Moving Performance
As the lights came up after the opening dance at a show at the University of Michigan’s Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, my nine-year-old son—who was my date for the evening—saw tears rolling down my cheeks. “Mom, why are...
Read More2009 April
Scream Therapy
Sadly, Edvard Munch didn’t own an SUV. So when he decided to portray a person overwhelmed by existential dread, he had to settle for painting a figure with a rubbery haunted face walking near a fjord in Oslo.Fortunately,...
Read MoreJam at the Mill
Someone suggests a tune, and a fiddler kicks it off. The music sets your toes tapping right away. Outside this room it’s 2008, but in here it sounds more like 1910.Two more fiddles join in, along with a banjo, guitar, and...
Read MoreSewing Up History
Molly” is only half dressed. The headless dress form in Helen Welford’s studio wears a silver-green 1840s-style bodice with lacy short sleeves, but the full skirt has yet to be added. Welford fingers a plum-colored...
Read MoreThe Ambulance Chase
Fifty years ago, the ambulance business in Washtenaw County was up for grabs. Almost anyone with a vehicle big enough for a person to lie down in provided emergency patient transport. That included hospitals, gas stations, taxi...
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A fairy tale at Beanstalks Play Cafe
Saline’s new Beanstalks Play Cafe combines a playground, a coffeehouse, and a bookstore. A refuge for families looking for something to do with their children, rain or shine, it’s in the sanctuary of the old...
Read MoreSew Write hits the road
With the lease up at her storefront on Adrian Street, Sew Write owner Nancy Bihlmeyer took what she calls a “leap of faith” and moved her thirteen-year-old business to the more heavily traveled M-52 north of...
Read MoreDowntown Gets Frivolities
The curtain’s come down on Shade of the Olive, the eclectic home decor shop that combined Tina Walther’s olive oil business with partner Kate Harrison’s handmade lampshades, hand-painted furniture, and other...
Read MoreArctic Breakaway Takes a Shot
Hockey players can work up an appetite. So can ice skaters after a long afternoon or evening of lessons.The Arctic Coliseum plans to feed them, as well as their parents, friends, and others, at a new restaurant that offers views...
Read MorePickin’ Chelsea
In this town I could be happy, in this town I’d make new friends—In this town . . . I could start all over again.—The cover of Annie and Rod Capps’s fifth album, In This Town, shows the local folk duo lounging...
Read MoreTesting the Wind
Richard and Carole Murphy were driving through North Dakota several years ago when they noticed three enormous metal blades spinning slowly in the prairie wind.”We were curious, so I turned around and drove back until we...
Read MoreFamily Secret
Ann Arbor has its share of amateur historians, but few can match Patrick McCauley.In 2006, when he was twenty-eight, McCauley and his girlfriend, Andrea Kinney, purchased an old Greek Revival home on Pontiac Trail. They set to...
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