091126 ~ Weekend Events! - Michael Bright

0:00If you love art, why not see artists at work? It's happening this week and just one of the many events in downtown Ann Arbor and surrounding area. Here to give us all the details on this and many others is Michael Bright from the Ann Arbor Observer, where you will find a comprehensive listing of events in the back pages of the Ann Arbor Observer. Welcome back, Michael. Thanks for seeing. Good to be here. Yeah, the big weekend for these artists. Yeah, the street art encounter is coming on Friday to the Main Street area there. There will be 16 nationally recognized street artists, namely a Saginaw muralist named John Vasquez, who's pretty famous as well. But some others too, they'll be painting murals, doing a large scale chalk art pieces, making other work throughout downtown. There will be some live music, participatory art making opportunities, stuff for kids, going on noon to APM all over downtown Friday night. All right. How about some music at the arc? Yeah, while you're downtown, just stick around, go over to the arc around eight o'clock and

1:03check out the rainbow girls. They're a really good act out of California. It's three kind of young women who have really great harmonies that they put together and some good guitar work as well. They're a crowd favorites back in the 2020 Ann Arbor Folk Festival. And I just really enjoy their music. So check it out. I think 830 that goes on at the arc on Friday night. There's an event at the Mathi Botanical Gardens this weekend off a North Dissboro. Yeah, this is a new one for the area. This is a Saturday and Sunday. It's an international standard judged plant show and sale being put on by the Southeast Michigan Bermilliae Head Society and the Michigan Cactus and Succulent Society. And this is a show and sale of Bermilliae's Cacti succulents and air plants. This is the first show of its kind in the Midwest since there was the World Bermilliae Conference in Chicago back in 2004. Well, I did not know there was one of those.

2:03So Bermilliae Head lovers or anyone interested in putting, you know, this is the time of year when you start to indoor garden. So you can keep plants that you can keep indoors. It's a nice thing to do. Check out what people put together at the Mathi Botanical Gardens. Saturday and Sunday 10 to 4 p.m. So Bermilliae's are a family of plants native to tropical north and south America. How about that? Yeah, they are. They're kind of desert plants, right? Yeah. It's just like Cacti. Just a case of it out there didn't know. Succulents, solos kind of hardy, warm weather, keeping your kitchen table. Oh, and here's a little fact for you. An individual potted Bermilliae has a total lifespan of two to five years. I think they less longer than that though it seems like. They're hard to kill. Yeah, that's probably why everyone loves them so much. Yeah, exactly. All right, that sounds like a great event. What else is happening this weekend, Michael? Some fun stuff on Sunday. There's a good charity event going on at the U of M baseball field. It's a home run for the house.

3:04It's a fundraiser for Ronald McDonald House. It's a baseball field day. It's hosted by the U of M baseball coach Tracy Smith and the Tigers first baseman, Spencer Torkelson. Oh, you're kidding. Wow. I have a chance to run the bases and play catch with U of M players. mascot meet and greet. A kid zone with craft activities, bounce house. There'll be some live music, food concessions. And it's a fundraiser. It's free to enter. So you know, you can donate what you like. You can get tickets in advance at RMHC. That's Ronald McDonald's house and arbor.org or at the gate as well. Just don't know what you like. All right. Family event happening. Butterflies are going to be in the air. Yeah. The monarchs are migrating. This is such a cool thing. I read a really neat piece about the monarch migration. It is epic. They go all the way down to Mexico. And this is the generation that's going to make a big push there, I think. So they're all leaving Michigan.

4:04And there's a release of tag monarch butterflies going on at the Leslie science center. So you can see how do they know the way? I can't even find my way. It's amazing. And sometimes they get lost apparently. But then they find their way again. Like they go out to sea. They go everywhere. Wow, that's a wild. But they still make it. There's somehow to these few spots in Mexico. And they're trying to figure that out. So that's part of the science here is they've managed to create these, you know, transponders that they can attach to a butterfly wing. And that's powered by I think about that. How small that is. Yeah. And then they have to power them. So they have kind of a, it's almost like a solar panel I think on there. Oh my gosh. Because you can get a battery to it will drag them down. So they have to be powered somehow. Really neat sides behind it. You can learn all about the migratory patterns of monarchs there as well. That's a six dollar admission for that at Leslie science center Sunday afternoon. Oh, wow. I'm still trying to see how they adhere that to the wing of the butterfly.

5:08I can send you the, it's it's after you're where I read it. It's a great article. Wow. That's wild. All right. One more event. Great honk fest five. Okay. What's that? This is a family friendly outdoor festival. I think it's more of a partying a park, but they got a lot of music. It's going on up at Olsen Park, a dovaron on the north side of town. But they have a lot of kind of bigger area rock bands. There's an Ipsy rock band called Missinga. That's really good. It's been around a while. Missinga is a band. It's really good as well. The Viscissitones are playing in the Stomp Rockets, which is Dan Mulhollins new band. He's always fun. I saw him a month or so ago. Anyway, free at a park, great music. BYOB and a chair, if you want to sit down, you can definitely tip the bands they encourage that as well. So check that out Sunday from two to seven up on the north side. And here's a little tidbit for you, Olsen Park, his name for Ron Olsen, who was our long

6:10time head of the parks department in the city of Ann Arbor. Great guy. I always used to see him running at lunchtime through the streets. Every single lunchtime he'd be running with a pack of guys on break from work. But he went on to become the state of Michigan's parks head as well. I think he's retired now. I learned something every time. Well, he's just a great guy. Lives here in Ann Arbor, raised his family here and well deserved to have a park named after him up there in Duvarn and Pontiac Trail. That's going to be it for this weekend's events listings. But there's so many more in the pages of the Ann Arbor Observer. Check it out. Today, you can get it on new stands everywhere online at Ann Arbor Observer.com. Our thanks to Michael Bright, assistant calendar editor at the Ann Arbor Observer. He's on the air each week here on the Lucy Ann Lent Show Ann Arbor's talk station, 1290 LBY.