Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Flint Photos: Detroit Tigers Exhibition Game at Atwood Stadium in the Fifties



Flint Photos: The Willson Park Sycamore in Springtime




Illinois Avenue: A Tale of Two Houses

My grandparents' former home on the 1500 block of Illinois Avenue is still beating the odds and looking good on Flint's troubled East Side. Only three owners in its history and none was a speculator or a slumlord.


I can't say the same for the house across the street.


Flint Photos: The Former Sweet Marie's Candy Shop on Chippewa Street




Flint Photos: Spring in the Vehicle City





Monday, April 21, 2014

Sit-Down and Fight



This may not be online for long, so watch it while you can.


Sunday, April 20, 2014

Happy Easter from Smith-Bridgman's


Clearly not the most lovable bunny. He seems a little angry and his unwavering gaze is disconcerting. But Easter-themed items related to Flint were hard to come by. Avoid eye contact.




Saturday, April 19, 2014

Upcoming events for "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City" by Gordon Young


• Thursday, April 24, 2014
6:30pm
Q & A and Book Signing
Kahuna Coffee
1836 Old U.S. Highway 23
Howell, Michigan
Author Connor Coyne interviews Gordon Young, author of Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City. Books will be available for purchase and signing. The event is in conjunction with the Michigan Notable Book Awards and is sponsored by the Cromaine Public Library.

• Friday, April 25, 2014
6:00 pm
Meet the Author and Book Signing
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Genesee Valley Mall
4370 Miller Rd.
Flint, Michigan

• Sunday, April 27, 2014
1:00 pm
33rd Annual Northern California Book Awards Reception, Reading, and Book Signing
Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin Street
San Francisco, California
You are all heartily invited to join all the nominees for the Northern California Book Awards for readings and remarks by the winners, followed by a reception and book signings by the authors. Free and open to the public. It’s a great way to support local writers.


For more information visit www.teardownbook.com


Flint Artifacts: Fisher Body I.D.




Flint Artifacts: Channel 12 Do Nothing Club Button




Leaving Home

"She was nobody here. It was not just that she had no friends and family; it was rather that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant anything. The rooms in the house on Friary Street belonged to her, she thought; when she moved in them she was really there. In the town, if she walked to the shop or to the Vocational School, the air, the light, the ground, it was all solid and part of her, even if she met no one familiar. Nothing here was part of her. It was false, empty, she thought."
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

Monday, April 14, 2014

Teardown Nominated for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Awards


Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City by Gordon Young has been nominated for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Awards for Creative Nonfiction. The award honors the top authors in Northern California and is presented and sponsored by Northern California Book Reviewers, Poetry Flash, Center for the Art of Translation, Red Room, PEN West, Mechanics' Institute, San Francisco Public Library, Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, and Readers Bookstore at the Main. 

Winners will be announced on Sunday, April 27 at Koret Auditorium in the San Francisco Main Library at an awards ceremony from 1:00-2:30 p.m., followed by a book signing and reception from 2:30-4:00 p.m. The Program includes readings and remarks by this year's award-winning authors. It is free and open to the public.

CREATIVE NONFICTION
Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco, Gary Kamiya, Bloomsbury
The Cooked Seed, Anchee Min, Bloomsbury
The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca Solnit, Viking
Beyond the Possible: 50 Years of Radical Change at Glide, Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani, HarperOne
Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City, Gordon Young, University of California Press


POETRY
Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, Brenda Hillman, Wesleyan 
Black Crow Dress, Roxane Beth Johnson, Alice James Books
Spiral Trace, Jack Marshall, Coffee House Press
The Palace of Contemplating Departure, Brynn Saito, Red Hen Press
Here Come the Warm Jets, Alli Warren, City Lightsbrn

FICTION
At Night We Walk in Circles, Daniel Alarcon, Riverhead
Sorrow, Catherine Gammon, Braddock Avenue Books
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells, Andrew Sean Greer, Ecco
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Anthony Marra, Hogarth
Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, Peter Orner, Little, Brown

GENERAL NONFICTION
Down by the Bay: San Francisco's History Between the Tides, Matthew Morse Booker, University of California Press
League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth, Mark Fainaru-Wada, and Steve Fainaru, Crown Archetype
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, Eric Schlosser, The Penguin Press
Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage, Susan Shillinglaw, University of Nevada Press
An Atomic Love Story: The Extraordinary Women in Robert Oppenheimer's Life,Shirley Streshinsky and Patricia Klaus, Turner Publishing

TRANSLATION
Fiction
The Mongolian Conspiracy, Rafael Bernal, translated by Katherine Silver from the Spanish, New Directions
The Mehlis Report, Rabee Jaber, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid from the Arabic, New Directions
The Art of Joy, Goliarda Sapienza, translated by Anne Milano Appel from the Italian, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Poetry
Poems of Consummation, Vicente Aleixandre, translated from the Spanish by Stephen Kessler, Black Widow Press
Colonies, poems, Tomasz Rozycki, translated from the Polish by Mira Rosenthal, Zephyr Press
Landscape with Yellow Birds, Selected Poems, José Ángel Valente, translated from the Spanish by Thomas Christensen, Archipelago Books 

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
Younger Readers
Mira's Diary: Home Sweet Rome, Marissa Moss, Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Battle Bunny, Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett, Simon & Schuster 
The Dark, Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers 
Middle Grade/Young Adult
Freakboy, Kristin Elizabeth Clark, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Tarnish, Katherine Longshore, Viking
Lara's Gift, Annemarie O'Brien, Knopf


David Blake Fischer on Gym Shorts, Tank Tops, and Life Coaches

Los Angeles write David Blake Fischer, who grew up on Nolen Drive in Flint, describes what happens when your life coach buys you a tank top and gym shorts in McSweeney's:
"I could belong to one of any number of fitness clubs. In my athletic shorts and tank top I could attend spin classes, sweaty yoga, or regular yoga. And I could meet new people. We could walk the treadmills together, making small talk about pets, our favorite television shows, or other fitness related topics. I could forge friendships with athletic men and tall women. We could sit in the steam room and exchange stories, laughing hysterically when things are funny. Or we could sit in the steam room and say nothing. And it wouldn’t be boring. No one could call me boring."


Flint Photos: Lucy at the Durant-Dort Carriage Company




Flint Artifacts: AutoWorld Souvenir Wallet

Note: Wallet has more than enough room to hold all AutoWorld profits.


Saturday, April 5, 2014

Flint Artifacts: Big Mike and Sugar Shack CB Calling Card





Thursday, April 3, 2014

Flint Photos: 671 Taylor Street in 1912

Built in 1910, the house at 671 Taylor Street was located just west of Oak Park and the Buick factory complex.

The back of a postcard that featured the house, indicating it was photographed in June 1912.

There is no longer a house at 671 Taylor, but this nearby house is similar in style and, along with its neighbor, holding up well on a block filled with empty lots and abandoned homes. With changes in street numbering, this might be the same house on the postcard.


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