Blog Post
Veteran Ann Arbor News reporter Bill Treml dead at 88
by amy
Veteran Ann Arbor News police reporter, William Treml, who retired in 1996 after 40 years at the paper, died Friday at age 88. Over the course of his distinguished career, Bill Treml earned a reputation as one Ann Arbor's best reporters, sometimes arriving to a crime scene with pen, paper, and camera in hand - and at least once in his pajamas. Treml covered some of our city's historic events, including the 1970 John Norman Collins trial and the 1960s UFO sightings. In 2011, we spoke with Treml about his career at the News and he recalled his toughest assignments as well as shared his personal memories of the friends he made along the way.
Read some of Mr. Treml's articles currently available on Oldnews.
Blog Post
Chicago Chef Charlie Trotter has died
by sernabad
Charlie Trotter, well-known chef and author who put Chicago cuisine on the map, died yesterday at his home in Lincoln Park, IL.
Trotter, born and raised in the Chicago area, never strayed far from his roots. As a student at the University of Wisconsin, he accepted a roommate's challenge to prepare a multi-course meal, and was soon hooked on tossing the cookbooks and boldly experimenting.
At age 29, with the help of his wealthy father, Trottter opened his revolutionary restaurant, Charlie Trotter's. It was an instant success. Trotter was committed to the idea of buying local and in season, long before locavore was A Thing. All of a sudden, Chicago's ho-hum reputation with foodies was shot with the adrenaline of new possibilities. Many of the area's finest chefs trained under Trotter, not an easy task, as he was known not only for his food creativity, but for his outsized temper. (Look for Trotter in the kitchen scene in My Best Friend's Wedding (2001), starring Julia Roberts, in which he delivers the memorable line, "I will kill your whole family if you don't get this right.")
Author of several cookbooks, Charlie was also a presence on PBS with his show, The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter, based on a book (1999) by the same name.
Last year, on its 25th anniversary, Trotter closed his most famous restaurant, announcing he wanted to travel with his beloved second wife, Rochelle. He had a history of strokes and lived with a brain aneurysm and felt he was on borrowed time.
In fact, Trotter had just returned from the very first Jackson Hole Culinary Conference in Wyoming where he was the keynote speaker, despite his doctor's warning not to fly with the time bomb in his head.
Trotter was just 54 years old.
Blog Post
G.Willow Wilson wins a 2013 World Fantasy Award
by sernabad
Seattle author G. Willow Wilson has won the 2013 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Alif the Unseen.
Born in New Jersey, Ms. Wilson began her writing career creating comic books and graphic novels. Introduced to the Koran as a student at Boston University, she moved to Egypt, converted to Islam, married, and penned her first publication, a graphic novel titled Cairo: A Graphic Novel, an imaginative literary tale of religion, politics, and social issues.
Alif the Unseen is Ms. Wilson's first novel. In its five-star review, Library Journal wrote, "...“Imaginative storytelling . . . Wilson skillfully weaves a story linking modern-day technologies and computer languages to the folklore and religion of the Middle East."
The World Fantasy Awards have been bestowed since 1975 and are one of the most prestigious acknowledgements of speculative fiction.
For a complete list of this year's WFA winners, check here.
Blog Post
"Don't Call Me Inspirational: A Disabled Feminist Talks Back"
by annevm
Harilyn Rousso, author of "Don't Call Me Inspirational: A Disabled Feminist Talks Back," will read from her book Nov. 13 at 1 p.m. in Palmer Commons, Great Lakes Room South, at the University of Michigan. Her appearance is sponsored by a number of groups including Services for Students with Disabilities, Council for Disability Concerns, Women's Studies, Center for Education of Women, the LSA Disability Culture class, and Nicola's Books. Refreshments and Screenline CART services will be provided. Later the same day, the author will participate in a reading and panel discussion at 6:30 p.m. at the U-M School of Social Work. Refreshments and CART services will be provided. People planning to attend the later event should RSVP by emailing Carolyn Grawi at cgrawi@umich.edu.
"Don't Call Me Inspirational" is a collection of essays, poems, and personal memories by the author, who was born with cerebral palsy and now is a psychotherapist, disabilities activist and artist. Her book, published earlier this year, was widely and favorably reviewed. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson wrote in Ms. magazine that it is "less a memoir of endurance than a fine model for feminist development."
Blog Post
Lou Reed, the heart and soul of the influential 60s band, The Velvet Underground, has died
by sernabad
Lou Reed, 71, one of the founders of the 60s band, the Velvet Underground, died today.
Reed was a trailblazing songwriter back in the 60s, unafraid to tackle topics that, back then, were considered a bit risque. He was especially poetic in his lyrics about sex and the drug culture. Openly bisexual, Reed wrote of his harrowing experience as a young teenager who was given electro-
The Velvet Underground only lasted a few years, but its influence gained momentum as it became a cult band of enormous impact in rock history. Fueling its prominence was the role of mentor that Andy Warhol adopted with the group.
Rolling Stone magazine labelled The Velvet Underground and Nico (1966) as the 13th most influential album of alll time. In 2004, Joe Harvard wrote a history of the band, using that same title.
The most commercially successful songs performed by the Velvet Underground were Rock and Roll and Sweet Jane, both of which can be heard on The Best of the Velvet Underground: Words and Music by Lou Reed.
In 1972, Reed peaked with Lou Reed:Transformer, which was co-produced by David Bowie and Mike Ronson.
At the time of this posting, the cause of Mr. Reed's death is unknown. He did undergo a liver transplant in the spring of this year.
Blog Post
Marcia Wallace, a.k.a. the voice of The Simpsons' Edna Krabappel, has died
by sernabad
Marcia Wallace, actress in stage, screen, and TV, and most recently the voice of 4th grade teacher, Edna Krabappel, on The Simpsons, died October 25th.
Ms. Wallace's acting gifts were apparent in high school, after which she won a full-ride scholarship to the now-defunct Parsons College in Iowa. From there, she moved to New York, performing in night clubs, on Off-Broadway, and appearing dozens of times on The Merv Griffin Show.
In 1972, after Ms. Wallace had moved to California, TV producer, Grant Tinker created a role for her on the sitcom, The Bob Newhart Show. She played the sharp-tongued receptionist, Carol Kester.
In 1990, she began her most notable career as the voice of Edna Krabappel on The Simpsons, which won her an Emmy in 1992. She charmed audiences with that role until her recent bad health caused the producers to decide to 'retire' Ms. Krabappel forever.
In 2008, Ms. Wallace was in the movie, Tru Loved, in which she played a high school drama teacher who helps students start a Gay Straight Alliance Club.
In 2007, The Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, awarded Ms. Wallace their Gilda Radner Courage Award for her tireless efforts educating American men and women on the importance of early detection of breast cancer, which she herself successfully beat for more than twenty years.
Ms. Wallace, who died of complications from pneumonia, was a week shy of her 71st birthday.
Blog Post
Amazon Teen Bestseller: The Book Thief
by annevm
The Kindle edition of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak currently is #5 on Amazon's Best Sellers in Teen & Young Adult Books. First published in 2007, the bestselling book was made into a movie that will be in theaters in November. In the novel, Death tells the story of Liesel, a German girl during World War II whose storytelling and book thefts help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding.
Blog Post
Alice Munro wins the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature
by sernabad
In early July of this year, 82-year-old Alice Munro told the New York Times, that Dear Life: Stories (2012) was her last book. She was going to retire.
Perhaps Ms. Munro would like to rethink that decision. The Swedish Academy in Stockholm announced today that Munro, one of Canada's literary treasures, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. This prestigious award is given for an author's life's work. In Ms. Munro's case, that includes 14 short story collections.
Ms. Munro is no stranger to notable awards. In 1980 she was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction for The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose (1979). Twenty-nine years later, she won the rebranded Man Booker International Prize.
The National Book Critics Circle Award for 1998 went to Ms. Munro for The Love of a Good Woman:Stories, a collection that also garnered her the first of two Giller Prizes. She won the second in 2004 for Runaway: Stories.
Ms. Munro is the first Canadian (and 14th woman) to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in its 113-year history.
One can only hope she changes her mind about that whole retirement thing.
Blog Post
Tom Clancy, king of techno-military thrillers, has died
by sernabad
Tom Clancy, author of nail-biting military suspense novels, known for their eerie prescience, has died.
Mr. Clancy turned a lifelong obsession for all things military-and-technological into instant success with his first novel, The Hunt for Red October (1984), published by the Naval Institute Press, housed at the U.S. Naval Academy. It was the NIP's first novel -- Clancy's detailed military descriptions caught their attention. It also captured then-President Ronald Reagan's interest as well; thus Mr. Clancy's instant rise to bestsellerdom.
Clancy's unerring accuracy with details had many convinced that he had connections inside the Pentagon. He adamantly denied all such charges, but did say, "I've made stuff up that's turned out to be real, that's the spooky part."
His series character, Jack Ryan, first seen in The Hunt for Red October, has made fourteen more appearances over the past three decades, the latest in Threat Vector which was published last year. The last Jack Ryan novel, Command Authority, will be released at the end of this year.
Several of his thrillers starring Jack Ryan (who morphed, during the course of the series, from U.S. Naval Academy instructor to CIA spy/Director to U.S. President) were turned into successful movies.Alec Baldwin, played Ryan in the 1990 release, The Hunt for Red October. Harrison Ford did the honors in the next two Jack Ryan films, Patriot Games (1992), and
Clear and Present Danger (1994). Ben Affleck appeared as Ryan in The Sum of All Fears in 2002.
Mr. Clancy, who died in a Baltimore hospital, was 66.
Blog Post
UM Professor, Dr. Susan Murphy, is one of this year's MacArthur Foundation 'Geniuses'
by sernabad
This morning, Dr. Susan Murphy, the H.E. Robbins Professor of Statistics and Professor of Psychiatry at The University of Michigan, was awarded one of two dozen new MacArthur Fellows,
Dr. Murphy's current focus is on adaptive intervention, which involves developing plans to work with patients who have chronic or relapsing illnesses (such as, substance abuse or depression) where effective courses of treatment are constantly adjusted for maximum benefit.
Novelist Karen Russell is another new Fellow. The first story in her debut collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (2006) served as the basis for her much acclaimed first novel, Swamplandia (2011), set in the Everglades and narrated by 13-year-old Ava. Swamplandia was one of three finalists for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Alas, no award in that category was given last year, due to the lack of the minimum required number of votes.
These "Genius Awards", as they are affectionately known, come with no strings attached. The Fellows are free to spend the money as they wish. This year, the Geniuses received a raise. The formerly half-million dollar reward has been bumped to $625,000, paid out yearly for five years.
For a complete list of the MacArthur Foundation Fellows for the Class of 2013, check here.