Tonight I went Fowling for the second time, and it reminded me about why Detroit is so special.

For those not in the know, Fowling is sort of a sport Creole. It’s a mix of bowling and football where the player throws the pigskin down a lane, and the first team to knock down all ten pins wins.

Well, I lost and I lost miserably. The worst part is I lost to my housemates, and they were not even very good. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to play them a bunch in Mario Kart to boost my ego for the next few weeks. But that’s not the point. The point is, I had fun. A lot of fun.

I had fun playing a sport I had never played, never even heard of. In fact, I don’t know if Fowling was made up by the people who opened this warehouse or if its origins are in some U of M frat house, but for all I know this sport could have started right here this very night. Fowling is fun, and it can only exist in Detroit.

There are certain things I’ve experienced since moving to this city that I feel can truly only exist here. The first was the Heidelberg Project. Where else can an arist buy an entire block of buildings and work for 30 years turning them into art? The second was Fowling. This is an untested and unknown sport. As fun as it is, it still takes time to catch on. If this warehouse opened in any other city, it might not catch on quickly enough and would fail before it had a chance. Luckily, Detroit is a little more forgiving than that.

And that is one of the things I’ve grown to love about this city. Its openness to experimentation, its willingness to try something new. Now its Fowling and street art, but who knows what’s next? It can be a new genre of music (it’s happened here before), a new sport, or a completely new way of life. The point is, it’s going to happen here.