Ginger Visel Ford, sixty-nine, can remember being an energetic four-year-old, playing tag with her brother Charlie at her heels. Just as he tagged her, she ducked under sheets hanging on a clothesline. Winded and laughing, the...
Read MoreIt sounds like the start of a joke: “An engineer, a nurse’s aide, and an IT guy enter a minivan …” In fact, it’s a partial passenger list for the U-M’s “Detroit One” vanpool. The...
Read MoreGaily painted circus wagons carrying huge tents and others bearing the menagerie of all types of wild animals travelled through the city streets this morning between the Michigan Central railroad and the Packard St. showgrounds...
Read MoreR.U.B. BBQ didn’t last long at the corner of Packard and State–it opened in 2013 and closed in May. The success of Slows BBQ in Detroit has invited competition, and the Yono family, which owns hotels and restaurants...
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I’m thoroughly enjoying a set by the Chelsea-based bluegrass trio Thunderwüde when I discover that the trio is actually supposed to be a quartet. Mandolin player and vocalist Jason Dennie is out of town, leaving guitarist...
Read MoreBlack Diesel Coffee is now open at the corner of Packard and E. Stadium, in the corner storefront previously occupied by Peet’s Coffee & Tea and by Caribou Coffee. Both were successful, busy stores, but their...
Read MoreWright & Filippis moved out of its big building on Washtenaw near Huron Pkwy. into a smaller, more specialized shop farther east, next to Haifa Falafel. Bill Simon, certified prosthetist and clinical manager, says that...
Read MoreMany people in this part of the world know the border that separates Detroit from the Grosse Pointes. The drive down East Jefferson past the empty lots and boarded buildings–past all the people who live there–until...
Read MoreAs it turned out, June 17 wasn’t the best evening for the Ann Arbor Farmers Market’s first food truck rally of the season. Like much of the spring, the weather was rainy and cool, and with the trucks spread out...
Read MoreWhen MSU crushed Michigan’s football team last fall, many students drowned their sorrow in beer. Then-juniors Zach Bruch and Ryan Luck didn’t just vent. They started throwing names around–not just of...
Read MoreAnn Arborites know the alcohol flows freely at undergrad hot spot Good Time Charley’s-so freely that the South U establishment ran up the biggest booze tab in the city last year. According to the records of the Michigan...
Read MoreDuring the second half of the last century, musical success most often required full dedication to life on the road. This was particularly true of jazz players who traversed the country moving from club to club and the...
Read MoreWait. What? The pharmacist will see me?Yes, in primary care and some specialty clinics at U-M, pharmacists see patients with medication-responsive chronic conditions, including diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and...
Read MoreSometimes we have to sharpen our observational skills to see what is going on outside. However, one very large butterfly is easy to spot. The aptly named giant swallowtail is the biggest butterfly in Michigan. Form your two...
Read MoreHow do you describe that Polaris Slingshot in the window of what used to be Nicholson’s and is now Freeride Powersports? “It’s a Batmobile!” replies general manager Ron Quinkert.The Iowa-built...
Read MoreThe last slot of Borders’ old downtown store opened for business in June. Pieology, practically a homonym with “biology” and subtitled “the study of custom pizza” on its outside sign, sounds like it...
Read MoreElephant Ears, Kerrytown’s bi-level store for top-quality children’s clothing, strollers, car seats, and baby accessories, suddenly decided to pull up stakes and relocate to a smaller space in Plymouth. Matt Cyrulnik...
Read MoreThe Biggby Coffee on E. Liberty closed. “We replaced it with the one on [the corner of Ellsworth and] Platt Road. That was the plan all along,” says Nesha Slocum at ABI, the Lansing-based company that has...
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