Every year, at about this time, Patrick Elkins, the director of Ypsilanti’s Totally Awesome Fest (TAF), calls a big press conference to formally announce the coming festivities. And, every year, invariably, I’m the only member of the professional press to show up. This year’s press conference, which took place yesterday evening during a hijacked karaoke […]
Tag Archives: Ben Miller
Hijacking a local karaoke night, the reclusive Patrick Elkins announces his intention to take Totally Awesome Fest international this year
Singing about heartbroken monsters with Fangs and Twang, discussing the condition of Michigan’s roads with Representative David Rutledge, and reliving the horrors of Totally Awesome Fest… on episode 16 of The Saturday Six Pack
My favorite moment of this week’s episode happened within just the first few minutes. I was looking at State Representative David Rutledge’s face when Fangs and Twang performed the opening theme song that they’d written for the show, and he was just beaming. While I think he genuinely liked the song, which was admittedly pretty […]
Ypsi Book Co-op meeting tonight at 7:30
Several months ago, our local used bookstore, Cross Street Books, was shut down by the City for various code violations. This led to a spirited conversation here on the site, during which almost everyone, regardless of how they felt about Cross Street Books, seemed to agree that, in order to have a thriving downtown, Ypsilanti […]
Would it be feasible to have a cooperative bookstore in downtown Ypsilanti?
A few days ago, I posted something here about the City having shut down our local used bookstore, Cross Street Books. While acknowledging that there were certainly issues with the peculiar, little store, which has always been both painfully crowded and comically unsafe, I lamented the fact that, without them, our Ypsilanti would be without […]
Shadow Art Fair 2013
As usual, Emi Slade killed it at this year’s Shadow Art Fair. She calls this one Captain Beefheart. I don’t know how well he did sales-wise, but it looked like our friend Marty “the lighthearted sadist” Flint was having fun introducing young and old alike to the world of bondage. Bearded local librarian Ben Miller […]