Another round of new releases from Washtenaw County musicians in the age of quarantine. (These are all studio recordings or professionally shot videos; visit our mini-guide on livestreams by local artists here.)

Volume one is here.

Volume two is here.

Volume three is here.

Volume four is below and features music/videos from Virga, The Kelseys, Dre Dav/Flight Team, Laurel Halo, Tadd Mullinix/JTC, TwoFace Suave, Drew Denton/Druzi Baby, and Sean Curtis Patrick.

Ander Monson, a native of Michigan who lives in Arizona, has not one but two new books that were published this year.

His book of essays, I Will Take the Answer, begins with an account of exploring storm sewer tunnels underneath Tucson and concludes with a reflection on filming a ceremony with an infrared camera. In between, the essays span gun violence, rivers, mines, the Midwest, the Upper Peninsula, music and mixtapes, a Renaissance festival, a reflection on “I,”, and holiday lawn decorations. There is also a mention of the Sea Shell City Michigan’s Man-Killing Giant Clam.

These essays contemplate our relationship to the past and our memories alongside who we are now, what it all may mean, and what the future may bring. One essay called “Facing the Monolith” reflects on how a palm does not survive when transplanted and determines that:

Removed from our worlds, our histories of self, the things and songs we love, our spectacles or the spectacles we have become, the outlines of our lives -- that constant backward looking, searching for what we might contain or in what we are contained—we might well disappear.

The extent that history and self and the world around us are interconnected shapes our realities, suggests Monson. Yet, despite our reliance on our individual collections of history and memory, they do not guarantee security. Monson writes, “I consider, as if floating above some other northern city, the sprawling of the lit-up interstates as fathers drive their children home through snow on winter nights, thinking themselves safe. What is safety, I wonder, when at any moment our life could be torn apart?”

This idea of upending a life is contextualized by Monson’s discussion of the 2011 Tucson shooting in which US Representative Gabrielle Giffords was injured. At the tragedy’s memorial outside the grocery store where it occurred, one of the essays aptly depicts that, “I find a balled-up piece of lined yellow paper. I do pick it up. I open it. a shopping list with six items: ‘triskets, jello, oranges, mayo, peanut butter, sm. eating apples.’ It’s not a note or prayer. Sometimes it’s not clear what the difference is between these kinds of documents.” While this book just came out this year, I sense these sturdy yet vulnerable essays will hold up over time and that I’ll find myself rereading them or returning to them in thought in the future.

Monson’s other book, The Gnome Stories, is a collection of short stories that are, in some ways, a counterpart to the essays. Reading the two books in quick succession may have influenced me, but the stories do present similar situations examined through the lens of fiction, while also standing alone. They investigate how people will respond to unique circumstances, ranging from shooting a burglar to working in a cryogenic facility or a radical weight-loss clinic. Characters find themselves both at extremes and reaching toward extremes at the same time as wondering what defines them, how they can change, and, “[w]hen will it be enough?” As one character who maps people’s memories reflects, “[m]y father once asked me: What are you willing to wreck to get what you want?” The question moves beyond the hypothetical when this character and others undergo this test. Through clear prose and introspective characters, the stories reveal strengths and weaknesses of these characters, as well as question which is which.

Monson’s reading in Ann Arbor is rescheduled as an At Home with Literati event via Zoom video conferencing on Tuesday, April 14, at 7 pm, when he will speak along with author Deb Olin Unferth. 

I interviewed him by email, and we talked about his books, connection to the Midwest, and how the pandemic has affected his plans. 

The town of Lakewood, where you don’t know what’s part of a research study and what’s separate or real life, provides the setting for a new book of the same name by Megan Giddings, a University of Michigan graduate. This shifting ground calls into question what is true in the experiences of the main character, Lena Johnson, who moves to Lakewood for the promise of good pay and health insurance (albeit as a subject in the research study). A dystopian novel apt for the times, Lakewood moves quickly and constantly probes what lines people will hold or cross for the sake of science or their family.

Early on, Lena mulls over a foretelling comment by another character:

To make life easier, we have to agree there is no such thing as normal, the doctor had said while typing on her laptop. If you think too much about how things should be, you forget how they are.

As the novel unfolds and Lena joins the study, supposedly on memory and funded by the government, she has to grapple with whether the increasing physical and mental side effects of the tests are worth it. She furthermore undergoes surveillance, notices that the town is predominately white while research subjects are black, and must endure extreme circumstances, including taking unidentified medications. Whether Lena will forge ahead with participating and if the purpose or outcome of the research will be revealed become the questions that propel the novel.

Giddings was scheduled to speak Wednesday, April 1, at Literati Bookstore, and the event was canceled owing to COVID-19. I interviewed her by email as planned prior to the pandemic.

With the coronavirus quarantine here to stay for the foreseeable future, the Ann Arbor Art Center (A2AC) had a quandary with its sixth annual Art Now: Photography exhibit, which was scheduled to run in its gallery April 3 to May 2: cancel it, delay it, or make it an online exhibit.

A2AC opted for the online choice and launched Art Now: Photography on its original opening date over at annarborartcenter.org.

Juror Eleanor Oakes -- an assistant professor of photography at the College for Creative Studies and founder of Darkroom Detroit -- picked the theme "nothing is clear, nothing is certain" and the 36 photographs by 37 artists explore ambiguity, mental health, gender, and more.

Whether by chance or prescience, one photo stood out due to the way it dovetails with a current trend during the world's stay-at-home status.

We usually travel to a museum to view its art. But with everything closed for the foreseeable future due to the coronavirus pandemic, the University of Michigan Museum of Art is bringing its collection to you.

UMMA's Art in Your Inbox officially launched on March 26, with the museum emailing images from its collection twice a week, accompanied by brief, thoughtful commentaries on the works. But the project's genesis came from UMMA staff members privately sending art images to one another; they found the exchanges comforting and decided to share their finds with the public. 

The pieces are chosen with society's current predicament in mind, such as Joanne Leonard's photograph Winged Ones, which features a child in angel wings staring out a window. But UMMA isn't just choosing isolation and illness art; inspired by Netflix's runaway hit Tiger King, one email featured the Tigress and Cubs scroll by Konoshima Ôkoku, which linked then linked to 11 additional works in UMMA's collection featuring the big cats. Another Art in Your Inbox image was Julie Blackmon's photo Birds at Home, featuring five children sitting at a messy dinner table among 12 cracked eggs; the body of the email featured the headline, "Homeschooling for how long?"

Another round of new releases from Washtenaw County musicians in the age of quarantine. (These are all studio recordings or professionally shot videos; visit our mini-guide on livestreams by local artists here.)

Volume one is here.

Volume two is here.

Volume three is below featuring music from Sean Curtis Patrick, Vulfpeck, Linen Ray, Anna Burch, Stormy Chromer, and Andrew Brown's Djangophonic.

Another round of new releases from Washtenaw County musicians in the age of quarantine. (These are all studio recordings or professionally shot videos; visit our mini-guide on livestreams by local artists here.)

Volume one is here.

Volume two is below:

As I was compiling new releases by Washtenaw-area musicians, my browser crashed under the weight of having 4,796 tabs open. Happens.

Here are the releases I could recall from my brain's memory cache, which is also ready to crash:

When the quarantine started, we tracked all the livestreams we could find by Washtenaw musicians and published them on Pulp. Now that every musician who has access to an instrument and internet connection is playing a videostream concert, it's been near impossible to keep up. So here's the best way to find livestreams by Ann Arbor-area musicians:

➥ Visit their Facebook pages and Instagram accounts. Obvs. Just punch in the name of a musician you enjoy and you're likely to find something you'd like to watch.
➥ Ann Arbor Loves Live Music was the most active of several concert-promoting groups on Facebook before the quarantine. Now it's the most active group to find links to livestreams.
➥ If you like jazz, there's no better place to find out about Washtenaw livestreams, musicians, and album releases than the Facebook group Lifting Up A2 Jazz, run by the indefatigable Jennifer Pollard. It was a tremendous resource to find out about area jazz concerts in the pre-corona era and it continues in this capacity during the quaranstream era.
➥ Search Facebook's Events section for things happening in Ann Arbor. And because nothing else is happening, you'll find all the musician livestreams in the Washtenaw area by artists who posted their concerts as Events.

I wish I could give you links to something other than Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram, but I haven't seen many livestream links on Twitter or anywhere else. The only other thing I can think of is to subscribe to musicians' YouTube pages; some artists have been using the livestream feature there instead of Facebook Live. Twitch is another resource, especially for DJ sets, but I only know of two area groups doing streams there: MEMCO and Wax Kings.

Now, stay home and watch MY livestream featuring me learning how to play trumpet as I toe-strum a distorted electric guitar at top volume and my dogs run back and forth over synthesizer keys as they manically bark at imaginary delivery trucks.

Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.

The third album from Ann Arbor's Nessa showcases an ensemble remaining true to its roots while stretching out thematically.

Led by flutist/vocalist Kelly McDermott, the band continues to develop its own particular strain of Celtic-inspired world music. And on the new album, Otherworld, that sound serves to explore two specific themes: of women finding truth and a prayer for the planet.

Joining McDermott in the core band are Rob Crozier on bass and other instruments; Dan Palmer, guitars; Mike List, percussion; Rick Beamon, drums; and Brian Brill, keyboards. Brill and McDermott produced the record.

The album opens with a composition about another world and devotes its second half to an “Elemental Suite” celebrating our own world. The title track is a haunting, flute-led instrumental that sets the stage for what’s to come. Thoughtful and enchanting, it effectively suggests the idea of another dimension. Written by Crozier, “RGB Reel” -- inspired by Ruther Bader Ginsburg -- showcases his expert bass playing. Dan Palmer’s “Buiochas” is a beautiful take on Irish jazz. 

The music on Otherworld is largely original compositions, but the band also weaves in reinventions of traditional songs, further extending the notion of both staying rooted and reaching out. “Sovay” is mellow and jazzy, while “Wraggle Taggle Gypsies” has an almost reggae feel. And “Stitch in Time” even manages to successfully work in rap elements.

The four parts of the closing suite each evoke their particular element. “Air for St. Brigid” features gorgeous wordless vocals; “Singing Waters” uses water sounds and a flute that suggests a flowing river. “Fire Dance” takes listeners from embers to a roaring blaze.

McDermott answered a few questions about the new album via email.