Glen Arbor Sun

January 17, 2008

Election 2008: A (presidential) race comes full circle

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Cape Coast Castle, a haunting old slavery fort on the Atlantic shores of Ghana, was converted into a museum in the 1990s with help from the Smithsonian Institution and is now a tourist destination for, notably, African Americans to make their ancestral journey homeward and, quite possibly, back to the musty dungeons where their forefathers were held in shackles awaiting the Atlantic Passage.

But what I found most interesting during a visit to Cape Coast Castle in 2002 was a video at the conclusion of the guided tour offering a chronological journey through history — beginning with daily life before the European conquest and ending with modern-day African American heroes in the United States. The local fishermen, who hollowed out felled trees to make canoes and painted spiritual symbols on them, morph into prisoners packed into ships filled to the scuppers, sailing west, toward centuries of plantation slavery. Eventually their faces radiate hope as the video progresses, throwing off the chains, winning their freedom, marching, voting, and morphing into the likes of Frederick Douglas, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali — heroes for both Africans and African Americans, we are to believe.

Yet, sadly, the bond between Africans and African Americans is not so simple, and those two communities haven’t done enough throughout history to help one another. The undertaking by African Americans in the 1820’s to return east and build their own nation, Liberia, proved a bloody failure; middle-class or wealthy African Americans who visit Cape Coast Castle today are called “ubrunis” (white people) by the locals, who perceive them as foreigners; when an African war refugee is resettled in an American city and given government handouts today (this according to my fiancé, who works at a refugee resettlement agency in Chicago), their disenfranchised and jobless ancestral brethren in the neighborhood sometimes react in jealousy.

Could one man heal those deep wounds, simply because of his racial lineage, and simply by becoming the next president of the United States? That’s the question on my mind as African-American Democratic voters line up to cast their ballots this election primary season. Illinois’ junior Senator Barack Obama may need their support to unseat New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whose husband won the overwhelming trust of the African-American community during his presidency in the ‘90s, and to win the general election in November.

Will blacks see Barack as one of their own, even though his father was Kenyan and his mother hails from Kansas? Will they back the candidate who pulled off a stunning victory in white-bread Iowa and has excited young Caucasians across America? Do they even have enough trust in the political system still holding their necks like a noose? And will their votes be counted this time?

A friend of mine, local musician Crispin Campbell asked his African-American friends in Inkster, a downtrodden neighborhood near Detroit, what they thought of Obama’s candidacy (he visited them before the primary season began), and their alarming response spoke volumes about the level of black disenfranchisement in American politics today. “Forget it,” he was told with a shake of the head. “Whites are never gonna let a black man become president.”

This is a community for the most part stuck in a deep, desperate and impoverished rut. The haunting images of black New Orleans’ residents waiting on their rooftops for helicopters (the national guard arrived five days after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city) — or being tear-gassed as they gathered at City Hall in late 2007 for the right to reclaim their homes in the Ninth Ward — is only the tip of the iceberg. As many as one-third of all young African-American males of incarceration age are in prison or on parole, many for crimes as ridiculous as possessing small amounts of marijuana (Iowa, the location of Obama’s first primary victory, by the way, has the largest rate of incarcerating blacks over whites in the nation).

And yet many leaders who represent the African-American community at the grassroots level (not you, Oprah), such as the Reverand Al Sharpton, have yet to back the first bid for the White House by a black man who has a shot at winning in November.

The charges that Barack Obama — his speeches, his message and his politics — are too white (and centrist, and vague) are nothing new. And given the state of the black community, they must be respected. After all, in Obama’s Iowa victory speech, he intentionally mentioned “red states” before “blue states,” and he buried the lines about Dr. King and Selma, Alabama, and water hoses in the middle of a speech that focused more on unity and hope than it did on accountability for racism, illegal wars and unsustainable environmental policy.

That’s because Obama doesn’t just represent hope for African-Americans (and Africans). He represents hope for all Americans (and people everywhere in the world) who are weary of eight years of sucker punches and attacks on the Constitution, and logic, from the Bush administration.

Laura Washington, an African-American columnist for In These Times magazine in Chicago — where Obama’s activism and political credentials were forged — wrote last August: “Playing petty plantation politics may feather a few nests and puff up some chests, but Obama is looking to turn the black political equation upside down. If he goes all the way, black politics will never be the same. That’s a good thing.”

She continues: “The Obama candidacy is dead in the water if he adopts a sectarian agenda. Until now, African-American presidential candidates have made little serious effort to extend their attention beyond the base. This is one big reason why black politicians usually crash and burn when they seek office in white majority districts.”

Obama has already passed that threshold. Just imagine if the American people, black and white, give him the chance to deliver his own “I have a dream” speech from Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day, a year from now.

(Editor's note: The print version of this story incorrectly reported that Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. has yet to back Obama. In fact, Jackson, Sr. endorsed Obama on March 29, 2007, and his son, Jesse Jackson, Jr. works on Obama's national presidential campaign. We regret the error.)

Posted by editor at 02:03 AM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2007

Holiday Marketplace

Check out the Holiday Marketplace at the Glen Arbor Township Hall on the weekend following Thanksgiving, opening at 7 p.m. on Friday evening, Nov. 23, and running through Saturday, Nov. 24, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. The Holiday Marketplace follows Glen Arbor's famed Pajama Party sale at various stores around town from 5-7 a.m. (yikes) on Friday, Nov. 23. You'll be sleepwalking!"

Photo by Joanne Rettke

Glen Lake Community Library holds children’s holiday book drive
Press release

A special holiday tradition continues as the Glen Lake Community Library kicks off its ninth annual call for children’s books, November 14-December 15. The Friends of the Library, in cooperation with Glen Lake School’s Parenting Communities program, are seeking donations of new books for children in our community whose families are in need of assistance this holiday season. Kathy Bartell, the coordinator for the “Parenting Communities” program for the Glen Lake Schools compiles a “wish list” of boys and girls from preschool through age 11. She calls on such groups as Head Start and the Glen Lake Elementary School as well as her own “Parenting Communities” program for names of families that need assistance. Any family can find themselves in hard times and the goal is to make sure the children still have some holiday joy in the form of a special book. The list is available at the Glen Lake Library in Empire and at the Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor. Donors are asked to purchase a book for a child on this list and deliver it gift-wrapped to the library by December 15. The Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor will kindly provide a 20 percent discount on any books purchased for this program. Last year, over 120 books were donated. The list grows longer every year, so please help us bring the joy of books to these children for the holidays. The best part of this Book Drive is that we know all the books go to children in our own community. Thank you for your continued support.

Posted by editor at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2007

Zoom, Zoom!

Check out the third annual Tour de Leelanau as it peddles by you on Saturday, September 15. The race will travel through most of the county. Learn where by visiting www.tourdeleelanau.com.

Photo courtesy of Iceman Productions

Look for our coverage of holiday shopping, winter sports including the Empire & Glen Arbor Winterfests and Michigan's early presidential primary election in our winter issues of the Glen Arbor Sun. Thanks for reading!

Posted by editor at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

Exquisite tastes draw a big crowd to Epicurean Classic

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

You’ve heard this before: northern Michigan is on the map. You know some of the reasons why. Pristine beaches, azure waters, rolling hills, unpretentious locals, bike races and a great local film festival.

Add world-class cuisine to the list. In mid-September thousands of foodies will converge on the Hagerty Center in Traverse City for the fourth annual Epicurean Classic and enjoy local wines from both the Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsulas, fine cheeses, cigars, tender game meat, succulent desserts and appearances by nationally known chefs and cookbook authors.

Photos by Andy McFarlane, AbsoluteMichigan

Local co-founders Mark Dressler and Matt Sutherland, both of whom work in publishing, “realized with our connections in the industry, being on a first-name basis with people, we could draw in top talent,” says Sutherland. And top talent they’ve drawn. Of all the delectable dishes featured the past three years, Sutherland remembers most a whole quail drizzled with 40-year-old balsamic vinegar, courtesy of Mario Batali, a food star, restaurant owner and TV personality. The truffles from Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate in Empire are also etched in his memory. And the ox tail marinated in spices from the Gods that I remember from last year’s Classic wasn’t too shabby either.

The greatest complement Sutherland has received? “Marcel Biro, the personal chef of former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, told me this is the best-run food event he’s ever attended.”

You’ll also find plenty of local Leelanau County fair at the Epicurean Classic, which opens on Thursday, Sept. 13 and reaches its climax with the Grand Reception at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 15. Timothy Young of Food for Thought (“Canning Secrets”) and Chris and Heather Sack of the Great Lakes Tea & Spice Company (“Tea 101”) will both teach classes on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Local chef, and occasional Glen Arbor SunM recipe contributor Nancy Krcek Allen will encourage attendees to “Ferment On It For a While” at 10 a.m. On Friday at 2:30 p.m., learn about “Grilling Wild Fowl” with North chef Greg Murphy. And before you satisfy your palette at Saturday night’s tasting Reception, check out “Entertaining the Fruit: The Art of Chutneys, Salsas and Compotes” with Cherry Republic’s Jason Homa, and “French Food for All” with La Becasse’s Guillaume Hazael-Massieux.

By all means, wash down those tender morsels with a little local wine. This year, the wineries of the Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsulas and Andy McFarlane, the man behind AbsoluteMichigan and Leelanau.com, are teaming up with the Michigan Land Use Institute’s Taste the Local Difference to present a northern Michigan Wine and Food Pavilion at the Epicurean Classic. Friday and Saturday afternoons will offer themed tastings featuring roses and light reds, sweeter table wines, crisp, aromatic whites, full, complex whites, dessert wines and bold reds. The wines will be presented by the winemakers and paired with locally produced cheeses, meats, fresh fruits and baked goods. Regional wines will also be served at the opening and closing receptions.

Check out the full schedule, information and prices for this grand event, online, at www.epicureanclassic.com. Mmm … Cheers!

Posted by editor at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)

Celebrating “Empire anchor” Mike Vanderberg with Dunegrass originals

From staff reports

A benefit for the family of Mike Vanderberg and a celebration of his life will take place at two locations in Empire on his birthday, Sunday, September 30, with music from noon until 10 p.m. at Johnson’s Park and an early dinner at the Town Hall beginning at 2 p.m. The main dish will be supplied; in the spirit of a community potluck, please bring a side dish to pass; donations for food and entertainment are encouraged; items (including memorabilia from past Dunegrass Festivals) will be auctioned and raffled off. Local musicians and artists — including Third Coast, Cabin Fever, Wrangler, Song of the Lakes, the Jelly Roll Blues Band, the Corvairs and the Beach Bards — many of whom performed at early Dunegrass Festivals in the mid-‘90s, will entertain the crowd all day-long. Vanderberg, who passed away on August 11, founded the popular annual Dunegrass Festival and was the instigator behind numerous aspects of Empire life.

The following is local Emily Lanier’s favorite memory of Mike:

I want to share this important story, for it’s about an angel who recently found his way home. I had been working at the gas station in Empire, this “one-flashing-stoplight-town,” for a few months during the off-season, and though it was a boring gig, I enjoyed being the new girl in town because I got a chance to meet many of the town’s locals.

The reason we moved here and escaped from the concrete jungle was because we loved the area so much as well as the small society around us. It was so eclectic, and everyone worked side by side despite their social differences; this place seemed to be about humanity at its purest form: every type of colorful character, all in this beautiful place in the dunes.

Of course, being the new kid, I got stuck on the night shift, so things were extremely lonely during the long, dark winter months ... and I learned what everyone in the small town smoked, drank or drove before even learning their names. It got to the point where I got excited when I met a customer, any customer, which meant a brief intermission from the solitude that most of my shifts consisted of.

One particularly gloomy night, I was propped up behind the counter listening to my burned CDs and drinking coffee, trying to pass the time, when Mike Vanderberg, one of the locals, came in for his usual pick-me-up. I liked Mike. He was a kind, middle-aged man who seemed to be a big part of the local color. He didn’t really seem to know who I was, but he was always kind, and I liked listening to him talk about whatever he was up to that day. He especially enjoyed making little creations around town, ice sculptures mostly, but he was always up to something for fun, for the enjoyment of others.

As I rang him up, he randomly asked me, “Hey ... do you remember when you were still in school, and for Valentine’s Day you had to get those boxes of valentines and give them to the kids in your class?” I chuckled, remembering those days, as he continued, “I think as adults we should all still have to do that now.” Mike always came up with these random thoughts. I don’t know if it was the long, depressing winter getting to me, but I flashed back to how much I hated having to do that, and told him why.

“Well Mike, there were always two reasons that this had the potential to suck. And I speak from experience … either you were the one who got the valentine from the class dork, or you were the class dork, and I always fell into both those categories.” We laughed, and he went on his merry way. This conversation came and went in my mind, and I returned to my music and my coffee, and tried to pass the time away, “thinking spring.”

A few weeks later, the day before Valentine’s Day, one of the local kids was hanging out in the store picking out candy and chatting with me about which of his favorite horror and action movies I had seen (he was just as bored in the middle of winter as the rest of us), when in Mike came. He walked up to us in one of the aisles, and asked me “Hey, do you work tomorrow?” Seeing no relevance as to why he was even asking, I answered with a smile, “Nope! I got the day off.” Mike immediately pulled this pale blue piece of folded construction paper out of his coat, handed it to me and skipped away quickly behind the aisle where he pretended to be shy, peeking out from the shelving. I was so confused. All I could do was laugh as I looked down … and what I saw was cool. This man in his mid-fifties had remembered our conversation from weeks before about the valentine cards, and had made me a valentine out of construction paper and a glue stick. Half of a heart was glued to the front of it with a band-aid over it made out of crafts, and it said “I’m Half FAST without you” … and on the inside, “PLEASE Be Mine! Signed, The Class Dork”

I started crying. I don’t know why, but no one has ever done anything like that for me. It was so awesome, so random, and it made not just my day, but my entire winter. Mike beamed with happiness because he knew he had done something good. Though I was only the new gas station clerk in town, he put effort into doing something that made me feel like the most special person in the world, even if just for a moment. And the best was how he acted like the class dork, hiding behind a rack of juju bee’s while I realized what he’d given me. What a heartwarming way for him to say, “welcome to the neighborhood, kid … you’re one of us now.” I went home that night with a ray of sunshine, and that valentine was placed on the fridge, where it stayed until about a month ago, making me smile every time I looked at it.

Since the long winter shifts at the gas station, we have come to learn a lot more about Mike Vanderberg and his family. They have a large family, many blood-related but many just family by association, because that’s the kind of people they are. They live in a house right in the middle of Empire, a town that seems it would lack something without them there. No parade, it seems, has ever rolled down Main Street without at least one colorful and fun float built by the Vanderbergs and friends. The Dunegrass Festival, which only took place in Empire because of Mike and his family, was a major part of his life.

Every single person in Empire has a story like mine — a valentine given just to them, a smile that was sent their way from Mike just when they needed it most. He seemed to live for his kids and wife, and for making people happy. He had the heart of a child, and the spirit of an angel. He became a very special part of my life, and I looked forward to my run-ins with him. I even got to introduce him to a friend at Empire’s Asparagus Festival (where, of course, Mike and friends were busy making asparagus heads out of cardboard and green tissue paper for them to wave around or wear in the parade).

After learning of Mike’s passing I spent the next evening with some mutual friends, drinking and toasting to his life, laughing and crying together about how he touched the lives of us all. I came home, drunk and exhausted from the emotions, and on my counter I found the valentine. There it was, smiling at me the way Mike always smiled.

Now you drive through quiet Empire going north on M-22, and off to the left you see the field, only weeks ago filled with happy people, music and tents, and now just covered in flowers. How ironic — or how fitting — that his life ended in the very field where one of his life’s passions took place every year.

I am told that every year on September 30, Mike’s birthday, he would jump in Lake Michigan. And so this year, we’ll all jump in with him.

Posted by editor at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)

Haunted Hayride returns to Empire

The Empire Eagles will hold their Haunted Hayride at 3805 E Empire Highway (M-72 near Gilbert Road) on two upcoming weekends: October 19 & 20 and 26 & 27.

The goblins and ghosts arrive at 7:30 p.m. and charge $10 per victim. Be afraid. Be very afraid!!!

Photo courtesy of Laura Sielaff

The Glen Arbor Sun staff will take a break and catch up on sleep after publishing 8 issues since Memorial Day weekend.

We'll print two more editions before next summer: a Holiday issue on November 7 and a Winter Sports issue on January 13.

Enjoy your hibernation!

Posted by editor at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2007

Tireless Connie Binsfeld looks forward to Narrows Bridgewalk

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Connie Binsfeld, the Burdickville resident and former lieutenant governor of Michigan under John Engler, hasn’t missed a single Labor Day Bridgewalk, and she doesn’t plan on watching from the sidelines this year either. The popular annual trek across the Carl Oleson Jr. Memorial Bridge, which splits Big and Little Glen Lake at the Narrows on M-22, officially marks the end of summer, and will take place this year at noon on Monday, September 3.

Binsfeld has led the procession throughout the Bridgewalk’s first 10 years, either on foot or riding in a golf cart or a sheriff’s squad car, and though she isn’t as mobile as she was during her 28 years in public office (she retired in 1998), 2007 shouldn’t be any different.

“For us the Bridgewalk is nostalgic. For over 50 years we’ve crossed that bridge, since the days when we lived on Little Glen Lake,” says Binsfeld. “Longtime residents and newcomers alike both enjoy the walk.” Binsfeld’s favorite Bridgewalk memory was in 2000, when a ceremony to celebrate the millennium unfolded and flowers were thrown into the lake as a tribute “to those who came before us.”

The t-shirts commemorating this year’s Bridgewalk are designed by local artist Lois Saltsman, printed by Roger Poppa at Petoskey Pete’s and available for purchase at Dune Wear and T’nT Video in Glen Arbor, Roman Jones in Empire and at the event itself. Proceeds benefit the Boy Scouts. As usual, the Bridgewalk will end for lunch at the Narrows Deli on the south side of the bridge.

From the Glen Arbor Sun archives: an interview with Connie Binsfeld, August 1998, the same year she was elected to the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame

“My mother really didn’t want me to run for public office. She was always real patriotic, giving American flags to all her students. Yet when I told her I was running for the Michigan House of Representatives, she said, ‘Oh dear, I wish you wouldn’t do that. Those politicians — they’re just not very good people. I wish you wouldn’t become one of them.’ My mother sent me a news clipping from the local newspaper when I was elected, that encouraged politicians to ‘stick their thumbs in their mouths the first six months they're in office.’ She eventually came down to Lansing, got her picture taken with former Governor (William) Milliken and changed her mind.

“People asked me to run for County Commissioner when the Park bill passed [39] years ago. We were concerned about protecting what we had, and still helping the National Park. It was an interesting time; people were against all the planning and zoning. Before they could do what they wanted, now the Park was coming in. We had to create a marriage between the Park and the people.”

Posted by editor at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

Manitou Music Festival finale showcases Ann Arbor Violinist

From staff reports

The Manitou Music Festival is delighted to host what will be an enchanted evening of music with a performance by classical violinist Gabriel Bolkosky and pianist Michele Cooker. The concert is set for Thursday August 30 at 8 p.m. at The Leelanau School north of Glen Arbor. Tickets cost $15 in advance and $18 at the door. They are available for purchase at the Glen Arbor Arts Association and Lake Street Studios in Glen Arbor, Cedar City Market in Cedar and Oryana Food Cooperative in Traverse City.

Gabriel Bolkosky has been praised for the way he “takes audiences into his confidence and includes them” and described as having “the serenity of a master without a hint of coldness.”

He is executive director of The Phoenix Ensemble, an Ann Arbor-based nonprofit arts organization dedicated to helping artists and the educational community. His debut solo album, “This and That,” was released in 2005 to critical acclaim and features both jazz and classical music. Other recordings include explorations of klezmer with “Into the Freylakh (The Shape of Klez to Come),” of the nuevo tango music of Astor Piazzolla (“The Oblivion Project Live”), children’s folk music with the children’s-music group Gemini (“The Orchestra Is Here to Play”), and contemporary music of composers such as Xenakis and Boulez with his former group Non Sequitur (Non Sequitur).

Bolkosky is a sought-after guest artist, performer, and teacher at schools and workshops throughout North America, including at Harvard, Dartmouth, Brandeis and Princeton and many Suzuki institutes. He has also taught workshops on improvisation and composition to nearly 5,000 students in Aspen, Colorado and the Walden School in New Hampshire.

He previously served as assistant director for Strings Attached, an intensive string program for children in inner-city Cleveland, and as assistant to Donald Weilerstein at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In Ann Arbor, Bolkosky directs one of The Phoenix Ensemble’s signature events, PhoenixPhest!, an annual amateur chamber-music festival held each May, and maintains a private violin studio.

This past April, Gabriel joined forces with local cellist Crispin Campbell, original founder of the Manitou Music Festival, and Grammy award winning pianist, Paul Sullivan to create the Solar Trio that performed this past April in venues around the state.

Joining Gabriel onstage is the gifted pianist, Michele Cooker. Michele has performed in concert series and participated in festivals throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. She has appeared on PBS and has performed programs broadcast live for WFMT-radio in Chicago and the CBC in Canada. Ms. Cooker teaches piano privately at the Kerrytown Concert House, where she is a member of the Board. This combination of violin and piano will indeed be one ‘enchanting evening’ of music.

Posted by editor at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

August 09, 2007

The circus is coming!

From staff reports

For the first time this decade, the circus is returning to southern Leelanau County. Hosted by the Empire Sleeping Bear Eagle’s Club # 4404, the Kelly Miller Circus will arrive at the Eagles’ property on M-72 east of Empire for one day on Saturday, August 18 and raise the tent between 8:30 and 9 a.m. Everyone is invited to come out and watch the animals being unloaded and fed, as the elephants raise the big top. Guides will be furnished for school groups and anyone attending.

The traditional “old style” circus will present two performances at 2 and 5:30. The Kelly Miller Circus’ performance this season promises to be more exciting than ever with many new acts and entertainers to amaze and amuse you. Buy your tickets in advance and save by emailing laurasielaff2@hotmail.com.

Empire Lion’s Club member Hal Pendleton brought the circus to town the last time, he remembers, in 1998 or ‘99. In fact, the Lion’s Club sponsored them five times during the ‘90s. “Kelly Miller present people-type acts,” Hal remembers. “Trapeze, clowns, with some animals but (other than elephants) they’re not too big on that.” In the past, the circus has been held in Empire close to the corner of M-72 and M-22, where the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore headquarters now sits. One particular year Hal remembers his wife Frances was allowed to ride an elephant bareback into the center ring as the sponsors were introduced. “If you’ve ever ridden on a circus elephant bareback, you’ll remember it,” he attests. “The back of the elephant is like my chin after not shaving for three or four days. You can feel it right through a pair of jeans!”

Kelly Prechtl remembers the first time she attended the circus in Empire, as an eight-year-old girl. “This was the first time I had ever seen an elephant, and it was so different than what I had expected from TV. It was so big and I remember being scared, but not wanting my mom to know I was scared so that she would still let me ride it. When I got on I realized the skin was so leathery and thick, but its ears were really smooth. I have to admit that the smell was strong like a horse barn, but the excitement that I felt was like Christmas! I remember that was the first time that I felt really brave.”

Posted by editor at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)

Reenacting the pre-industrial era at Port Oneida

From staff reports

The Port Oneida Rural Historic District in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (the local branch of the National Park) will come alive Friday and Saturday, August 10 and 11, during the sixth annual Port Oneida Fair. The two-day event will showcase the crafts, skills and traditions that made rural life productive and enjoyable in the late 19th and early 20th century. The fair, sponsored by the Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes and five other partner groups, will take place at five farms and a one-room schoolhouse. Part of the enjoyment of the fair is moving between the farms by walking through the fields, biking, taking a shuttle bus or horse and wagon. There is no admission charge to the fair, which will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Additional detailed information can be found at www.leelanau.com/fair. Among the new features added to this year’s fair are an antique fire truck and a visit by Mark Twain.

As part of this year’s Fair, the Manitou Music Festival will also present Nobody’s Darlin’ in concert on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. at the outdoor stage behind Lake Street Studios in Glen Arbor. According to festival director TJ Ewing, “Nobody’s Darlin’ are a perfect fit as a capstone concert for the Port Oneida Fair. This all-woman, five-piece, string band, based in Grand Rapids, specializes in Old Time Americana, Bluegrass, Gospel, and throws in some classic country tunes just for fun.” Watching a performance by Nobody’s Darlin’ conjures up the essence of a simpler time, before electric guitars and pyrotechnics. The sound of Nobody’s Darlin’ strong female voices meld fluidly over acoustic instruments that resonate true string instrument tones. Their music successfully blends old timey, country and bluegrass in a refreshingly authentic way. The “Darlin’s” influences include The Carter Family, Doc Watson, Johnny Cash, Ernest Tubb, Split Lip Rayfield, Dolly Parton and Jimmie Rogers.

Concert tickets are $15 per person and can be purchased in advance at the Glen Arbor Art Association, Lake Street Studios, Cedar City Market, and Oryana Food Coop in Traverse City, or at the door. For more information visit www.manitoumusicfestival.com or call the Glen Arbor Art Association at 334-6112.

Last year the Port Oneida Fair was visited by Civil War re-enactors. The cavalry, the heavy artillery, the infantry and the sharpshooters all marched into Leelanau County, and all but the cavalry will be back this year. Many of the early settlers in Port Oneida and Northwest Lower Michigan were veterans of the Civil War. The war was a major event in their lives and the lives of their families. The Civil War units demonstrate authentic uniforms and equipment and show their camps and drills. The soldiers will also talk about their experiences during the war. The soldiers will be accompanied by military band, Women’s Aid Societies from both the North and South and a peddler who traveled with the army. This is a rare opportunity to experience living history in this part of the state.

In addition to the Civil War re-enactors, over 100 exhibitors will demonstrate early farm skills and crafts from barn building to quilt making. On hand will be spinners, blacksmiths, buggy makers, potters, broom makers, weavers and many more. Each exhibitor is happy to explain their craft while you watch them work. A favorite each year are the big gentle oxen who will be mowing hay, followed by a team of work horses raking and loading the hay on to a wagon. Kids can help unload the wagon and build a haystack. There will be lots of other activities for kids to try such as traditional games and toys. Everyone will also be able to experience some of the daily chores like cutting wood or washing clothes by hand. Traditional community bands, fiddlers and a variety of other musicians will provide music during both days of the fair.

The Port Oneida Rural Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, showcases life at the turn of the century through a community of 18 farmsteads from the late 1800s to mid 1900s. The District is the largest historic agricultural community fully protected by government ownership in the nation. The Port Oneida community has stories to tell about the pioneer and maritime past of Northern Lower Michigan. Over the years, these farms and cultural resources have been loved by many for what they add to the pastoral Leelanau landscape. Now these historic buildings and meadows are interpreting history through such events as the Port Oneida Fair.

Posted by editor at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)

Young novelists return to Glen Arbor Art Association

By Corin Blust
Sun contributor

Even though they were lucky enough to be artists in residence at the Glen Arbor Art Association last summer, Jeremiah Chamberlin and Natalie Bakopoulos have decided to return this August for another residency in Glen Arbor. They will occupy the apartment in the relatively new Art Association building from August 12 -25 and use the time here to make progress on their first novels. The pair will read from their work at a presentation, free and open to the public, on August 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Art Center between the Leelanau Coffee Roasters and Lake Street Studios.

Jeremiah, who knew from childhood that he wanted to be a writer, grew up near Interlochen, about half an hour southeast of Glen Arbor. He studied creative writing in high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy, where his parents have worked for 30 years.

After high school Jeremiah continued his craft at the University of Michigan, a decision influenced by a visit from Charles Baxter, a professor in the English department there. When Jeremiah heard Baxter read at Interlochen he knew he wanted to study with the professor. “The language transported me right out of my body,” he recalls. “When it was over, I came back to my body and I knew I had to study with him.” After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in 1997 and his MFA in 2004, between which he lived in Madison, Wisconsin and was writer-in-residence at Interlochen in ’02, Jeremiah became a writing lecturer in the English Department at U-M.

Natalie, whose father is Greek and mother is Ukrainian, spent her childhood in a “close-knit immigrant community in a suburb of Detroit.” She received a degree in Zoology from Michigan State University then continued to receive her Masters in Fine Arts from U-M. She began graduate school studying physiology but realized that “the urge to become a writer was something I couldn’t ignore. As a child I read so much, it would be a beautiful day and I would be inside reading — I have always loved language and literature.” Natalie also teaches in the English department in Ann Arbor.

One of the remarkable things about a residency at the Glen Arbor Art Association is that the only obligation an artist has during their time here is to make progress on their work — a rare opportunity that can produce stunningly productive results. “We did two months of work in two weeks” during the couple’s stay last summer, Jeremiah attests.

Both he and Natalie blame this amazing productivity on the freedom from everyday chores the new setting provides them. “It’s almost like a Monastic retreat,” says Jeremiah. “The Art Association really gives the valuable gift of time and space to writers and artists,” adds Natalie.

The opportunity to be in Glen Arbor is especially fitting for Jeremiah, whose first historical novel is set right here in Leelanau County. His book will “follow the struggles of one cherry farming family as history marches past them,” with a special focus on the lives of the two brothers in the family from 1957 until the early 1990s.

Writing a piece of historical fiction based on the Leelanau Peninsula while in Ann Arbor may provide “objectivity and perspective” on the area, but Jeremiah loves the opportunity to “touch base with the place,” something that can prove to stimulate a rich landmine of ideas.

One evening while driving back to Glen Arbor from dinner with friends in nearby Frankfort, Jeremiah and Natalie crossed the Narrows Bridge separating Big from Little Glen Lake and suddenly “a whole scene was set off by the environment; I could see my characters driving across the piece of land, too, and interacting with it,” he remembers.

For Jeremiah, being in Leelanau County “recharges your imagination. It’s about the small details you notice when you are actually in a place,” such as the way the islands in Lake Michigan seem to change their appearance from the shore every day depending on the weather, or “the way a walk on the beach actually smells,” he explains.

Even though his novel is “still evolving,” Jeremiah has already planned to examine how migrant labor, Vietnam, and other political, environmental and economic events change the family in his novel. He will read an excerpt from the finished parts of the book during the couple’s presentation at the Art Center.

Natalie’s work, which is also historical fiction, is set in Athens from 1967 to 1974. In her book Natalie examines the way a family deals with the right-wing military dictatorship that seized power in Greece during those years. “It’s all about the way politics can shape the life of a family and their reactions to the regime,” explains Natalie, whose own father came to the United States from Athens in 1966.

Although Natalie’s novel is not set in northern Michigan, she finds being in Glen Arbor a welcome change of scenery from Ann Arbor. She explains, “in Ann Arbor it’s really easy to get immersed in research — I could spend all day in the library looking up little details.” She likes to be surrounded by the beauty of this area, and also to get away from the temptation of looking up things like “what kind of refrigerator the family would have used in their house during the time period of the novel.”

Aside from the opportunity to work and spend time in the peace and beauty of our area, the couple also looks forward to being in our midst again. “For me, the most important thing is the sense of community, where everyone’s so casual and you can stop by people’s houses and have a bonfire in the backyard,” says Natalie. Last summer, “everyone I met was so genuine, and wanted to ask us questions and find out what we were doing. We felt welcome right away, and that’s why we’re coming back.”

Jeremiah Chamberlin and Natalie Bakopoulos will read excerpts from their novels in progress at the Art Center in Glen Arbor on Tuesday, August 21. The presentation, which is free, starts at 7:30 p.m.

Posted by editor at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)

Jan Krist and Jim Bizer, Los Gatos and Aoife Clancy headline Manitou Festival

From staff reports

The Manitou Music Festival will present two gifted Michigan songwriters, Jan Krist and Jim Bizer, at its concert on Thursday, August 16 at 8 p.m. on the graduation green at The Leelanau School north of Glen Arbor. Detroit-born Jan Krist is a well-established veteran of the acoustic music scene. Jan’s musical gifts have been recognized by Billboard Magazine, Entertainment Weekly Magazine, Dirty Linen, Image Journal and others. With 13 nominations and four Detroit Metro Music Awards under her belt, Krist has proven herself to be a Detroit area favorite. She can also claim the honor of being a finalist at the Kerrville song writing competition, in Kerrville, Texas, an annual event which helped to launch the careers of Lyle Lovett and Nancy Griffith.

Los Gatos return to the Manitou Music Festival on August 18

Krist takes her ordinary, plain Jane demeanor and all the elements we’ve learned to take for granted (six strings and common time) and lets us know, this is not your ordinary woman with a guitar, even if it is.

Joining Jan Krist is award-winning songwriter and dynamic performer, Jim Bizer.

Combining a vast musical knowledge with thoughtful and humorous lyrical ideas, Jim concocts songs that are both beautiful and startling. Against a musical kaleidoscope of jazz, blues, country, reggae and god-knows-what-else, he sings about faith, rivers, insanity and a few things you’ve probably never heard before in a song. He leads his audience to many places; you never quite know what will come out of his mouth, or his guitar, next.

Starting his professional career at age 14, Jim has performed literally thousands of times, mostly around the Midwest and his native Detroit. He’s been a “cover” musician, a session player and a composer for radio and television, but his first love is playing his guitar and singing his songs for all who listen. With a comfortable rapport and an intimate delivery, he is equally at home in the house concert or on the festival stage.

Jim is a masterful performer and a superb guitarist, but it is his songwriting that has recently earned accolades: His song “We Are All Connected,” a moving 9/11 testament, won the grand prize in the Great American Song Contest and led to an appearance at the Mountain Stage New Song Festival in West Virginia. Jim has been a finalist (three times!) in the New Folk songwriting competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival, and made his Kerrville main stage debut in June 2005.

On Saturday, August 18 at 7:30 p.m. the Manitou Music Festival will welcome back the Los Gatos jazz ensemble to the Lake Street Studio Stage in Glen Arbor. The brainchild of drummer and multi-percussionist Pete Siers, Los Gatos began as a Latin Jazz Ensemble in the fall of 1992. The concept of a small group combined with traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms has positioned Los Gatos as consistent crowd pleasers. In fact the band has been performing every Thursday night at Ann Arbor’s Firefly Club since 2001, all the while amassing a large following. In addition to leader Pete Siers, the group also includes vibes player Gary Kocher, bassist Kurt Krahnke, pianist Brian Di Blassio, and percussionist Al Di Blassio. They are inspired by the music of Cal Tjader, the late San Francisco vibes player who ignited the 50s mambo craze.

Pete Siers was born in Saginaw and began studying piano at age six, but quickly moved focus to drums and percussion. Pete earned a degree in Music Education from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, where he studied under the direction of Dr. Bruce Early and Rupert Kettle. As a member of the Aquinas College Jazz Ensemble, Pete was honored with several awards for outstanding soloist and outstanding rhythm section player. In 1988, Pete moved to Ann Arbor to work with acclaimed pianist Eddie Russ. Pete is an original member of the award winning Paul Keller Orchestra, which plays original, obscure and classic big band material from all periods of jazz history.

Los Gatos have release two CDs: Cats Got Your Tongue! and Vol II Insight. These recordings are enjoying airplay across the country as well as regular jazz programming on WDET and WEMU in Southern Michigan.

The Manitou Music Festival will also bring a little bit of Ireland to Glen Arbor with a performance by the gifted singer, Aoife Clancy on Wednesday, August 22 at 8 p.m. at the Lake Street Studio Stage. Opening for Aoife Clancy will be local singer and musician Jenny Thomas. Aoife Clancy(pronounced ‘Eefa’) brings a refreshing new voice to folk music, one that ranges from traditional Irish songs to ballads and contemporary folk. Aoife comes from the small town of Carrick-on-Suir, in Co Tipperary, Ireland, where her musical career began at an early age. Her father Bobby Clancy of the legendary Clancy Brothers, placed a guitar in her hands at age 10, and by age 14 was playing with her father in nearby pubs.

She later moved to Dublin, where she studied drama at the Gaiety School of Acting. After a season at the Gaiety, Aoife was invited to do a tour of Australia. There she performed at festivals and concerts sharing the stage with some of Ireland’s greatest performers, including Christy Moore and the Furey Brothers. Her performances also include a Caribbean cruises with the Clancy Brothers, the Milwaukee Irish Festival and a seven-week tour of the United States with the renowned Paddy Noonan Show.

In 1995 Aoife was asked to join the acclaimed group “Cherish the Ladies,” which is one of the most sought-after Irish American groups in history. For the past four years Aoife has toured extensively doing no less than two hundred dates a year throughout the United States and Europe. She has been a featured soloist with orchestras such as the Boston Pops and Cincinnati Pops and while performing with Cherish the Ladies, collaborated with the Boston Pops on their Grammy nominated Celtic album.

Now with seven recordings under her belt in the last decade, Aoife has clearly established herself as one of the Divas of Irish and contemporary Folk Music. As one reviewer remarked, “she has a breadth of styles that make her concerts fascinating. Her singing would melt packed ice with its warmth and richness” — Mike Jackson, Canberra Times.

Currently, Aoife is touring with her own band in support of her two Rego solo releases and her latest Appleseed release “Silvery Moon”. When she comes to a town near you, be sure not to miss this totally enchanting performer.

Tickets for all concerts are $12 in advance and $15 at the door. Tickets can be purchased at the Glen Arbor Art Association and Lake Street Studio in Glen Arbor, Cedar City Market in Cedar and Oryana Food Cooperative in Traverse City.

Posted by editor at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2007

Dunegrass Festival springs from one unique family

By Nadine Gilmer
Sun contributor

Empire is home to many colorful and interesting families, and a walk down Front Street reveals as much. But the Vanderberg family, the founders of the Dunegrass Festival, just might take the cake. Nestled between the town’s eclectic shops and popular library, their front yard has featured eye-popping sites through the years: a graffiti-painted school bus, intricate snow sculptures, even a teepee. The latest is a hole, which was once a driftwood sculpture, and will soon become a waterscape. The Vanderbergs have never failed to surprise their neighbors.

“We’re experimenters,” says Mike, who with his wife Carol has three daughters. “We try not to leave a big imprint, but bring new things to light.” And the Vanderbergs definitely pull that off. From alternative schools, to the Sleeping Bear Dunegrass & Blues Festival, they illuminate new acts for the entire community, and region. “We specialize in taking our talents and expanding, and creating whatever we want with our parents as our base,” says Alice, 21, the second daughter of three. Her 15-year-old sister, Ashley, takes it a step further. “Everybody in Leelanau County knows where I live,” boasts Ashley. Their house is “the safe house. It’s where everybody goes when they need somewhere to stay.”

Over the years the Vanderbergs have harbored all sorts of people in their “safe house” and treated them like a family. This house is the center of activity for “the pod,” as Mike puts it. Amelia, 24, the oldest daughter, explains that the idea of the pod “springs from dolphins’ family groups. It’s called a pod because once a dolphin is part of a pod it never leaves.”

Mike and Carol Vanderberg, who were high school sweethearts, moved to Empire in 1980 from Bay City to run the town drugstore that Mike bought. “We’ve known each other for 40 years,” explains Carol. More recently, Mike has worked at Deering’s Market, and he now runs a production and recording studio out of the Blue Heron across from the town hall. The Vanderbergs have owned the Blue Heron since 1987 and have used it for many interesting endeavors. It was an alternative school for a while, an art gallery, a shop, and now a studio.

But by far, the Vanderberg’s most popular venture has been the Dunegrass Festival. “Back in ’92 we started thinking about having a festival,” remembers Mike, “Back then there wasn’t really a place for local artists.” After pondering the idea, he called a few of his musical friends together, and their brainstorming and initiative gave birth a year later to the annual, popular music festival that draws thousands of revelers to Empire the first weekend of August. “I didn’t think anybody would come,” admits Carol. “I wanted nothing to do with it, and the first day it happened I looked over the hill and saw 800-1,000 people.” Since that day 15 years ago she and the three girls have played a huge part in the festival. “(We were) licking stamps for hours,” Alice recalls about the days before more households had computers. “If I had a box of memories, Dunegrass would be a BIG part of it,” says Ashley.

What Mike calls “a good idea that turned out well,” has ballooned in size since the early ‘90s. “The first year was less than 1,000 people, but last year total attendance was 6,000, and this year we expect more.” Dunegrass has grown from a one-day festival to a four-day event, and it keeps expanding. “We try to bring new things every year,” says Mike. For instance, the past three festivals have all featured beautiful sand sculptures that last for months, built by artists from Florida. Check out the festival’s website, www.dunegrassfestival.com, for a list of bands, and events, between August 2-5.

The Vanderbergs have Grassroots Productions to thank for the expansion of Dunegrass and opening it up to more national acts over the last couple years. According to Carol, “(Grassroots Productions) does the booking and advertising, and we take care of everything in Empire.” Putting the festival together now requires five people working fulltime and 200 to 300 volunteers every year.

“Through Dunegrass I feel like we’ve been able to bring together a crowd of people for a good cause,” says Mike. “The universe is a much better place for having Dunegrass (despite that) we’ve never made money on it, but that’s not its purpose.” Carol boils the festival down to “a party for 2,000 or so of our closest friends.”

Every year the Vanderbergs seem to touch more and more people, from their immediate family, to the pod at their home, to the Empire community, to thousands of Dunegrass revelers. As Mike says every summer as the festival nears, “this year is going to be huge.”

“Almost too much for Empire to handle,” Ashley responds. And yet, it always does.

Posted by editor at 02:18 AM | Comments (0)

Brazilian Capoeira dances into Leelanau County

By Corin Blust
Sun contributor

The word Capoeira (pronounced KAP-oooo-ERA) can be defined as two separate things in Portuguese. It can refer to a small, remote clearing in a field of grass or sugarcane, or it can mean a style of ritualistic, playful dance that emerged in Brazilian culture during slavery. These two things are connected: the clearing in the field was frequently a place where Capoeiristas practiced their dance, which needed to be held in secret.

But why did it need to be secret? Capoeira is not just a beautiful dance; it was originally a way for oppressed slaves to work toward liberating themselves. By engaging in Capoeira, (in Portuguese to practice Capoeira is said “jogar Capoeira,” or in English “play Capoeira”) the slaves had found an artistic outlet while improving their agility, strength, fighting skills and flexibility — elements that greatly improved their chances of fleeing servitude. “It was a way to build up resistance,” Helio Conceição, the local Capoeira master, tells me in his thick Brazilian accent with a little help from his wife, Alita Townsend. “And also a way of expression for the slaves.” Helio (pronounced EL-IO) teaches a style called Capoeira Urbana, or “Capoeira from the streets,” a form that tries to keep with the original street approach to the dance, at the Leelanau Center for Contemplative Arts (formerly Union/Yoga) in nearby Lake Leelanau.

Since Capoeira was originally a slave activity that carried with it unpleasant connotations of gritty oppression, fear, and violence in Brazilian society, the slave owners had it outlawed. However, it was still practiced by determined members of society; its popularity actually grew in the time of its prohibition.

Capoeira was not made legal again until 1942, when a presentation in front of Brazilian dictator Getulio Vargas caused him to reconsider the taboos surrounding the dance. “When he saw the presentation, he realized that Capoeira was an art and a sport that was practiced by all members of society — doctors, lawyers and street kids. It became a good thing for Brazil,” explains Helio.

Helio began Capoeira with his uncle under a big mango tree in Salvador Bahía, Brazil, when he was “maybe five years old.” When he was ready to begin a formal education in Capoeira, Helio went into the Capoeira Kilombolas School, which unfortunately cost his family seven cruzeros per month, or about two U.S. dollars; an amount that he couldn’t afford.

So, Helio said with a smile, “I paid only the first month, and then I found ways to never pay again.” His determination to practice this art in the face of extreme poverty earned him a scholarship at the first Capoeira academy in the world, Associaco de Capoeira Mestre Bimba in Salvador, Brazil. There, Helio was able to become part of a dedicated community of Capoeiristas that influenced his life in a positive manner. “I have never taken any drugs,” said Helio, “Capoeira kept me healthy, it’s a form of healthy street culture.”

Who should take Capoeira? “All people!” says Helio. It’s an extremely healthy, intensive full-body workout that improves agility, strength, flexibility and precision. The class offered in Lake Leelanau will be strictly for adults, though children’s classes are available in Traverse City at Sacred Space Yoga.

“There was a 72-year-old World War II veteran who came to Brazil every year to practice Capoeira, and he looked 55 because of the art,” Helio and Alita tell me. It’s very good for the body. “You won’t realize how great of a workout you got until the next day,” Alita says.

To play Capoeira, the participants arrange themselves in a circle, called a roda, and players go into the middle of the circle in pairs to dance, fight and show off their moves. This circular construction was once very important to the game because it shielded the inner players from the eyes of the law.

Today the circle is still important because it “keeps the energy focused on the players and in the circle. Everybody feels high from the good energy,” said Alita, who grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan near Empire.

The sound of the berimbau infuses the game with its twangy vibrations. The berimbau is a Brazilian instrument that consists of a length of wire stretched across a bowed piece of wood with a hollowed out gourd facing the player near the lower end of the bow. It is held vertically and it is played by holding a small metal disk against the inside of the wire with one hand while hitting a thin stick on the outside with the other hand.

Erin Abernathy, a musically talented girl who works at Sweeter Song farm in Maple City and got to try Helio’s berimbau “thought the berimbau was a surprisingly challenging instrument to hold and play.” Helio, of course, makes it look effortless.

Other sounds involved in the play of Capoeira are the pandero, a tambourine-like instrument, and the clapping and singing of the participants, which combine to create an energy-packed environment that will revitalize the soul.

Classes are offered at the Leelanau Center for Contemplative Arts in Lake Leelanau from 7:30 to 9 p.m. and are limited to those 15 years and older. Drop-ins cost $15 or $90 for seven weeks. Kids classes are being held in Traverse City at Sacred Space Yoga on Tuesdays from 4-5 p.m. The cost is $50 for four weeks. Helio would like to offer more classes, especially for kids, so if you have a time or place that you would like to see a Capoeira class held please email him at serenocapoeira@gmail.com or visit www.capoeiraurbana.org for more information.

Posted by editor at 02:14 AM | Comments (0)

Manitou Music Festival presents Northwinds Trio and Whit Hill and the Postcards

Press release

The Manitou Music Festival is excited to present a performance by the classical ensemble, The Northwinds Trio comprised of oboe, clarinet and bassoon performers. This combination of instruments offers a rich, yet homogeneous sound. The members of the ensemble: Gretchen Morse, Stephanie Wernli and Melissa Kritzer bring a wealth of experience and training to the music they perform. The program will showcase works by Haydn, Morse, Canteloube, D’Rivera and Milhaud.

Gretchen Morse received her Doctorate in Oboe Performance from Michigan State University in 1994. She plays Oboe and English Horn in the Lansing Symphony and has performed with many other orchestras throughout Michigan and the United States. Stephanie Wernli lives in East Lansing, and in 2006 she completed a three-year fellowship with the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. Stephanie has a Masters of Music from DePaul University, where she studied with Larry Combs. Melissa Kritzer holds degrees from Northwestern University and Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She will begin a Doctor of Musical Arts at Michigan State University in the fall.

The Manitou Music Festival invites you to an evening of fine music and exquisite instrumental performance. The performance is set for Sunday, July 29 at 8 p.m. at the Lake Street Studio Stage in Glen Arbor. Tickets are $18 in advance and $20 at the door.

The next performance in the Festival’s summer-long lineup features Whit Hill and the Postcards. The performance is set for Wednesday August 8 at 8 p.m. at the Lake Street Studio Stage. Whitley Hill was born and raised in New York City, the child of Southern-born actors: a WASP from Mississippi and an Armenian from the moonshine mountains of West Virginia. A child actor herself, she performed at New York’s famed La Mama Theater, with the New York City Shakespeare Festival and the New York City Opera. She is a drama graduate of NYC’s High School for Performing Arts and has a degree in dance from the University of Michigan. For years she was a professional dancer and choreographer; her dances have been commissioned and performed by companies across the country

But she really likes music. As a singer, Whit was a member of the renowned folk band Dick Siegel and the Na-Nas, with whom she toured the country — from New York’s Bottom Line to the Vancouver Music Festival. A prolific songwriter, Whit formed the Postcards in 2001. The band’s two albums, “We Are Here” (2003) and “Farsighted” (2006) have received wide critical acclaim. Whit plays a Martin guitar and loves it very much. Other interesting things about Whitley: Her Armenian grandfather owned a saloon in West Virginia called the Sanitary Lunch. She once unintentionally delivered a friend’s baby by herself. Her dad was on the Sopranos.

Whit Hill and the Postcards was formed in the winter of the year 2001 in order to bring interesting, literate and unexpectedly beautiful alt-country music to the good people of the greater Detroit area. The Postcards are: Singer/songwriter Whitley Hill, Singer/keyboardist/guitarist/husband Al Hill, Bass player Patrick Prouty, and Drummer Chuck Navyac.

Whitley’s husband Al Hill’s credits are too numerous to fully recount here, but in brief, this native son of Ann Arbor has toured the country with his band, the Love Butlers, and is currently music director for soul legend Bettye Lavette with whom he tours internationally. Al’s album “Willie Mae,” co-written with Whitley, was voted Best Blues CD by the Detroit/Windsor Blues Society, and helped the Love Butlers win the 2000 “Best Unsigned Band” competition at Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago. Patrick Prouty is a graduate of Wayne State University’s music department, and also tours with Bettye Lavette. Chuck Navyac is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan Department of music.

Manitou Music Festival’s summer of the arts is delighted to presenting Whit Hill and the Postcards in concert on August 8 at 8 p.m. The performance is at the Lake Street Studio Stage. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door. Tickets for both concerts are available at the Glen Arbor Art Association, Lake Street Studios in Glen Arbor, Cedar City Market in Cedar and Oryana Food Cooperative in Traverse City. More information may be found at www.manitoumusicfestival.com.

Posted by editor at 01:44 AM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2007

Arts Collage returns to Lake Street Studios for second go-round

By Corin Blust
Sun contributor

The Glen Arbor art scene is traditionally dominated by landscape paintings and folk music, but during the second annual Arts Collage at the Lake Street Studios on July 21, Harry Fried will share something different with our community. Fried has organized a unique event that includes a wide array of diverse artistic media: modern dance, spoken word poetry, independent film, fusion and jazz music, and more.

After renovating the stage behind the Lake Street Studios last summer, Fried decided that the kind of things shown there would center exclusively on art. Tired of the typical commercialistic venues whose true goal in presenting an artist is to sell beer or food, Fried just wants to sell art to his patrons, and hopefully open their minds about the incredible local performers we have in our area.

One of the most important criteria that Fried follows when organizing this event is to give his audience the feeling of an intimate setting. “Most people see performance on television, so they don’t get to meet the performer, they don’t get any kind of personal interaction with the performer or the performance — that’s the normal perspective that the mainstream media gives us on this type of thing,” says Fried.

Performance has a much stronger impact when the artists are right there in real life, not digitized and manipulated by the camera. At the Arts Collage, the audience is given an opportunity to feel included in art on a level that is becoming rare in our world of mega concert venues and Hollywood films. “We aim to give the audience a look at the other stuff right in their own backyard — they might even know some of the performers,” he explains.

The evening will include Mika Perrine, poets from the Beach Bards Bonfire, Jazz North, Gen Obata, The Uborigines, Andrea Maio and Alexandance. All of the performers “have their own take on what can happen in a space,” says Fried.

Mika Perrine is a short fiction writer and graduate student at the University of Michigan where she studies English language and literature [Her partner Matthew McGovern’s pottery was on display at the Center Gallery last month and featured in the June 14 issue of the Glen Arbor Sun]. She will be sharing excerpts from her recent writing. The Arts Collage will also feature spoken word poetry courtesy of the Beach Bards, who perform at the Bonfire during Friday nights in the summer on The Leelanau School beach north of Glen Arbor. “We might not have noticed, but there are some incredible spoken word poets in our community,” explains Fried.

Jazz North is an ensemble of jazz musicians who hail from Leelanau County, while Gen Obata is a folk and roots artist who performs mainly in the St. Louis area. He takes traditional American folk music and infuses it with his own original perspective, writing many songs himself. The Uborigines are a group from Ann Arbor that includes Fried himself. Their sound is a fusion of contemporary musical styles that should be a great addition to the lineup.

It is rare to see independent film in Leelanau County, but Andrea Maio is a local artist who will be showing a clip of her work. Originally from Ann Arbor, Maio has contributed to National Public Radio’s “This American Life,” and is returning to the Collage for her second year. Maio’s contribution last year — a virtual journey down the Mississippi River — was riveting.

This special evening will also include a modern dance performance. “It’s bizarre that you can’t go into a nightclub and see a modern dance performance,” says Fried, who believes that contemporary modern dance is ignored far too often in the world of performance. Leaving out dance from the spectrum is “like walking into a forest and not hearing any birds, or seeing no leaves on the trees, but that’s what the landscape of performance has been for years. I can’t explain it but I can offer an antidote to it.”

Fried’s antidote is in the form of Alexandance, a modern dance duo who will be performing an original composition at the Collage. After meeting at the University of Michigan while studying dance, Alexandra Burley and Alexander Springer discovered that they had a natural harmony, and founded Alexandance in September, 2006. They have performed for renowned artists such as Alexandra Beller, Leyya Tawil, Doug Varone, the Umbigada Dance Company in Colombia and the Leopold Group in San Francisco.

“I think the Arts Collage brings a really refreshing sense of community back to Glen Arbor, allowing us to experience the art together,” says Hannah Clark, a Glen Arbor native who is planning to attend the unique event.

The Arts Collage is on Saturday, July 21, beginning at 7:30 p.m. at the stage at Lake Street Studios in Glen Arbor, across from Cherry Republic. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. Tickets are available at Lake Street Studios, or by visiting www.glenarborart.org/mmf_index.asp.

Posted by editor at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)

Sigue Adelante! Guatemalan non-profit Safe Passage moves forward, in Hanley’s spirit

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Safe Passage, one of the most successful non-profits in Central America and the guiding light of hope for families living and scavenging for food on the periphery of Guatemala City’s enormous garbage dump, is alive and well despite the death of its founder Hanley Denning in a car accident last January. The Great Lakes Friends of Safe Passage, the local branch of the organization known throughout Guatemala as Camino Seguro, will hold their third annual Fiesta fundraiser on Tuesday, July 17 from 5:30-8 p.m. at the Hagerty Center in Traverse City.

This year’s event, a “Journey to Guatemala,” will feature a “virtual visit” to Safe Passage, live music, food and drink, silent and live auctions of Guatemalan arts and crafts, as well as a short film tribute to Hanley by Leslie Iwerks, whose documentary “Recycled Life” about families in the garbage dump was nominated for an Academy Award. The auction will include art made by the children of Safe Passage, and guests can also buy an “Angel of Hope” like the one Hanley carried on her keychain.

In the wake of Hanley’s passing, northern Michigan locals are playing increasingly important roles in the brain trust of Safe Passage, which now helps almost 600 local children leave the dump’s squalid conditions and pursue an education unimaginable to most in Guatemala’s impoverished, desperate capital. Half a dozen Safe Passage children were recently accepted into some of Guatemala’s most competitive private schools; and Safe Passage was recognized and visited this spring by both U.S. First Lady Laura Bush and Guatemalan First Lady Wendy Berger.

Sharon Workman, of Cedar, was recently named Chair of the Board of Directors at Safe Passage, replacing outgoing Chairman Paul Sutherland of the Traverse City-based Financial Investment Management Group, who started our area’s relationship with Camino Seguro when he met Hanley on an airplane — an event that changed his life. “Like most people who met Hanley, I was so moved by her dedication to these children, and by the difference Safe Passage was making in their lives, I knew I had to stay involved,” says Workman. In the past two years, over 40 area residents have traveled to Guatemala as volunteers on service-learning trips. And Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) just announced a new educational partnership with the organization. Professor Mary Pierce, who returned from a visit to Safe Passage in late June, explains, “It is our hope that we would send students and interested staff and faculty, on a rotating basis, to do volunteer work. It would be an invaluable opportunity for the College to provide this rich and rewarding learning experience for our students.”

Maggie Cassem (who has 10-year-old twins adopted from Guatemala) and her 17-year-old daughter Kaitlynn of Cedar — a future doctor who performed dental hygiene work with the children —were among the locals who embarked on a service-learning trip in February, just three weeks after Hanley’s passing. “I thought I had seen poverty from being down there before to adopt,” says Maggie. “I thought I was somewhat prepared for it. But I just cried when I saw [the people competing with the vultures in the dump for food]. It’s unbelievable what they have to go through to put a meal on the table.”

What struck Wendy Martin, a retired Glen Lake schoolteacher who also visited in February, was the contrast between the dump and its desperation, and the program and the hope it fosters. “You snap a photo of the dump and then turn around and here is this program that offers so much hope, so much faith in the future. [The prevailing mood was not about Hanley’s] death or about how the dump is taking over the city and all human life around it. The new children’s guarderia [daycare] is immaculate. You could eat off the floor in that place, and the kids there are singing, smiling and reading. The overwhelming feeling was one of hope and possibilities.”

Hanley Denning, a native of Yarmouth, Maine and graduate of Bowdoin College, founded Safe Passage in 1999 when she sold her car and computer and returned to Guatemala City to fund a drop-in center for tutoring and shelter. The organization quickly grew into a comprehensive support program that guides children into school and on to graduation. But Hanley, the guiding light of hope for families in the garbage dump, perished on the night of January 18 as she was returning from the capital to her home in nearby Antigua after attending meetings to establish the guarderia so that children in Safe Passage could leave their younger siblings in good hands while continuing their studies. Also killed in the accident was her driver Bayron Aroldo Chiquito de Leon, who was at the wheel.

To those children and their families, Hanley was akin to Mother Teresa. In fact, she was often referred to in the Guatemalan media as the “angel of the garbage dump”. As the news of her passing spread through Guatemala City’s poorest slums, mourners gathered throughout the night at the hospital, and crowds packed the streets at a memorial service later that week, especially grieving mothers with young children. “Before meeting her, I never would have imagined that my children would go far in their studies,” Yolanda Campos, a 33-year-old mother of Safe Passage kids, told the national Prensa Libre.

Hanley twice graced our presence in northern Michigan, most recently at last summer’s Fiesta at the Haggerty Center. Great Lakes Friends has raised over $50,000 for Safe Passage since Hanley’s first visit in 2005. Today, nearly 600 children who live around the Guatemala City dump spend their mornings or afternoons at the program where they receive assistance with school work, a healthy meal (often the only one they eat each day), access to a medical clinic, exposure to the arts, and vocational programs in a caring and safe environment. Many of the children in the program are the first in their families to attend school.

“I want the next president of Guatemala to come out of Safe Passage,” says Paul Sutherland.

Tickets to this year’s “Journey to Guatemala” Fiesta on July 17 at the Hagerty Center in Traverse City are $25 each and can be reserved ahead of time by calling (231) 590-6072 or emailing safepassageglf@yahoo.com. More information about Safe Passage is available at www.safepassage.org. If you’re unable to make it, donations in honor of Hanley Denning — to continue her legacy and sustain Safe Passage – can be sent to Great Lakes Friends, P.O. Box 621, Traverse City, MI.

Posted by editor at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2007

Independence Day Events

Sunday, July 1: Pancake Breakfast, Glen Arbor Towship Hall, 8 a.m.-noon.
Northport Community Band Independence Day Concert, at Glen Arbor Athletic Club, 6 p.m.

Wednesday, July 4: Flag Raising at Old Settler’s Park, 10 a.m. Glen Arbor Fourth of July parade, noon downtown (11 am: Parade lineup in Glen Haven Noon: Annual Fourth of July Parade, usually arrives in Glen Arbor at 12:30. Kazoo Corps, line up at the Christian Science Church parking lot around noon.)Second annual boat parade, 4 p.m., Narrows Bridge at Glen Lakes

July 5-8: Cedar Polka Fest, for more information visit www.leelanau.com/cedar/polka.html

photo by Joanne Rettke

Posted by editor at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2007

“Sunshine” comes to Glen Arbor

By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

In the 1950s there was a performer who made the rounds of the town and country elementary schools in Oceana County every year. His name was Louie Parsons, he was a big gangly guy with glasses, and his puppet show was the highlight of the year out at Benona School, the consolidated K-8 country school planted in a cow pasture in 1956 where I was in the first kindergarten class. He set up a portable puppet stage with a tiny curtain, he always had an assistant for the extra hands, and the puppets he’d made himself performed classic children’s tales in the lunch/recreation room that had a shuffleboard court blended into the floor tiles. Somehow there was always an apple in the story played by a small red rubber ball (the one you used to play Jax). Every year the ball escaped the clutches of a puppet and bounced into the crowd, accidentally-on-purpose, and the wide-eyed little kid who caught it felt very lucky indeed.

Between the puppet shows Louie played the piano. With hands flying and knees bouncing he played rollicking Fats Waller “stride” piano and sang funny lyrics. Then he turned his back to the piano, faced the crowd, reached his big hands behind him, and played a boogie-woogie — backwards! We kids were anxious for the next puppet show, but you could see on the faces of the teachers that it was amazing, and remembering now how he played piano backwards, I realize it was something astonishing that we just took for granted. When Justice of the Peace Howard Garver closed his barber shop and stopped performing shotgun weddings in downtown Shelby, Louie Parsons moved his puppet show stage into the back room of the storefront and let us kids come in for free on some summer Saturdays to be the audience as he prepared his new shows for another school year. The red apple bounced off the stage, Louie played the piano backwards, and we took it all as given and thought “it is what it is.”

Just as astonishing, and not to be taken for granted, is the amazing line-up of music coming to Glen Arbor this summer for the Manitou Music Festival. The result of a collaboration between the Glen Arbor Art Association, Three Musketeers Productions, Connemara Concerts and The Leelanau School, and sponsored in part by Art’s Tavern, Cherry Republic, Anderson’s Market, Traverse City State Bank and the Glen Arbor-Sleeping Bear Chamber of Commerce, 14 shows will fill the town with music between the Summer Solstice and Labor Day. Several shows will happen at the newly renovated Studio Stage behind the Lake Street Studios (across from Cherry Republic) in the “live” center of Glen Arbor. Included on the festival are the annual free Dune Climb concert, a Northport Community Band concert (on the lawn next to the Glen Arbor Athletic Club), an Art’s Collage concert, and a series of top-shelf folk shows, some on the graduation green at The Leelanau School. (See the complete Manitou Music Festival 2007 schedule at www.manitoumusicfestival.com.)

The first concert on June 23 at The Leelanau School is an absolute must-see. Jonathan Edwards will be in town teaching a singing-songwriting workshop all day Saturday before performing on the green at 8 p.m. Saturday night. The cost for the day-long workshop is cheap and is due to the initiative of Patrick Niemisto and Adair Corell, two of the founders of the regional Songwriters in the Round group — local folk musicians who have been performing round-robin shows monthly for 10 years at the Horizon Shine Café in Traverse City.

You will surely remember Jonathan Edward’s 1970s political pop hit “Sunshine”:

“Sunshine go away today, I don’t feel much like dancin’. Some man’s gone, he’s tried to run my life, Don’t know what he’s askin’. Several locals met Jonathan two summers ago at the Hiawatha Music Festival when he wandered into the Niemisto camp and sat around the fire pickin’ for half the night. He is down-to-earth and full of stories from his long career in music, and Jonathan is also brilliant and engaging, with incredible songs and tremendous energy on-stage. Hopefully he’ll arrive early enough to be at the first Beach Bards Bonfire of the season on The Leelanau School Beach on Friday night, June 22 (children’s hour at 8:30, poems, stories and music continue at 10, $1 per being). After the concert Saturday night Jonathan and the singer-songwriters will share music around the bonfire on the beach.

So, this will be a robust season of music in Glen Arbor, and you don’t want to take it for granted and miss something astonishing. Mark your calendars now! Great musicians from all over the country will be in town, and you can reserve tickets by calling the Glen Arbor Art Association at 231-334-6112: How much does it cost? I’ll buy it. The time is all we’ve lost. I’ll try it! Don’t miss it! It is what it is. Sunshine come on back another day. I promise you I’ll be singin’. This old world she’s gonna turn around, brand new bells’ll be ringin’!

Posted by editor at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)

Glen Arbor to host Girls Night Out

Thursday, June 21 will mark the first Girls Night Out, presented by the Glen Lake Chamber of Commerce. The event, to be held at the Glen Arbor town hall from 6-9 p.m., will showcase area businesses specificaly catering to women. Local women and visitors alike are invited to sample the local fare, and to bring many friends. It is hoped that this will be an annual event to kick off summer.

Photo By Don Miller

Posted by editor at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)

April 30, 2007

Park considers public input on eve of new Management Plan

The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (the local branch of the National Park Service) will hold three public meetings this week, May 1-3, to solicit public input about the three “Preferred Alternatives” suggested in a recent newsletter, toward developing a new General Management Plan that would guide the Park for decades to come.

The photo looks west across the Glen Lakes toward the Dune Climb and Lake Michigan. Photo by Don Miller.

The public meetings will be held on Tuesday, May 1 from 6-8:30 p.m. at Platte River Elementary School (11434 Main St.) in nearby Honor, MI; Wednesday, May 2 from 6-8:30 at the Glen Arbor Township Hall; and Thursday, May 3 from 5:30-8 at the Traverse Area District Library (610 Woodmere Ave.) in Traverse City.

“The upcoming public meetings allow for (comments in the venue of a public meeting), and afford an additional opportunity for the public to talk directly to the planning team,” Park Superintendent Dusty Shultz said in a recent press release. “It’s very important to me that we continue to stay as transparent as possible and provide whatever clarification the public needs during the planning process.”

The National Lakeshore last attempted to choose a General Management Plan in 2002, but the Preferred Alternative favored by the Park proved unpopular with the northern Michigan public — since it called for closing virtually all dune and trail access outside of the Dune Climb itself, and would have shifted overall focus away from human recreation and toward wilderness preservation — that it was eventually scrapped. (You can read a guest editorial by a Park insider published in the Glen Arbor Sun on July 18, 2002, calling for the public to reject that Alternative).

The Park is currently following the 1981 Wilderness Recommendation to determine what areas of the Lakeshore should be accessible to the public, and to what measure, and what areas should be set aside as wilderness. Yet the Park admits these 1981 guidelines are out of date and need to be amended.

Of the three Preferred Alternatives to be presented this week, Alternative A calls for approximately 3,000 extra acres of the Park to be classified as wilderness, mostly in the Sleeping Bear Plateau west of the Dune Climb and Glen Haven; Alternative B calls for eliminating the wilderness designation everywhere except North Manitou Island, and highlights recreational opportunities; and Alternative C calls for “concentrating visitor use in selected areas” while promoting “more natural, primitive conditions” elsewhere in the Park.

The National Lakeshore has set an unofficial deadline for public comments of May 14, though the new Preferred Alternative won’t be finalized before 2008. If you’re unable to attend any of this week’s public meetings, you can view the alternatives and comment on the Park’s website.

Posted by editor at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2006

Glen Lake Library holds holiday book drive, “Stories & More”

From staff reports

A special holiday tradition continues as we kick off our eight annual call for children’s books on November 15. The Friends of the Glen Lake Community Library, in cooperation with Glen Lake School’s “Parenting Communities” program (formerly the “Way To Grow” program), are seeking donations of new books for children in our community whose families are in need of assistance this holiday season.

Kathy Bartell, the coordinator for the “Parenting Communities” program for the Glen Lake Schools compiles a “wish list” of boys and girls from preschool through age 11. She calls on such groups as Head Start and the Glen Lake Elementary School as well as her own “Parenting Communities” program for names of families that need assistance. Any family can find themselves in hard times and the goal is to make sure the kids still have some holiday joy in the form of a special book. The list is available at the Glen Lake Library in Empire and at the Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor. Donors are asked to purchase a book for a child on this list and deliver it gift-wrapped to the library by December 15. The Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor will kindly provide a 20 percent discount on any books purchased for this program. Last year, over 100 books were donated. The list grows longer every year, so please help us bring the joy of books to these children for the holidays. The best part of this Book Drive is that we know all the books go to children in our own community.

“Stories & More,” a weekly program of stories and activities for preschoolers, is held on Thursdays at 11 a.m. at the Glen Lake Community library and continues throughout the school year.

Posted by editor at 06:28 PM | Comments (0)

Community Thanksgiving: America Unchained!

From staff reports

On November 18, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, communities around the country will celebrate America Unchained! — a national event sponsored by the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA), that urges communities to “unchain themselves” and to shop only at locally owned independent businesses for the day. AMIBA is inviting all independent retailers, independent business alliances, and independent trade associations to join in the third annual event.

Photo by Ryan Romeike

“We timed America Unchained! deliberately and strategically,” said Jennifer Rockne, AMIBA director. “Our goal is to get the public’s attention before the onset of the annual holiday shopping frenzy — before their attention is colonized by events and the advertising barrage.” America Unchained! focuses on community economics by helping citizens recognize the fiscal benefit of shopping at local independent businesses — and to think about the impact of where they choose to spend their dollars, not only for the upcoming holiday season, but every day.

“The media love to use ‘Black Friday’ to depict the nature of holiday shopping, but their chosen image is of shoppers exiting chain stores with armloads. It’s a soulless, superficial portrayal,” said Rockne. “America Unchained! primarily is a media event that carries a strong educational message about community economics and provides a way to remind people that independent businesses are part of the holiday shopping experience — and a better one all around.... We’d like to shift more holiday spending to independent businesses, but we also want to restore some humanity and meaning to the act of giving a gift.”

As in previous years, a key focus of the America Unchained! event is the findings of Civic Economics’ Andersonville Study and "”Economic Impact Analysis — A Case Study: Local Merchants vs. Chain Retailers”, both of which clearly illustrate that local retailers return more economic value to the community than do chain retailers.

“We know, through economic impact studies such as the Austin Independent Business Alliance’s, Andersonville and Mid-Coast Maine, that communities are huge beneficiaries when people shop locally owned,” Rockne continued, “so focusing on community economics is a useful bridge for this campaign that gives the act of gift-giving added meaning.”

America Unchained! evolved out of a 2003 event, Austin Unchained, which was held by the Austin Independent Business Alliance, an AMIBA affiliate headed by Steve Bercu of BookPeople. Austin alliance members organized the event to demonstrate that even one day of shopping at locally owned businesses would have a significant economic impact on the city.

In conjunction with the event, the Austin Independent Business Alliance commissioned “An Analysis of the Potential Economic Impact of Austin Unchained,” a study conducted by Civics Economics that indicated its expectations were correct. “The economic impact of a successful Austin Unchained event will be measured in the millions of dollars,” the report said. “This is the equivalent of dozens of new jobs in our community from a single day of changed consumer behavior.”

“The Austin Independent Business Alliance generated substantial local media exposure to drum up community support and participation,” Rockne said. “Combined with their posters, fliers, t-shirts, the word got out and the community joined in to inject millions into Austin's economy.” AMIBA hopes that its national campaign will multiply that effect with each participating community and continue to spread the collective message.

“The media love this event because it’s edgy, and its timeliness is perfect, both for the pertinence of the local versus chain issue and for its proximity to the holiday shopping season,” Rockne explained.

AMIBA provides templates for posters, a logo, button designs, press releases and more for local customization. All of the materials will soon be available for download from the AMIBA website, www.amiba.net. AMIBA also encourages participants to develop their own organizational items.

Posted by editor at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2006

Annual smorgasbord unveils the food spread

From staff reports

The Glen Arbor Women’s Club will hold its annual smorgasbord and raffle on Saturday, October 7 from 6-8 p.m. at the Township Hall.

Raffle tickets cost $5 for six of $1 each. Prizes include: a framed watercolor painting by Ted Peterson; a weekend rental for two from Leelanau Vacation Rentals; a signed print by Kristin Hurlin; a handmade quilt by Marilyn Mook; a hand-knitted sweater from The Yarn Shop; a peace pole designed by Peace Pole Makers USA; a Beachstone watch from Becky Thatcher Designs; a two-night stay including golf or skiing at The Homestead.

Proceeds from last year’s event supported the following community programs: $5,000 for three scholarships for Glen Lake High School graduates; $330 for Glen Lake High School’s freshman leadership camp; $200 for Glen Lake High School’s Close-Up; $50 for The Leelanau School activity fund; $25 for Glen Lake Fire and Rescue; and $200 for soccer player Emily Hubbell.

In English, the word “smorgasbord” is known as any buffet with a variety of dishes. The Swedish word smörgåsbord is a combination of the word smörgås, which means sandwich (or literally “buttered”) and bord, which means table; so a smörgåsbord is literally a sandwich table. This is a bit of a misnomer, since there is a lot more than sandwiches on it.

A traditional Swedish smörgåsbord consists of both hot and cold dishes. It is customary to begin with the cold fish dishes (generally various forms of herring, salmon, eel etc), continue with the other cold dishes, and round off with the hot dishes (of course including meatballs, and other Swedish specialties).

Admission to the Women’s Club smorgasbord costs $12 for adults and $5 for children 10 and under.

Wikipedia.org contributed to this report.

Posted by editor at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)

Field of Screams Annual Haunted Hayride

Travel through the haunted forest on a tractor-pulled haywagon. Enjoy eerie theatrics, startling events, ghouls and spooks. Everyone is welcome, small children at parents discretion. Celebtrate Halloween with a night of fright!

Two Fridays and two Saturdays before Halloween: October 20, 21, 27 and 28 from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. each night.

$10 per victim, refreshments for survivors.

Sponsored by Empire Eagles. M-72 one mile West of 669.

Call (231) 325-6021 or email hauntedhayride@hotmail.com.

Posted by editor at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2006

Los Gatos to purr through Lake Street Studios

From staff reports

As part of the resurgence of performance art at the Lake Street Studios, and for this year’s Glen Arbor Art Association benefit concert, the Los Gatos will perform behind the studios across the street from Cherry Republic on Saturday, August 19 at 7:30 p.m. Los Gatos is a Latin jazz ensemble led by percussionist Pete Sears and also featuring a kunga, bass and keyboard. “They are a quintet with vibes,” says Harry Fried, who put together this concert. “Very happening, upbeat and danceable.” Los Gatos are the house band at Ann Arbor’s well-known Firefly Club and play everything from Latin versions of jazz standards to salsa music.

“This is the closest you’ll get to riding a Central American chicken bus in Glen Arbor,” Harry predicts.

Tickets for the Los Gatos concert cost $15 in advance or $20 at the door for adults and $10 in advance or $17 at the door for students. Admission is free for children 12 and under. Advance tickets can be purchased at the Lake Street Studios or at the Glen Arbor Art Association until August 12. Bring chairs and blankets.

Posted by editor at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)

July 27, 2006

Dunegrass Festival ’06 tops the charts

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

This region has hosted some pretty bitchin’ musical acts over the years, but never have we seen a lineup this juicy: Electric Hot Tuna, Song of the Lakes, the Neptune Quartet, Steppin’ In It, Seth Bernard & Daisy May and wait, listen to this, Greg Brown and Iris Dement! Do not miss this year’s Dunegrass Festival, August 4-6 in the heart of Empire.

Jeremiah Sequoia and the crew at Grassroots Productions took over the Dunegrass Festival last year and brought it back from the brink of closing down, and now they have one heck of an encore on tap. Rest assured, the Village of Empire will be the envy of folk and bluegrass lovers all over the country.

Photos by Kali Coles

That’s right, Greg Brown, one of the most popular male folksingers in America, will visit our town — he of the kindred Midwestern spirit with the Ozarks voice, the poet’s tongue and child’s demeanor. Short of Bob Dylan, himself (pre-1965), what more could we want?

Music aficionados should also recognize the other names on tap for the three-day festival (check out the lineup at www.dunegrassfestival.com). Electric Hot Tuna played here last year. The Neptune Quartet and Song of the Lakes are well-known northern Michigan bands with mileage and charisma. Seth and Daisy and the boys from Steppin’ In It have wowed every crowd they’ve met in Michigan.

Throw in the local gangs Cabin Fever, the New Third Coast and K. Jones and the Benzie Playboyz and you’ve got a small-town aura that connects this star-studded festival with past Dunegrass blasts.

Last year’s highlight Vince Welnick, who passed away earlier this summer, will be remembered during the final act on Friday night with a Tom Constanten & Friends Tribute. Tom and Vince both played with the Grateful Dead during the famed band’s early days (As we speak Vince is up in heaven jamming with Jerry!). And Saturday night runs late with Electric Hot Tuna and Cornmeal jamming late into the night.

But for folk music lovers, Sunday is the day. Settle into a lawn chair or picnic blanket, chow down on some of the great, and healthy food the vendors sell, and enjoy Seth and Daisy (played Empire’s Asparagus Festival in May), Song of the Lakes, the Neptune Quartet, Iris DeMent, Steppin’ In It, and Greg Brown.

Tickets are more expensive this year, and that reflects the quality of the music. Pre-sold weekend passes cost $75 ($90 at the gate), Friday and Saturday only $45, Saturday and Sunday only $55, Friday only $25 ($30 at the gate), Saturday only $30 ($35 at the gate), Sunday only $30 ($35 at the gate). Weekend camping passes cost $15, $10 for Saturday and Sunday, and $5 for Sunday only. Buy tickets locally at East Shore Market in Beulah, Cedar City Market in Cedar, the Cabbage Shed in Elberta, Deering’s Market in Empire, Kejara’s Bridge in Lake Leelanau, Café Bliss in Suttons Bay, or Horizon Books and Oryana Natural Foods in Traverse City or visit www.dunegrassfestival.com.

Posted by editor at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)

Lake Street Studios bring back performance with Arts Collage

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

The action is returning to the Lake Street Studios. On Saturday, July 29, the Studios, across from Cherry Republic on Glen Arbor’s Lake Street, will hold their first ever Arts Collage, featuring visual arts, wine tasting, readings, live music, multimedia entertainment and even a “performance philosopher.”

The Studios’ Center Gallery is known for its art openings every Friday of the summer, but the Arts Collage offers visitors a chance to learn more about the process. Stop by between 12-4 p.m. for the visual arts program (free admission) and watch the experts in action to learn about blacksmithing, glass bead making, fiber arts, ceramics, pastels and painting. Meanwhile, just up the street the Cottage Book Shop will host youth readings and storytelling.

J & I Wines will hold a free wine tasting in the Center Gallery from 6-7 p.m., and the real fun begins with the performing arts program from 7-11 p.m. (admission $5). Bring lawn chairs and find a spot on the green behind the Studios as a contemporary urban fusion band called the Urbaniginies warm up the night, followed by performance philosopher Paul Spence. The second set features readings by Jerry Dennis and Keith Taylor and original folk music by Gen Obata.

The Arts Collage will reach its crescendo after 9:30 p.m. with a multimedia performance by filmmaker and artist Andrea Maio and jazz and poetry by The Turtlenecks.

The brains behind this cool and unique gathering is Harry Fried, who splits his time between Ann Arbor and Glen Arbor and is married to Allison Stupka, one of the daughters of the late Suzanne Wilson, who was a stalwart on the Glen Arbor art scene before passing away two years ago.

Since the Glen Arbor Art Association and the Lake Street Studios split up and went their separate ways, the Studios have lost their classroom aspect and emphasis on performing arts, Harry feels. The Manitou Music Festival became part of the Art Association, and the stage behind the Lake Street Studios has hardly been used while the Studios have been devoted largely to the visual arts and Friday night openings.

But at the art opening and memorial for Suzanne Wilson last year Allison invited the Ellen Rowe Quartet to play, and that got Harry thinking. “The music started here at the Studios, and over the last 20 years that stage has featured many great acts, concerts and plays. I’ve always been impressed that a little town like Glen Arbor could find the quality that has come here.

Harry began re-conceptualizing the stage as another studio. “We are an art center after all, so we should have a broad palette of offerings that will appear on stage throughout the summer: readings, music of all different styles and theater.”

The Arts Collage on July 29 is the culmination of that vision, to be followed by a Latin jazz concert on August 19 featuring the hot Ann Arbor band Los Gatos.

Tickets can be purchased at the Lake Street Studios and parking is available at the Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company.

Posted by editor at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)

Friends of Library hold popular annual book sale

By Jane Greiner
Sun contributor

Thousands of good used books will be offered for sale at the popular Friends of the Glen Lake Community Library book sale on August 3-5. Each year crowds of book lovers flock to the Glen Arbor Town Hall to look over the tables of books and pick out armloads of mysteries, bestsellers, popular fiction and nonfiction, all for fifty cents to $1 each. There are also individually priced children’s books, DVDs, CDs, games and puzzles and collectible books.

Thursday, August 3 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Preview Party with wine, hors d’oeuvres, lemonade and cookies. Your $5 admission ticket gets you first choice of all the books plus and an opportunity to bid in the silent auction on special autographed and unusual books.

Friday August 4 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Regular sale, free admission.

Saturday August 5 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Regular sale in the morning. Bargain Bag sale after 2 p.m. Fill a grocery bag with books for one low price.

Friends volunteer Lyn Becker reports that this year finding the books you like will be easier because all the books have been “exceptionally well organized with nonfiction books divided into categories and fiction books alphabetized by author.”

She said that members have been “been busy sorting books into categories and pricing them all year.”

All profits support the library through purchases such as new library shelves and on-going commitments for new books, DVDs and periodicals.

Library director David Diller said that the Friends “work on the book sale throughout the year, pretty actively, and mostly right here at the library.” Then, as the date approaches, “they recruit extra people to help get the books to and from the sale. So, it’s a big group effort.” He sees it as a major library event. “It definitely helps us financially.”

Posted by editor at 07:29 PM | Comments (0)

Civil War units highlight Port Oneida Fair

Press release

The cavalry is coming. So is the heavy artillery, the infantry, and the sharpshooters. Civil War re-enactors will highlight this year’s Port Oneida Fair.

On Friday August 4 and Saturday August 5 the Port Oneida Rural Historic District of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will host the fifth annual Port Oneida Fair. The two-day event showcases the crafts, skills and activities that made rural life productive and enjoyable in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Many of the early settlers in Port Oneida and Northwest Lower Michigan were veterans of the Civil War. The war was a major event in their lives and the lives of their families. The Civil War units will demonstrate authentic uniforms and equipment and show their camps and drills. The soldiers will also talk about their experiences during the war. The soldiers will be accompanied by military band, Women’s Aid Societies from both the North and South and a peddler who traveled with the army. This is a rare opportunity to experience living history in this part of the state.

In addition to the Civil War re-enactors, over 100 exhibitors will demonstrate early farm skills and crafts from barn building to quilt making. On hand will be spinners, blacksmiths, buggy makers, potters, broom makers, weavers and many more. Each exhibitor is happy to explain their craft while you watch them work. A favorite each year are the big gentle oxen who will be mowing hay, followed by a team of work horses raking and loading the hay on to a wagon. Kids can help unload the wagon and build a haystack. There will be lots of other activities for kids to try such as traditional games and toys. Everyone will also be able to experience some of the daily chores like cutting wood or washing clothes by hand.

Traditional community bands, fiddlers and a variety of other musicians will provide music during both days of the fair.

The Fair is sponsored by The Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes with a grant from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. Several local partner groups help with the planning and presentation of the fair along with many volunteers. The event takes place at five historic farms and a one-room school house in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District, located four miles north of Glen Arbor in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Fair hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day with special events taking place periodically. There will be an abundance of activities at each of the six locations so moving between the fair sites by horse and wagon, trolley, bike or just walking across the fields is a special part of the fun of the Port Oneida Fair.

The Port Oneida Rural Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, showcases life at the turn of the century through a community of eighteen farmsteads from the late 1800’s to mid 1900’s. The District is the largest historic agricultural community fully protected by government ownership in the nation. The Port Oneida community has stories to tell about the pioneer and maritime past of Northern Lower Michigan. Over the years, these farms and cultural resources have been loved by many for what they add to the pastoral Leelanau landscape. Now these historic buildings and meadows are interpreting history through such events as the Port Oneida Fair.

A Stone That Rises:
Inspired by the lives of Elizabeth and Carston Burfiend

By Anne-Marie Oomen, music by Norm Wheeler

Elizabeth:

“What could I say? A clear day, and the schooner is way out, coming in. The cordwood stacked high, all down the beach. And I think, well maybe it will bring some good fabric for a baby dress, or some salt. Maybe … and I see the white ship coming closer and closer, riding the wind, and steam engine puffing, and my husband and this Thomas Kelderhouse standing at the dock, and I look for the name. Oneida. Thomas, he struts, talks with the Captain, and tells everyone the name of the town is Port Oneida. (Music Out) That night, when the house gets quiet, I find the word in the big book of English. Oneida. The name of an Indian people, the word for the great stone that come to them wherever they went, a stone for the Oneida. That’s what their name for the people means. The stone that showed wherever they settled. A stone is a hard thing, and we have the stones that rise and break the plow blades. I know that kind of stone. But a stone big enough to stand for a people. It would be our great pyramid bluff. Ah, it could be, a great bluff standing for the people. This Thomas, he would make his town, but we had the stone.”

Posted by editor at 03:30 PM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2006

The Greencards, an American Composer, Prairie Winds open festival

From staff reports

The Manitou Music Festival, under the auspices of the Glen Arbor Art Association, will kick off its 2006 season with the traditional Dune Climb Concert in collaboration with the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Sunday, July 16, at 7 p.m.

The headlining act this year is The Greencards, a “new grass” acoustic band whose members crossed continents to collide deep in the heart of Texas, quickly making a name for themselves in the Austin music scene. Their passion was so strong they crossed oceans and continents to chase down the driving rhythm and high harmonies of bluegrass in the land where it was born. But because of their backgrounds they couldn’t help but infuse their brand of bluegrass with a different, more global energy.

After releasing their first album, Movin’ On, Aussies Kym Warner (mandolin, vocals) and Carol Young (bass, vocals) and Brit Eamon McLoughlin quickly made a name for themselves and masterfully played one of the most energetic sets of the 2004 Austin City Limits Music Festival.

Though they’re steeped in the tradition of bluegrass, The Greencards weave influences as disparate as Bob Dylan, Ricky Skaggs and The Beatles into a compelling new brand of acoustic music. They honor the past, but refuse to live in it. That’s why they continue to push at the boundaries of bluegrass and Americana music.

The Greencards’ second record, Weather and Water, is a seamless blend of old and new. The opening “Ghost of Who We Were,” featuring Young’s aching vocals is a plaintive tour de force that echoes Alison Krauss at her melodically melancholy best. “Almost Home” is a fluid instrumental that showcases the band’s musical prowess. The centerpiece of the album — chronologically, musically and emotionally — is “Time.” This standout track, a meditation on past experiences, mixes dreamy harmonies and a melody that rolls along like a lazy river.

Fitting, because this season the Manitou Music Festival will honor the theme “Weather and Water” throughout its concerts.

An American Composer: Edward Joseph Collins

The Manitou Music Festival’s opening chamber concert on July 20 at 7:30 p.m. at the Glen Lake Community Reformed Church will reunite three performers: violinist Michelle Makarski, pianist Maria Meirelles and cellist Debra Fayroian, who also directs the festival. The trio will collaborate in a performance of Brahms Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, Op.101. This concert is also devoted to the music of American Composer, Edward Joseph Collins (1886-1951) with his suite for cello and arabesque for violin. With elegance and sweet remembrance the evening is a classical reunion of musicians and brings together a composer and his youngest son who resides in Leland

“This concert came from a discussion last summer with (the composer’s son) Ed Collins,” says Fayroian. “I was impressed with beauty of his father’s compositions and I did some research on him. Fayroian goes on to call Collins Sr. a very important composer in American classical music. He taught in Chicago, Berlin and the famous Bayreuth festival in Bavaria. Fayroian intends to feature some notes on the composer at the concert.

Prairie Winds & More

The Prairie Winds makes a return appearance to the Manitou Music Festival on July 27 at 7:30 p.m., also at the Glen Lake Community Reformed Church, with a multi-media concert featuring a performance of the French silent film, Cavalcade d'Amour (1939) with music by Darius Milhaud. Absorb the sounds of the exquisite music by French composer Darius Milhaud while viewing this short romantic comedy film (which they’ve promised Fayroian is G-rated). The film is divided into three sections, each depicting a romance occurring within the walls of the Chateau de Champs. Other works on the program will include the Carmen Suite by Georges Bizet and music of Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla.

Since their debut in 1996, The Prairie Winds have captivated audiences throughout the United States with performances that present the finest wind quintet literature in concert programs that entertain as well as enlighten. In addition to their busy touring schedule, the quintet also has an active radio presence: recent broadcasts include full-length concerts for Chicago's WFMT-FM “Live from Studio One” program and for listeners of Minnesota Public Radio. These musicians blend powerful musical technique with humor and intriguing background information to create what one critic called “a unique approach to the shaping of the concert experience (that) is sure to keep them in demand.”

What’s also new this year is the Manitou Music Festival using the Glen Lake Reformed Church over previous venues for its classical concerts. “It’s a larger area and we don’t have to share the space with other events,” Fayroian points out. “It’s a better listening environment too. The sound is beautiful.”

Posted by editor at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)

Northern Michiganders give Guatemalan children a Safe Passage

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

GUATEMALA CITY — The children’s Christmas pageant at Safe Passage, near the dump in this gritty urban hell, resembled similar pageants all across the United States last December. Kids dressed up in costumes made of brown crate paper or wings made out of yarn string, and danced in front of their proud mothers. They were what they deserved to be — children.

Safe Passage (Camino Seguro in Spanish), now one of the most successful, non-governmental children’s aid organizations in Central America, offers a way for children who all but grow up scavenging for food alongside vultures in the garbage dump to return to school while not worrying about the source of their next meal, and eventually work toward economic self-sufficiency for them and their families.

Over the last year a handful of northern Michigan philanthropists have formed the Great Lakes Friends of Safe Passage, a local chapter devoted to helping the efforts in Guatemala City and nearby Antigua, and nearly 20 members of our community have traveled to Guatemala to witness the poverty there and learn about the programs that now offer hope to so many children. Some took photos to help raise awareness; some sponsored children; some volunteered their labor to improve infrastructure; some gave medical services and supplies — but all brought hope to the children of Safe Passage. And these northern Michiganders returned home even more inspired to work together as a community to support Safe Passage.

The Great Lake Friends will welcome back Safe Passage founder Hanley Denning on Wednesday, July 19 for a celebration and fundraising event at the Hagerty Conference Center in downtown Traverse City. A native of Maine, Denning spearheaded Safe Passage after she traveled to Guatemala in 1999 and felt compelled to take action when she saw families living around the city’s enormous garbage dump in Zone 3, scavenging for food or anything they could sell to survive. Children worked alongside their parents or were left unsupervised in the streets. Not in school, unable to read or write, these children faced the same bleak future endured by their parents.

Starting in a small chapel next to the dump, Denning offered a safe place for children to drop in and get a healthy meal, gradually building an innovative educational program. Today, over 500 children are served, from preschool to high school, receiving comprehensive support and tutoring as they attend school and work toward economic self-sufficiency. Safe Passage is a community of local and international volunteers and a Guatemalan staff working to provide hope and assistance to families living in the dump. State of the art facilities now provide a safe refuge where children come daily to gain the confidence and skills needed to obtain stable jobs and lead their families out of the cycle of poverty.

“One little boy (at the Christmas pageant) was mad he didn’t get a costume, so he blew his nose on someone else’s costume,” remembers Lorraine Beers, who represented a delegation from the Traverse City Rotary Club in mid-December along with her husband Mack, Jim Modrall and Amy Borer. The quartet spent four days in Guatemala, touring the project sites, the cla