Any good food or beer in/around Ann Arbor?

@thejackit as Michigan’s Unofficial Beer Ambassador I support this message.

“famous” in non-autocorrect English is “campus”.

@RedOak Perhaps the “famous campus?”

The locals sure think so.

… gotta go to bed earlier - edit two: South St = South University. (We happen to have some rural off the grid wooded property “up north” on “South St.”)

@RedOak Do I have to hang out with college students? When I do that in TX it makes me feel old.
Mostly because I AM old

@compunaut yep - we do too - or did recently - have two recent college grad kids and two on the way in middle/HS.

They all appear young - that’s for sure!

@compunaut
Just tell the kids at the bar that it’s their job to adopt you for an hour and help you re-live your youth.

My younger brother flies everywhere for biz. He has tried this in college towns and gotten it to work. An ability to admire the local sports traditions helps, and bring your very best stories.

@compunaut we could hang out like @carl669 @carl699 and @kittysprinkles did, and become Meh.mous . i too am old, my spouse can join so we don’t get into Meh. trouble. if you are only in for a quick meeting, it may be difficult, the better half is a teacher in the urban district(s).

/giphy michigan vs. oh

@Yoda_Daenerys there will never be a meeting as glorious and as famous as the meeting of @carl669 and @KittySprinkles for the gorging of food.

unless @Pavlov and @MrsPavlov throw a meh meetup party. then i’m totally there.

@OldCatLady i’m grew up in Portage County, OH-IO

@OldCatLady there’s a “Portage, OH”?

@RedOak Pop. 438, of which about 20 are related to me. It was quite the boom town when gas and oil were discovered in the 1800s. Many farms still have wells in their fields. It’s pretty quiet now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage,_Ohio.

@OldCatLady Portage, MI isn’t exactly huge, I think less than 50,000. Near the grand metropolis of Kalamzoo. A friend recently got corporate-relocated there. Easy run over to Lake Michigan - always a wonderful thing.

@OldCatLady @RedOak
Brother lives in Portage, MI, near West Lake.

There’s a Portage, IN, too.

@compunaut it’s been a really long time since I’ve been to Portage. Not sure where my friend lives other than his house backs to a golf course.

@stbennet Had some Dark Horse Amber Ale - tasty

@gruverja I haven’t been there since they moved. Is it still any good? Mostly I remember being yelled at like Seinfeld’s soup nazi…

@rprussell I haven’t been there in eons myself and didn’t know that they’d moved. I’d really hate it if they’d classed up the place, or even let too much sunlight in. (That happened to my all-time favorite dive diner ever - The Big Egg, in Cleveland.)

@gruverja Yah, the UofM bought the entire block they were on; they closed for a year or so and reopened down near the Fleetwood.

From what I understand, they kept the same grill, moved it and all, so I imagine their burgers are still just as, ah, seasoned as ever

@gruverja Blimpy’s old real eatate has been supplanted by yet another shiny new (seemingly unlimited funds) Michigan building. A graduate student housing monolith nearly on the scale of the also relatively new North Quad complex.

Haven’t had the heart to try the new location. Locared downtown rather than on the edge of campus where it rightfully belonged.

@marklog At the Hampton Inn south of campus

(Pedantic gripe: Ethiopian food not Egyptian.)

@rprussell true dat, it’s somewhere over there in africa, sorry

/giphy ashamed and taunted

@rprussell money factor so true.

@rprussell for a much more frugal, if not as excellent, alternative, we choose Amer’s Deli. We favored the State St location until he neutered it in half (likely to throttle wifi parker students as well as rent) recently.

Side story: Amer, a Michigan Engineering grad himself who stumbled into the deli business, got screwed by Michigan. He developed a dead space in the Union on the main floor into a nice little deli. And with virtually no notice, Michigan kindly said, thanks, we’d like to put yet another Starbucks in your spot. Bye!

@RedOak I think there’s an Amer’s just off of South U also - across from Pizza House. I have always found them a fantastic alternative to Zings, although it admittedly doesn’t pack that “world-famous” punch.

OH, @compunaut - Pizza House! Add that to your list!

@rprussell yep. Two locations left. Haven’t tried the South University location. And thanks for reminding me of another error of in my late night Zingerman’s comment - left out “University” in South University St.

@rprussell I’m guessing meals & incidentals per diem is $59

@OldCatLady hah - have seen web blurbs advertising that sweepstakes and didn’t even realize the house is in A^2! Cool. Still have two kids at home pre-college - that house would make a nice dorm alternative.

@Kidsandliz that tower was fairly recently refurbed wasn’t it? Have walked by it a hundred times. Our daughter lived in North Quad a year and in an apartment north on State St.

Really hard to beat the bells at Cornell tho.

@RedOak
@Kidsandliz
Are any carillons in the US still rung entirely by hand?

I have a “The Nine Tailors” fascination.

@f00l not sure about Michigan, but we’ve climbed the tower at Cornell and watched them perform. Very physical instrument. Not only “hands”. Also socked feet.

They also have Mac-based simulators in a room below the performance room so they can fail in private while they learn.

In have photos and videos somewhere…

@Kidsandliz Keep an eye open for the Violin Monster, too.

@f00l Our town’s carillonneur has a recital the 1st & 3rd Sunday of every month. That’s this carillon (MD):

I’m not sure if they play this one at any other time of year, but by Congressional resolution, a carillonneur plays ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ on this one (DC) every July 4:

A few days beforehand, one year, I heard them testing it… rang every bell in succession, that was kind of nice.

@RedOak
I had heard the Cornell one, from the ground. (And visited the equally lovely waterfall.)

I thought many carillons were done electrically now. Not by strong people pulling on ropes.

@f00l Pulling on ropes would be full-circle bells (possibly others). A carillon is a pedal/keyboard that strikes fixed bells with clappers. Some are fully mechanical linkages, some are controlled by electronic keyboards.

@f00l Yes there are a number of them played by musicians. By hand not by an electronic keyboard… Google GCNA (guild of carillonneurs in North America) and look at their tower list. Go to Youtube and you can see a ton of videos (some better than others) of people playing them and you can see how they are played. I have played them for years. Very fun.

@f00l the I’ll see if I can find my pics or videos. The Cornell setup is not rope pulling. It is big levers and pedals as I recall, connected to cables.

Spectacular campus with big variety of architecture sitting on a ridge overlooking one of the finger lakes, Cayuga Lake, interspersed with gorges and waterfalls. That whole Ithaca, NY area has several beautiful waterfalls.

@f00l the I’ll see if I can find my pics or videos. The Cornell setup is not rope pulling. It is big levers and pedals as I recall, connected to cables.

Spectacular campus with big variety of architecture sitting on a ridge overlooking one of the finger lakes, Cayuga Lake, interspersed with gorges and waterfalls. That whole Ithaca, NY area has several beautiful waterfalls.

RedOak said an hour ago 0 Reply
@f00l Found some of my pics of Cornell’s McGraw Tower. Unfortunately my videos show the musician so it wouldn’t be cool to post here. But I the Cornell Chimes site has a video, linked below…

Taughannock Falls: (taller than Niagara Falls)

Cornell Performance:
http://chimes.cornell.edu/video/flash_high.html

@RedOak I spent two days wandering the campus and the area with a friend who had gotten his PhD there. The waterfall we went to was the tallest one - I think it is the one is your pic. That matches my memory.

Perhaps that is the loveliest campus in the US? What else compares?

Sometimes I really miss the feel of part of this country.

@f00l It is a special place. We tried to extend our visits every time we dropped our daughter off or picked her up. We miss Cornell and the many surrounding waterfalls since she graduated three years ago.

We don’t, however, miss the boring drives either thru Southern Ontario (with the snotty, Canadian-jobs-paranoid Canadian border agents… I’d resist locating a cross-border business there for this reason) or thru Ohio.

@RedOak I’ll have to find some yourtube good carillon videos to post since a carillon is different than a chime.

@Kidsandliz Never would have guessed there were different categories for “bell towers”.

http://www.verdin.com/bells/peals-chimes-carillons.php

@RedOak
Most of these have too much keyboard noise as they are recorded from inside the clavier room rather than the from the ground where they sound richer. Also some of them start with tolling for the hour and/or an automated chime.

This one people will near the end, see the pedal board too

This one is played in old Belgium style at their carillon school by my carillon teacher

And one on one of the bigger carillons in the USA played by another carillon friend of mine
enter link description here

This one is a traveling carillon with other instruments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_b4_F6pVc8&index=55&list=PLF9C1BDF17D554980

And something traditional (a lot of the music is transcriptions) in a shortened version

And this one as the second piece was written by another carillon friend of mine (first short song was recorded from the ground so no keyboard noises, John’s piece from inside the clavier room)

And even Andre Rieu gets into the act
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYhux-Gn6bY&index=28&list=RD3VSUuTABb3U

And then Andre Rieu in a very humorous competition between a carillon (with electronic tones used from a real carillon) and Xylophon

Of course just about anything can be arranged for carillon

And this one is on bells from the 1700’s, being played is original carillon music from then
enter link description here

And one more this is played on an older carillon St. Rombouts Cathedral in Mechelen (where the Belgian carillon school is). Written by Jef Denyn (who also founded this carillon school and was the first carillon school in the world - grants degrees in carillon) appointed in 1887 as the city carilloneur succeeding his blinded father Adolphe Denyn.

enter link description here

Another one I like - again arranged from music written for other instruments (another well known carillonneur as are all them on the videos I have posted)

@Kidsandliz
Tall ships. Carillons. What other exotic things are you master of, so that I can feel even more envious?

Just stared watching the vids. In the days before computers, how did they practice and learn to play without having the entire town or city go insane?

@RedOak my kids are cornellians, u 2?

@RedOak i didn’t believe it, but mister google says:

The Rim trail closes in winter. The hiking trails offer spectacular views and unique geological formations including 215’ Taughannock Falls, which is 33 feet taller than Niagara and is the highest vertical single drop waterfall in the Northeastern U.S.

@f00l

how did they practice and learn to play without having the entire town or city go insane?

ear buds

@RedOak

We miss Cornell and the many surrounding waterfalls since she graduated three years ago.

Our kids were '10 and '15, sounds like you were in between those years?

who knows, maybe we ran into each other at

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@Yoda_Daenerys our daughter is class of 2013, School of Human Ecology. You never know, we might have bumped into each other there.

We didn’t spend much time sitting still with that amazing campus and surroundings.

@Yoda_Daenerys wait. You had two kids at Cornell and never visited Taughannock Falls?

OK, that one is a bit of a drive up the west edge of the lake.

But hopefully you did visit Buttermilk Falls and Treman Falls? Both close to town and both beautiful in different ways.

@f00l practice keyboards - hooked to metal tone bars that are, in my opinion, designed to be shrill to make you deaf instead of bells. Some clever souls are hooking them to electronic playback of recorded carillon bell tones so you have improved sound. Of course then you need plugs which isn’t always a given in bell towers (practice instruments usually are in the bell tower - few people own one due to size and cost).

Somehow the link got broken for the traveling carillon with other instruments (although if you take both lines and copy/paste them then it works) so here it is again
enter link description here

@Kidsandliz
Now I all curious about the history or the art and performance. Wikipedia Time, I guess.

Are most of the performers people with decent piano skills (or other people from the orchestra) who decided they wanted a challenge with all that outdoor sound possibility?

I can’t imagine anyone starts their musical journey playing a carillon unless closely connected to one by family or friends.

How did you come to start playing the carillon? What instruments before you decided to “go big”?

@compunaut
I foresee a long lunch.

@compunaut not sure if you are a ‘spiritual’ person, but there is a great opportunity near jackson, if you are interested

@Yoda_Daenerys Do tell, please. I’ll be in Jackson Monday.

@bdb holy dormition monastery

a monastic community of orthodox christian nuns