Culture Archives - Ann Arbor Observer

Event Review: Stargazing

Dec 23, 2024 | Culture, Event Reviews |

The planetarium rotates three shows every month, but the Sky Tonight, which runs twice every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, is always the “star” attraction. The presenter, usually a U-M science student, leads an exploration of the current night sky, gives tips on how to find the cardinal directions, constellations, and planets on your own, and winds up with a trippy full-speed-ahead jaunt through the stars that feels both like a roller coaster and a ride on a spaceship.

Event Review: The Sun Will Come Out to Dexter

Dec 23, 2024 | Culture, Event Reviews |

This year’s winter show from the Encore Musical Theatre Company is Annie, the classic 1976 musical by Thomas Meehan, Charles Strouse, and Martin Charnin based on the comic strip about a gutsy redheaded orphan who escapes from her orphanage during the Great Depression.

The Birth of Cinema Guild

Oct 25, 2024 | Culture, Featured |

Cinema Guild cosponsored the Ann Arbor Film Festival from its start in 1963 and hosted guests like Frank Capra, Harold Lloyd, Andy Warhol, and the Velvet Underground. And it sometimes courted controversy with screenings of banned films like Flaming Creatures, which in 1967 led to the arrests of four Cinema Guild board members.

Event Review: Creature Discomfort

Oct 25, 2024 | Culture, Event Reviews |

The legend of the Mothman originated in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where between November 1966 and December 1967, locals reported sightings of a winged humanoid creature with huge, glowing red eyes. While skeptics argued that the sightings could be attributed to sandhill cranes or large owls, the incidents led to widespread fear and speculation, some believing it to be an extraterrestrial or supernatural entity. After the Silver Bridge collapsed into the Ohio River in December 1967, killing 46 people, theories arose that the Mothman was an omen of impending disaster.

8 Ball Movie Night at the Blind Pig

Aug 14, 2024 | Culture, Reviews |

The shabby, welcoming confines of the Blind Pig, the beloved Ann Arbor dive bar and longtime music venue on First St., are also host to regular late-night gatherings celebrating the offbeat, idiosyncratic world of B movies.

The Observer Observed

Jul 25, 2024 | Community, Culture |

That’s the title of an exhibit on the second floor of the downtown library. Subtitled “45 Years of Pages from the Ann Arbor Observer,” it covers five large walls with reproductions of 500 pages published in the magazine between 1976 and 2022.

Albert Rosseau’s Land Title Building

Jun 25, 2024 | Community, Culture, Fake Ad and I Spy |

“I spy: the Land Title Building at 106 N. Fourth Ave. designed by Albert J. Rousseau,” writes Kate Pasola.

Paths to the Art Fair

Jun 25, 2024 | Culture, Featured |

We asked four artists in this year’s Ann Arbor Art Fair why they do it, and what brought them here.

Eli Lilly, Patron of the Arts

Jun 25, 2024 | Culture, Health |

The pharmaceutical giant started with a single location in the Original Fair on North University in 2022. This year, it will be everywhere as the first-ever presenting sponsor of all three fairs.

Cancer Gratitude

Jun 25, 2024 | Community, Culture, Health, News |

An Ann Arbor native, Joan Belgrave is a two-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter. Four years after her husband died, her life took another dramatic turn when a routine biopsy resulted in an especially dangerous diagnosis: “triple-negative” breast cancer.

Zoom Readings

Jun 25, 2024 | Culture |

It was July of last year, and she had to finish What Springs Forth for a Zoom reading. It would be her first chance to hear her play—about “middle-aged friends who head for what they think will be a spa retreat and wind up battling [the elements], each other, and their inner demons”—read aloud.

Event Review: Machine Dazzle’s Ouroboros

May 24, 2024 | Culture, Event Reviews |

The ancient Egyptian and Greek symbol of a snake eating its tail, Ouroboros, is also the inspiration for the three-part art installation by U-M Stamps Roman J. Witt artist-in-residence Machine Dazzle (né Matthew Flower). The resident artist works jointly with students and faculty to create a work of art: Ouroboros, a room-sized “snake” that hangs from the ceiling at UMMA’s Irving Stenn Jr. Family Gallery.

Medical Thriller

Apr 26, 2024 | Community, Culture, Profiles, Reviews |

Marschall Runge didn’t realize how many physicians wanted to write fiction until he signed up for a “Writing for Doctors” workshop—and found 300 others in attendance.

A Tiger Daughter Returns

Apr 26, 2024 | Culture, Event Reviews |

These days, Charlene Kaye only gets back to Ann Arbor on tour, but she launched her music career playing open mics as a U-M English major in the late aughts.