What a Ride!
Anne Irvine doesn’t step into a roller coaster–she leaps. She grabs the handle and swings her legs into the car like a vaulting gymnast. “Woo-hoo!” she shouts as she lands in the backseat of the...
Read More2014 August
No Confidence
In June, Maryam Barrie addressed the trustees of Washtenaw Community College. The president of the school’s faculty union announced that the union had filed a complaint with the college’s accreditation agency,...
Read MoreBackstage Drama
In May, Erin Sabo, executive director of the Performance Network Theatre, arrived at a meeting of the theater’s board of directors. They wanted an accounting: what does PNT owe? Sabo’s response wasn’t...
Read MoreDancing in the Streets
I had to learn to waltz for a musical when I was in high school. My partner had a habit of going one-three-two while I was going two-three-one, and the results were like Arthur Murray gone horribly, horribly wrong.I kind of...
Read MoreThat 1990s Spirit
In the 1980s and 1990s, women had more room to be tough on the radio. From Natalie Merchant in 10,000 Maniacs to Suzanne Vega to the Bangles to the Cowboy Junkies, female pop stars maintained the memorable hooks and lighter...
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Louise Penny
Louise Penny’s third appearance in Ann Arbor, this time to discuss and sign her latest Inspector Gamache mystery, will be at Washtenaw Community College’s Towsley Auditorium–the largest venue yet to host her...
Read MoreKeeping Peace
Lots of colleagues vow to keep in touch when they move on, but one group of former co-workers at Peace Neighborhood Center has actually followed through, holding annual reunions for thirty years now. Even as they’ve...
Read MoreMoving up:
International Samaritan–the Ann Arbor-based charity that works with Third World kids growing up in garbage dumps–is moving up in the world. This summer, it moved into a Victorian house on the corner of N. Main and...
Read MoreComing: a taqueria, home goods, and … a mystery
Adrian and Lori Iraola let go of their second Chela’s at Stone Plaza (Stone School and Ellsworth) last December: “We wanted to focus on this place,” says Adrian from his original location at Maple and Liberty,...
Read MoreLooking Out for Monarchs
“The Monarch is undoubtedly the most familiar and widely recognized butterfly in North America.” So wrote the author of the Butterflies of Michigan Field Guide, published in 2005. But we saw not a single monarch last...
Read MorePhotosharing the Town
We’re used to seeing people walking around Ann Arbor looking down at their phones. But on a recent Saturday, nineteen people walked around town holding their phones out in front of them. They were taking photos for the...
Read MoreBarbara Morrison
Detroit and its surroundings have been the birthplace and learning ground of countless great jazz instrumentalists but have also given the world a number of majestic singers as well. The jazz bug can lay dormant and only grow...
Read MoreYounger Clothes and Funnel Cakes
There’s a lot under construction at Briarwood. In early July, marketing director Denise Murray gave a rundown over the phone: “Of course the big news is the new restaurants going in, Bravo and P.F. Chang.” The...
Read MoreFairy gardeners
“I always thought it was for kids, but the adults really get into it too,” says a Downtown Home and Garden employee. She’s speaking about “fairy gardens,” wee landscapes cultivated by lovers of...
Read MoreA New Jersey Mike’s
“We’re more about getting our sandwiches to more people than introducing more sandwiches to our menu,” says Mike Wagner, manager of Jersey Mike’s sub shop in Westgate. In other words, the menu...
Read MoreSave or spend?
When Washtenaw County closed the books on 2013, it recorded a $3.9 million surplus. Now the question is what to do with it.From her perspective, “it needs to go into reserves,” says county administrator Verna...
Read MoreEasy Livin’
“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.”—That setting: Catfish Row in Charleston. Mine: Zukey Lake in Lakeland.My maternal grandparents, who lived in Ann Arbor, had a log cabin on a knoll overlooking Zukey...
Read MorePassing the Torch
First published in 1977, Historic Buildings: Ann Arbor, Michigan was initially written by Marjorie Reade as an outgrowth of the city’s 1974 sesquicentennial celebration. The slim ninety-eight-page book grew out of the work...
Read MoreFeral Fish
For a new and not very big pond, the one at West Park is amazing. Created as part of a $1.4 million project to clean up an underground arm of Allen Creek, the small spring-fed pool harbored swarms of tadpoles in May, resulting...
Read MoreTriple Delight
When faced with a restaurant that facilitates hands-on cooking and saucing at the table, some folks will grumble about paying good money to eat out then having to do the work themselves. But serious preparation and craft are...
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