2015 March

Kroger’s secret

Stadium Pharmacy has been offering home delivery service for prescriptions since opening eleven years ago, says pharmacist and owner Xavier Tato. “Many patients are homebound and can’t come out to pick up their...

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Scott Beal

My book of Scott Beal’s poems, Wait ‘Til You Have Real Problems, has more pleats than a Catholic schoolgirl’s skirt–from my habit of turning down a page with something I like, twice if I like two...

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Martin Espada

It may or may not be correct to call Martin Espada “the Latino poet of his generation,” but it is certainly right to understand him as one of a handful of writers of the generation now around age sixtywho broke open...

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Red Brick Kitchen Doubles in Size

In mid-February, Pete Landrum and his father-in-law, Jay Harshe, a retired contractor, were presiding over an enormous but orderly renovation and expansion of the Red Brick Kitchen & Bar. “Basically the whole place is...

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More Auto Parts Changes

Who knew that there would be a Part Two to our January auto parts story? In that issue, Bruce Bertram and his boss Bill Hueter at S-G Parts of Ann Arbor explained how S-G, Viking, and Boyer, three independent parts dealers, had...

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Homeless count

The biennial count of Washtenaw County’s homeless population, on January 28, was encouraging. Outreach workers and community volunteers counted only eighty people “unsheltered”–sleeping outdoors in cars,...

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Newspaper rebound

Business took a turn for the worse over the last decade for newspaper distributor Nick Genova, but home delivery remained a rock.Genova’s company, Washtenaw News, distributes fifteen publications locally, including the...

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What’s a View Worth?

Stephen Ranzini, CEO of University Bank, has lived in his One North Main penthouse since 2000, but now he has it on the market for an asking price of $1.15 million. The two-story apartment is sufficiently splendid to have been...

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Cold Tone Harvest

Cold Tone Harvest lets its music come to you, creeping subtly and hypnotically with a sparse, campfire-reminiscent sound. The band, featuring singer-songwriter Andrew Sigworth on acoustic guitar, Ozzie Andrews on stand-up bass,...

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Momo Tea Is Now Sweetology

MoMo Tea on South U closed for a remodel and reopened as Sweetology. The entrees and most of the savories are gone, replaced by an elaborate and exotic dessert menu of the sort popular in Hong Kong. Irene Zhang, who owns the...

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The Shalabis Are Back

“I’ve been waiting all my life to open my own place,” says Moe Shalabi, owner (with his wife, Fidaa) of the new sandwich shop in Lamp Post Plaza, Pita King. It’s not as long-deferred a dream as it sounds:...

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The New Northside

Last fall, Northside Elementary reopened with a new name–Ann Arbor STEAM @ Northside–a new principal, almost all new teachers, and an enrollment of 407 students–more than double last year’s 185.The new...

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Veganism for Everyone

The cheerful, hardworking vigor of Phillis Engelbert and Joel Panozzo has given an everyman gloss to the sometimes finicky niche market of veganism. Engelbert and Panozzo were amateur cooks who had both turned vegan mainly by...

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Death Dogs

For ancient Egyptians, death marked the start of a harrowing journey through the underworld, past fiery lakes and through gates and caverns guarded by strange and dangerous creatures. There was a monster with a knife for a head...

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Art French

“Some people just don’t believe it,” says Art French, when he tells them that Ann Arbor once had a namesake automobile. But the proof is in his garage, parked next to his Buick sedan. On a snowy January day at...

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Power Shortage

With more electric vehicles rolling on Ann Arbor’s streets, more EV drivers are making use of the public charging stations downtown and on the U-M campus. DDA energy programs director Dave Konkle says the chargers at the...

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Idol Makers

We received 144 entries correctly identifying the Fake Ad for Idol Makers on page 74 of the February issue.”My nine-year-old daughter, Ava, made a guess that the ad for Idol Makers was the fake one,” wrote Monet...

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Hob Nob

“The February I Spy is the sculpture known as ‘Hob Nob’,” writes Jim Grosch. It’s “located near the Space Research Building on Hayward.” “I walk past that sculpture … on a...

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Scam Alert!

We’ve been alerted to a scam ad in the March 2015 Observer classifieds. A reader who responded to the ad above–for a free 1987 Honda 1200 motorcycle–thought the explanation sounded “fishy,” googled,...

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Steel Magnolias

Last fall the newly resurrected Performance Network led with Driving Miss Daisy, most familiar as a 1980s sentimental Hollywood crowd-pleaser about the South. And now Purple Rose weighs in with Steel Magnolias, ditto: originally...

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