Vipul Patel has a degree in computer science, but that was always his backup plan. Born with the soul of an entrepreneur, Patel knew he wanted to own his own business but wanted the safety net of a computer background...
Read MoreThe season of giving and receiving has descended upon us again, with Christmas, Hanukkah, hostess gifts, and thank-you tokens all requiring rumination, choices, and purchases. There aren’t many gift options that can be...
Read MoreIt’s perhaps not surprising that a place called the Roma Bakery bills itself as “home of the pepperoni roll” and has a glass case full of cannoli, cheesecake, and the tiny cookies that Italians love so much...
Read MoreMichelle Toal’s business almost went up in smoke last summer. “The restaurant next door to us had a grease fire,” she says. “It got out of control, and it sent their restaurant up in flames, and we ended...
Read MoreThe lights dim, the oboe plays an A to tune the orchestra, and the conductor lifts her baton to signal the commencement of the overture to The Nutcracker ballet. Again. This year will be my eighteenth season of playing in the...
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Quite a few bands have tried to be inspired by the chart-topping Avett Brothers and have found it’s a lot trickier than it seems: that band’s mix of artless country sentiment and alternative rock energy is simple and...
Read MoreThe last tenant sold linens & things and the new tenant sells guns & things. Dick’s Sporting Goods opened in the former Linens & Things space on Lohr Road in mid-October. The company had hoped to be open by...
Read MoreThere are many things a school of music ought to do, high among them preparing performers, producing concerts, training scholars, holding discussions, and disseminating information.But if you ask me, the top thing a school of...
Read More“I believe that’s Maynard House,” says Jeff Hauptman, “but from the angle it almost looks like [a] bizarre type of roofing shingle.” “The House illuminated by the Plaza is the Maynard House...
Read MoreWhen my son stopped believing in Santa Claus this year I thought I was off the hook. Because when he’d ask Santa for something, I was the one who had to come through. Santa can’t tell a kid, “Sorry, I...
Read MoreFor the past fifteen years or more, New Issues Press, associated with Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, has been doing the essential work of finding new poets, making sure their work gets into print, and getting the...
Read MoreThe players of Classical Revolution are not your mom and dad’s classical musicians. Instead of a bunch of old folks in formal wear in rapt communion with the infinite, it’s a bunch of young folks in street clothes...
Read MoreIgnorance is one way to keep a product pure. “I don’t know what potassium sorbate is,” says Wendy Achatz, owner, with her husband Dave, of the Achatz Handmade Pie Company. “Is it a powder? A liquid? Where...
Read MoreWhen the lights turn low, audience members scurry to find their seats, but I am surprised that the room continues to stay dark. A single voice pierces the darkness, a soulful alto, soon answered by harmonies from around the...
Read MoreDepending on your perspective, the war between Washtenaw County and Ypsilanti Township over the price of police services lasted either five or eight years.It’s five if you believe, as county officials do, that the conflict...
Read MoreAin’t Misbehavin’ is a sizzling, lively tribute to Fats Waller and Harlem between the world wars, where music, dance, art, and literature bloomed in a brief and beautiful kind of Camelot. A lot of the luminaries who...
Read MoreWhen Republican Mark Ouimet announced last winter that he was giving up his seat on the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners to run for the state house, Democrats hoped first-time candidate Adam Zemke might take the...
Read MoreLand preservation has its own contradiction: to keep a treasured piece of property safe in a natural state so that the public can enjoy it forever, you have to keep the public out—lest its ardent enjoyment trample the...
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