Once upon a time, an artist mom sewed three hand puppets representing her son and two daughters. When one daughter turned fourteen, she took a local rec department class in puppetry. She gleefully holds up her puppet in a grainy...
Read MoreThe Dobro is the instrument that put the twang in country music, but it is much more besides. It was the 1928 creation (and contracted namesake) of the Czech American Dopyera brothers, who placed a steel disc over the sound hole...
Read MoreThe U-M Residential College production of A Midsummer Night's Dream last June in the Arb was an enormous pleasure, and Ann Arborites will be delighted to know that the college will produce the play again June 13-16 and...
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Isn’t it grand that somebody still performs hard-core classical music in Ann Arbor in the summer? Sure, there’s Marilyn Mason’s organ recital series during the Summer Festival, and this year there are a couple...
Read MoreSince Victorian-era ladies could not in all decency approach men, they used their fans to broadcast coded messages. According to the Museum on Main Street's Weddings of Yore exhibit, frenzied fanning meant that one was...
Read MoreScott Weidensaul is a nature writer, but beyond that, he defies categorization. His books are informed by a personal voice, yet they also offer explanations for lay audiences of scientific — particularly ornithological...
Read MoreThere was a time, say about ten or eleven years ago, when any utterance of the word "pool" was met with riotous, schnauzerlike hysteria on the part of my male child. And it was with this in mind that I suggested to my...
Read MoreOn September 12, 2001, Tamim Ansary, a freelance writer and editor from San Francisco, sent an e-mail message to the people in his electronic address book. An Afghan American, Ansary felt the need to separate his people from the...
Read MoreThey describe their style as "geek rock." And one look at the five members of the Fullerenes confirms their geek status. At a recent show in Eastpointe, three wore glasses, all wore ties, and everyone looked too smart...
Read MoreJazz singers are normally not my beat. When it comes to singers, I prefer classical, blues, and folk warblers. I do have some favorites, however, and among them is Detroit's magnificent Shahida Nurullah. I first heard her...
Read MoreBorn Yesterday is one of the Purple Rose's rare forays into producing plays by dead guys. Though the program notes call it a "classic," unless you're a real buff you've probably never heard of it. It opened...
Read MoreFar from the continuing and contentious legal battle over the rights to Martha Graham's choreographic legacy in New York City, Ann Arbor boasts its own Graham descendant, Peter Sparling (a former Graham principal), and his...
Read MoreThe problem with growing up — well, one of them — is that no one tells you stories anymore. That's why singer-songwriter Christine Lavin regularly packs them into concert halls from Andover to Anchorage. Adults...
Read MoreA large island in the middle of nowhere off the northeastern edge of mainland Nova Scotia, populated by the descendants of Scottish Highlanders fleeing the invading English and of British Loyalists fleeing the American...
Read More"I wrote frantically on the train all the way so we could have a script when I got back," said Hal Roach, who produced Babes in Toyland, a 1934 film adaptation of the Victor Herbert operetta that is every bit as busy...
Read MorePianist Cedar Walton was one of many promising Bud Powell-inspired pianists working in New York when he joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1961. He had already made a name for himself as a member of two of the finest...
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