Village Life: In LA or Flint, tai chi yields gifts of challenge, elation, peace
By Teddy Robertson “Breathe from the diaphragm,” says Beverly, my tai chi instructor. “Clear your mind; try to go slowly,” she reminds us before we begin. We never go slowly enough. We stand in two rows in a large room, the dining hall in a senior center. Some wear the thin-soled martial arts slippers that help in tai chi’s turns and kicks, glides and slides. Through its floor-to-ceiling windows a hummingbird jabs at the orange and...
I love Flint: Baker’s dozen reasons why my town is NOT the 11th “Worst City to Live In”
By Harold C. Ford I’m an unabashed, unashamed, scream-it-from-the-rooftops supporter/defender of Flint. And yet once again, my hometown was put on another “worst” list. This time it was a publication called 24/7 Wall St. Using “an index of over two dozen measures to identify the worst cities to live in,” Flint was ranked the 11th worst in the U.S. I was drawn to the article while perusing the website of the Detroit Free...
Village Life: Of elusive joy, lamentations and “wanton love”
By Jan Worth-Nelson Sometimes you have to fight for joy. At a recent East Village Magazine party at my house, wine flowed and four kinds of pasta from Flour and Eggs, comfort food extraordinaire, disappeared in thick hunks from trays on the big table, two extra leaves put in for the occasion. I’d put up some colored lights and we toasted to neighborliness and the power of words. It was a happy night. But as we jovially...
Thanksgiving memoir: Temple of the City — a story of Atwood Stadium
By Gary L. Fisher NOTE: Gary Fisher, a local historian, spoke on the history of the venerable Atwood Stadium at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15 at the Genesee County Historical Society at the Durant-Dort Carriage Company office, 316 W. Water St., Flint. My first trip to Flint’s Atwood Stadium is seared in to my brain. My mom told me my dad would have a big surprise for me when he got home for work. As a five-year-old I assumed that meant...
Commentary: Bent but not broken–remember Flint’s history of fighting back
By Ted Nelson This is a lightly edited transcript of Ted Nelson’s speech at the Flint Institute of Arts on Oct. 21, 2018 When the makers of “JFK: The Last Speech” arrived in Flint to shoot scenes for their award-winning documentary movie recently shown at the Flint Institute of Arts (FIA), they were eager to take what Jan [Worth-Nelson, EVM editor and Ted’s wife] and I now sadly refer to as the “ruin porn” tour...
For a Las Vegas native, difference between virtual and real hit home
By Dylan Doherty I was hesitant when my fiancée, Kelsey Ronan, suggested I write for East Village Magazine. Unlike her, I was not born in Flint, Michigan, or even the Midwest. I didn’t have the fascination and dedication to the city where I spent twenty years of my youth that Kelsey displayed for Flint. Instead I thought of my home town as a black hole, a negative space bending all surrounding architectural and cultural ideas towards...
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