When I was in second grade in the early 1960s, my parents had to sign a permission slip for me to learn about dinosaurs. My teacher at West Willow Elementary School in Ypsilanti, Ann Lee, taught evolution—a radical move in our...
Read MoreThere are currently two disparate trends in the practice of jazz and improvised music in our country. One is firmly committed to maintaining a strictly defined tradition and therefore requires long apprenticeship, now mainly...
Read MoreWith limited time, limited money, and a desire to minimize our carbon footprint, Gary and I decided to spend our minivacation canoeing on the Huron. Since the river can be very shallow in late summer, we chose a route through...
Read MoreBack in the 1980s, Amy Hempel became famous for one extraordinary short story, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried.” In it the narrator visits a friend who is in the last stages of cancer, and the two women...
Read MoreThe Bellamy Brothers first came on the scene in 1975 with a pleasant if absolutely white-bread country-pop hit called “Let Your Love Flow.” The kind of music they made was soon redefined as country, and for most of...
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Last spring Heather O’Neal asked the Ann Arbor Historic District Commission for permission to re-place three rotting windows in her B&B, the Eighth Street Trekkers’ Lodge. The HDC made two site visits—and denied...
Read MoreSitting near the butterfly garden of Connie Bank’s home in Webster Township on an August afternoon is like being transplanted into a Disney cartoon. Monarchs dance through the spiky milkweed, sunflowers, and Technicolor...
Read MoreThere are singers, and there are people with beautiful voices. The two are by no means mutually exclusive, but neither do they always coexist. Of course, there are also plenty of successful so-called singers—who aren’t—and...
Read MoreThree years into raising honeybees, John Piette and Joanne Kimata had an anxious moment when the insects, previously mild mannered, seemed to turn on them. “They were on the defensive,” recalls Kimata. “They...
Read MoreThey start at the tailgate parties and then head to the stadium while it’s still almost empty. They talk to strangers, photograph them, and move on. And last year about 700 fans paid anywhere from $9.99 to $139.99 to buy...
Read MoreMain Street Pizza and Grinders changed its name in May to Mr. C’s Pizza and Grinders. A Manchester mainstay for fifteen years, the business was forced to make the change for legal reasons when a Main Street Pizza franchise...
Read More“We’re closed,” Mary Campbell says flatly. “There’s nothing else to say.”The long, complicated odyssey of Everyday Cook came to an end in late August when Campbell announced in her blog that...
Read MoreOne of the most rancorous city council decisions this year involved the award of a liquor license to Leslie Park Golf Course instead of a host of private businesses that had applied for it. One applicant, the Kerrytown eatery...
Read MoreThe off-white chaise lounge in the front window of Rose Cottage isn’t shabby chic, says owner Edna Middleton, but it goes with shabby chic, and she carries a lot of that.The chaise lounge aside, Middleton doesn’t...
Read MoreThe next few months we will see a huge wave,” predicts Anya Abramzon.Abramzon, the executive director of Jewish Family Services, is speaking about refugees from the Iraq War. She says twenty Iraqis and their families have...
Read MoreWhat new trick does Whole Foods Market have up its sleeve for its new store scheduled to open in late September at Cranbrook Village in the old Mervyns? A bakery? A deli? Those are child’s play: Kroger has been doing them...
Read MoreIs Marcia Ottoman insane—or merely unrepentant?The answer will determine how long a sentence the former Dexter Township trustee receives for impersonating a federal prosecutor and for wire fraud.The federal government is arguing...
Read MoreThe newlyweds who walked into the temporary OnSite gallery on Main didn’t look like wealthy collectors: they entered in grubby clothes, and their bikes were parked outside. Talking to them amid Angelis Jackowksi’s...
Read MoreAs engine #6 pulls up and parks in the street in front of the downtown fire station, Little Brother and I walk up slowly, hand in hand, to get a better look. Suddenly the driver’s door opens, and right before our eyes, a...
Read MoreAs engine #6 pulls up and parks in the street in front of the downtown fire station, Little Brother and I walk up slowly, hand in hand, to get a better look. Suddenly the driver’s door opens, and right before our eyes, a...
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