Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week jazz-tinged Hanukkah tunes by Jacob “Spike” Kraus, lo-fi Xmas classics by The Chopped Liver, an industrial-techno mix by Christmas, a violent holiday clash by Dead Schembechlers, and Iggy Pop covering several seasonal faves.

People who work at the Ann Arbor District Library love to give recommendations.

Whether in person at one of the five branches, in the News and Reviews section of AADL's website, or right here at Pulp, highlighting our favorite books, films, TV shows, video games, websites, adventures, and more is just part of the gig.

Like you, we are passionate enjoyers of media and experiences.

This is our seventh year compiling Ann Arbor District Library staff picks—and with more than 40,000 words spread out over four posts, it is the longest edition yet.

To reiterate: We. Love. To. Give. Recommendations.

Here are the creative works and experiences we discovered in 2023 that moved us enough to share them with you. (Not that you needed to twist our arms.)

➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Words
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Screens
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Audio
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Pulp Life

➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Homepage
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Screens
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Audio
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Pulp Life

AADL 2023 STAFF PICKS: WORDS
Books, audiobooks, graphic novels, comics, websites, and more:

➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Homepage
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Words
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Audio
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Pulp Life

AADL 2023 STAFF PICS: SCREENS
TV, movies, DVDs, video games, YouTube, streaming, etc.

➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Homepage
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Words
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Screens
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Pulp Life

AADL 2022 STAFF PICS: AUDIO
Music, podcasts, CDs, records, and more:

➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Homepage
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Words
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Screens
➥ AADL 2023 Staff Picks: Audio

AADL 2023 STAFF PICS: PULP LIFE
Games, apps, sports, outdoors, and any other kind of hard-to-categorize cultural and life activities:

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features a cappella techno by Ki5, Americana by Turner Luce, quirky pop by Studio Lounge, electronica by kaito ian, and dream folk by Mree.

A typical Tom Stoppard play features a whole lot of words just to get to a basic point. It can be intellectually stimulating—or a wee bit draggy if you're looking for more action on stage.

But the high-energy Ann Arbor Civic Theatre production of Stoppard's The Real Thing that opened last Friday to a sold-out crowd flows at an excellent pace thanks to director David Widmayer and grips your attention throughout.

The play is set in 1980s London and focuses on two couples. Henry (Chris Grimm) is a playwright married to Charlotte (Kara Williams), an actress who frequently stars in Henry’s shows, including his current piece, House of Cards. They are good friends with Annie (Sara Long) and her husband Max (Manny Abascal Jr.), who is also an actor and starring in House of Cards with Charlotte. 

Aaron Burch recounts major life changes and memories in the essays of A Kind of In-Between. Throughout the pages, Burch questions what is important in life. What do you remember? What does it mean? Why are you happy or not? 

Focusing on the places he has been is one approach that Burch takes to inform these inquiries. He shares that he grew up in Washington and has subsequently lived in Michigan and Illinois as an adult. In the sentence that lends itself to the book’s title, he narrates his road trip:

I’m somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, driving around this big, long turn while also going down a decent decline. I don’t know how steep; I don’t really have any idea how to measure or guesstimate that kind of thing. I can tell it’s steeper than anything in Michigan but less so than Washington, a version of the kind of in-between that I return to again and again—known but not, neither childhood nor adult, not quite then or now, here or there. 

This ambiguity begins in the physical world and then seeps into other contexts. The human urge to name and define things breaks down when something is neither one nor the other. Burch concludes this essay called “Ohiopyle” with a question: “Were you to ask me, somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, whether home meant Washington or Michigan, what would I answer? I’m not sure.” Still, maybe one does not have to decide, as Burch highlights “the interconnectedness of everything and everyone” in the first essay of the collection. 

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features classical/jazz/new music by PRISM Quartet, glitch pop by Jib Kidder, indie rock by Virga, thrash-punk by Blowhole, and indie-folk by Frontier Ruckus.