In fifth grade, Laura wrote an essay about Thanksgiving that her teacher thought was good. She also played Santa Claus in a school play and tried to make croissants from scratch. Not much has changed since she was ten. She still writes, and still shamelessly laps up approval. She loves theatre, especially plays about Christmas. She attempts projects that are way too ambitious for her skill sets, with imperfect, yet sometimes edible, results.
Laura’s worked as a writer, performer, teacher and caterer, and lives in Michigan with her three kids and forgiving husband. You can keep up with Laura at her blog.
Dealing with the 4th, and its aftermath [from the archive]
The days surrounding July 4th normally trumpet the ease of summer, but this year’s music is different. It was Tuesday, the fifth of July, when the horns gave way to the unrelenting beat of the future. A careful listener would have heard the cues sooner. On Friday, my oldest went away with a buddy and […]
If you had a habit like that, a pleasurable habit, but without the cost or cancer, a habit that wouldn’t kill you, a habit whose only downside was that it prevented you from enjoying opera, you’d keep it, right?
From Minecraft to the UN, what we make affects the world in unpredictable ways.
Laura Tokie’s spoken review of “Ernie,” the two-man play about Ernie Harwell, the voice of summer, the voice of the Detroit Tigers for 42 seasons.
and a few thoughts on Ecclesiastes and “The Mind of the Maker”
Hospitality, Intimacy and The Great American Songbook
“It is grand to sit in the shadows of a great performance, but what happens when entertainers, musicians, choose to play host?”
Laura Tokie explores a different way of remembering Auschwitz—at at the Holocaust Memorial Center of Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Arts Education and Technology Rock Our World
Children need to be educated, and they can and should be tested. But if the immediately measurable becomes the sole marker of a quality education, what might we lose?
ROW takes the long view, meaning the full rewards of this project will not come until much later. It reinforces artists and the arts as being a valuable part of, as well as a source of, community.
Real Life in Mumbai: Behind the Beautiful Forevers
The setting and statistics become the ecology, a context that the people, and by extension the reader, are a part of. When the book is finished, reality has been enhanced, challenged, changed. The reader has worn someone else’s skin, and it’s uncomfortable.
What manner of loveliness is this? There is so little in my life that feels this fine.
Apple Orchard's and Hemingway's Cottage
When artists get to it, when they go to work, how do they go from the flowering of an idea to a fruitful project? What if you let someone into it early? What might become of your vision?
Some author quoted or misquoted on the internet claimed that no true writer needs to be told to write. This makes me feel like crap.
The word is “worn.” As in well-worn, as in worn out, as in weary. Wear on, wear thin, wear off.
I will go to great lengths to ward off the February blahs. In years past, I have decorated my home with tropical flourishes, distracted myself with games and group trips, tried to embrace winter with snowmobiling and “Doctor Zhivago” weekends. I have done all I can think to do, and February still comes… and stays. […]
I do not remember a Christmas breakfast without tomatoes on toast. It was so regular, so consistently a part of our Christmas morning that I believed it to be a long-standing and worldwide tradition.
You are named, and yet unknown, and today, that is good enough for me.
How and Why We Stay Lions Fans
In football, life begins anew in September.
The days surrounding July 4th normally trumpet the ease of summer, but this year’s music is different. It was Tuesday, the fifth of July, when the horns gave way to the unrelenting beat of the future.
Backyard Brains is on a mission to democratize neuroscience; I am inspired to make up words. Entrepreneurologists. Revulsionary. Creeptastic.
“But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…”
Ten Things I Learned at the App Store
When Apple announced the opening of their App Store for Mac, I was excited: my first personal exposure to this wonderful world of Angry Birds and Urban Spoon. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.
Satire has its own agenda, so I didn’t pick a moment. It picked me.
The Garden of Healing and Renewal
“Did you see that over there?” he said.
I don’t even think I looked. My mind was elsewhere. My mind is often elsewhere, undoing what’s been done, imagining what might happen. In my thoughts, it’s a quick trip between contact dermatitis and Armageddon.
This summer could be the summer of real comfort food.
Diego Rivera and the Gods of Detroit
Even as I admire Rivera’s fresco cycle, I wonder if we will ever get back to the garden.
The Williamston Theatre founders are big-pond tested Midwesterners who love the small-town way of life, and believe that art can be a thread in the greater fabric of a community.
I have been tempted by so-called fresh mozzarella before, in the specialty cheese case. This was nothing like that.
With Liberty and Justice for All
The Rosa Parks bus at the Henry Ford museum provocatively reminds us about freedom, and justice – for all.
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