“Graffiti artist at heart” Charles Boike bringing street art vitality to Flint
By Jan Worth-Nelson Charles Boike long ago gave up his “life of crime” in the name of art. But Boike, 36, who has been described as an “urban graffiti artist at heart,” definitely has not given up his life of art. Now a practicing attorney with a wife and baby daughter, the Fenton artist has been for years creating high energy, vibrantly colorful murals all over Flint, from Buckham Alley to Totem Books to the...
Review: The Rep’s “Glass Menagerie” honorably recreates the classic’s poignant memory-scape
By Patsy Isenberg “The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music. That explains the fiddle in the wings. I am the narrator of the play, and also a character in it. The other characters are my mother Amanda, my sister Laura and a gentleman caller who appears in the final scenes.” Those are some of the opening lines spoken by the...
“America: The Farewell Tour” by Chris Hedges: a review
Reviewed by Robert R. Thomas An unsettling childhood memory is that things were not as they seemed, and nobody was talking about it. My brother Alan succinctly described our childhood milieu as a “culture of silence.” While reading America: The Farewell Tour, by Chris Hedges, that childhood culture of silence revisited me. The book’s chapters—DECAY, HEROIN, WORK, SADISM, HATE, GAMBLING and FREEDOM—are lucid reveals about the fall of...
Review: Katie Stanley Band interlaces themes of love and loss in polished “Lake Superior”
By Jeffery L. Carey Jr. Very few local bands are as polished and professional sounding as the Flint-based Katie Stanley Band. With the recent release of Katie Stanley’s third EP titled, Lake Superior, it would seem the band is progressing in the right direction. As a singer/songwriter myself, I looked for several criteria in the EP that generally create a well constructed record. I focused on whether Lake Superior had a theme within...
Flint Repertory Theatre presents “The Wolves,” for teens and adults, through Feb.17
By Patsy Isenberg On Feb.8, a Pulitzer Prize drama finalist for 2017, “The Wolves,” opened at The Flint Repertory Theatre (The Rep) in the 100-seat Bower Theater. Its all-female cast gives the audience a fly-on-the-wall observation of a nine-girl high school soccer team at practice. The only other character is referred to as “Soccer Mom” and she doesn’t appear until near the end of the play. The team members are never referred to by...
“Miracles and Glory Abound”: Artwork of Vanessa German at FIA through April 20
By Harold C. Ford Editor’s Note: EVM staff writer Harold C. Ford also is a provisional docent at the Flint Institute of Arts (FIA) and was present in a dual capacity during a walk-through of Vanessa German’s new exhibit at the FIA Jan. 25. Miracles and Glory Abound opened to the general public Jan. 27. “The future belongs to the human beings who have the creativity and the courage to live inside the truth.” …Vanessa German, 2017...
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