reminded me how a good score enhances a film's story. I've seen this movie many times, often at home on television, but watching this classic became a whole new experience on the big screen with a live score. Just as the film's shift from black and white emphasized the vibrant colors of Dorothy's odyssey in Oz, the live score emphasized the experiences Dorothy and her friends encountered along the way.

The audience included many families with young children, and the program held the rapt attention of the youngest audience members until an enthusiastic ovation at the program's conclusion.

Missed it? The symphony's summer season includes several other programs that are great ways to introduce your family to the symphony or a great way to spend a date.

• See the DSO for free (with vehicle admission fee) at the park with a trio of concerts this coming weekend. The DSO performs at 8 p.m. Friday at Kensington Metropark, at 8 p.m. Saturday at Metro Beach Metropark, and at 8 p.m. on Sunday at Stony Creek Metropark.

  The personable Thomas Wilkins, who we always enjoy seeing, conducts these "Harmony in the Park" concerts, which offer a selection of classical and popular pieces. You can bring lawn chairs and score a seat near the concert stage, but it's possible to hear the concert from many areas within the park. One year, we enjoyed hearing the DSO at Stony Creek from afar as we barbecued dinner in an outlaying picnic area.

• Celebrate the holiday weekend (July 1-4) with the DSO at The Henry Ford in Greenfield Village. Steven Reincke conducts the 18th annual "Salute to America" concert, which features Michael Runyan on harmonica and pre-concert entertainment by the River Raisin Ragtime Revue, a Michigan-based theater orchestra. The concert includes patriotic and popular music, capped by a fireworks finale.

• Enjoy music under the stars by Lake St. Clair July 9 and 10 at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House. Arrive as early as 6 p.m. to enjoy the home's architecture and grounds. The program begins at 8:30 p.m. and concludes with a fireworks finale.





• I 'm a real fan of silent films, and regular Midwest Guest readers may remember me mentioning the July 15 showing of the 1926 Mary Pickford film "Sparrows" when I previewed the Detroit Film Theater's summer season. The DSO partners with the DFT for a showing of this film with live accompaniment by the orchestra at The Max, making this free program a great opportunity to hear the DSO in their home venue.

• Next up is one of my favorite summer festivals, the Concert of Colors. This free diversity and world music fest kicks off July 16 at the Detroit Institute of Arts with performances by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra before moving to The Max July 17 and 18. The DSO again performs on Sunday with a program of Western and Arabic classical music conducted by Tito Muñoz featuring Simon Shaheen on the oud, an Arabic stringed instrument. Check my Concert of Colors story article for a preview of the entire three-day fest.

• The DSO presents "Summer Nights" shows featuring classical and popular music at the Meadow Brook Music Festival July 22-23, July 30-31, and August 1. The DSO premiere of composer Kenji Bunch's piece commissioned by the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Committee in 2009 happens July 30.

• Fans of world music mark your calendars for August 15, when the orchestra cedes the stage to Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma with multi-cultural music and instrumentation at The Max. The program includes arrangements of traditional music from countries like India, China, and Persia, and extending to Europe and the Americas.





• We've always enjoyed jazz shows at The Max, seeing trumpeters Bryon Stripling and Irvin Mayfield perform in recent years. Given my love of jazz and silent flicks, I'm pretty jazzed about the August 26 program with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Marsalis and his septet perform a live soundtrack accompaniment to the new silent film "Louis", the story of trumpeter Louis Armstrong's life and music. Marsalis executive produced the film and composed much of the music for it. This show is one of a six-city U.S. launch for the film.

Check the DSO Web site  for complete information about the summer schedule, repertoire, pricing, and purchasing tickets.

I received tickets to "The Wizard of Oz" program from the DSO. I've also attended numerous DSO programs at my own expense, and knowledge gained from those prior experiences informs the content of this article as well.

 

Note: "Where I live" posts are part of a series of periodic stories about special events and people in, and around, metro Detroit. "Where I live" posts are stories I'll post in addition to my regular schedule of stories about attractions around the larger Midwestern region. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Shooting photographs for your blog

I'm flattered when readers tell me that they enjoy my photos here at Midwest Guest, but I'm not a professional photographer by any stretch of the imagination.

I've had to take my own photos for stories many times over the years, and I'd like to pass a few things along to folks who worry that they don't have the time or talent to produce acceptable images for their own blogs.

Taking photos and working with them in a photo editing program can take a little time, but learning how to do so gives you more creative control over your content and how you chose to showcase your own words.

I spent several years writing columns for a chain of local weekly newspapers where the editor generally assigned the one photographer at the newspaper to news stories, sporting events, and big feature subjects.

Columnists usually relied on photos provided by those seeking publicity for events or ran their columns without photos. Neither option appealed to me.

I began taking many of the photos for my columns to provide the needed graphic elements to break up the print blocks and make it more appealing for readers.

I often took photos like this one of April McCrumb, who owns Catching Fireflies in Berkley, Michigan, to illustrate my newspaper columns

I owned a Sony digital camera-one of those little Mavicas that recorded your photos onto a 3.5" floppy disc. Those little cameras were still pretty revolutionary in the late 1990s, but they were slow and resultant images turned out grainy and unacceptably pixilated if you tried to increase the image's size very much. They worked all right for newspaper photos, where newsprint's rough often resulted in muddy images anyway, but only if the photographer was aware of the camera's limitations and compensated for them.

The newspaper eventually bought a digital camera for reporters to use, although one of them was shocked to learn it was a newer version of the same camera I had when she told me that my camera took much better photos than the newspaper's camera!

My photos are often acceptable to use as the small versions I use here at the blog, even if they may not be sharp enough or interesting enough to look good blown up or reproduced on glossy paper--and they allow me to advance my story lines with corresponding images.

 

How do you get started learning about photography?

 

• Take a photowalk. Check out my recent post about an informal Detroit-area photowalk I recently attended, or see the Worldwide Photowalk site to find a photowalk in your local area.

  
  
  Image taken at a recent Detroit Photowalk at Cranbrook Gardens in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

   

• Check Flickr to find photography groups that may hold shows, classes or other events in your local area. Here in the Detroit area, we have Flickr groups like Photowalks Detroit, which hosts local photowalks, and Exposure.Detroit, which hosts free photo exhibitions and other events around town.

   

• Read a few books geared to beginning photographers if you're new to taking photos. Tim has a short list of suggested reading for beginning photographers at The Wandering Photographer.

 

I'd add Confessions of a Compact Camera Shooter: Get Professional Quality Photos with Your Compact Camera by Rick Sammon to Tim's list of suggested reading.

Although Sammon's book talks specifically about using compact cameras and Photoshop Elements (while I often shoot with an older version of a point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot when I'm not using my big digital SLR, and I use Lightroom for photo editing), I still found plenty of useful information in this book.

Sammon encourages readers to experiment and to always carry a camera, sharing my feeling that a pocketable camera can be a viable alternative when going somewhere where lugging a big SLR would be cumbersome or get in the way of enjoying whatever you're out to do.

Sammon's side-by-side comparison shots of scenes taken with SLRs and compact cameras nicely illustrate what works best with the little cameras, what doesn't work well, and how to work with the small cameras' limitations.

 

And here are a few other tips I've picked up over the years:

 

• Always look for signs to photograph when you're out shooting. I learned to do so long ago after reading that such photos could serve as nice title slides for a show of your images. I also use sign photos to help me identify photos as I organize them after returning home or to advance a story as I'm putting it online. I also often use photos of historical markers or other informational signs in lieu of written notes when I'm out shooting.

 





• Working with a hand-held camera in low-light? Taking a deep breath just before you shoot the photo, and holding it during the shot, can help steady the camera by eliminating a bit of the shake caused by the movement of your own breathing.

   

  
  
  

• Don't have a photo? Sometimes you just have to get creative, like I did when I took this shot of toy ice resurfacing machines on my front porch to illustrate my story about a college hockey tournament.

 

• Always remember that one of the beauties of digital photography is that you can take as many shots as you want and simply erase the ones you don't like.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Photowalk at Cranbrook Gardens

I recently went on another Photowalk to the Cranbrook Gardens in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, with the Photowalks Detroit Flickr group.

The Cranbrook Gardens are part of a 319-acre educational and cultural campus that is home to several private college prep and boarding schools, as well as an art museum and the Institute of Science. It's hard to believe I haven't gotten around to writing about Cranbrook before now, especially as I've been a member of the Institute of Science for years-so I'm sure you'll see more about Cranbrook here at Midwest Guest in the months to come.

Today, though, I'll just give you a glimpse of the gardens by sharing a few of my favorites from the group of photos I took the day of the Photowalk.

The late afternoon timing of the excursion and slightly overcast day resulted in some beautiful natural lighting for our photo-taking session.

Our local Photowalks are fairly informal events that welcome photographers of all skill levels-from those with high-end professional cameras to people beginning to take photos with their first point-and-shoot cameras.

Read about my first two Photowalk adventures in Royal Oak, Michigan, and at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

Interested in finding out more about Photowalks or joining next month's Worldwide Photowalk? Check it out at the Worldwide Photowalk site.

Photowalks are great ways to practice your camera skills, learn new skills, see a local area in a different way than you might normally see it, be with friends, and meet some new friends.

Photographer Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk takes place July 24 this year, when tens of thousands of photographers can sign up for local walks in their home area.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Visit Wall Drug in South Dakota

Wall Drug draws as many as 20,000 visitors on hot summer days making it difficult to imagine the sprawling 76,000-square-foot tourist shopping and amusement mall was once a tiny pharmacy in sleepy small-town Wall, South Dakota.

Wall Drug is eight miles from Badlands National Park, 60 miles from Mount Rushmore, and 70 Miles from the Black Hills. Locals in the early 1930s liked to say that the town of Wall was "in the middle of nowhere", but that all changed after Ted and Dorothy Hustead bought the town drugstore after searching for a small town with a Catholic Church where pharmacist Ted could have his own store and the couple could raise their family.

The town of Wall had less than 400 people in 1931, when the Husteads bought the drug store. Mount Rushmore was about a decade from completion, drought plagued the prairies, and the Great Depression was heading into some of its toughest years.

Business was tough in the early years for the Husteads. Many of the townspeople of Wall were poor farmers, and traffic on the nearby highway just zipped past Wall without stopping.

In 1936, Dorothy Hustead came up with a brilliant idea. She suggested that her husband put up signs along the highway advertising free ice water to travelers.

Ted thought the idea sounded a little crazy, especially as many drug stores at the time gave customers free water, but he was willing to try anything to draw business into Wall Drug.

Ted took some hand-painted signs out to the highway, put them up, and by the time he got back to the store there was already a line of people who stopped by for free water. The Husteads poured a lot of free water that day, but also sold a lot of ice cream cones and snacks to their new customers.

This success encouraged Ted to put up a lot more signs, many of them with corny sayings. Soon, there were Wall Drug signs in most states, with over 3,000 highway signs in place by the 1960s.

The Husteads began to think of more ways to draw customers into their ever-expanding business. Their son Bill joined the business in 1951 and worked to establish Wall Drug as a real family tourist attraction.

Today, a quirky collection of attractions in the store's Back Yard includes a miniature Mount Rushmore, a life-sized animated T-Rex that roars every 15 minutes, and a jackalope. There are many other mechanical attractions and "picture taking props" scattered throughout the mall with 28 retail departments that include a book store, a Black Hills jewelry store, boot store, pharmacy museum, restaurant, and to prove that Michigan's Mackinac Island doesn't corner the market on "fudgies", there's even a fudge store!

(Tim always says I put so many crazy photos of him on this blog and wonders why I don't include any silly photos of me here. So, just for him, and just this once, here's a photo of me on the famous Wall Drug jackalope!)

Even as Wall Drug changed over the years, some things remain the same. You can still get a free glass of ice water at the well in the Wall Drug Back yard, buy a cup of coffee for 5 cents, or pick up a prescription at Wall Drug's small pharmacy.

Hundreds of signs advertising Wall Drug string along Interstate 90 through South Dakota and into some neighboring states, many of them with the same sayings that adorned some of the signs Ted put up decades earlier.

Even as Wall Drug draws over one million visitors each year, it remains a family owned and operated business under the guidance of a third generation of Husteads.

Ted and Dorothy's grandson, Ted, is president of the company today and narrated the Discoveries...America, Wall Drug DVD available at Amazon.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Wall

Where I live: Opa! Fest celebrates Greek music, dance, food, and culture in Troy, Michigan

We have so much fun each year at Opa! Fest because the annual event at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Troy, Michigan, truly feels like a celebration.

Greek music, dancing, culture, and food (oh! the food!) is again on the menu June 25-27 at Opa! Fest on the St. Nicholas grounds, and it's definitely a party worth attending.

The festival, now in its 17th year and the largest ongoing Greek festival in metro Detroit, has many of the things you'd expect to find at a church fund raiser, like kids' games, raffles, food and beer tents.

If you love Greek food and baked goods, you absolutely need to get the Opa! Fest early in the day as some of the most popular selections are gone by early afternoon.

You can get a hand stamp that will get you back into the festival, so you can get your food fix, take your pastry purchases home, and return later in the evening to enjoy some Greek beer or Ouzo while watching the entertainment.

Last year, we had an early lunch of hot and cold dolmathes (stuffed grape leaves), sausage, spinach pie, feta cheese, and kalamata olives.

Then it was off to the bakery counter to buy some pastries and crusty bread to take home--all baked by what appears to be an army of elderly Greek ladies and their helpers. Sure, you can get baklava, brownies, or chocolate chip cookies, but there are so many more options!

I had little clue how pastries with names like thiples, galatobouriko, karithopita, kataifi, koulouria, kourambiedes, melomacarona, paximadia, tiropita, or tsoureki might taste. When I asked for suggestions, a young lady behind the counter hastened to help me--and when a kid behind a cookie counter enthusiastically says "these are my favorites", I pay attention. She helped me make some great choices!

The entertainment each day generally starts with performances by the youngest Greek dance groups, followed by progressively older dancers and ending in the evenings with the most skilled teen and adult dance groups.

I enjoy seeing the dancers' traditional costumes, and the church often has a display of some of the more intricate costumes.

Want to learn some Greek dancing? Be sure to check out the dance lessons on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Opa! Fest usually schedules plenty of local talent to entertain the crowds, but organizers occasionally book a bigger name act.

Three years ago, Opa! Fest featured sixth-place finalist from the fourth season of American Idol and Tony-award nominee, Constantine Maroulis, and the internationally known Pavlo, the Toronto-based "Greek God of Guitar" played last year.

While both of those acts drew big crowds, it's the food, dance, and fun most folks seem to come for at Opa! Fest each year. The festival drew 11,000 people in 2008, with an entertainment bill of local talent.

Enigma, a seven-piece Detroit-area band featuring a mix traditional Greek music and contemporary Greek music like Laika (Greek pop music), performs throughout all three days of the festival this year.

While much of the action takes place outside, there are cooking demonstrations, wine tastings, and a marketplace inside.

Drop a couple of dollars into the tin-can raffle boxes to take a chance on winning a big basket full of gifts. I was lucky enough to win a basket full of Greek food products one year.

St. Nicholas is a beautiful church, so you should make sure you visit the sanctuary for a look at the unique architecture and religious art or to just catch a few moments of quiet time during the festival.

Admission is $2 (children under 12 get in free). You can donate three cans of food for Gleaners in lieu of the admission charge.

Parking is free at nearby Walsh College, and there is limited handicapped parking only at the church. The church provides free, continuous shuttle service between the college and the church, and we've never had to wait more than a few minutes for a ride.

 

Note: "Where I live" posts are part of a series of periodic stories about special events and people in, and around, metro Detroit. "Where I live" posts are stories I'll post in addition to my regular schedule of stories about attractions around the larger Midwestern region. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Unique folk art lives on at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota

A visit to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, may bring to mind the old paint-by-numbers kits you did as a kid, but the building is a beautiful and unique example of folk art using local prairie products in a surprisingly sophisticated way.

The building wasn't open when we visited, so we weren't able to go inside for a tour or to visit the gift store. We were, however, lucky enough to be there at the right time of year to catch a glimpse of some of the work in progress with the seasonal changing of the exterior murals.

Folks in Mitchell established the city's original Corn Palace in 1892, just three years after South Dakota achieved statehood and a dozen years after settlers established Mitchell. The building served as a place to showcase the abundant harvest of the area in hopes of attracting more settlers to Mitchell.

In 1905, the people of Mitchell rebuilt the Corn Palace as part of an ultimately unsuccessful effort to unseat Pierre, South Dakota, as the state's capital.

A third version Corn Palace replaced the 1905 building in 1921. It was fun to discover that the Chicago architectural firm of Rapp and Rapp designed this building, the one that still exists today as a community center and multipurpose building (the same firm that designed the beautiful Warner Theater in Erie, Pennsylvania, that I wrote about earlier this year).

The Moorish Revival onion domes and minarets were a 1937 addition to the building.

The building itself is reinforced concrete, but it is the changing exterior that draws a reported 500,000 visitors each year to check out the Corn Palace.

Each year, the process of creating a new exterior for the Corn Palace starts with the selection of a theme by the Corn Palace Festival Committee, which asks a local artist to design the murals.

The artist transfers their design to carefully coded and detailed illustrations on black roofing paper. Look closely at this photo, and you can see each section marked with a specific color.

Meanwhile, local farmers grow the 13 different colored corn crops, as well as the native grasses, straw, and wheat used to create the murals.

Most years, the new exterior requires 275,000 ears of corn and a crew of about 20 workers to complete as workers dismantle last year's murals and install the new year's themed exterior by hand. Work on the project generally starts in late August and continues into September as crops become available for harvest and use.

There are a few exceptions, like 2007, when I took these photos. A severe drought in 2006 created a shortage of crops, so the exterior underwent a less large-scale update with a few new murals and retaining the prior year's rodeo theme.

Fortunately, crops came back strong enough to support creating brand-new corn-art exteriors in subsequent years, with Travel Through the Ages as this year's theme.

There have been other corn palaces, but this, "The World's Only Corn Palace", is the last one still existing and carrying on with this traditional form of folk art.

The Corn Palace plays host to a variety of events that include concerts, school proms, and sporting events. Basketball teams from Dakota Wesleyan University and the Mitchell High School Kernels play home games there. USA Today listed the venue as one of the Top 10 places to play high school basketball, and called it the "Boston Gardens of the Midwest".

The Corn Palace offers free guided tours of the building from Memorial Day in late May through Labor Day in early September.

Want to see some vintage pictures of the Corn Palace throughout the years? Check out the Arcadia book, Mitchell's Corn Palace by Jan Cerney

 

You can also virtually visit Mitchell's Corn Palace on Facebook or check it out on Twitter.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Mitchell

Photo Friday: Ohio Bicentennial barn, Ottawa County

We recently drove by one of the Ohio Bicentennial barns along State Highway 2 between Toledo and Port Clinton.

Ohio's Bicentennial Commission conceived the barn project as a unique way to advertise the state's 200th year as a state in 2003. Seven years later, this Ottawa County barn still stands as a reminder of the anniversary, and it got me wondering how many other Ohio Bicentennial barns are still standing.

Scott Hagan was barely 20 years old when someone with the Ohio Bicentennial Commission saw a picture of a barn painted with an Ohio Buckeye logo, and the group began to consider a statewide project with barns in every one of Ohio's 88 counties painted with the state's bicentennial logo.

The Buckeye-logo barn in question belonged to the Hagan family, and the son who painted their barn soon found himself with a new career as a barn artist.

This is the other end of the Ottawa Ohio Bicentennial barn

Scott Hagan lived near renowned Mail Pouch Barn artist Harley Warrick in Belmont County, Ohio. The young barn artist talked with Warrick, who taught him some of the secrets of the craft of barn painting before he died in 2000 at the age of 86.

Hagan began the Ohio barn project in 1997, sketching each logo freehand before hand painting each barn. He painted the 88 barns, one in each county, plus a dozen more barns to make it an even 100 painted barns by late 2002.

Hagan used 100 paintbrushes, 645 gallons of paint and put 65,000 miles on his truck as he traveled from barn to barn throughout those five years. And no two barns are exactly alike.

This particular barn is actually the second barn painted in Ottawa County. A tornado blew through and destroyed the first barn when it was nearly finished.

Today, Hagan estimates his painted barns as numbering well over 300 barns in 14 states. His new goal is to paint at least one barn in every state.

 

Travelers who enjoy waymarking (a hobby similar to geocaching, except there is no physical cache involved) can record a find at this barn.

 

Looking for more information about the project and surviving Bicentennial barns? Check out the Bicentennial Barns of Ohio Facebook page.

 

You might also enjoy these books about the Ohio barns:

 

Ohio's Bicentennial Barns by Beth Gorczyca, with photos by B. Miller or Bicentennial Barns of Ohio by Christina Wilkinson.

 

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Toledo