Quaranstreams: Peter Madcat Ruth at The Bird House - Saturday, March 14, 2020
With everything being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, musicians are turning to video livestreams to perform concerts. We'll be looking for these sorts of events by Washtenaw County artists and then posting the videos on Pulp, along with any ways you can help these musicians financially. If you are performing a remote or virtual concert, let us know by emailing pulp@aadl.org.
Peter Madcat Ruth at The Bird House - Saturday, March 14, 2020
Creative Washtenaw Aid 2020 – COVID-19 Support
The Arts Alliance has established the Creative Washtenaw Aid 2020 fund to collect donations and extend assistance to artists and creative organizations adversely impacted by COVID-19. Visit a3arts.org to donate money or to apply for assistance.
Quaranstreams: Erin Zindle & The Ragbirds at The Bird House - Sunday, March 15, 2020
With everything being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, musicians are turning to video livestreams to perform concerts. We'll be looking for these sorts of events by Washtenaw County artists and then posting the videos on Pulp, along with any ways you can help these musicians financially. If you are performing a remote or virtual concert, let us know by emailing pulp@aadl.org.
Erin Zindle & The Ragbirds at The Bird House - Sunday, March 15, 2020
VENMO: @erin-zindle
PAYPAL: theragbirds@hotmail.com
Creative Washtenaw Aid 2020 – COVID-19 Support
The Arts Alliance has established the Creative Washtenaw Aid 2020 fund to collect donations and extend assistance to artists and creative organizations adversely impacted by COVID-19. Visit a3arts.org to donate money or to apply for assistance.
Quaranstreams: Ellen Rowe's Momentum at Blue LLama Jazz Club - Saturday, March 14, 2020
With everything being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, musicians are turning to video livestreams to perform concerts. We'll be looking for these sorts of events by Washtenaw County artists and then posting the videos on Pulp, along with any ways you can help these musicians financially. If you are performing a remote or virtual concert, let us know by emailing pulp@aadl.org.
Ellen Rowe's Momentum at Blue LLama Jazz Club - Saturday, March 14, 2020
Creative Washtenaw Aid 2020 – COVID-19 Support
The Arts Alliance has established the Creative Washtenaw Aid 2020 fund to collect donations and extend assistance to artists and creative organizations adversely impacted by COVID-19. Visit a3arts.org to donate money or to apply for assistance.
Night Moves & Funny Dudes: Matt Braunger at the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase
This interview originally ran on March 9, 2017. Braunger returns to the Ann Arbor Comedy Club from March 12-14, 2020.
Portland-raised, Los Angeles-based stand-up comedian Matt Braunger has been a regular fixture in comedy clubs and on late night talk shows for over 10 years with his brand of introspective observational comedy. Braunger, 42, will be getting married later this year for the first time and is currently working on new material for a new hour-long special during his Enraged to be Married tour that hits Ann Arbor this week.
In the late 1990s, fresh out of college, Braunger moved to Chicago where he worked with improvisational guru Del Close, and along with comedians like Hannibal Buress and Kyle Kinane helped create an alternative comedy scene in a city that didn’t have one. Finally deciding on stand-up instead of improv, Braunger moved to Los Angeles to further his career, eventually landing a spot on the final season of MADtv in 2009.
Since the end of MADtv, Braunger has been a regular on the NBC comedy Up All Night, had a recurring role in the second season of Agent Carter on ABC, and most recently appeared on Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher’s Seeso comedy Take My Wife. Along with his acting appearances, Braunger has also released three comedy albums and appeared as Bruce Springsteen in the Channel 101 series Yacht Rock.
Braunger will appear Thursday, March 9 through Saturday, March 11 March 12-14, 2020, at the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase, and we talked to him about Midwestern comedy scenes, his upcoming special, politics, his podcast, a new Amazon Prime series, and Bob Seger.
Camille Pagán's witty, character-driven "This Won't End Well" follows a woman trying to take control of her life
Camille Pagán’s new novel, This Won’t End Well, came to her while she and her family were vacationing in France.
“[The main character’s] experience in Paris is partially modeled on our last trip to Paris -- particularly the part that [occurs] in Montmartre, the wonderful neighborhood where our family rented an apartment. We spent eight days there, the same week France captured the World Cup, and though this book is wholly fictional, I recreated much of our travel experience in it,” explained Pagán, a University of Michigan alumna who lives in Ann Arbor with her husband and two kids.
But eight days was a lot of family time, according to Pagán, who’s used to spending long stretches alone in front of her computer screen. So the day after her birthday, she went for a walk alone while her husband took their kids to a park on the Seine.
“I was strolling along the river, watching the water rush wildly and thinking about what a feat it is to successfully manage relationships -- even, or maybe especially, when they’re with people you love the most -- when a single sentence popped into my head: ‘Hello seems like such an innocuous word, but it’s really a portal to loss,’” Pagán said.
This is the opening sentence to This Won’t End Well, where Pagán introduces her newest character, a chemist named Annie Marks who is unlike any of the protagonists in the author's previous five novels.
The Music Overfloweth: A Snapshot of March 2020 Jazz, Classical & Folk Concerts in Ann Arbor
The Pulp email inbox is overflowing with jazz, folk, and classical pitches related to upcoming Ann Arbor-area concerts -- more than we can cover with individual posts. So, here's a curated compilation of these genres' March 2020 events in sonically rich Washtenaw County. It's just a fraction of concerts in the area, but more than enough to fill your dance card. For more jazz listings, visit Lifting Up A2 Jazz; for classical, visit U-M's School of Music, Theatre and Dance, UMS, and Kerrytown Concert House; for folk, rock, hip-hop, electronica, and more, visit Ann Arbor Loves Live Music and The Ann Arbor Observer.
Tanya Shaffer and Vienna Teng's musical "The Fourth Messenger" offers a contemporary view of the Buddha
Meditation is meant to focus the mind by clearing away random thoughts. But sometimes meditation may inspire a radical new idea.
Playwright Tanya Shaffer had such an inspiration that led to the creation of The Fourth Messenger, an unusual musical about the Buddha that will be given a concert staging at The Ark on March 14 as a fundraiser for the venue's Spotlight Series.
“The idea came to me on a nine-day silent retreat when I was supposed to be clearing my mind,” she said. “I was thinking about the story of Buddha’s enlightenment, where he sat under a tree and vowed not to get up until he found enlightenment. Then for many days and nights, all the temptations of the world are trying to get him up. And it came to me that would be cool as a song and dance, the temptations standing under a tree and then thinking the whole story would be a musical because it has that scale of a hero’s quest and so I got excited on the retreat and for many hours forgot about my breath and I thought about the musical.”
Ann Arbor webcomic creator Bill Kerschbaum builds "Forge" with Hammer and Nail
Independent content marketer Bill Kerschbaum encourages his clients to consider a comics format to convey their messages.
“Video is a powerful way to tell visual stories in marketing, but comics also provide great benefits that no other medium offers. It’s a largely untapped opportunity, but it can deliver great results,” said Kerschbaum, 49, who lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and two children.
He’s also writing a webcomic series called Forge, which is illustrated by Phillip Lowe.
Based on these details, one would assume Kerschbaum’s been a lifelong comics fan, but that’s not the case.
“Actually, I came into comics pretty late," he said. "Only in the last few years. But when I discovered comics as an adult, I was absolutely floored by one series in particular: Rust by Royden Lepp. Stunning artwork and a heart-wrenching story. It’s still one of my all-time favorites."
Valery Jung Estabrook's hand-sewn exhibit at U-M's LSA Humanities Gallery re-creates an uncomfortable snapshot of a rural American interior
The LSA Humanities Gallery is known for exhibits that raise uncomfortable questions and featuring provocative artworks that cut to the heart of American culture. With its most recent exhibit, *Hometown Hero (Chink): An American Interior, viewers are invited to explore an installation designed by multidisciplinary artist and Paula and Edwin Sidman Fellow in the Arts recipient Valery Jung Estabrook.
Estabrook’s installation is comprised of a life-sized, hand-sewn re-creation of an American interior, which casually anchors iconography of America’s racist past and present against a backdrop of brown, dreary dimness. Jung bases the recreation on her experiences growing up in rural Southwestern Virginia, though the low-wattage lightbulbs and centrally-placed television are instantly recognizable to me as a person who grew up in the rural Midwest, suggesting that Estabrook’s experiences are not unique to the American South. *Hometown Hero (Chink): An American Interior casually and precisely captures rural American life, from the guns mounted on the wall to the La-Z-Boy-style chair upholstered with a Confederate flag. This familiarity is unsettling.
Neighborhood Theatre Group’s new play "Thoughts and Prayers" explores what happens when a high school is upended by violence
Neighborhood Theatre Group’s new play, Thoughts and Prayers -- written by A.M. Dean and directed by Marisa Dluge -- is a story based in fictional but present-day Michigan where a gun and manifesto were discovered in a high school student’s trumpet case. The FBI responds by sending in Agent Sarah Allistair to implement “Project Armored Apple” in which teachers are supplied guns and training to react in the event of an attack at the school.
The story centers on Agent Allistair and Andy Webber, the awkward and ominous 17-year-old friend of Tyler, the gun-and-manifesto student. Andy’s family comprises of his mother, Melanie -- the devoted but anxious parent who is also a teacher at his high school; his father, Doug -- the cringe-inducing dad who thinks Tyler’s motive is related to receiving “too many hugs”; and Uncle Jeff -- a janitor at the high school and the relatable adult the teenager desperately needs.
There's a violent interaction in the play, but writing about it directly would be a spoiler. Trust that it comes as a surprise.
Thoughts and Prayers is directed by Marisa Dluge and stars Mimi Blackford, Eric Hohnke, Mike Sandusky, Debbie Secord, Kate Umstatter, and Craig VanKempen.
The term “thoughts and prayers” has become a common colloquialism within the discussion of school shootings. Playwright A.M. Dean uses this story to explore our reactions to these tragedies, how these tragedies may affect the afterlife, and how we prevail through our thoughts and prayers.
As to be expected, this play did not provide answers as to why these senseless acts take place in our schools. It left me feeling more nauseous about the current state of violence in our schools, more so than anything else. Perhaps that is a good thing.
Dean is the literary manager and co-founder of Neighborhood Theatre Group. He lives in Ypsilanti and received his degree from Michigan State University where he studied theater.
He answered a few questions via email.