Features
Village life: Take some Bach for pain
By Jan Worth Nelson Jul 2010
I'm perched on the edge of the examination table, the white paper crinkling beneath me. It's a Saturday morning and I'm at the urgent care clinic because of a pain in the gut that kept me up most...Village life: It's about fear of crime
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jun 2010
This month, this column gave me fits.I usually sit down and write glibly about attics, or my fourth-grade permanent that went wrong, or backyards — things that might bring a smile and wouldn't...
Village life: She has passion for city chickens
By Jan Worth-Nelson May 2010
Erin Caudell has a yellow house in Carriage Town, a big dog named Daisy, a blue pickup truck, 1,100 Facebook friends and a passion for urban chickens.And when we set off in the truck recently for...
Essay: Forty years later with two Old Testament dudes
By Jan Worth-Nelson May 2010
The earbuds are locked in and I've got old Neil Young cranked up loud. It's one of those weird mornings at the harbor where the fog still hangs over the docks but the hillside is bright, and for...Essay: Next new thing at airport security
By Jan Worth-Nelson Apr 2010
The two men in blue gloves, sort of kindly jocular but serious too, pull me off the line and say, "excuse me, ma'am, we have to check your hands.""This is new," I say, curious but there can't be...
Village life: Thinking about escape from Flint
By Jan Worth-Nelson Apr 2010
I've been thinking about escape.Note that I wrote: "thinking" and not "dreaming of," and also note that I said "escape" and not "escaping." Because if I'd said "dreaming of" it would sound like...
Village life: Surviving with wrath and yoga
By Jan Worth-Nelson Mar 2010
As an experiment this morning, I said the word “wrath” out loud to my reflection in the bathroom mirror. It’s an interesting word. I noticed how in saying it, the mouth has to open, pushing...Village life: Food happiness starts with Mom
By Jan Worth-Nelson Mar 2010
In the last few years of her life my mother ate almost nothing. She had had colon cancer and for a tortuous few months bore a colostomy bag. Then they unhooked it and reconnected her digestive...Village life: No pawnshop for stories
By Teddy Robertson Jan 2010
Turning the key in the lock, gazing distractedly through the lowest pane of the back door window, I see a slight but unaccustomed disorder in the dining room. Chairs at an oblique angle to the...Village life: Trapped in iron lung
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jan 2010
I was lying in bed one night in mid-December before the solstice, when the day's supply of light was still miserably shrinking.It was cold. I'd turned the furnace down to 62, resolved to be an...
Village life: Circus parades to Buckham
By Jan Worth-Nelson Dec 2009
Edwin Custer is a quiet man, and on entering his beautiful Craftsman-style house on Crapo Street one hears just the subtle bubbling of a small fountain and low-key jazz.
It’s a space...
Village life: We all had our trial by fire
By Jan Worth-Nelson Nov 2009
This month I'm starting my seventh decade. If the Biblically-allotted three-score and 10 bears out, I'm down to the 10.It's a bit shocking.
I've been experimenting with calling myself "60" for...
Village life: Ghost lived in my closet
By Jan Worth-Nelson Oct 2009
Maybe my potlatch went too far when I threw away my wedding dress.On the other hand, who wants to see a white ghost every time you open the closet door, reminding you of failure?
It was my first...
Village life: Just gotta dance
By Jan Worth-Nelson Sep 2009
Dancing and I renewed our vows last June on the upper deck of the Lake Winnepesaukee party boat. And, after asking around, it seems I'm not the only one lately getting the funky leg.Here's how it...
Village life: I am fond of basements
By Jan Worth-Nelson Aug 2009
If the only people going into your basement are strangers and you have to write them a big check afterwards — as has been the case with me lately — you know you're in trouble.On the other...
Village life: Bulldozing Flint is premature
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jul 2009
Along with a lot of other people around here, I’ve grown old waiting for the renaissance of Flint. Maybe that’s why I felt slightly dizzy the first time I walked into Blackstone’s.It is...
Village life: It's sanctuary of comfort food
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jun 2009
I'm sitting at a table in the basement of the Masonic Temple on a gusty, overcast Wednesday afternoon. In front of me, on a white linen tablecloth, on a white plate striped in green, is a moist...Village life: Pox on lugubrious, lachrymose
By Jan Worth-Nelson May 2009
Sheepishly, I admit it — two of my favorite words are “lugubrious” and “lachrymose.”They’re fun to say. I dare you to say them out loud yourself, right now, in Steady Eddy’s or the...
Village life: Our seasons are not gentle
By Jan Worth-Nelson Apr 2009
What a relief to return to outdoor walking.Emerging from the long winter, I brush off winter's lethargy and breathe the rich spring air on almost daily strolls from my house through Burroughs...
Village life: Sweetness in her hands
By Jan Worth-Nelson Mar 2009
It was just another ordinary day, the world's economy collapsing, CNN blaring doom in the background. And then, as my students would say, It Happened.My husband pulled his right foot up to put on...
Village life: Re-connecting with my skis
By Teddy Robertson Feb 2009
It's been several years since I was last out on cross-country skis, since before I got a partial knee replacement.I'm not as confident as before. Never having really learned how to scoot along...
Village life: Cats are sublime
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jan 2009
Clad in yellow rubber gloves and breathing through my mouth, I was down in the basement the other day scooping poop out of my two new kitties' litter boxes.The cats – a brother and sister...
Village life: O sleep, O gentle sleep
By Jan Worth-Nelson Dec 2008
Something is keeping us awake in Flint.Are you one of the victims, one of the ones who takes a pill, even a teensy one, to get yourself to sleep?
If so, you're not alone. Here's something to...
Village life: Ode to Flint restrooms
By Jan Worth-Nelson Nov 2008
You know more, reading this column, than I did when I wrote it nine days before the election. I've never tried to be timely in writing Village Life, but it confounds me what to write about when all...Village life: Being smart has price
By Jan Worth-Nelson Oct 2008
I loved sixth grade.My teacher, Howard Linz, was the first male teacher I'd ever had, and he was charming — a robust, charismatic character with horn-rimmed glasses. He looked a lot like Clark...
Village life: Flying back to Midwest
By Jan Worth-Nelson Sep 2008
Flying back to the Midwest at 33,000 feet from our usual summer in LA, we had lost track of the ground under a dense carpet of clouds.Rousing from a nap, my husband said, "Is that the lake out...
We regret the error
By Administrator Aug 2008
In the East Village Magazine July edition we inaccurately said the Genesee County Land Bank owns the land on which "Chevy in the Hole" was located. We should of said it owns some of the land that was...Village life: 'I drank water from the Flint River today'
By Jan Worth-Nelson Aug 2008
"I drank water from the Flint River today."When Riley McLincha of Clio wrote those words in April 2005, he was on the first leg of a kayaking saga on what he considers to be his "home...
Village life: There’s ghostly weediness at Chevy in the Hole
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jul 2008
After 100 years, the acreage along the Flint River where General Motors began has long been stripped of its factories. It sits as quietly as a cemetery in the breezes of a Midwestern summer...Village life: As intense as 1,000-watt battery
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jun 2008
It's a tempestuous spring Saturday of scudding clouds and chilly breezes. At the Genevieve Donnelly Pavilion at Kearsley Park, Kay Kelly swoops in, herself a whirlwind, with 20 minutes to spare...Village life: Mother’s Day — non-mother weighs in
By Jan Worth-Nelson May 2008
Sunday is always a quiet day in the neighborhood, and I like sitting up in my second floor perch watching whatever transpires on the street.Mary Helen's incorrigible little dogs, escaped through...
Village life: Tax day losses — not all bad?
By Jan Worth-Nelson Apr 2008
It's Saturday morning and, on my second cup of green tea, I'm sprawled on the carpeted floor of my upstairs office, still in my thick black bathrobe. Around me are piles of papers — 1040s, 8829s...Village life: Pipe saved his life
By Jan Worth-Nelson Mar 2008
"The pipe saved my life."So begins Paul Spaniola, legendary owner of Paul's Pipe Shop, 647 S. Saginaw St. He has just turned 95, and though he sometimes struggles to find the right word and...
Village life: A hawk is watching
By Jan Worth-Nelson Feb 2008
"Before we get started," Grayce Scholt says, smiling as she puts on the teapot in her bright kitchen, "listen to these poems I just wrote."Outside, it's 15 degrees and snowing lightly, but here...
Village life: Sluff off dolor of darkness
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jan 2008
Break out the tango music and get off the couch, neighbors, the days are getting longer. I'm writing this on the winter solstice, when in Flint, perched as we are at 42 degrees north latitude, we...Village life: Smell of sawdust, honoring what is lost
By Jan Worth-Nelson Dec 2007
When I was a kid in Ohio, we lived just a few miles from the runway of the Canton-Akron airport. We used to make fun of our father who'd stop whatever he was doing every time a plane went over...Village life: Can we slake our hungers without being destroyers?
By Jan Worth-Nelson Nov 2007
Let us begin, in this brown month of November, with that most sensuous word, cornucopia.As RJ the Raccoon explained to his forest buddies in Over the Hedge, "For humans, enough is never...
Village life: Walking off carbon footprint blues
By Jan Worth-Nelson Oct 2007
One of the sweetest Flint facts recently is that our PR-challenged old burg got named the 2007 Best City for Walkers by Walk Magazine. People laugh when they hear this. But I know a lot of devoted...Village life: My bouffant bat mitzvah was coif calamity
By Jan Worth-Nelson Sep 2007
Pour etre belle, il faut souffrir. To be beautiful, you must suffer.I just got back from getting my hair done at Hollywood Beauty Center, where Esteeve, a bubbly Persian emigre who once closed up...
Village life: Like a smile of great sweetness
By Jan Worth-Nelson Aug 2007
I've been thinking about back yards. As I write this I'm sitting in a place with no back yard " with no yard at all. It - an apartment on a steep hillside overlooking the L.A. harbor. All the other...Village life: If nothing delights us, we get mean
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jul 2007
Recently, on my way to a writing gig in Crested Butte, Colo., one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, by the way, my handlers slowed down on Route 135 north of Gunnison where the otherwise...Village life: Recycling in Flint — no joy at CBC corral
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jun 2007
It always strikes me as ironic and depressing that to get to the CBC Recyling Center you have to turn at the Secret Place Tabernacle Church, which is right down the block from Beauty and the Dollar...Village life: Mesmerized by trees — a leafy accolade
By Jan Worth-Nelson May 2007
One of my first great losses was not a person, but a tree. It was a maple in the front yard of a parsonage — the same house with the great attic I wrote about last month. The tree was about 25...Village life: Why I love my attic
By Jan Worth-Nelson Apr 2007
Gaston Bachelard, that old French hippie who wrote The Poetics of Space in 1958 when we Baby Boomers were growing up, thought everybody should live in a house with an attic, especially in childhood...Village life: I never thought I'd stay this long
By Jan Worth-Nelson Mar 2007
I was sitting in a booth at Redwood Lodge last fall with a famous poet. Brent Nickola and I had just picked him up from Bishop and we were settling down over lunch, delighted he was here and very...A fond farewell to Kara
By Administrator Jan 2007
We bid a fond farewell to Kara Kvasnicka who has done the "Good books, good friends" column for more than 12 years.She was also an important part of our organization as contributing editor...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Dec 2006
Her three novels, three short story collections and biography of Georgia O' Keefe have all been enthusiastically lauded by critics. Four of those works have made the New York Times' annual...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Nov 2006
The byline for this column more rightfully belongs to my dear friend and mentor Margaret Buehler than to me. A reference librarian at Mott Community College whom I first met when we worked together...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Oct 2006
Rambunctious is what you might call the pair of younger cousins who paid an unforgettable visit to our house on Belsay Road when I was the appropriate age for the picture book I am about to recommend...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Sep 2006
Somehow already five years later, here was my initial response to the most memorable moments of 2001 published in October 2001.Two days before the incomprehensible events of Sept. 11, two days...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Aug 2006
Last night I pulled my copy of Ernest Hemingway - 1925 short story collection In Our Time off the shelf to read Cat in the Rain again, but it didn't do any good.No matter how many times I...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jul 2006
With the recent opening of yet another superstore on Miller Road, nobody can accuse the book selling industry of neglecting the Flint area.But, if you are an avid bookstore browser in need of a...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jun 2006
"Yes, immortality doesn't do you any good. But how many people don't wish for it?"Nobody can argue with this shrewd assessment of human nature from the not-always-so-wise heroine...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka May 2006
(Author - note: The following is only a slight exaggeration of an actual conversation I had with my friend Gary when he was at my apartment for dinner a few weeks ago.)"Is this new?" Gary...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Apr 2006
I know I am not likely to further my career as a librarian by devoting all my leisure time to trying to land my first triple axel.But is it any more rational to want to spend every spare moment...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Mar 2006
Some books are presents readers should have the pleasure of unwrapping without any help from so-called expert unwrappers like me.Sometimes, no matter what our credentials for critiquing them, we...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Feb 2006
First days. Perhaps, like mine, your memory has a batch of them you would just as soon auction off to the highest bidder at a charity event to raise relief funds for first day survivors.Supposing...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jan 2006
I wish I could write a column for every good book I encounter in a given year. Had time permitted me to produce more than 10 original pieces in 2005, here are some of the other titles I would have...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Dec 2005
Our most elegant mode of verbal expression, regardless of its subject matter, I wish I could write it.Given my obsession with all things literary, perhaps I should be able to write it.
But...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Nov 2005
"A good piecrust is the most difficult test for the home cook," so says Christopher Kimball in his Classic Cookbook: The Best of American Home Cooking (Little, Brown and Company, 2002)....Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Oct 2005
"You stole that dress!"I was 7 or 8 years old when the girl sitting next to me in Sunday school, a girl I did not know or want to know, interrupted my daydreaming with that startling...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Sep 2005
If you are looking for a good new book to read, I have a couple suggestions. First, if you, like me, have ever dreamed of becoming a restaurant reviewer, you will rejoice in Ruth Reichl's...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Aug 2005
The heroine of Lynne Sharon Schwartz' The Writing on the Wall (Counterpoint, 2005, 295 pages, $24) does not exactly come across as warm and likable in the novel's unsettling prologue.In...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jul 2005
Your calendar may indicate a date near mid-July, but mine is stuck on May 29. I am still in New York City in the middle of one of the most satisfactorily full days of my entire existence.Since my...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jun 2005
To borrow Oscar Hammerstein's lyric from The King and I, my boyfriend "may not always say what you would have him say, but now and then …"A graduate of the University of Missouri...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka May 2005
A journalist by trade, my boyfriend does not mince words. One word is worth a thousand as far as he is concerned, and that is usually all I get in reply to whatever I tell him. Hardly a chatterbox...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Apr 2005
One of my most unusual books confirms my long held suspicion that not all children's books are intended for children. Despite its enchanting pictures, it is difficult to imagine the average third...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Mar 2005
Next month, as part of Genesee County's fourth annual "One Book One Community Project," local readers will get the chance to share their insights on a novel that first caught my eye...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Feb 2005
I am channeling my inner-children's librarian this month. Here are three picture books to share with the little people in your life.If You'll Be My Valentine (HarperCollins, 2005, $14.99)...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jan 2005
I have no desire to repeat high school. But I would enjoy sitting in on a few college preparatory English classes to see what writers are required reading these days.I earned my diploma at the...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Dec 2004
Stop the presses!On Friday, Nov. 26, 2004, the same day the holiday shopping season officially began, Kvasnicka family history was made.
No. There were no births, deaths, marriages or...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Nov 2004
Woefully inadequate. That best sums up how I feel not only about my culinary skills but my very existence after reading master chef Jacques Pepin's critically-acclaimed autobiography The...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Oct 2004
Rats!I missed the Chicago Institute of Art's special exhibition on French Neo-Impressionist Georges Seurat (1859-1891) and the making of his mammoth, 81 by 121-inch "A Sunday Afternoon on...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Sep 2004
Native Flint children's author Christopher Paul Curtis' latest novel will be released Sept. 14 — just a weekend away! Set in present-day Flint, Bucking the Sarge (Wendy Lamb Books, 272...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Aug 2004
They are as smart as they are funny. They are jam-packed with heart-stopping action and edge-of-your-seat suspense. They have an engaging cast of regular characters led by an utterly unforgettable...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jul 2004
It wrinkles, mottles and scorches our skin. Cancer is another potential by-product of its dazzling but dangerous corona.Nonetheless, most of us pay no heed to medical experts' recommendation...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jun 2004
(Kara is on vacation. This column ran in the May 2002 issue. —Editor)My sister is determined her children should be well mannered.
When, for instance, we take my niece and nephew to a...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka May 2004
By the time you read this, the lilacs will be in bloom, the tulips will be past their peak and fresh, locally grown asparagus will be available at the Farmer's Market. In just a few short weeks...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Apr 2004
Mark your calendars. National Library Week (April 18 through April 24) is just around the corner. Here are a few ways you can celebrate.Let's start with a scavenger hunt to help you become...
Library Scavenger Hunt Answer Key
By Administrator Apr 2004
(1) Who was the first U.S. president was to sponsor an Easter Egg Roll? (G) Famous First Facts: a Record of First Happenings, Discoveries, and Inventions in American History (page 284): President...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Mar 2004
Whenever I receive a new etiquette book for my library I silently dedicate it to the memory of my late maternal grandfather. How pleased he would be to know that common courtesies still matter enough...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Feb 2004
There is no question about it. Public libraries have saved me from going bankrupt trying to support my reading habit.I do not even want to think how diminished my savings would be if my only...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jan 2004
I had precious little time to read in December as I scurried around completing holiday preparations. However, I did at least listen to the words of one of my favorite writers while I endlessly...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Dec 2003
Between bites of his Thanksgiving turkey, my 10-year-old nephew Ryan spoke so enthusiastically about the books he loves, I could not help but be inspired to revisit some of my own childhood...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Nov 2003
Pumpkins, apples, squash, hot spiced cider, colored leaves, kids in cute Halloween costumes, orchard festivals, extra time to read while my boyfriend is glued to a football game on tv … I am...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Oct 2003
Basic and comprehensive, my mother gave me the only cookbook I will ever need when I moved into my first apartment.Unfortunately, my hectic schedule has never permitted me to spend near the time I...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Sep 2003
Perspective. It may be the least quantifiable of all the things my generous-to-a-fault maternal grandmother has ever given me, but it is by far the most valuable.Whenever I am sure I will be...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Aug 2003
Petoskey!Ever since we could afford to take vacations, my boyfriend and I have spent them in this popular resort town on Lake Michigan.
Its prime geographic location offers hypnotic views of...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jul 2003
Everything changes … Sometimes the changes are the kind you can't do anything about … But other times things change and all you have to do is find a way to change with them. It's when you stay in...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jun 2003
"For quick and effective relief for all your emotional ailments without harmful side effects, try a poem — for however bad it is, however low you have sunk you can be sure that some poet has been...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka May 2003
I am the first to admit my tastes in books for grown-ups are somewhat strange. But how could you not be intrigued by the title The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2003...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Apr 2003
Still searching for that certain something extra for a child's Easter basket? Any of these picture books could compete with the most irresistible sugar-coated treats.If you wish to complement...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Mar 2003
For every beautifully crafted novel that is brought to our attention by some Oprah-wanna-be, celebrity or media-sponsored book club, there are at least a dozen equally deserving titles that are...Time out for theater: UM-F presents Assassins
By Kara Kvasnicka Feb 2003
Rich man, poor manBlack or white,
Pick your apple,
Take a bite,
Everybody
Just hold tight
To your dreams.
This stirring invocation, from a song called "Everybody's Got the...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Jan 2003
Nothing makes me happier than to see a kid enjoying a good reference book.Yes, I said reference book. You know, one of those intriguing volumes librarians will not let you check out because they...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka <p> Dec 2002
Leisure reading is a very personal experience. So I remind myself every holiday season when I am scanning a book store's shelves for the right gift.As tempted as I am to choose one of my...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka <p> Nov 2002
Of the few hundred or so regular patrons I serve at my tiny little library in Goodrich, I have only one who reads contemporary poetry composed for an adult audience.Occasionally, I do buy a...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Oct 2002
To borrow one of my editor's pet phrases, the medium is the message in the case of most children's holiday books.Pictures to evoke the mood of a particular observance usually take...
Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka <p> Sep 2002
Do you ever identify so strongly with the characters in a piece of realistic fiction that you care almost too much about what happens to them? Do you lie awake at night and agonize with them over the...Good books, old friends
By Kara Kvasnicka Aug 2002
It's story time!Here are a few of my favorite recent picture book releases.
Best known for his informative and quirky examinations of how things are built (Pyramid, Castle, Mill, etc.)...
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