Community

“As real and raw as Sunday”

“When I was growing up, the music that I liked, like Zeppelin, sure wasn’t played in church,” says Jeff Boriss, director of communications at the 2|42 Community Church.Founded in Brighton in 2005, the church...

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David Doris

University of Michigan art history professor David Doris doesn’t go out of his way to tell students he played saxophone for a few years in a rock band called the Raunch Hands. But those who find out are definitely...

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“Wave Field”

“I spy the ‘Wave Field’ by Maya Lin,” writes first-time entrant Alex Cao, identifying January’s I Spy. “It’s designed by the same architect/artist as the Vietnam Memorial in Washington,...

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Victorious Egret

Last month’s Fake Ad–for the Victorious Egret lingerie shop for bird-watchers–lured 236 clever Fake Adders out of the bush. It also ruffled a few feathers among birders–though only “those who...

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Cooking to Help Haiti

Guerda Harris fled Haiti as a teenager in 1960. Now Harris, who owns the Back Alley Gourmet in the South Main Market, is organizing a benefit dinner for the earthquake-devastated nation. A native Creole speaker, last year Harris...

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Olympic Dreams

When Nancy Bates told her nine-year-old son, Evan, that she wanted him to learn ice dancing, his first reaction was yuck: “I don’t want to hold hands with a girl,” Nancy recalls him protesting. But she insisted...

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Renewing St. Joe’s

Tom Tocco seems surprisingly calm for someone who’s responsible for spending almost $300 million. Trim and curly haired, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital’s director of facilities, engineering, and construction is attentive...

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Home Ice Advantage

It’s a Sunday afternoon in the girls’ locker room at Chelsea’s Arctic Coliseum. “Are we gonna win?” one girl yells. “Yeah!” the others yell back through their face masks. The girls...

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It’s Pickleball Time!

With winter’s arrival, Community Education and Recreation is hoping to lure people looking for indoor exercise to the drolly named sport of pickleball. A hybrid that blends elements of ping-pong, badminton, and tennis, the...

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Cosmic question

The answer may hinge on the existence of dark energy: the mysterious force that may or may not bind the cosmos together. U-M astronomer Philip Hughes admits dark energy is “an ad hoc and outrageous postulate” but...

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The Class of 1940

They have been doing this for so long, no one can recall when it began.On the first Thursday of each month, members of the Ann Arbor High School Class of 1940 meet for a lunch at Weber’s Inn. “This buffet is the best...

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Wild Salmon Minyan

The semi, loaded with salmon, black cod, and halibut, pulled into the Maple Village parking lot roughly one week after departing Washington state. Oran Hesterman and three volunteers made quick work of it: more than 800 pounds...

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Andrew Brix

Andrew Brix is sick of living in a poorly insulated house. It’s not just the Midwestern chill; there’s the principle of not wasting heat and money. Although Brix, twenty-eight, and his two housemates offered to...

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A Walk in the Park

We received 123 entries correctly identifying the December Fake Ad for A Walk in the Park.The entries came from far. “Finding the Fake ad is one of the traditions my wife and I have when coming out here for the...

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Begob Sculpture

“‘I Spy Red to the North’ at 1221 Beal by the Robert H. Lurie Engineering Center,” emails Vivian Loh, identifying December’s feature. Duane Keahl adds the sculpture’s name and creator:...

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The Plot Thickens

On the night of August 21, according to police, Lisa Reardon appeared at the door of her parents’ house in Dexter Township carrying a 20-gauge shotgun. She opened fire on her father, George Hicks, from a distance of...

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Ann Arbor on the Couch

Betty Draper lies on a couch in a dimly lit room, wringing her hands. A middle-aged man sits in a leather chair behind her head, silently holding a pencil and notebook. “I don’t know why I’m here,” Betty...

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Circuit Rider Elijah Pilcher

Slimy logs shifting along the swollen Grand River trapped the horse’s hock. But the rider didn’t curse–that would be unseemly for an itinerant Methodist preacher on the Michigan frontier. Elijah Pilcher freed...

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Online Rhubarb

We received 174 responses correctly identifying the Fake Ad on p. 11 of the November Observer. The ad was for a book, Can You Have an Online Rhubarb?, self-published by Ed Nimby, a character who’s appeared in several...

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Ann Pearlman

Time for an unlisted number? That’s what friends are asking Ann Pearlman. The question throws the therapist, author, and longtime Ann Arborite for a loop. Yes, she’s living out every writer’s fantasy: Simon...

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