As everything has to come to an end, so to has the 47th annual Detroit Jazz Festival, and my burden is significantly lightened. Posting to social media is a strange thing, not journalism but with elements of it, not quite marketing but with elements of that, too. Truth be told, far more marketing than journalism, but sometimes you can say that about The New York Times. But it was four long days with lots of running around, buttonholing artists for stop-and-chats, being on the lookout for interesting things on and around the various stages.
But truth be told, I cannot top the City of Detroit genius who came to the festival and gave us the Unc Cam:
This was my breaking news:
A very fragile and interesting moment I feel fortunate to have captured (not well, but at least I captured it).
The hotel where we all stayed, the Marriott at the RenCen, is enormous, and was also accommodating the Islamic Society of North America and a large Indian wedding. So when any random elevator door opened, you might be sharing it with men in shalwar kameez or a thobe, women in abayas or long dresses with a hijab in contrasting print trailing behind, raven-haired beauties in saris with hennaed hands, or some dude all in black carrying a saxophone case. Today it was a teenager in a T-shirt advertising “a better way to wudu.” I asked him what the better way was; he said it involved a special sock. (Wudu, for those who don’t know, is the ritual bathing before Islamic prayer, and the problematic part is the feet. The University of Michigan at Dearborn, after repairing too many bathroom sinks accidentally torn from the wall by clumsy wudu, installed footbaths.)
Anyway, it was a good weekend of exhausting work and excellent music. Plus uncs. And this lady, the one on the right…
…who is famous. I asked her where she got her sunglasses. She said Reykjavik. I saw her every day, always looking amazing.
But now, friends, I am bone-tired and intend to sleep until my body has had enough. I want you to know that I haven’t forgotten this blog, nor you readers. I now intend to enjoy Adult Summer — the six weeks of good-enough weather that follows Labor Day — to the fullest.
Deborah said on September 7, 2026 at 9:00 pm
Those sunglasses are amazing. I have nothing to wear them with but I’d love a pair. Crazy.
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Jeff Gill said on September 7, 2026 at 9:38 pm
Somewhere a couple of decades ago I interviewed Dee Dee Bridgewater because of an appearance she was making at Denison… I think. As I recall, she was sitting at an outdoor cafe in New York and the background noise (sirens, shouting, bus getting into gear, trucks idling) was both fascinating and incredibly distracting. Can’t find it online, but urls are so scrambled these days. Anyhow, she was sprightly and delightful insofar as I could hear her.
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alex said on September 7, 2026 at 10:52 pm
I’d bet Lana Turner has more than a few jewelry mannequins gracing her dresser. Hmmm. I’m envisioning a new product line and calling it the Wudu Doll. A foot mannequin as a sock dispenser.
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This weekend the hubs and I celebrated five years since we broke the curse of cigarettes. I was reminded of it by a facebook memory that surfaced. At the time, I was about to undergo surgery on a deviated septum and hypertrophic nasal turbinates to cure sleep apnea (which it did), but the doctors refused to perform the surgery as long as I continued to smoke cigarettes.
The operation was scheduled to take place in two weeks and I was having no luck giving up the habit. So we went to a vape shop and asked the proprietor what vape he recommended for quitting cigarettes. He asked me what brand I smoked and how much. (Winston reds, two packs a day.) He handed me a Hyde disposable in a very mild peach/mango/watermelon flavor. We bought one for each of us and decided to spend the day taking a road trip and we ended up at Grand Lake St. Mary’s, the largest inland lake in Ohio and one of the largest man-made lakes anywhere, dug by hand in the 1840s by Irish immigrants to facilitate the Erie canal system.
It was a perfectly beautiful day just like today, and we took the same road trip again today to commemorate. So glad we kicked the habit. We took to those vapes instantly and never bought another pack of cigarettes. (We were buying cartons, actually, because we burned through so many packs. At ten dollars for a vape that lasted two weeks, it was also a much better deal than a carton that cost ten times as much and lasted a few days.) Our house and cars and clothes all smell so nice now. (And before I retired, I could vape to my heart’s content in my office and never got busted. )
We’re getting ready to head to Michigan City for a post-Labor Day vacay on Lake Michigan, when a VRBO drops drastically in price. We’re sharing a big-ass house with a longtime friend group traveling in from all over the place.
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