48th Ann Arbor Film Festival

Tuesday marks the start of the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival, one of Ann Arbor's world-class annual events. AAFF's Executive Director, Donald Harrison, stopped by to give us a quick overview of what we have to look forward to in this year's festival. Aside from the many great films on offer, Donald talks about some of the panel discussions and live performances. This year's highlights include an evening with legendary experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger and a specially commissioned soundtrack, performed live by composer Flying Lotus, to Harry Smith's 1962 film Heaven & Earth Magic. Two of this year's events happen at AADL: Bison Boys & Famous Monsters of Michigan: 1970s Super-8mm Films of Jimm Juback & Cary Loren and Gerry Fialka Discusses Dream Awake: How James Joyce Invented Experimental Cinema & Disguised It As A Book.

The 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival runs from March 23-28, 2010.

BIBTIF logo

Bring It Back, Take It Forward (BIBTIF), a 3-day conference celebrating 50 years of activism in southeast Michigan, will take place March 12-14, 2010. In this podcast, we talk with two of the conference organizers, Elizabeth Gonzalez and James Toy. Gonzalez, a graduate student in the UM School of Social Work, and Toy, a veteran activist and founding member of the University's Lesbian-Gay Male Programs Office in 1971, reflect on the achievements and challenges of activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as their hopes for the conference and the future of the progressive movement.

Cherry Chevapravatdumrong

Cherry Chevapravatdumrong is an Ann Arborite who has gone places even she never expected. After getting her law degree from NYU, Cherry made an about face, packed up a car, and drove to Los Angeles. Now she is a writer and co-producer on the animated sitcom Family Guy and the author of two young adult novels, She's So Money and Duplikate. Cherry shares with us how she made it from Huron High to one writers room of the funniest shows on television and how an episode of Family Guy gets written. She also talks about writing young adult novels and why she loses a third of her name on book covers.

Lola Jones and Carol Gibson are well-known to anyone familiar with Ann Arbor history. Over the past 30 years they have sought out and documented the history of the African American experience in Ann Arbor through a series of projects under the moniker Another Ann Arbor; it is largely through their work that the Ann Arbor African American story is a part of our shared community identity. Lola and Carol stopped by the library to talk with us one day about the work they have done over the years and where they are headed next. They shared with us some of the interesting people and events they have learned about and brought to the community in their television program, their documentaries, and their book.

You can now watch one of their documentaries online at aadl.org in our video collection. A Woman's Town was produced in 1991 and tells the story of Ann Arbor through the voices of prominent African American women.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Alia Malek and talk about her book A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories. Alia touches on her experience advocating for election protection and civil rights for diverse groups. She also discusses the influence of the American Civil Rights Movement on her choice of setting and character in her book.

Helen Thomas

When she was in town last week speaking at the Michigan Theater to promote her newest book, Amy and I had the intimidating yet thrilling chance to interview Helen Thomas. We talked with her about her experiences in the White House Press Corps, where she sat for decades asking presidents and press secretaries alike the questions they were hoping she wouldn't. While Amy and I didn't ask of her quite the sort of tough questions Ms. Thomas is famous for, we did get her reflections on presidents past and present, her thoughts on the state of journalism, and her feelings about how America has changed in her nearly 75 years of reporting.

I recently had a conversation with Holly Sorsher, the creator of our downtown exhibit: The Future of Our Past: The Evolution of Multicultural Children's Literature. Holly is a U of M School of Information student with a special interest in children's books. She worked with librarians and curators at the U of M library Special Collections to create a display of children's books representing the evolution of the genre in its representation of cultures. In our conversation, Holly highlights some of her favorite books and what she sees as the trend towards a more integrated vision of culture and diversity in books for young people.

Take a look at the exhibit while it's still here.

lsq

In this podcast, we talk with Lucinda Scala Quinn, editorial director of food and entertaining at Martha Stewart Omnimedia, co-host of PBS's Everyday Food, and author of the recent cookbook Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys. Quinn's love for food is evident throughout the discussion, whether she's extolling the virtues of onion and garlic, reflecting on the changes in food culture over the past 20 years, or reminiscing about her attendance at an enviable course-for-course reenactment of Babette's Feast. She also offers practical advice on eating well--and getting children to eat well--despite our hectic lives. Follow Mad Hungry on Twitter.

When David Alan Grier was in town to promote his book, Barack Like Me: The Chocolate-Covered Truth, Eli had a chance to chat with him about growing up in Detroit and his time in Ann Arbor while attending the University of Michigan in the late 1970s. DAG also talks about his work on In Living Color and Dancing with the Stars; celebrity and the internet; and Obama's inauguration.

Carol Mull

A few days ago we spoke with Carol Mull, a local historian of the Underground Railroad. Carol talked about her upcoming book on the Underground Railroad in Michigan and her work with the Michigan Freedom Trail Commission. She also spoke about some of the gems she found in The Signal of Liberty, a 19th century abolitionist newspaper published in Ann Arbor. On Saturday, October 17, Carol will be on hand at the launch event for The Signal of Liberty online. A related bus tour of local stops on the Underground Railroad will take place Sunday, October 18 at 2:00.