U-M basketball fans will get to hear perspectives about the team’s past and its present at 6:30 pm Monday at Literati Bookstore, when sports writer Mike Rosenbaum will talk about his book University of Michigan Basketball, 1960-1989: From Cazzie Russell to the NCAA Title alongside past U-M players Tom Staton and Antoine Joubert, and current U-M basketball play-by-play radio personality Brian Boesch.

“I’m leading the event,” said Rosenbaum, who grew up in Oak Park, and graduated from U-M with a communications degree in 1980. “So I’ll probably go over a few stories that [Staton and Joubert] talked about for the book … and then we’ll probably have a discussion about this year’s team. Brian’s close to the team. He’s interviewed all the coaches, and he can give us some insight on what’s going on … and talk about what to expect with the new coach [Dusty May].”

Staton and Joubert are just two of the more than 40 people Rosenbaum interviewed for his book, which has been years in the making.

Whether it’s a picture book, a poetry collection, or a fantasy novel, Fifth Avenue Press is ready to share a compelling array of new releases from local authors.

The Ann Arbor District Library’s imprint is launching nine new publications across several genres during a November 3 book-release reception at the Downtown location.

As part of A2 Community Bookfest, the Fifth Avenue Press reception will include author readings and meet-and-greets along with opportunities to purchase books and get them signed by the authors.

Started in 2017, Fifth Avenue Press assists local authors with creating print-ready books at no cost and ensures they retain all of their rights.

As part of that partnership, the library distributes ebooks of the authors’ works to patrons without paying royalties. The authors also can sell their books in various formats and keep all of the proceeds.

Christopher Cosmos' ambitious second novel, Young Conquerors, is a fictional retelling of Alexander the Great’s life. The book follows the University of Michigan grad's 2020 debut, Once We Were Here. 

Young Conquerors begins with a departure. Hephaestion, the book’s narrator, is leaving his homeland just as he comes of age because his uncle will see him as a threat to the throne. When Hephaestion prepares to leave, he already recognizes, “If I’m going to grow, and if I’m going to find out all that I will know, and all that I can be, and the different type of strength I’ve been given, then I need to leave, and it can’t wait any longer.”

His subsequent journey from Salona in Illyria to Pella in Macedonia sets him on a new, irrevocable course, on which he will train as a soldier and conqueror, learn about politics, geography, and religion, and, perhaps most importantly, meet the love of his life. 

In Pella, Hephaestion describes how he meets Alexandros, son of the current basileus, Philippos. After Hephaestion wins the approval of Philippos, the two begin training together, along with Alexandros’ close companions. All these young men are around the age of 15, so this time together is formative and provides crucial preparation for their later endeavors. 

Alexandros and Hephaestion quickly become especially close, and Hephaestion ponders their future: 

Since relocating from Southern California to Southeast Michigan for school, multi-instrumentalist Kenji Lee has quickly become a mainstay in the local jazz and improvisational music scene, while also making a name for himself nationally. 

Whether leading a trio on sax, holding down the rhythm on double bass, curating an open jam, or teaching private lessons, Lee is immersed in performing, curating, and educating, connecting with audiences on tour throughout the Midwest and locally at the Blue Llama, Ziggy's, and the Detroit International Jazz Festival.

We caught up with the busy Ypsilanti musician by email to talk about his musical roots, the challenge of organizing inclusive performances, and the personal importance of Edgefest, which returns to Kerrytown Concert House for its 28th year, October 16-19, and where he's performing Saturday with his Fortune Teller Trio.

If there is a timeliness prize for art gallery exhibitions, the latest offering from the Ann Arbor Arts Center (A2AC) is a shoo-in for a podium finish.

Weeks before the 2024 presidential election, A2AC's Obama: An Intimate Portrait displays some of the best photographs by Pete Souza, a veteran photographer who reached the pinnacle of his career by serving as President Barack Obama’s photographer.

After Obama left the White House, Souza sorted through approximately 1.9 million photos to select 300 from his eight-year tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for a 2017 book called Obama: An Intimate Portrait. He then selected 50 for a traveling show, which started making the rounds in 2019 thanks to Souza’s exhibition coordinator Hava Gurevich, an Ann Arbor artist.

This story originally ran September 28, 2022. We're republishing it because Mercury Salad is performing on Friday, October 25, 9 pm at the Ann Arbor District Library, 343 South Fifth Avenue.

Brooke Ratliff says she’s no good at writing traditional love songs because “they’re either really mushy, or they’re really sad”—so she doesn’t even try on Volume 3, Mercury Salad’s latest EP.

Instead, the Ypsilanti folk-rock trio of Ratliff (vocals, guitar, percussion), Kurt Bonnell (guitar, harmonica), and Kyle Kipp (bass) explores the uncertainties of a promising relationship on “Best Guess,” the EP’s spirited opener.

“To me, this song could go either way. It could be that it’s unexpected, or it could be that the person is being overly optimistic,” said Ratliff with a laugh. “I wanted to do something sweet-natured and slightly romantic, but I couldn’t go all the way there. That’s why it’s my ‘Best Guess’ this is gonna work out great.”

This story originally ran on July 31, 2024.

Keith Taylor is launching two new books this year.

The University of Michigan lecturer emeritus and former bookseller offers 40 years of poetry in All the Time You Want: Selected Poems 1977-2017, which was published in January. Then he studies the natural and human world through his poetry collection What Can the Matter Be?, which debuts in August. 

Taylor will read from What Can the Matter Be? at Schuler Books in Ann Arbor on Saturday, August 10, at 3 pm.

Taylor will discuss What Can the Matter Be? with Monica Rico at Literati Bookstore on Wednesday, October 16, at 6:30 pm.

All the Time You Want begins with dancing and concludes with painting. A note to the reader informs us that the poems appear “in roughly chronological order.” These poems map the formative places in Taylor’s life by traveling through Canada and to Ireland, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Isle Royale, Paris, Big Sur, South Bend, North Fishtail Bay, and other places.

Another throughline of the poems is the birds—the crested shelduck, snowy egret, pigeon, cerulean warbler, great horned owl, and ancient murrelet. Or you can follow the art and see “the gaze out past the painting / to all the other stories / no one else could ever understand.” 

These selected poems encounter the ups and downs of the poet’s life and experiences. One day there is “a momentary sense / of the utter loveliness of things” and another day brings “nothing but the clear, sour odor of skunk.”

Musical theater has always been inclusive. Sometimes it broadcasts the message, the way Oscar Hammerstein II did in South Pacific: ”You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear.” Mostly, it simply has been a welcoming home for artists, characters, and spectators of different races, religions, sexual orientations, and gender identities.

Now along comes a musical reimagining of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at the University of Michigan, which runs for four performances October 10-13 at Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. Inclusion is a key theme here, and unlike most musicals that we can label—classic American musicals, rock musicals, opera-style musicals, for instance—it includes just about every kind of music and dance style, too.  

The musical begins as the Shakespeare play does. Viola is shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria and disguises herself as a Cesario, a man, so she can gain employment with Duke Orsino. She falls in love with Orsino, who yearns for Olivia, who in turn loves “Cesario.” 

Director Jessica Bogart says this Twelfth Night is not set in one specific era or locale but “in an imagined city we call ‘the magical now' ... an abstract location that allows characters to discover their true selves and true strengths. The source material itself has this gorgeous exploration of gender and identity.”   

How closely does it follow that source material?

It's tough being the new kid in school in eighth grade. But in Linus and Etta Could Use a Win, Linus' situation as new kid is made even more fraught thanks to an ill-advised crush, a new friendship that may not be what it seems, and complicated family dynamics in response to his identity as a transgender boy. What to do? Well, Linus dives into his new life in Ohio head first by running for student council.

We spoke with Ypsilanti author and educator Caroline Huntoon about Linus and Etta Could Use a Win, working heavy topics into light reading, and what's coming up next for the prolific writer. 

The hip-hop collective The Dirty Ol’ Men unexpectedly lost three members in 2021.

“Fourteen of us met in Memphis in 2021 and eight got COVID,” said Rod Wallace, an Eastern Michigan University alum and member of The Dirty Ol’ Men. “One of the variants was going around and we found out about it while we were preparing. The majority of us were vaccinated … but one of us—Blacmav [aka Mario Blocker]—passed away. Later that same year we lost two other members, Tasherre Risay and Chenika Bowens, who was also known as ThatBlessedGirl. One of our members, RTO Beats, had a heart transplant.”

The grieving remaining members channeled their emotions and experiences into writing and recording a cathartic album, Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled, during The Dirty Ol’ Men’s annual retreat two years later.

“It took a lot out of everybody,” Wallace said, “but we got back together in Charlotte, [North Carolina] in 2023. We created a bunch of music and I executive-produced and put the album together along with the producers.

“The music that we were making spoke specifically to the trauma that we had experienced in losing our friends. It wasn’t with complete intent to make an album that was about Black men and trauma, but it’s what came out of what we were creating.”