Marsha Braun offers a preview of the 17 vendors offering unusual gifts to buy at the 16th Annual Hollyday Art Fair, as well as other activities during the day, on Janet's Journal.


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Does something look oddly familiar about that pair of mittens a passerby was sporting?
Think back to that favorite sweater you sold last summer at the garage sale. Like everything else in society right now, it got recycled and downsized into keeping just hands warm.

Two long-time friends this year pooled their needlework skills into a partnership that creates one of a kind mittens from recycled wool sweaters.

Continue reading "Pair of friends team up to make one-of-a-kind mittens out of recycled wool sweaters" »

Tables turned on radio host:
Roderick J. Bieber talks about the two radio shows he hosts on Delta Public Broadcasting, his violin playing with a variety of orchestras and working with the revived youth symphony on Janet's Journal.




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Bahamian-born Anthony A. Roberts Jr. came to Saginaw Valley State University to play football but in his senior year ended up cast as a jazz musician in a Tony-winning play.

"It's my first play at SVSU," says the 26-year-old whose major is communications and minor theater.

"I'm in my senior year and I thought, 'Come on. This is what you want to do.' So I auditioned."

The show, opening Friday, Nov. 14, is Warren Leight's "Side Man" -- a memory play in which its narrator recalls his tumultuous life as the son of an alcoholic mother and professional jazz trumpet-playing father who picks up gigs whenever and wherever he can (called a side man in music parlance).

Continue reading "Former SVSU football player turns to acting in first play" »

Just what exactly is a "Side Man"?

David Oppermann, the leader of Saginaw's New Reformation Band, talks about the side men who have performed with his group, relates some insider information about the band and announces its grand tour next spring on Janet's Journal.




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Annie Ransford of Caro talks about Theodore Roethke's boyhood home in Saginaw and Marion Frahm Tincknell of Saginaw Township reads seven of his poems on on Janet's Journal.

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As a long-time actor, Richard Fitzpatrick's television movie credits include portraying President Gerald Ford once and John Ehrlichman, President Richard Nixon's assistant, twice.

In Stratford, Ont., where he and his wife have lived for 20 years and operate a bed and breakfast, he played Shakespearean roles in five productions at the Stratford Festival.

Just this fall he was cast as a zombie killer in George Romero's latest flick -- Romero of the "Night of the Living Dead" fame.

Truth be known, however, Massachusetts-native Fitzpatrick is a closet poetry fan; in particular the 200 poems penned by Saginaw-born Theodore H. Roethke, who won a Pulitzer in 1953 for "The Waking."

Continue reading "Actor Richard Fitzpatrick pays homage in "Roethke and Me" play at SVSU" »

Brett Mitchell has a passion for music, and he shares it on Catch the Muse with Sue at The News.

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Listening to the Elton John song "Candle in the Wind" back in the 1970s lit an unusual fire in Steven C. Erickson -- especially after he'd sung it at a karaoke once or twice.

Now his Saginaw Township home, in particular its kitchen, bears witness to it.

In "Candle" John sings "And I would have liked to have known you but I was just a kid. Your candle burned out long before your legend ever did."

The British singer/songwriter is paying homage to the late actress Marilyn Monroe in the song. She died, at age 36, in 1962.

Continue reading "SVSU theater professor's home filled with Marilyn Monroe memorabilia" »

Mad about Marilyn Monroe: SVSU theater professor Steve Erickson has an impressive collection of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia. He talks about why the actress remains so popular, discusses her highs and lows, and picks her best and worst movies on Janet's Journal.

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Dewon Hatfield -- rapper AG -- sets his sights on saving Saginaw. Listen to him on Catch the Muse with Sue at The News.

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Imagine a church charging its members yearly pew space rentals and creating a "committee on discipline" in an attempt to rein in unruly parishioners.

The same church, of a Congregational bent, hiring a pastor whose Quaker wife decided sex education classes were are in order for its youths -- this back in 1932.

Same church. A minister ending up serving jail time when he irked the sheriff ... a Sunday service given over to toe-tapping Dixieland music...supporting a missionary who single-handedly defied the Turkish Army in the late 1800s during a murderous rage against Armenians.

No, this is not overblown fiction but instead fascinating reality -- and the topic of Jean R. Beach's newest book, "In Times of Sorrow and In Times of Joy: The History of Saginaw's First Congregational Church" (184 pages, $10).

Continue reading "Book profiles the colorful 150 year history of Saginaw's First Congregational Church" »

Andy Rapp offers some anecdotes from the 10-year history of the controversial "Currently Speaking" televison series on Janet's Journal.

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Bruce B. Winslow gives the lowdown behind some of the 36 "Fashion in Film" outfits on display at the Midland Center for the Arts -- and hints what exhibitions are in the wings there (think live lizards and snakes) on Janet's Journal.















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SVSU Theatre Director Richard B. Roberts talks about how he picks his summer productions, students who have gone on to careers in theater and the upcoming musical "The Andrews Brothers" on Janet's Journal.








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