2014 June

Nerd Nite

A standing-room-only crowd of geeks, grad students, and geezers are enjoying libations and soft bar lights, but, unlike other nights at Live, the people are waiting to get their eureka on at Nerd Nite Ann Arbor. Three volunteer...

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Mock court

In March, Community High School won a state championship. Not in basketball–the school doesn’t even have a team–but by arguing an imaginary wrongful death lawsuit.”George Romero,” a partner in an...

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Cecile McLorin Salvant

Catching a star on the rise is one of the joys of concert-going. Among the many stellar acts on the docket of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, one show promises to be a lasting treat for fans of classic jazz, New Orleans blues,...

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Long-Distance Medicine

Perumal Pillai, seventy-five, lives at Grace Care Center, an orphanage and elder care facility in Sri Lanka. For seven years he was blind. Then, five months ago, Pillai had surgery to remove cataracts from one eye. He’s...

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Curry On

It took the sharp eyes of reader Robert Koernke to notice this subtle change: Curry Up is now Curry On. Calling Will Shortz, the puzzle master. Can’t you just hear him saying: “Take the word ‘curry,’...

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Clay Gallery moves online

“The business climate has changed. Sales since 2008 have been very gradually declining, yet our events were really popular,” Monica Wilson says. She’s explaining why the Clay Gallery, an eighteen-member...

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Chelsea Marketplace Closings

After twenty-five years in business, a May auction marked the closing of Marj Daniels’ Uptown Antiques. Daniels could not be reached for comment, but Chelsea Area Chamber of Commerce executive director Bob Pierce says...

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The Summer Festival at thirty

When the first Ann Arbor Summer Festival was held in 1984, new executive director Amy Nesbitt points out, “The Ark was still a house concert in Linda and Dave Siglin’s living room. The Michigan Theater was not a...

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The Midtown Restaurant Revival Marches On

Restaurants always circle college campuses–students don’t cook much. The new high-rises and dorms that have sprung up, many just a few blocks away, are another reason State and Liberty is now practically wall-to-wall...

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The Breastfeeding Boutique

The retail change at 726 Brooks is rather slight–that there is any retail at all on this quiet Water Hill street is probably the biggest news to most, but the worn, block building set far back from the street is clearly...

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Gayle Hurn

On a sunny morning in early May, no one is in the water at Fuller Pool, but about two dozen city staffers and volunteers are milling around it, adults setting up lounge chairs and little kids bouncing a basketball or picking...

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Flower bed

Despite its beckoning antique charm, you won’t be able to take a leisurely afternoon snooze in the red iron bed in a front yard on South Maple. Yellow tulips and rose bushes have long ago claimed it for their own.Anne...

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Canine Goose Patrol

The NCRC, the old Pfizer complex, employs some 2,000 people. It’s also home to perhaps a dozen nesting pairs of Canada geese. And when those geese hatch their babies, they bring their families to the entrances of the...

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Bake Me Crazy

Owner-chef Harold Solomon’s specialty is pizza and cookies. His Bake Me Crazy is aimed at campus, an area already well-supplied with pizza and cookies, but the competition does seem a bit tame, or sane, by comparison....

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Carolyn Wonderland

Carolyn Wonderland has been called the best-kept secret in Austin, a city with a lot of superb performers who rarely travel. She has appeared once before in Ann Arbor, at Top of the Park in 2008, but it will be good to see her...

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“Fragments of the Great War”

Forty-six pieces–including ink drawings, watercolor and acrylic paintings, and collages–make up the collection. Lewis, ninety-six, says that four years ago he “went to work with serious vigor” to assemble...

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May Marketplace Closings

Dick Sampier has semi-retired and moved out of the building behind Stadium Hardware. A sign posted on the door says he’ll be doing vacuum repairs out of his home.Dick Sampier Vacuum was the vacuum world’s Willy Wonka...

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Porcupine Mountain Sports

We received 177 entries correctly identifying the Fake Ad for Porcupine Mountain Sports on page 90 of the May Observer. The ad copy contained the last name of the previous month’s winner, “Reichert,” in the...

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