Books are back
Borders’ bankruptcy last year and the endless hype about e-books sent a collective shiver through the city’s remaining booksellers, who also had seen Shaman Drum close in 2009. But as of mid-December, sales at...
Read More2012 January
Mountain Heart
Mountain Heart came on the scene with its unique bluegrass sound in the late 1990s, and that sound has endured intact through a series of personnel changes. Despite the band’s considerable success, nobody else has been...
Read MoreCoffee like Wine
Imagine a non-Tim Hortons, anti-Bob Evans, un-Dunkin’ Donuts sort of dark coffee cave, and you’ll be on the right track toward Ypsilanti’s Ugly Mug Cafe and Roastery. Dozens of little spotlights and lamps with...
Read MoreKesselman on the beach
Last year, a friend who appeared in the 1992 New York production of Einstein on the Beach asked local soprano Lindsay Kesselman if she would consider leaving home for long stretches to do an international tour with the Robert...
Read MoreEat’s Progress
Helen Harding and Blake Reetz opened Eat Catering and Carryout in the former Marcano’s space on Packard in mid-November. Harding, twenty-six, and Reetz, thirty, met as teenagers working at the Jefferson Market on...
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South Hall / the Cutting Bldg
Bob DeBona writes that his whole family loves “searching for the I Spy around town.” In December, it led them to “one of the entrances” of a new U-M building.Michael Ferguson identifies it as “South...
Read MoreCover Up with Cumberfun
We received 190 entries correctly identifying the December Fake Ad for the Cumberfun accessory designed to conceal the gap above young men’s baggy pants.More than a few Fake Adders thought the Cumberfun was just the thing...
Read MoreMeter cheaters
Jammed meters are viewed as a lucky break by local drivers who figure they’ll enjoy a free hour or so of parking until the city repairs the machines. Turns out the problem is usually not mechanical but the gleeful mischief...
Read MoreThe Joy of Geocaching
Eight years ago, a friend introduced me to the pleasures of “geocaching”–essentially modern-day treasure hunting with a high-tech twist. He was visiting my northern Michigan cottage when he mentioned it, and I...
Read MoreSava’s Babo
Albanian immigrant Sava Lelcaj was just twenty-three when she started her eponymous sandwich shop in 2007. Despite what she later saw as extortionate rent, she survived. Still, a lot of business watchers thought it was a...
Read MoreHistoric calendar
“We first thought about a book, and then a friend of mine said, ‘Why don’t you try a calendar?'” recalls Shirley Beckley. Thus evolved the “History of Ann Arbor’s Black Community,” now...
Read MoreThe Business of Tolerance
Since its founding by fusion two years ago, the Ann Arbor / Ypsilanti Regional Chamber of Commerce has supported the election of Republicans Rick Snyder and Mark Ouimet and opposed a city income tax—all predictably conservative...
Read MoreEllen Rowe
Jazz is now ubiquitous in universities, but it has not always been. For the first half of its history, jazz and academia were divided by race, lifestyle, and conceptual frameworks. The acceptance of improvised music in music...
Read MoreLandlords Unwanted
There are ten houses on Minerva, fourteen if you count corner houses facing other streets. Just one block long, it runs between S. Forest, where there are mainly student rentals, and Olivia, whose houses are mostly family owned....
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