Lorna Goodison
We’ve been lucky to have Lorna Goodison among us for most of the last twenty years, teaching in the U-M creative writing program or in the Afroamerican and African Studies department. She has often traveled, returning to...
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Rossini’s William Tell
Attention opera lovers: on December 9, the orchestra, soloists, and chorus of the Royal Theatre of Turin will deliver a concert performance of Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell, a seldom-staged work of epic proportions....
Read MoreWarner Bros. Cartoons
I don’t have Thanksgiving plans, but I know exactly what I’m doing the day after. I’m bundling up my three-year-old and taking her to the Michigan Theater to watch their annual screening of Warner Bros....
Read MoreThe Ben Daniels Band
Three things that need immediate attention concerning the Ben Daniels Band: 1. Yes, Ben’s father is in fact Jeff Daniels. Now that’s out of the way, 2. The band is really good, and 3. Daniels clearly understands the...
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Grave of the Fireflies
Studio Ghibli is to Japan what Disney is to the U.S.: a box-office powerhouse beloved for its children’s cartoons. Where Disney has Cinderella and Frozen, Ghibli has My Neighbor Totoro, in which two little girls befriend...
Read MoreDady Mehta
The Well-Tempered Clavier is J.S. Bach’s two-part compendium of forty-eight preludes and fugues based in each of the major and minor keys. On November 2, in observance of the centennial of EMU’s Pease Auditorium,...
Read MoreLeslie Stainton
I drove through Lancaster, Pennsylvania, once, but I didn’t stop at the theater named for that city’s most famous son, Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, the submarine, and the naval torpedo. Nonetheless,...
Read MoreAnn Arbor Stamp Show
I’m at the 2013 Ann Arbor Stamp Show, and the show’s chair, Mike Homel, is giving me a tour of the bourse, where more than two dozen dealers perch behind tables crowded with tubs of stamps, postcards, and other...
Read MoreSusan Werner
Susan Werner’s fan base likely does not include many right-wing Republicans. She makes her own politics clear in a song about Barack Obama’s election titled, “The Night We Won the War.” It’s also...
Read MoreManshin: Ten Thousand Spirits
Editor’s note: This film is now no longer part of the Ann Arbor Korean Film Festival. For updated schedule, see http://www.ii.umich.edu/ncks/eventsprograms/filmscreenings. An interviewee in the documentary Manshin: Ten...
Read MoreFred Tomaselli’s The Times
That youre reading this magazine may mean youre a news junkie. That this publication honors original arton its cover for thirty-eight years may mean youre an art lover. If so, have I got an exhibit for you. Fred Tomasellis...
Read MoreThe Belle of Amherst
After watching Nancy Heusel perform The Belle of Amherst at Kempf House in 2004, I wanted to run home and read every word Emily Dickinson ever wrote. The setting in a real nineteenth-century house made it almost seem like we...
Read MoreThe Belcea Quartet
Every string quartet ever written is a four-way conversation unencumbered by words. The term “string quartet” denotes both a musical composition and the intimate group that brings it to life for all to hear. By far...
Read MoreThe Harrison Bankhead Quartet
Chicago’s double bass jazz tradition is anchored in the strongly rhythmic, percussive, and deep-toned playing of the late Wilbur Ware. Ware played mostly with traditional modern jazz musicians, but he was also fully at...
Read MoreThe Saragossa Manuscript
Count Jan Potocki (1761-1815) was a Polish nobleman who fought at sea as a member of the Knights of Malta, traveled to Mongolia and carefully recorded what he saw there, and was the first Pole to fly in a balloon–just for...
Read MoreVibratrons
Certain folks seem like they were born into their careers, be they doctors, lawyers, or–in Dan Mulholland’s case–rock ‘n’ roll front men. Over the years he’s played with twenty-seven local...
Read MoreAnn Arbor Russian Festival
The colors of autumn are warm as we walk onto the sun-swept grounds of St. Vladimir Russian Orthodox Church for its first annual Russian Festival, serenaded by the largest balalaika I have ever seen. Four feet across at the...
Read MoreTomfoolery
“If by hearing one of my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend or perhaps strike a loved one, it will all have been worth it to me.” So wrote Tom Lehrer, whose hits make up the...
Read MoreLolita Hernandez
Lolita Hernandez, who worked on the line and with the UAW for thirty-three years before becoming an instructor at the U-M Residential College, has written wonderfully about the people she knew at General Motors. Her earlier...
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