The Paris Review

On Believing

Hanif Abdurraqib’s new monthly column, Notes on Pop, muses on the relationship between songs and memory.

To begin with a fact that is entirely beside the point (unless you are the owner of a Michigan area code and a very particular type of pride): South Detroit is, in fact, not a real place, at least not within the flimsy geographical construct of the United States. Anyone beginning in Detroit and traveling south will, because of how the borders are drawn, end up in Canada. From a geographical standpoint, South Detroit is Windsor, Ontario.

The restaurant South Detroit, which is in Windsor, Ontario, was opened by someone with a slick sense

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