Friday-Saturday, December 1-2 Book Beat will be hosting a fundraiser for Trinosophes Projects, a non-profit Detroit community art space, gallery, cafe, and producer of other projects such as Three Fold and Two Rooms Records. Mention the words “Trinos” or “Trinosophes Fundraiser” and we will donate 20% of your sale to the non-profit. If you happen to miss our fundraiser, consider donating directly to Trinosophes Projects with their Paypal link.
Open since winter 2011, Trinosophes is located at 1464 Gratiot Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. It is one of the most active (and few) spaces in Detroit dedicated to avant-garde jazz, progressive, and experimental music. Trinosophes co-founder, musician, program director and promotor Joel Peterson has helped sponsor well over 100 performance events per year. For a list of upcoming events see their schedule.
The Trinosophes café serves up amazing vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free breakfast and lunch, including fresh bread and pastries, Wednesday-Sunday. They also work with local vendors for their ingredients and coffee, including Anthology Coffee (Detroit, MI), White Lotus Farms (Ann Arbor, MI), Brother Nature (Detroit, MI) and Calder Dairy (Monroe, MI).
Founded in 2020 and edited by Trinosophes co-founder, arts curator, and journalist Rebecca Mazzei, Three Fold is an online quarterly that “presents exploratory points of view on arts, culture, and society in addition to original works in various media, including visual art, literature, film, and the performing arts.” The latest, issue no.12—fall 2023, features work by André Seewood, Paul Elliman, James D. Fuson, Ethel Irene Kabwato, Lynn Crawford, and poetry by CAConrad, Kweku Abimbola, Eileen Myles, Rob Halpern, and Nicole Brossard.
Curated by Mazzei, the visual art space at Trinosophes has hosted major exhibitions by Peter Williams, Jim Crawford, and the drawings of Jazz legend Yusef Lateef.
Trinosophes is home to the book collections of Jim Kennedy, Ronald Aronson, Brad Duncan, and Gotham Book Mart. In addition to those collections, Trinosophes has accepted donations from the personal collections of friends, including journalist Walter Kim Heron, who has contributed Ear Magazine issues from the 1970s-1980s, and musician Chris Handyside, who has given copies of the influential Radical America pamphlet (c. 1970s-1980s).
Two Rooms Records was founded in 2018 as a collaboration between musician/composer Joel Petetrson, co-founder of Trinosophes art space, and Sam Hooker, who was a founding member of M.U.G., aka Michigan Underground. The label specializes in contemporary and historic recordings from a genre-free but largely Detroit-centric perspective. In addition, every LP released by Two Rooms features album artwork produced by Detroit visual artists.
In October, Book Beat took part in the 9th annual Detroit Art Book Fair, a two-day event that brings together independent publishers, artists, writers, and collectors. We were fortunate to display and sell a selection of new and rare artist books, artist facsimile sketchbooks, artist zines, original photographs, posters, and ephemera from our store. It’s just one example of the many ways that Trinosophes fosters community in the city.
Former staff alumnus, librarian, and music promoter Greg Baise organizing merch at the Book Beat table.
Graduate student and staff at the Cranbrook Academy of Art table.