A Newspaper for the rest of us • www.lansingcitypulse.com FREE September 11-17, 2019 Saving a generation? Michigan becomes first state to ban flavored e-cigs See page 13 -NEVIN ‘19 SEPTEMBER 21 SATURDAY, 7:30PM AN EVENING WITH AUDRA MCDONALD WHARTON CENTER AUDRA MCDONALD, SOPRANO 90TH ANNUAL SEASON PRESENTED BY MASTERWORKS ONE LOOMIS LAW FIRM TICKETS • 517.487.5001 • LANSINGSYMPHONY.ORG CELEBRATING 90 YEARS 2 www.lansingcitypulse.com City Pulse • September 11, 2019 City Pulse • September 11, 2019 www.lansingcitypulse.com 3 Favorite Things MSU comic steward Randy Scott’s KATRÍN ‘Forgotten Sunday Comics’ SIGURÐARDÓTTIR OPENING RECEPTION Please join us for the opening reception of our next major exhibition, featuring the work of Katrín Sigurðardóttir. Exploring the relationships between memory, distance, and time, the exhibition draws together three major sculptural projects by the artist for the first time. Meet the artist and celebrate this moving and thought-provoking exhibition with the MSU Broad! Installation view of Katrín Sigurðardóttir: Drawing Apart (2015). Photo: Peter Harris. Lead support for this exhibition is provided by a gift from Hari Kern. Additional support comes from the Eli and Edythe Broad endowed exhibitions fund. One of the pleasures of being photography into newspapers yet here is looking through these books when they did these. A lot of stories for the first time. I actually do this were illustrated by artists. about 20 times a day. My favorite I still have to do a few more things SEPT. 13, 6–8pm thing right now is this “Forgotten with this one and see what this guy’s Sunday Comics” collection. It’s on plan was and why he chose these good paper. The originals would ones before I archive it. be falling apart and this new book It just makes me think the world came in roughly a year ago. of comics is so big. I’m amazed they All this stuff is before World War found so much more that I haven’t I. This is the beginning of comics seen before. We have the largest col- when comics were just starting to lection of comics in the world so I feel their bones. As far as we know, see a lot of comics. comics had just started in the 1890s, I’m starting to think that the but that is still disputed. amount of literature in comics form What we do know is that news- in this country might be as much as papers were using them as part of a third of all American literature. a circulation war. You’d have this The thing is libraries never col- beautiful color section and the lected these. They were unrespect- newspaper would sell millions if ed. They weren’t even in libraries they had the coolest comics. These until the last 30 years. comics were king. You don’t see this This is something big we missed. much anymore with an artist able to We can’t even get close to getting all work with this big of a page. of them even if we did dedicate this FALL Lyonel Feininger was a German whole building to comics, which I artist featured in here who was think we should. lured over here for the good pay in There are a lot of private collec- the circulation wars. It was him and tors who were much more crazy SPECIALS a half dozen German artists that about them than the professors and came here for this. librarians who thought they were He was following another person junk. These were enjoyable and featured here, Windsor McCay, who certainly things people cared about did “Little Nemo.” He was actually from the day they were printed. from Marshall and was one of the (This interview was edited and first big name Sunday comic artists. condensed by Dennis Burck. If He was also one of the first ani- you have a recommendation for mators and went by the pen name “Favorite Things,” please email den- Silas. [email protected].) It’s amazing to think they hadn’t even fully managed to integrate 4 www.lansingcitypulse.com City Pulse • September 11, 2019 VOL. 19 ISSUE 5 (517) 371-5600 • Fax: (517) 999-6061 • 1905 E. Michigan Ave. • Lansing, MI 48912 • www.lansingcitypulse.com ADVERTISING INQUIRIES: (517) 999-5061 or email [email protected] PAGE CLASSIFIEDS: (517) 999-6704 EDITOR AND PUBLISHER • Berl Schwartz 12 [email protected] • (517) 999-5061 ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR • Audrey Matusz Below the Stacks uses murals to celebrate Lansing [email protected] • (517) 999-5068 EVENTS EDITOR/OFFICE MANAGER • Suzi Smith [email protected] • (517) 999-6704 PRODUCTION MANAGER • Skyler Ashley PAGE [email protected] (517) 999-5066 26 MARKETING DIRECTOR • Sarah Dropsey [email protected], (517) 999-6707 Dig these live gigs coming to Lansing STAFF WRITERS • Lawrence Cosentino [email protected] • (517) 999-5065 A Newspaper for the rest of us • www.lansingcitypulse.com FREE Dennis Burck • [email protected] (517) 999-6705 PAGE Chris Gray • [email protected] September 11-17, 2019 (517) 999-6710 30 SALES EXECUTIVE Lee Purdy • [email protected] • (517) 999-5064 A new Mexican restaurant from a former El Oasis manager Contributors: Andy Balaskovitz, Justin Bilicki, Daniel E. Bollman, Capital News Service, Bill Castanier, Ryan Clay- tor, Mary C. Cusack, Tom Helma, Gabrielle Lawrence Johnson, Terry Link, Andy McGlashen, Kyle Melinn, Mark Nixon, Shawn Parker, Stefanie Pohl, Dennis Preston, Cover Allan I. Ross, Nevin Speerbrecker, Rich Tupica, Ute Von Der Heyden, David Winkelstern, Paul Wozniak Art Distribution manager: Paul Shore • (517) 999-6704 Delivery drivers: Garrett Clinard, Dave Fisher, Dale By Nevin Speerbrecker Gartner, Jack Sova, Gavin Smith Interns: Matthew Stine • [email protected] -NEVIN ‘19 NOW AT 10:00 A.M. SUNDAYS on City Pulse • September 11, 2019 www.lansingcitypulse.com 5 C PULSE NEWS & OPINIONOF THE WEEK Kroger to ‘ghost’ City Pulse C OF THE WEEK More than 3,000 people a week something other than Kroger) will pick up this newspaper at the six no longer provide this free service Kroger stores in the Greater Lansing to its customers. Its argument is, market. essentially, that print is on the way That will come to an end in three out, so free pubs are just taking up weeks unless the country’s largest valuable space. In corporate speak, supermarket chain can be persuad- it does not enhance “customer en- ed to reconsider a new policy that gagement.” bans all free publications. Kroger’s Kroger is failing to make an im- decision will damage efforts by City portant distinction: Paid newspa- Pulse and other papers around the pers are certainly declining. But free country to keep local readers in- publications such as City Pulse are formed of what is happening in their not. In fact, to the contrary: At Kro- communities as mainstream dailies ger stores alone, our pickup rate has 1146 S. Grand Ave, Lansing This announcement was posted on pull back such coverage. gone from fewer than 1,100 copies a Tucked onto the corner of Grand Kroger has announced that al- week to over 3,000 since 2012. And a free publication rack in a Kroger- Avenue and South Street in the most all of its more than 2,600 that makes sense. The price of daily owned grocery store in Boise, Idaho, River Point Neighborhood near stores (many elsewhere branded as where the ban on free publications has REO Town, this 1922 gable-roofed See Kroger, Page 6 already started. Craftsman style home is a garden oasis with a single center dormer and a handsome front porch. Sitting on a slight rise, the home’s clean, classic lines seem to command the atten- tion of the neighboring properties. Lansing Council quashes marijuana social equity Grapefruit-sized roses, a profusion of bright yellow sunflowers, creep- ing vines and a rainbow of annuals The Lansing City Council swiftly putting in language in to make your- mean 'I have to be black.'” and perennials create a profusion of shot down placing any social equity self feel good.” Despite the dismissive attitude of color in the late summer sun. requirements in its marijuana regu- Spitzley pointed out that most of the Lansing City Council, social eq- Owner Josepha Diaz was unavail- lations during a heated debate Mon- the dispensaries that proliferated uity has been a key part of the debate able to talk, but Lydia Nelson, a day night. in Lansing before the city imposed over marijuana legalization. “I’m not young woman visiting the nearby Blue Owl coffee shop, said she drives Councilwoman-at-Large Kathie strict regulations were owned by sure how anyone is not familiar with Dunbar wanted the city to give peo- whites, not African-Americans. that phenomenon,” said Margeaux from Lansing’s far west side to enjoy the dining, yoga and energy of the ple who had been arrested for mar- “It is the African-American com- Bruner, the political director for the neighborhood. “I love the freshness ijuana crimes, and therefore strug- munity that was disproportionately Michigan Cannabis Industry Associ- and colors that gardens like this cre- gled to get gainful employment, a affected by marijuana arrests,” added ation. ate, and I come back frequently to better chance to break into the in- Washington, who represents the 1st It may also end up playing into the see what’s growing!” This simple yet dustry and make money off an herb Ward. “You’re setting people up for Lansing City Council elections this stately home and colorful landscap- that had set them back in life. failure. I think it’s a feel-good pro- fall.