Uncategorized

Owl Prowl at LSNC

Mar 2, 2013 | , |

It was just starting to get dark as we set out on the trail during the Leslie Science & Nature Center Owl Prowl. Raptor program director Francie Krawcke said a nesting pair of eastern screech owls had been spotted the...

Read More

The Hand in the Ocean

Mar 1, 2013 | , |

Call it what you want–indie folk, folk-rock, Americana–but banjo-driven hooks and plaintive country-influenced melodies are the pop music flavor of the moment, from Mumford & Sons to the Lumineers. Detroit band...

Read More

Merely Brilliant

Feb 23, 2013 | , |

Some orchestras know what they want in a music director. Chicago wants power, aka bombast, while Boston wants elegance, aka tedium, Cleveland wants diplomacy, aka don’t piss off the donors, while Philadelphia wants tact,...

Read More

Poet Nikky Finney

Feb 19, 2013 | , |

When Nikky Finney won the National Book Award in 2011 for her collection of poems, Head Off & Split, I spent a few hours rereading her work and trying to summarize my response to it. I was left with reactions that seemed at...

Read More

Wild Belle

Feb 18, 2013 | , |

For a band that still hasn’t even released its debut album, Wild Belle has accumulated a remarkable amount of public adoration. The band has been highlighted in gushing features in Rolling Stone, T: The New York Times...

Read More

Do You Ever Wish?

Feb 1, 2013 | , |

“Do you find you’re alone most of the time?” “Do you understand your rightful place in the world?” “Do you love your siblings?” “Do you wish that you could be somebody else?”...

Read More

Geri Allen

Jan 20, 2013 | , |

The University of Michigan’s annual veneration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King takes on a local tone when the University Musical Society presents “From Cass Corridor to the World: A Tribute to...

Read More

Jeff Epton

Jan 19, 2013 | , |

A few readers will remember Jeff Epton from his years on the Ann Arbor City Council in the 1980s. Epton was probably a true socialist, yet he got along rather well with moderate Republicans (yes, there really were such...

Read More

Homegrown Symphony

Jan 18, 2013 | , |

The community concert band is something of a two-headed animal: concert bands perform the marches and popular songs that are central to community celebrations, but there’s also a rarer strain of the tradition that treats...

Read More

Maura O’Connell

Jan 17, 2013 | , |

I still vividly remember the first time I heard Maura O’Connell sing. It was at the Wheatland Music Festival in 1981. I was walking through the woods behind the main stage, from the workshop lane to the dance stage, when I...

Read More

Natural Habitat

Jan 5, 2013 | , |

The Habitat at Weber’s Inn has been a townie bar for many years, and when they have live music, it’s often reflective of roots in this area. Al Hill and his Love Butlers band, long gone to Nashville, used to play for...

Read More

Elimination Games

Dec 31, 2012 | |

London had its summer Olympics. Ann Arbor has a more regular match. It isn’t necessarily seasonal, and it certainly isn’t sport. It’s the hide-and-seek chasing down of spray-can-wielding outlaws.Tag,...

Read More

Black Jake & the Carnies

Dec 20, 2012 | , |

Black Jake stands at the front of the stage, dressed like a ringmaster, his banjo adorned with Christmas lights. He stands resolute, barely moving amid the chaos that surrounds him, yet he cranks out lyrics like an auctioneer....

Read More

Street Language

Dec 15, 2012 | |

Overheard at west-side polling places in November were pronunciations that infuriate Old West Siders: Lutz pronounced “lutts,” Bach pronounced “bock,” Revena pronounced “ravenna”–and all...

Read More

The Klezmatics

Dec 13, 2012 | , |

As a Jew I have a problem around Christmastime. No, it’s none of the things you probably think it is. I don’t have a problem with the focus on consumerism and materialism–not any more than many Christians do,...

Read More

Amitav Ghosh

Dec 5, 2012 | , |

Amitav Ghosh writes big, sprawling novels that encompass gigantic swaths of history. Characters in his books are fictional, but he is also comfortable inventing moments for historical figures; for instance, in River of Smoke,...

Read More

The Art Forger

Dec 3, 2012 | , |

Inspired by the 1990 robbery at the Gardner Museum in Boston that claimed three of Degas’ drawings, still at large, B.A. Shapiro’s new novel The Art Forger plunges into the seedy underworld of high art. The story...

Read More

Upcoming Events

View All Events

Upcoming Nightspots

View Upcoming Nightspots