Calendar

U-M drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff directs RC students in scenes from Uncle Vanya, Chekhov’s richly varied ensemble piece about the search for happiness–from love, achievement, or nature–at various stages of life.

Under direction of Artist in Residence Raharja. From crashing loud- to meditative soft-style pieces, this performance will expose listeners to some of the diverse styles of Javanese gamelan. Sunday, December 9, 4pm, Walgreen Drama Center, Stamps Auditorium. Free

Under direction of Artist in Residence Irina Khutsieva.

Literati is proud to partner with the Ann Arbor District Library to host author Aaron Foley who will be sharing the new edition of his book How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass

About How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass:
Are you moving to Detroit because your rent is too high? Did you read somewhere that all you needed to buy a house was the change in your couch cushions? Are you terrified to live in a majority-black city? Welcome to Detroit! And welcome to the guidebook that you coastal transplants, wary suburbanites, unwitting gentrifiers, idealistic starter-uppers and curious onlookers desperately need. Now updated for 2018, How to Live In Detroit Without Being a Jackass offers advice on everything from how to buy and rehab a house to how not to sound like an uninformed racist. Let us help you avoid falling into the “jackass” trap and become the productive, healthy Detroiter you’ve always wanted to be.

Aaron Foley is the City of Detroit’s chief storyteller, a position created for him by Mayor Mike Duggan to tell the stories of Detroiters citywide. A resident, he has served as the editor of BLAC Detroit Magazine and has worked for Jalopnik, CNN, MLive, and the Lansing State Journal. His Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook was published by Belt in 2017.

A tradition in which the current SiD cohort shares what they’ve learned in their time living, working, and taking classes in the city. Open to all, light refreshments will be served.  Wednesday, December 12th from 3pm-5pm at the Cass Corridor Commons, 4605 Cass Ave, Detroit, Michigan 48201. Free

Chinese Instrumental Music Ensemble, RCHUMS 252, under direction of Xiaodong Wei Hottmann, featuring erhu (fiddle), dizi (flute), pipa (lute), and percussion

Students from RCHUMS 334: Rites of Reading: The Animal Story, with instruction from RC faculty, Elizabeth Goodenough, will present their creations. Thursday, December 13th, 6-7:30pm at Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery. Free.

All poets invited to read their own work or a favorite poem by another writer. Followed by a reading by a featured poet TBA.
7 p.m., Bookbound, 1729 Plymouth. Free. 369-4345.

Join us for a holiday book signing with John U. Bacon. His book, The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism, became a national best seller when it was release on November 7, 2017. Copies of this and his previous work will be available.

About the Book

After steaming out of New York City on December 1, 1917, laden with a staggering three thousand tons of TNT and other explosives, the munitions ship Mont-Blanc fought its way up the Atlantic coast, through waters prowled by enemy U-boats. As it approached the lively port city of Halifax, Mont-Blanc‘s deadly cargo erupted with the force of 2.9 kilotons of TNT—the most powerful explosion ever visited on a human population, save for HIroshima and Nagasaki. Mont-Blanc was vaporized in one fifteenth of a second; a shockwave leveled the surrounding city. Next came a thirty-five-foot tsunami. Most astounding of all, however, were the incredible tales of survival and heroism that soon emerged from the rubble.

This is the unforgettable story told in John U. Bacon’s The Great Halifax Explosion: a ticktock account of fateful decisions that led to doom, the human faces of the blast’s 11,000 casualties, and the equally moving individual stories of those who lived and selflessly threw themselves into urgent rescue work that saved thousands.

The shocking scale of the disaster stunned the world, dominating global headlines even amid the calamity of the First World War. Hours after the blast, Boston sent trains and ships filled with doctors, medicine, and money. The explosion would revolutionize pediatric medicine; transform U.S.-Canadian relations; and provide physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who studied the Halifax explosion closely when developing the atomic bomb, with history’s only real-world case study demonstrating the lethal power of a weapon of mass destruction.

Mesmerizing and inspiring, Bacon’s deeply-researched narrative brings to life the tragedy, brvery, and surprising afterlife of one of the most dramatic events of modern times.

About the Author

John U. Bacon has worked nearly three decades as a writer, a public speaker, and a college instructor, winning awards for all three.

Bacon earned an honors degree in history (“pre-unemployment”) from the University of Michigan in 1986, and a Master’s in Education in1994.  In 2005-06, the Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship named him the first recipient of the Benny Friedman Fellowship for Sports Journalism.

He started his journalism career covering high school sports for The Ann Arbor News, then wrote a light-hearted lifestyle column before becoming the Sunday sports feature writer for The Detroit News in 1995.  He earned numerous state and national awards for his work, including “Notable Sports Writing” in The Best American Sports Writing in 1998 and 2000.

After Bacon covered the 1998 Nagano Olympics, he moved from the sports page to the Sunday front page, roaming the Great Lakes State finding fresh features, then left the paper in 1999 to free-lance for some two dozen national publications, including stories on Formula One racing in Australia for The New York Times, on Japanese hockey for ESPN Magazine, and on Hemingway’s Michigan summer home for Time.

He has authored ten books on sports, business, health, and history, five of which are New York Times best sellers