Birthday of the Month
“Our goal is to provide birthdays to children in need of a birthday surprise when they would otherwise go without this year,” explains the website annarborbirthdaysurprise.com. “We are not an organization. We...
Read More2009 March
The Attack Cats
We had just come around the first turn when I saw someone walking toward us, then a dog, then another.”Hi,” I said. “I see you have dogs.”No answer.”I have two cats with me,” I said....
Read MoreChild Bite
When a guitarist hopped onstage at the Elbow Room carrying a hot-pink translucent electric guitar, I knew Child Bite was going to put on a show. My intuition wasn’t wrong, but I had no idea that show would stamp such a...
Read MoreAlternate Universes
Movies provide great escapes. One reason I don’t watch TV is that it’s hard to get lost in the small screen. It’s the same reason I sit up close at movie theaters. Like vivid dreams, movies have the power to...
Read MoreMicroclimates
If you watch the weather on Detroit TV, you might think the twenty miles between Ann Arbor and Metro Airport really put us in the deep freeze. Reported temperatures in Ann Arbor often come in ten degrees colder, or even more,...
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A TIme and an Occupation
Unless you are part of a select group with some specialized knowledge, you might find it hard to believe that Ann Arbor was once known for making cameras. But, yes, the Argus Camera Company made cameras here. The Argus Buildings...
Read MoreToo Cool for Folk?
It’s been a month now since the Ann Arbor Folk Festival, but I still can’t get it out of my head. That’s nothing new. As a graduate student at Michigan in the 90s, the festival made for a wonderful seminar in...
Read MoreBuy it now
In early February a pair of microwave ovens at the south-side Kohl’s store had inch-wide plastic badges attached to their printed price tags. In blocky LCD numerals, they announced the ovens were on sale for $64.99—a big...
Read MoreThe Last to Know
“It was the furthest thing from my mind,” says former Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra development director Guy Barast.While most local arts organizations were singing the blues to the Ann Arbor News late last year,...
Read MoreAshes and Murals
Q. What percentage of the ash trees in Ann Arbor affected by the emerald ash borer have been removed?A: The city has removed 7,100 ash trees from public property. A few may have been missed, but this amounts to nearly 100...
Read MoreIntimate Swing
Detroit is celebrated as a place of origin for some of the finest musicians in jazz, but it is also a crossroads that has attracted and nurtured fine players from other towns and other lands be-fore sending them back out into...
Read MoreHollywood on Washington
“We get three types of traffic,” says the man guarding the door at 425 East Washington—”the workers, the patients, and the movie people.” The workers park outside while they’re building the 411...
Read MoreTrading Places
After five years in the back of beyond at the rear of Boulevard Plaza, Great Lakes Cycling & Fitness is moving to a new location just down the street. “We’re bursting at the seams,” says Oscar Bustos, who...
Read MoreA Streetcar Named Desire
You can sit back and appreciate Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire as a bluesy, boozy 1940s love song to New Orleans if you want. And no one will blame you if that’s all you want to do with this...
Read MoreBig Stretch
“We are the Ann Arbor economic region—people who live in the city and the surrounding townships,” Ann Arbor Transportation Authority chair David Nacht told city council in January. Nacht, an attorney by trade, was...
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