Chester, our loyal rat terrier, was the first member of our family to see the mouse. He suddenly bolted upright and stood in a state of total readiness, a look of utter perplexity fixed on his face. In his four years with us,...
Read MoreEven before a Main Street store was robbed at gunpoint in September, people were describing the medical marijuana business as the Wild West.The new frontier opened when voters passed the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act in 2008...
Read MoreRyan Gregg and Rishi Narayan already have two stores in town specializing in U-M insignia clothing–their original Underground Printing location on South University, and Moe Sport Shop on North University, which they...
Read MoreAny museum shop must navigate a perilous strait between the Scylla of inauthentic, mass-produced tourist trinkets and the Charybdis of reproductions so refined and expensive that they seem museum-worthy themselves. The Kelsey...
Read MoreOn a Thursday summer evening in Chelsea, “Sounds and Sights” brings a crowd of strollers to the Main Street sidewalks. Couples drift through the River Gallery’s door, letting in gasps of street noise. The mood...
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The Passport Restaurant & Lounge on South State was most recently a Japanese restaurant called the Cherry Blossom. Many Ann Arborites remember its original incarnation better. Certainly owner Jenny Wu does. Sitting in the...
Read MoreA year and a half ago, with white-knuckle bravado, David Myers called his postage-stamp-sized Mighty Good Coffee Cafe “a very expensive marketing experiment.” He had just opened the small espresso bar on Main Street...
Read MoreFor video gamers, the Video Game Archive in the Duderstadt Center on North Campus is like dying and going to heaven. Every video console and computer game is there, from the Atari 2600 to Nintendo Wii, and so are 2,200 games...
Read MoreWhen Fourth Ave Birkenstock owners Paul and Claire Tinkerhess put Vibram Five Fingers shoes in their window last year, Paul recalls, they hoped the novel sports shoes with toe pockets that offer the look and feel of going...
Read MoreThe Third Coast Kings bill themselves as “a proper deep funk and soul outfit,” and they have the horns to prove it. When I saw them in a swirling sea of green and red lights at the Savoy, they were missing trombonist...
Read MoreThe 230 members of the Ann Arbor Women Artists can take part in workshops, critique groups, and presentations on everything from a guest artist’s work to website design. But the group is most visible when it mounts...
Read MorePossibly the most captivating item available during lunch at Taste of India Suvai on S. State doesn’t cost extra–but you might have to flag down the lone fast-moving server to request it. Or maybe you look important...
Read MoreTaking stock of the local burger scene is never a bad idea, but the task became more urgent this summer with the announcement that Five Guys Burgers and Fries is coming to Ann Arbor. The 670-outlet chain serves a decent burger,...
Read MoreThere are two reasons to visit the current University of Michigan Museum of Art exhibit, On Beauty and the Everyday: The Prints of James McNeill Whistler. One is for its unparalleled look at the artist rightly described as...
Read MoreAt his first press conference of the 2010-2011 basketball season, Michigan head coach John Beilein was asked about the “ancillary advantages” of the his team’s quick summer jaunt to Belgium. “The biggest...
Read More“Are we ambitious? Yes, insanely,” Chris Dempsey laughs. In 2008, Dempsey was elected president of the Academy of Early Music. He’s since been rebuilding the group that put Ann Arbor on the early music map in...
Read MoreFor Adam Kasha, success means a trans-Pacific commute.Kasha started his business, AKASHA Crystals, in the 1980s from his apartment on Detroit Street. (Formed from his name, “akasha” also fortuitously means something...
Read MoreLast month’s Fake Ad prompted 184 correct entries, many of which had high praise for the ad, which appeared on page 92 of the October Observer. Well, pretty high praise.”The Fake Ad is for ‘The Girl Who Played...
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