A cousin who runs a Vegas strip club? A beloved brother who goes missing while in Vegas? A late husband who wrote dirty jokes for a living? A heroine with a failed stand up career who must save the day?

These colorful characters make up the new book The Bible of Dirty Jokes by U-M professor Eileen Pollack, but the roots of the novel come from a different era.

“I grew up in a hotel in the Borscht Belt," Pollack says. "It's really where stand up comedy got its start. Famous comedians would perform there, creating this sort of culture, and that’s what I knew.”

If you are unfamiliar with the artful pyrotechnics of the California Guitar Trio, simply buy a ticket to their upcoming show at The Ark on March 11 and get ready to have your mind blown.

California Guitar Trio is comprised of Bert Lams, Hideyo Moriya, and Paul Richards, who combine exquisite musical chops with an omnivorous, multi-genre approach to music. On stage and on their albums, CGT includes all manner of acoustic cover versions as well as dazzling original material. Whether it's rock, classical, jazz, country, or surf music, CGT perform with style and skill that’s hard to match elsewhere.

I’ve been a fan of the Trio since the beginning of their career, so it was a real treat to catch up with band member Paul Richards by phone in advance of the group’s Ark date on Sunday.

When the Tim Haldeman Quartet assembles at Hathaway’s Hideaway in Ann Arbor on Sunday, March 11, to play improvised jazz while films are screened, the musicians will continue a tradition that is most associated with a pioneering soundtrack by trumpeter Miles Davis.

At the end of November 1957, Davis flew to France to begin a monthlong series of concerts, including a three-week stint at Club Saint-Germain in Paris.

But the trumpeter didn't bring the musicians who comprised his first great quintet.

“When we put ourselves in positions of risk, interesting things happen,” says choreographer Honji Wang. She is talking to me on the phone from Minneapolis about the upcoming performances of Company Wang Ramirez -- the group of dancers she leads with partner Sébastien Ramirez -- at Ann Arbor’s Power Center, March 9-10, as part of UMS's season. Our conversation is shot through with Wang’s references to what is interesting, and it reveals an ongoing passion for illuminating the unexpected and the provocative through dance.

“I’m going to have to make you a wand. You can’t be out with me without a wand.” --My son

On more than one occasion, my son has pointed out to me that I’m lucky that he, a teenager, still wants to hang out with me, you know, a mom. With that in mind, as soon as he mentioned that the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra would be at Michigan Theater playing songs from Harry Potter, I pulled out my debit card and secured tickets for the Sunday, March 4, afternoon matinee performance.

“You’re like family now because the weather has conspired against us.” --Sherri Winston

If you want to attend an intimate author event, attend one during a snow (slush?) storm that follows an unseasonably warm day. On Thursday, March 1, middle-grade author Sherri Winston talked about her latest projects and her process at the Ann Arbor District Library.

He is just so good. They are all just so good.

Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder played The Ark on Saturday, March 3, for a concert to benefit the Breakfast at St. Andrews. And the sold-out crowd enjoyed an absolutely first-rate bluegrass show that transported the spirit of Kentucky fully intact to Ann Arbor.

Many of us wonder what the creative process for an artist is like. How do they come up with ideas for their songs? What inspires them? How do they start to write and compose an original song?

Beginning in November 2017, Cultivate Coffee and Taphouse has held Songwriter Sunday bi-weekly, offering local artists the chance to share their songwriting and creative process, and giving interested members of the public the chance to answer some of those questions.

Awkward!

Even terrifying at times.

That first date can make you sweat.  

That’s the premise of the chamber musical First Date, book by Austin Winsberg and music and lyrics by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner.

Aaron C. Wade will direct the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre production of First Date, March 8-11, at the Arthur Miller Theatre on the north campus of the University of Michigan.

When the first poem in a book is titled “Plantation,” you should probably just go ahead, pour yourself a drink, sit somewhere quiet, and prepare to be transported.

I suppose you should expect to be transported, too, by a book called Voyage of the Sable Venus, especially since it won the National Book Award for Poetry.

On Thursday, Feb. 21, Robin Coste Lewis read her work as a part of the Zell Writers Series. I don’t know how it is possible that an auditorium feels cozy, but that was the vibe in UMMA’s Helmut Stern Auditorium that evening: warm, relaxed, somewhat dark.