What About Mime

What is mime? It turns out it depends on who you ask. Broadly speaking, the tradition has its roots in ancient theater in cultures across the globe. Many people envision street pantomimes with white face paint, while practitioners of the theater tradition emphasize the use of the entire body to convey expression and emotion. What does the art of mime have to do with the history of Ann Arbor? In the heyday of mime performance in the 1980s, dozens of event listings featuring mime could be found throughout the calendar year. From Marcel Marceau’s annual visits to the Ann Arbor Summer Festival and his brief stint in Ann Arbor at the Marcel Marceau World Center for Mime to the countless groups and performers--the University of Michigan’s Mimetroupe, Artworlds Center for the Creative Arts, Mimetroupe of America, OPUS Mime, EMU Master Mimes, and more--mime dotted Ann Arbor’s cultural landscape. Mime was sure to be found at Summer Festival, Winter Festival and the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, the Graceful Arch becoming known as a site where one would certainly encounter a mime or pantomime. Even the 1973 Blues & Jazz Fest featured pantomime by the British troupe "Friends Roadshow," who would in the following years build a base in Ann Arbor and participate in the city’s Sesquicentennial celebration. The group often performed at local venues such as Chances Are/Second Chance and The Blind Pig with their outrageously-named Michael Spaghetti’s ½ Ring Circus. 

When the word “mime” is mentioned, do you imagine white face paint? If so, it is because of Marcel Marceau’s widely known character “Bip the clown”, based on Jean-Gaspard Deburau’s 19th-century silent, white-faced character Pierrot in the tradition of commedia dell'arte. Because Marceau was so popular, and the art of mime so tied to his success in the American mind, the white face paint that Marceau adopted for his character became synonymous with mime. However, it was not a tradition associated with the art historically. In a 1984 interview for the Ann Arbor News, Marceau emphasized that the makeup was “not traditional or even typical,” but that in his workshops here in town he sees “mostly white faces. But to create ‘little Bips,’ or ‘little Marceaus’ – that is not what I want.” Despite this plea, much of the mime seen around town in the 1970s-1990s was a direct homage to Marceau's iconic character. 

Beginnings: Local Interest Arises

Before the 1950s in Ann Arbor, the word “Mime” would likely bring to mind the all-male performing group at the University of Michigan known as the Mimes Union Opera, active from 1908-1930 with a few revivals in the following decades. That would all change by the mid-1950s when world-famous mime Marcel Marceau toured the United States for the first time and soon became a household name. Marceau made his first appearance in Ann Arbor at Hill Auditorium on December 5, 1960 as part of the final season of the University of Michigan’s Oratorical Association Platform Attractions series, which traced its origins back to 1854. 

When Marceau performed for the University Musical Society (UMS) in 1971, he became the first performer to ever grace the stage of the newly completed Power Center. The 1960s would see a slow rise in programming related to mime, with the Ann Arbor Civic Ballet offering courses in mime, bringing in international mime troupes, and inviting the San Francisco Mime Troupe to town.

In 1972, ArtWorlds, a nonprofit school of art, was founded at 213 ½ S Main Street by engineer Cecil Taylor and his wife Barbara Taylor. Though the couple left for California in 1980, the arts organization continued for another three years, routinely offering courses in mime taught by Michael Filisky, Perry Perrault, Mark Novotny, and Mark Strong, to name just a few.  At its height, the organization offered over 75 classes, employed 40 instructors, and enrolled over 800 students in courses that ranged from “fire eating” to magic, masks, and the classic but now nearly forgotten “Rhythm-meter-hand jive”. 

In May 1975, the second annual Invitational Festival of Experimental Theater, described by the Ann Arbor Sun as a “temporary aggregation of approximately 20 theatre, mime, and dance troupes.” Among them was the local "Friends Road Show" (a troupe living on a communal farm in Milan) and the Living Theatre at a number of venues: Michigan Union, Waterman Gym, and Trueblood Auditorium. That same year, the sixth annual Medieval Festival featured Michael Filisky’s recently-formed Mimetroupe’s interpretation of Boccaccio’s work, which was performed exclusively in mime, alongside “authentic” medieval performances and dances. Filisky became the well-known local figure in mime of the 1970s, and would remain a vibrant part of the community until he moved to New York in in the early 1980s.

The 1980’s Mime Boom in Ann Arbor

By the 1980s, Ann Arbor’s love of the art of mime was in full swing. Experimental mime, (or "new mime") featured abstraction, with troupes like Mummenschanz and Paul Gaulin’s Mime Company performing in extreme contrast to Marceau, and bringing a range of approaches to town. Mime became so popular that University of Michigan Mimetroupe’s event posters disappeared an alarming rate; the group attempted to cut them in half to dissuade theft, because, as one member said: “they are real collectors items.” Even with new styles and approaches on the horizon, Marceau became the face of the inaugural Ann Arbor Summer Festival in July 1984. He would return semi-annually to teach intensive workshops and make appearances at the festival in the following years. 

In anticipation of the first Ann Arbor Summer Festival, the Ann Arbor News proclaimed “Marcel Marceau’s love affair with Ann Arbor” and documented responses from local mimes; O.J. Anderson, sometimes referred to as the “good time mime”, noted “His [Marceau’s] is the art, mine is the act. My art is the entertainment,” which often consisted of bringing audience participants on stage and even speaking a line or two, earning him another title: “the World’s Only Talking Mime.” Perry Perrault, founder of the University of Michigan Mime Troupe in 1981 and Ann Arbor Mimeworks in 1988, noted that his approach contrasted to both Anderson and Marceau’s styles as he preferred to focus his energy on collaborative, group performances. 

With the help of Eugene Power, Lou Belcher, and Thomas Monaghan (of Domino’s Pizza), Marceau became the central figure for the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, and dreamed of opening an official school here. Though it never materialized, the space was originally conceptualized as a “350-seat theater, mime museum, and office space with rehearsal rooms.” The Marcel Marceau World Center for Mime taught seminars associated with the school for two years in town before the center faced bankruptcy. In a 2013 interview, Susan Pollay, former director of the Summer Festival, remembered that the center “was here in Ann Arbor in an instant and then it disappeared.” The following summer, Marceau was notably absent from both the Summer Festival itself and the annual Summer Mime Seminar.

Changing Attitudes Toward Mime: New Approaches Arrive

A Michigan Daily calendar listing on July 15, 1988, advertised the upcoming  series “Influences in Mime” at the Marcel Marceau World Center for Mime with the note: "'Everyone loves a clown. Everyone hates a mime,' said Sam Malone on an episode of Cheers. Decide for yourself…” As in the previous decades, Ann Arborites would have many opportunities to make that decision. In the late 1980s, Stefan Niedziałkowski, a renowned Polish mime artist, taught at Marcel Marceau’s Paris School and frequented Ann Arbor; he later became a resident at Marceau’s short-lived school and taught courses around town. From 1988-1993, Niedziałkowski had a base here for his mime company, Theatre Milchenye, and brought with him new forms of mime that would inspire future generations of artists. 

One such artist inspired by Niedziałkowski is Michael Lee, a local dramatist who specializes in mime. Lee first trained under Perry Perrault after he moved to Ann Arbor in 1984. Three years later he studied at the ephemeral Marcel Marceau School of Mime in Ann Arbor, then under Niedziałkowski, and quickly joined the local scene as a professional mime. Lee established his own OPUS Mime Troupe in 1994 at the former Washtenaw Council for the Arts loft at 122 S Main St. In their debut calendar event listing in the Michigan Daily, changing attitudes toward mime are employed as a marketing tactic, with OPUS mime cheekily stating: “This mime troupe blends the body of a gymnast, the mind of an actor and the heart of a poet into their shows. Who cares, nobody likes mimes anyway.” 

Performances in mime continued around town without the fervor of the past decades, but with a presence nonetheless. In 2001 the 78-year-old Marceau became the recipient of the University of Michigan Musical Society’s Distinguished Artist Award. As part of the residency, Marceau taught students of dance and drama for two weeks, followed by a performance that would add to his resume of over 30 Ann Arbor stage appearances. 

Continuing into the new millennium, Michael Lee set up a new office on East Washington. There, he ran a business that offered courses in mime to local schools, including Milan Schools and Rudolf Steiner. Lee stressed the difference between mime and pantomime in the Ann Arbor Observer's August 2000 edition, noting that true mime is an “art of the body as dramatic tool … that includes 264 hand positions and body positions that go back to Greco-Roman sculpture.” Leaving behind the Marceau-inspired white face paint, Lee created his own interpretation of the classic art of mime. By 2002, Lee had secured a grant to perform a work in mime, but was ultimately turned down by a local festival and could not locate a theater to perform in. The physical office in Ann Arbor closed, but a year and a half later he returned to mime part-time. Over the next years, he would continue his involvement with the Performance Network and participate in workshops, theater productions, and festivals in Washtenaw County.   In 2011, Lee and Perrault performed for Chelsea High School theater students after Opus Mime completed a two-week residency. Since then, Lee has moved away from Ann Arbor, but continues to teach and perform in Michigan and beyond. 

While mime no longer has the hold on Ann Arbor it once had, the lively tradition had a strong influence on the performing arts community here that still lingers today. 

 

In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States government reacted with an immediate and unfounded distrust of Japanese Americans. Just two months following the tragedy, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which gave legal clearance for the forced evacuation and incarceration of over 100,000 people of Japanese descent by declaring large swaths of the West Coast a “military area” that civilians could be excluded from. 

The great irony of war is that it is imperative to intimately know the opposing side. At the same time that Japanese Americans were being unjustly imprisoned based solely on their ancestry, the knowledge of Japanese language and culture that many of them possessed was crucial to the American military.

Wartime in Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor was critical to the war efforts and located enough to the east  to be exempt from the arbitrary military status that resulted in forced relocation. The University of Michigan contributed to the training of JAG lawyers, Navy seamen, Army Air Corps, and housed the Army Intensive Japanese Language Course (Military Intelligence), eventually known more simply as the Army Japanese Language School.

With the war efforts in mind, the University’s accelerated courses of Japanese language instruction began in February 1942 for civilians. The next year, in January of 1943, the Army language school began under a contract between the War Department and the University. Instruction lasted until December of 1945, with various offshoots including The East Asia Area and Language Army Specialized Training Program, The Civil Affairs Training School Far Eastern Program (Japan), and a translation program. The goal was “to give basic training in the Japanese spoken and written languages to officers and enlisted men of the United States Army” and “incidental to the above, to teach many facts pertaining to Japan and the Japanese.”

Initially, the school was composed of approximately 45 instructors, 15 of whom were women. The majority were Nisei, American-born children of Japanese immigrants. Ann Arbor had very few Japanese American residents at the time the war broke out, which was unsurprising given the exclusion of Japanese immigrants under the Immigration Act of 1924. Of the city’s 29,815 residents in 1940, only 101 were not classified as Black or White according to the census, and far fewer of them were Japanese American specifically. In 1941, there were 15 Japanese American students at the University of Michigan. 

Choosing instructors for the school was first undertaken by Colonel Kai E. Rasmussen of the US Army before the responsibility was given to Joseph Yamagiwa, a professor of Japanese at the University of Michigan. In the summer of 1943 he became the school’s director and remained in that position until the program ended. 

Forced Relocation & Recruitment

The first instructors for the school were largely recruited from concentration camps. Most had no prior teaching experience. They had been receptionists, college library assistants, insurance salesmen, accountants, secretaries, florists, caterers, journalists, preachers, bank tellers, farmers, lawyers, and more. 

In a 1945 report, Director Yamagiwa described what this experience must have been like for these new recruits, “the instructors had come to Ann Arbor to teach an enemy language, talked, written, and read by an enemy people with whom the instructors were racially connected. At first some did not dare even to go to a church, let alone a movie theatre.” Understandably “with stories of their experiences in various assembly centers and in the W.R.A. camps, some assumed for a time a certain cautiousness in their dealings with people in and around campus. No doubt many chimeras were created which had no real reason for being; actually, the community was either receptive or unnoticing.”

In an interview from 1974, former city council member and longtime Ann Arborite John Hathaway recalled the city’s reaction, “These Nisei were people who had been displaced from California on the West Coast, and had been sent to concentration camps. The university and the Ann Arbor community was quite outraged by the way these people were being treated.”  

Despite Hathaway’s memory of local indignation, structural prejudice was explicit policy for the University at the time. In 1942, as students of Japanese descent were forced to leave their places of study on the West Coast, a Seattle paper implied that the University of Michigan would welcome these pupils. UM President Alexander Ruthven quickly and plainly disputed this, “The newspaper report that the University of Michigan has agreed with West Coast institutions to accept students of Japanese blood from the evacuated areas is incorrect. It is the policy of the University to discourage such students from seeking admission here.”

As the war continued, the University faced a staff shortage for their dormitories, cafeterias, and hospitals. So, simultaneous to their exclusion of Japanese American students, the school began to recruit Japanese Americans from concentration camps to fill these positions. 

By the fall of 1943 the University had 400 Japanese American workers. A year later, Ruthven reiterated the enrollment ban in response to this growth, “There are already in the University somewhat more students in this category than we had before the war. When to this number are added the several hundred Japanese Americans employed in Ann Arbor, it is the opinion of the Board (of Regents) and of others concerned with this matter that we now have in this vicinity as many of these people as can be properly cared for and protected in the community.”

Housing

As recruitment for Language School instructors increased alongside all the other wartime operations, a new problem emerged: where would these new arrivals to Ann Arbor live? People had flocked to the area for training at the University, or for plant jobs like those available at Argus and Willow Run, creating a major housing shortage. When the first instructors arrived they lived in a single fraternity house. As the school grew to include 75 instructors at its peak, some with families, tight living quarters were required. 

A townsman who remained unnamed in Yamagiwa’s report purchased a home that was used to house four families, lending credence to Hathaway’s memory of Ann Arbor hospitality. More fraternity houses were also commandeered, with one home to an additional six families and another for male instructors. Alice Sano Teachout, whose father was an instructor, remembered the tight living quarters with fondness, “There were five families in this one fraternity house on Baldwin Street…That was really fun.” The most diligent instructors were able to find their own apartments, but at a high cost. 

In September 1943 instructor Eiko Fujii, whose parents were imprisoned at Jerome Relocation Center, wrote to Fred S. Farr about the situation, 

“My original plan was to call my parents out after I settled down - but the joke is on me, for houses and apartments simply aren’t available. Washington’s housing condition gets publicity because of the “glamour” attached to the city, but Ann Arbor “suffers” silently - in fact, one groans with our population. If one stops to listen one can literally hear houses creak with inflation. Besides, Ann Arbor has the distinction of being the second highest in living cost - next to New York or Washington, I forget which - and so I find myself unable to support my parents with the salary I get” 

Reverberations & Resoluteness

When the school began, the Nisei instructors were young, with an average age of 25. Most spent their next three critical years in Ann Arbor. Director Yamagiwa reflected, “In a rather real sense they reached maturity during their stay at Michigan, in some cases getting married, having children, and finally growing up.” Newlyweds included instructors Karl Ichiro Akiya and Satoko Murakami, and instructor Arthur Y. Fujiwara to stenographer Miko Inouye. 

Despite their government’s efforts to define them as separate from their fellow Americans, many of the instructors found honor and a sense of patriotism in their work. At age 90 Fumiko Morita Imai remembered her parents' pride in her teaching, which allowed her to escape the fate of the rest of her family who spent the duration of the war in a concentration camp. 

In the same letter in which Eiko Fujii described the difficulties of finding housing in Ann Arbor she wrote:

“Except for the fact that I am remorseful about leaving my folks in camp, I feel grand. I don’t think you can realize, Fred, how appreciative we are of our freedom and our citizenship after ten months of camp life. Now that the bitterness is gone, one’s sense of loyalty becomes stronger. It’s the funniest thing - I never was much of a patriot until now, until I actually had the fact of my physical ancestral trait flung at my face. At first there was resentment, but now that that part of my life is ended, I’ve become more conscious of being an American.”

Instructor Frank Y. Nishio was born in the United States, received his education in Japan, and returned to America in 1940. The day after Pearl Harbor he volunteered for military service only to be rejected by the recruitment officer. In an oral history he recalls:

“[The recruitment officer] called me aside and said, “Look, you are of Japanese ancestry and you’re Japanese, aren’t you?” And I said, “I am an American of Japanese ancestry.” … He said well, we don’t know what to do with you guys. I said, “What do you mean, you don’t know what to do with us guys? I am a citizen of the United States volunteering my services to my country and you say you don’t know what to do with us guys.” He said, “Well, it isn’t my determination, it came from Washington.” So I felt I had a pretty good idea of what was happening so I hung my head and left and was greatly affected by that decision because it was a statement saying that I am not an American when they do things like that. And I went back to school with no intent of studying and when the semester ended, I quit and went out to do day labor because I saw no future in my country that would not even accept my services to defend the country.”

Soon thereafter he was imprisoned at Jerome until the spring of 1943 when he came to Ann Arbor to teach. Still, he longed to be a member of the military. He volunteered again in Detroit only to be told that his current work was a higher priority. Finally he met Colonel Rasmus, the military leader of the language schools, who heard his plea and arranged for his acceptance into the Army.

After the War 

When the language school concluded in December of 1945, many of the instructors continued to serve their country by offering their skills to the occupation of Japan. Six former instructors contributed to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey: Eddie T. Inouye, Joseph K. Sano, Arthur Y. Fujiwara, Tomoo Ogita, Nisuke Mitsumori, and Takeshi Tabata. An additional nine were later appointed to the War Department at their own request: Saikichi Shirasawa, Shigeru S. Nagata, Albert S. Kosakura, Takeo Tada, Frank E. Kagiwada, Kinji Kanno, Robert T. Ono, Yuji F. Nakamura, and Robert T. Endo.

Others left Michigan to reunite with their families or try to reestablish themselves out West. Some decided to stay and make Ann Arbor their permanent home. Joseph K. Sano was a WWI veteran who had earned his law degree from the University of Southern California and at one time served as a FBI special investigator in California. He left for Japan in October of 1945 and spent at least three years working for the military government, including as a translator and interpreter for the Tokyo war crimes trials. His wife Sakae and son Roy remained in Ann Arbor. Upon his return he worked for the University of Michigan’s Library translating Japanese volumes and compiling a dictionary of Japanese characters. The Sano family grew to include two more members: Alice and George. Joseph Sano died of pneumonia in 1964. 

Joseph Sasaki quickly transitioned from instruction back to his work in optometry. He had graduated from the University of California and practiced for 5 years before the war. In November of 1945, he opened his private practice at 304 ½ S State Street. He was an active member of the Ann Arbor community with roles in the Ann Arbor-Washtenaw County Council of Churches, Optimist Club, YMCA, Freemasons, and the Izaak Walton League. In 1955, his commitment to the city was recognized with an appointment to First Ward Supervisor for Washtenaw County. Apart from his more formalized service work for decades, he hosted Japanese-style Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day feasts at his home, inviting scholars and students from Asia so they wouldn’t be alone during the holidays. In 1989 his kindness was repaid by the recipients, who furnished a trip to Japan for him. 

The Japanese Language School would not have been located in Ann Arbor without Joseph Yamagiwa’s expertise. He had received his Masters and Doctorate from the University of Michigan, where he remained as a member of the faculty for 31 years. Like many of the instructors he had recruited, he spent time in Japan after the war in service to the military. In a 2017 interview, his daughter Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro recalled making friends with the children of other instructors as “the first time I had Japanese American friends. Otherwise, there were two of us my age in Ann Arbor at the time.” Overall, she recalled a lack of prejudice “because there were so few of us,” acknowledging that her “experience was completely different from the 95 percent who were put in the camps.” Still, what she lived through left enough of a mark to inspire her play Behind Enemy Lines about Japanese American detention during WWII. 

Second in command to Joseph Yamagiwa was the school’s Head Instructor Hide Shohara. Instructor Shohara had earned her bachelors from the University of Michigan in 1926 and joined the faculty in 1927 as an assistant in general linguistics. She was eventually promoted to a professor of Japanese alongside Director Yamagiwa. She retired from Michigan in 1965 to join the faculty of the University of Minnesota. The Department of Asian Languages and Cultures maintains a fellowship in her honor. 

Only A Fraction

With a total of 100 instructors over the school’s three years this is only a glimpse into the consequential lives each one of them lived. 

Instructor Roy Toshiro Nakagawa developed a partnership with former student Max Hugel to export Japanese products that resulted in the formation of Brother International Corporation. 

Ruth Hashimoto was a staunch advocate for peace. She was in attendance for President Regan’s signing of the bill that provided $20,000 in restitution for Japanese Americans who were detained. She donated half of her payment to the Japanese American Citizens League and the rest to charities devoted to fostering peace and understanding. 

Karl Ichiro Akiya was a labor and community activist who was awarded for his work against racial discrimination. 

Reverend Andrew Y. Kuroda went on to a 35 year career with the Library of Congress.

Leonard Ida was an instructor in the spring of 1945 when he wrote to Estelle Ishigo, who was then imprisoned at Heart Mountain:

“It has been a long time and perhaps long forgotten me. I can always remember the evening teas and listening to the Tokyo broadcast in your home… Those were the good old days. Quite by accident that I heard that you and your husband were in Ht. Mt. yes, you were taking judo lessons at the time of the evacuation… I’ve been outside these past two years teaching Japanese language… I’m here with the University of Mich. This work is interesting and [I] hope to play a great part in the future peace of the world through the medium of language.”

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Read More

Center for Japanese Studies: The US Army's Intensive Japanese Language School

From Unwelcome to Essential Japanese Americans At Michigan During World War 2

University of Michigan Heritage Project: These Young Americans

Scholars In Uniform - Ann Arbor Observer, August 1990

"Borders is not only a part of Ann Arbor's history, it's part of its culture. For Ann Arbor 200, I wanted not just to recount the rise and fall of a bookstore, but capture the experience of shopping at—or working for—a local institution. This story is based on research and interviews with former Borders employees, as well as my own experiences with the flagship store and other locations. The unnamed characters move through the years and Borders' evolutions, but they age at whatever speed you like, or not at all. This is a story of Borders, for you. I hope you see yourself somewhere within, I hope it brings up good memories." - Author Shaun Manning

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Origins

Late 1974

She says, "Wow, this is a lot bigger than the old one.”

He says, "Nicer, too. What was it you were looking for?"

They browse at a casual pace, perusing the shelves marked Art, History, Literature—with subsections devoted to Latin American literature, Russian literature, and more. It is a wonder to see. 

They find stairs to the second floor, and he smiles back at her as he begins the ascent. She heard there would be a third floor within the year. Just remarkable what this bookstore has become in such a short time. Already an Ann Arbor gem.

Borders Book Shop opened less than four years ago in 1971, just 800 square feet on the second floor of 211 South State Street. Brothers Tom and Louis Borders focused on used books at the time, and—unlike well-established bookshops such as Slater's, Wahr's, or the newer University Cellar—the brothers decided not to compete forUniversity of Michigan's textbook sales. After only five months, Borders moved to 518 East William Street for the span of a year, and then the brothers bought out Wahr's and moved into their 2000 square-foot space at 316 South State Street. The new location at 303 South State is triple that again and will encompass more than 10,000 square feet once all three floors are open.

Louis Borders, who worked briefly at a bookstore in college, dreamed of Ann Arbor becoming a book-town destination on the level of Chicago, New York, and Boston, drawing in readers from Detroit, Lansing, Toledo, and further afield. So far, things were looking good.

"Found it," she says, holding a copy of Watership Down.

"Is this for kids?" he says, a book tucked under his arm.

"It's supposed to be really good. What are you getting?"

He holds up Gore Vidal's latest, Burr.

"How fascinating," she says, not fascinated.

"It's supposed to be really good!"

They pay for their books, the cashier removing a small punch card from each, and together they walk up State to the old Borders at 316, still open during the relocation. They consider going in, having one last walk through the stacks. But no, that Borders is already part of the past.

 

Local Bookstore

Holiday Season 1989

He has some gifts to buy and had watched nervously from their table near the window at Dooley's as nearby shops turned down their lights and locked up for the evening.

"Wow, I'm surprised they're still open."

She checks her watch. "Yeah, Borders is open ‘til nine p.m. now. We've still got a couple hours yet."

He wishes he hadn't rushed through dinner. 

She has already picked up two hardcovers—The Joy Luck Club and The Remains of the Day—and is discussing them with a handsome, though somewhat balding, bookseller. Meanwhile, he is still pensively focused on his too-full belly. 

Leisurely, almost absently, he picks up a copy of Stephen King's latest, The Dark Half, and flips open the cover to read the jacket copy. Like other bestsellers, it's 30% off the cover price. Still, he's not sure this one's for him. But maybe a Christmas gift for his brother?

"We're trying to set a precedent for downtown businesses to be open later," he overhears the bookseller telling her. He's seen this Borders employee before; in fact, it seems he's been here almost every time they've come into the store. Maybe he is the manager. Or one of the Borders Brothers? The bookseller or manager or Borders founder speaks with passion and authority. "The mall stays open until nine, why shouldn't we?"

In addition to the two volumes she's already selected, she now holds a third book—one the bookseller recommended during their conversation. Together, she and the bookseller retrieved it from the History section (or rather, one of the several sections of history)—with text against an all-green cover, it’s an obscure title called The Empire Writes Back. 

She has taken a seat on a cushioned chair to flip through her selections, and he sits beside her, mimicking the kkk-fsssh noise of Darth Vader's mechanical breathing as he reads the title.

"It's not about Star Wars," she says, rolling her eyes.

They sit for a while, he with his Stephen King, she with her book on something called post-colonialism, and the two others in a stack. This is nice, he thinks, and also, I'm going to get two copies of Stephen King, one for me and one for my brother.

What if they do this more often? Could bookstores be a place to relax, a place to meet friends and socialize? It's quieter than the bar, he thinks. They have been to the other Borders—one of them, the one in Novi—it had a similarly cozy environment, though it didn't hold that special at-home feeling of the Ann Arbor store. 

He's heard about Borders expanding outside of its three Michigan shops, into Atlanta, Indianapolis, and near Chicago. It seems like the folks who run this place have big ideas about what a bookstore is and can be. And it all started here, in Ann Arbor. Could this local business change the entire culture of reading?

Almost at the same time, they turn the page.

 

National, Then Global (but Still Ann Arbor's Own)

Summer 1993

It's her second day on the job, and she's setting up the "Ban It" window display featuring books that have been banned, or which groups have attempted to ban, throughout the years. She wants to do things right; she wonders whether to group the books by age range or theme or perhaps cascade them all together. Should Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn stand side by side or be set further apart to create a more dynamic variety?

"Charlotte's Web?" a middle-aged woman nearby says incredulously. "Where is this banned?" She hadn't noticed the woman's approach, but it's a conversation she's prepared for. She tells this customer about the organized efforts by national groups to pressure local PTAs into removing certain books from schools and stopping libraries from making these books available to their communities.

"I don't believe it," the woman says dismissively, tossing Charlotte's Web back on the cart. The woman also makes a comment about going over to check out the "Blue Light Specials," a reference to Kmart’s recent acquisition of Borders, which the newly minted bookseller already finds crusty and stale.

Charlotte's Web gets central placement in the window display.

Despite the occasional snarky comment—this is, after all, retail—she loves her new job. She sees why so many Borders employers are "lifers." There's a high bar to entry, with a challenging interview quiz—only the most famous component. And once you're in, what's not to love about working with books? Chatting with readers every day, finding common interests, making recommendations, and learning about the books that excite other people?

And so what if Borders is no longer, properly speaking, a "local bookstore"? It still feels like an independent bookstore; really nothing seems to have changed since Kmart came in. And it's still inherently a part of the community—the previously closed State Theater down the street is clear evidence of that since bookstore founder Tom Borders bought and reopened the iconic venue last year. 

Besides, even before the acquisition by America's second largest retail chain, the company grew beyond its Ann Arbor roots—beyond even its roots in the Midwest—becoming a national chain. Borders grew while retaining what made it special. Other chains focused on bestsellers and magazines, while Borders gave readers the opportunity to browse a more eclectic selection, the ability to special order any of more than one million titles. Its staff are "book people"—working full time, many of them leaving professional careers to do what they love. Herself included. She's finished her master's degree in comparative literature, and there's nowhere she'd rather be.

Borders' addition of music and movies also predated its integration into Kmart and Waldenbooks. But why not? At the end of her first shift, she picked up Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville alongside the latest Octavia Butler; why wouldn't customers enjoy the same convenience?

A familiar face approaches, interrupting her reverie.

"Do you have any—"

"Don't say it—"

"Blue Light Specials?" he says.

Despite their joking, she knows what he's here for. And knows he won't know where to find it. Ever since the expansion last year into Crown House of Gifts' second-floor space, he's been hopeless. Most customers adjust, but her friend still goes up the escalator for books on music, which are now on the first floor, only to find shelves of Borders' more literary titles, which are now housed upstairs. 

She walks him over to find a copy of Miles: The Autobiography and tells him for at least the fifth time since she's landed the job that she can't give him her employee discount.

 

December 1996

He's supposed to pick her up after her shift, but he's running late. Good. She'll have a bit of time to herself. To think.

This job has meant so much to her. Has provided so many wonderful experiences, so many great opportunities.

She's witnessed, and been a part of, the secret inner workings that make a bookstore happen. She's stacked boxes of books as they’ve come off the delivery truck, down a chute into the basement offices, and she’s taken her place in the human chain that’s sent cartons of publisher returns back up the same way. She's filled special orders by flipping through materials from Ingram, and Baker & Taylor. 

She was there for the move into the Jacobson's building on Liberty—it was a huge and brilliant endeavor culminating in a new yet familiar flagship Borders.

She's seen, and had the chance to meet, so many of her favorite authors. Many of her bookselling colleagues are authors themselves! 

She met First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in the most absolutely chaotic day she's ever experienced, handing out signed books to some 2000 readers. 

She's chatted with radicals and dreamers, and a standoffish sportswriter with an inflated sense of self-importance.

She's experienced the addition of new product lines like CD-ROMs and the espresso bar, and weird new innovations like Borders' "browse by phone" automated service. 

She's set up expert panel discussions on the virtues and dangers of the Internet, though she suspects the whole enterprise is overblown.

She hasn't been privy to all the shifting corporate stratagems of the Borders-Walden Group, but she did see her employer and favorite local institution work its way out of the Kmart Corporation and stand once again on its own. 

She has observed as local competitors have tried to carve out their niche or keep up: Little Professor insisting they are Ann Arbor's "neighborhood bookstore," while drastically increasing its magazine selection; music shops fighting for survival as Borders dominates.

But now?

The focus has turned to Borders staff. To her, and her colleagues. To labor. To unionizing.

And what does she think of it all?

There's been so much back and forth. So many hearings with the National Labor Relations Board, planned and then cancelled. So much controversy surrounding Borders locations in other states, involving staff and managers she's never met.

She loves her job. It pays okay, relatively speaking, and even provides benefits. She wants to trust her employer and the familial atmosphere Borders has fostered. Her boss insists he's not anti-union but says unions and Borders culture "would not be a good fit." She certainly respects him more than the media personality who's been banging the drum for unionization, leading protests in Ann Arbor and other big-city locations—during the holiday season, no less!.

And yet.

"Borders culture" has professionalized bookselling and created new expectations for what a bookstore can and should be. If Borders staff are paid better than other stores in town, isn't that just reflective of the specialized knowledge they bring to the table? Could collective bargaining make a dream job a sustainable one for its well-screened, rigorously trained, highly educated staff?

His car pulls up to the curb on the other side of Liberty, so she starts crossing the street.

"You're late," she says.

"You hungry?" He hands her a Blimpy's bag.

"I have something for you, too." She hands him The Regulators by Richard Bachman.

"Wow, I thought he was dead?"

"I guess Stephen King brought him back for one last scare."

 

Decline and Fall

Spring 2002

"Do you miss it?"

"You ask that every time."

Yes, of course she misses it. She misses going into Borders every day, spending eight hours handling books, talking about books, making recommendations, and learning about authors she hadn't previously read. It was easily the most fun job she’s ever had. Her career has taken her in another direction, but Borders Books & Music is still one of her favorite places. She still recognizes so many of the faces.

"I don't miss cleaning the toilets," she says.

"You say that every time."

She did need a change. Everything changes. Everything has changed since the Twin Towers fell; she expects they're only seeing the start of it.

Borders has been a driver of change but has not always adapted well to change imposed from the outside. They were well behind the curve when they set up their first website in 1998, ceding the advantage to Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com, a new company gaining steam. 

Last year, Borders and Amazon teamed up for book sales over the internet, which might help them both shore up their weaknesses. She’s heard from friends who worked with her on the floor, before they moved over to Corporate, that Borders.com has been losing money. Meanwhile, Amazon still doesn't have any stores at all that you can actually visit. Though some tech writer was quoted in the Ann Arbor News as saying that Borders was "turning over the keys to what may be its biggest competitor over time." 

At any rate, she still buys all her books in person.

He finds what he came for right away—The Salmon of Doubt by the late Douglas Adams—but of course they both know they'll be looking around for a while. They drift apart, away through the aisles, joining up in their perambulations—both carrying a few extra books on their stacks—before breaking off again. 

She's already picked up Atonement by Ian McEwan, a debut called Everything is Illuminated, and a memoir called Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, which she heard about on NPR—she couldn't remember the name, but she found it prominently displayed and added it to her pile.

"Did we pick up the same book?" he says, startling her at his approach. She sees the book he's holding up.

"No, that's Everything's Eventual," she says. "You're the Stephen King guy. This author is new, but it looks good." He is also carrying two books by Oliver Sacks, an author who does, in fact, bridge their interests.

They get in line to check out, a queue that snakes back on itself. But there are a few registers open, so they expect things should go quickly. 

She always donates to the local causes Borders promotes at the register, this time the Ann Arbor District Libraries' "Open Books for Children" project; he will sometimes drop his change in, sometimes not.

He turns over his stack of books in both hands, as if shuffling them from one to the other but without actually releasing the tomes into the air. "I've been wanting to read this book called The Commitments, Roddy Doyle, but I didn't see it." They both set their books on the counter to pay.

"Should we go check the other store?"

Ann Arbor's other Borders, in the Arborland Center, will have them fighting traffic. They could call. They could probably look it up online at one of the kiosks placed throughout the store or simply ask an old friend on staff. 

She grabs their bags. "Yeah, let's go."

Because why not spend a bit more time in a bookstore?

 

Fall 2008

It's a quiet Saturday, and they've spent most of it on Borders' comfy seating. She's read three entire volumes of Fruits Basket, but the fourth book is not on the shelf, so she's shifting gears entirely and starting in on Stephen Hall's The Raw Shark Texts. It's strange and brilliant and just the sort of thing she likes. On the side table, along with the completed manga and her Starbucks venti latte from the cafe, there is also a copy of On Chesil Beach, which maybe she'll get to today.

Looking up from her book, gazing across the store at other customers, it strikes her how young so many of them are. When she worked here (When was that? It can't have been so long . . .), she didn’t remember seeing quite so many teens and young adults; it was mostly younger kids coming with their families, or the literati that one expects to congregate in a university town.

Harry Potter has done wonders.

It's not just Harry Potter, of course; the final volume in that series came out last year. And the flood of incoming manga filling the shelves have drawn teens into rich, colorful worlds of never-ending stories. Together, they have created a new industry, a new culture. They have helped transform reading from a primarily solitary activity to a social one; more and more kids have come to associate reading not with schoolwork but with magic.

Good for them. She wasn't going to attend a midnight release party or anything, but good for them.

"Find anything good?" she says. He's been alternating between thin volumes of playscripts and a giant edition of The Canterbury Tales, which he now sets on his lap.

"But wel I woot, expres, withoute lye . . . I'm really struggling with this."

"Your accent isn't bad," she jokes. "But it's not good, either." She took a course on Chaucer at U-M; she loved it, though she suspected she was the only one in class who did.

"Feeling dramatic today?" she adds.

"Oh, you know. Just sometimes I miss acting." From time to time, he’s toyed around with the idea of auditioning at the Purple Rose over in Chelsea, but whether because of a lack of time, as he’s told himself, or because he couldn't work up the nerve, he hasn’t been on stage since finishing his B.A. in history.

They both go back to reading. His mouth moves silently over the archaic English. He could spend all day here. You can't get this from Amazon, he thinks. Of course, there are some things he gets from Amazon—it's so convenient, how could you not? He feels bad, on some level, that since the digital split he hasn't much used Borders.com, it's just . . . there's no reason to. If he wants to go to Borders, he'll go to Borders—he even signed up for the Borders Rewards program. But if he wants to save a few dollars, he'll click through Amazon.

He hears a book snap closed, and she stands up.

"I'm going over to the Paperchase section, I need some cards," she says. "Are you getting anything?"

Chaucer is still open on his lap. He thinks for a moment.

"I don't think so," he says. "Not today."

He hasn't followed the news closely, but apparently, Borders is for sale. Again. Isn't it always for sale? Isn't it always in some sort of financial trouble? But there are Borders Books & Music stores everywhere—across the United States. Across the world! They'll be fine.

 

The End

September 2011

How long have they been going to Borders? How many years? As long as they can remember.

And now, it's the last time.

The shelves are nearly bare; the bookcases themselves are for sale. They don't really expect to find anything. That's okay; they each pick up a haul of books they're unlikely to finish in a lifetime through the gradually escalating sales leading up to this date.

They just want to be here. One last time.

"This was a mistake," he says. Now that he's here, he wishes he wasn't. He wishes he hadn't seen the stripped skeleton of a space that had meant so much to them. The last few times were hard as well, with books, CDs, and everything else that once made Borders feel so alive having dwindled away at 20%, 30%, 40% off.

"Maybe," she says. But she's still glad she's here. She has friends, both at the store and on the corporate side, who have lost their jobs in the last few months, or who are about to finally lose their jobs after winding down the last operations for Ann Arbor's former gem. She's heard the stories and speculation about what brought them to this moment.

Amazon.

Ebooks.

Overexpansion.

The recession.

All of the above.

From friends and family outside the book world, she frequently hears "people don't read anymore." But this never seemed right. Because Amazon. Ebooks. And the like. If anything, people might be reading more than ever.

They're just not buying books. Or not buying books from Borders. Or.

Mistakes were made. The multiple website relaunches. The push into toys and games.

Betting on the wrong horse in the ebook race. Bold initiatives that failed to pay off. Who knows. All she knows is that this place that meant so much to her will soon be gone. Is already gone.

There's no more Music section to speak of, but she finds a Jonas Brothers tour book cast haphazardly on a low shelf. Maybe her niece will like it. For two dollars, why not?

They take their finds to the checkout. He's got a badly shelf-worn copy of a Charlie Chan biography. There are stanchions laid out in a snaking pattern and arrows taped on the tile floor directing customers through a line that has failed to materialize. They follow the maze in a death row silence. 

He pays for his purchase, in cash, and then she does the same. He has already started walking away when he hears her slide something off the counter. He turns, and she holds it up to him.

"Don't forget your bookmark!"

"I recently put on a show in downtown Ann Arbor on Main Street called Being Black in America: Ann Arbor Edition. It entailed the black experience in its entirety. Lost Ann Arbor puts more focus on the history. It  includes pieces of artwork that focus on the Black history of Ann Arbor, the accomplishments, the stories of our ancestors, and how they have come to Ann Arbor and their experience." - Painter Asha Jordan

The paintings Asha created for Lost Ann Arbor below are also currently available to view in a virtual gallery from Saganverse.  A walkthrough video of this gallery was also created to enable a permanent record of the exhibit.

	Being Black in Ann Arbor
	502 N. 5th AVE "Thomas and Janie Ross resided in a home on 5th ave. Their name was on the deed but the landowner told them to either pick the house up and take it off his land or move out. From the fear inflicted they just left."
	North Side AA "Asian Americans were weaponized to oppress Black People, they were given loans to open businesses in Black communities. Even though Black People were not able to receive loans in their own community." - An Asian American
	The Lost
	Cousin Charlene "What did it look like to live in Ann Arbor as a black woman? BLACK WOMEN IN THE 80s SOMEWHERE IN ANN ARBOR."
	AAA on Main Street "Posing across the street from the big house. Being unapologetically Black was a lifestyle never forget. Roy Campbell, Carlene Campbell, and Bobby Ross."

WCBN, the University of Michigan’s student-run freeform radio station, has been broadcasting the Local Music Show since 1993 when it was started by Dan Banda. 

For 31 years and counting the show has featured live performances from Southeast Michigan artists of all genres selected by a rotating cast of hosts.  The Local Music Show has always presented live performances by these artists, and listening to them gives a sense of what the clubs, bars, and basements of Ann Arbor have sounded like over the past two decades. This collection includes over 600 performances from 2002 to 2022 with favorites like Protomartyr, Saturday Looks Good To Me, Tyvek, Bonny Doon, Stef Chura, Frontier Ruckus, Chris Bathgate, and many more. 

Take a deep dive into the Local Music Show archive to discover the local talent that surrounds you!

By the 1950s Ann Arbor had outgrown its old, ornate courthouse. The 1877 structure was falling into disrepair, but stipulations limited its relocation. So our county’s leaders embarked upon a novel solution: constructing a new building right around the old!

LEGO builder extraordinaire David Lorch recreated our courthouse’s unique construction with hands-on help. Attendees at our December 7, 2024 event assembled sections of the large-scale LEGO model of the newer courthouse surrounding the older courthouse's LEGO replica. 

Below you will find the history of Washtenaw County's three courthouses, a time lapse of the event, photos of the completed model, and a 360° video of the two courthouses. The LEGO models will be on exhibit through January 10, 2025 on the third floor of the Downtown Library.

360° view of the completed courthouses