Frank Wilhelm had never before seen a woman in charge of a car wash.Though we like to think of Ann Arbor as a Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, Observer reader and emeritus U-M prof Wilhelm thought it was unusual...
Read MoreWhen I was a kid, my mom and I perfected the technique for making and eating root beer floats. I use the word “eating” deliberately, because the dish we concocted was more suitable for dessert or Sunday supper than...
Read MoreUnusually high water levels kept paddlers off sections of the Huron River this spring. But regardless of rainfall, canoeists can look forward to an easier river trip next spring. By then, the city should have completed its...
Read MoreMollie, a purebred Yorkie, is sensibly dressed today, wearing a brown Louis Vuitton dress, a black-and-white Up Country collar, and a hair ornament. “It’s her everyday collar,” says her owner, Shauna Williams,...
Read MoreIf you’re looking for pork, Ted Li’s got you covered. He carries pork ribs, pork liver, pork belly, pork feet, pork legs, pork stomach, and if you’re really adventurous, pork rectum. Li, fifty-four, opened the...
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Jeff Irwin was heading to an AATA event in June when a journalist stopped him on State Street. Asked how it felt to be out of Lansing for the day, the freshman Democrat replied, “Great! Because it means we’re not in...
Read MoreThe songs of Paul Burch are subtle takes on older country music, mostly in its swing- and rockabilly-flavored varieties. They strip traditional country down to its bones, turn it inside out, and build on it anew, asking in the...
Read MoreMiki, Ann Arbor’s oldest extant sushi restaurant, harking back to the 1980s, has new owners and is in mid-course of a name change. Felisha and Yoon Kim will eventually change the name to Sushi Zen, but for now, Felisha...
Read MoreThe urban food court that burst into bloom in May on West Washington, near the corner of Ashley, has to be the most novel Ann Arbor eating scene in recent memory. Credit goes to impresario Mark Hodesh of Downtown Home and Garden...
Read More“It’s just like a high-mileage car,” Scott Smith says of the Michigan Theater’s Barton organ. “It runs well but it needs constant attention.” At nearly eighty-four years old, the organ is...
Read More“The Fake Ad this month is on page 58 for the ‘Prenup Clean-Up’ teeth cleaning with Drs. Barbor, Webster, and Seaugh,” emailed Kristen Schleick, underlining “arborweb,” the name of the...
Read More“Finally one I know!” exclaims Kara Rumsey about July’s I Spy. “I see it every Saturday when I go to the Farmers’ Market.” It’s the “lemonade … hut,” writes Sarah...
Read MoreAs the curtain rose on Consider the Oyster, on two men in football jerseys raptly watching a TV football broadcast, I was suddenly struck–in a way that made me want to cartoonishly smack myself on the forehead–by the...
Read MoreThe Steel Wheels will be rolling out of Ann Arbor, quite literally, following their tour-opening concert at the Ark on August 4 (see Nightspots, p. 44). Members of the four-piece Americana string band are gearing up for their...
Read MoreEvery summer there’s one band that seems to appear everywhere around Washtenaw County, and if you wanted to track the youth zeitgeist you could start by making a list of them. Right now an old bluegrasser like me can take...
Read MoreAt the end of June, Peter Dale retired from the first job he ever had when he closed Encore Recordings, one of campus’s most beloved used-music shops. Longtime employees Jim Dwyer and Bill McClelland immediately reopened...
Read MoreShortly after the New Theatre Project spent $3,500 to remodel a space on Felch Street, the City of Ann Arbor discovered their performances were occurring in a building zoned as “light industrial” and sent TNTP...
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