John Counts

Feb 2, 2024 | mlive.com | John Counts

Sports Illustrated is having a hard time everywhere -- including Ann Arbor. The legendary sports magazine laid off much of its staff recently. Even so, it seems intent on growing the brand in a different direction. Think hotels and resorts. The company was eyeing the Kline lot (or Kline’s lot, named for the department store that sometimes used an apostrophe, and sometimes didn’t) here in Ann Arbor.

Jan 27, 2024 | jcounts.substack.com | John Counts

I’m new to Harry Crews. The Southern writer (1935-2012) taught many years at the University of Florida and is associated with the post-Faulknerian genres known as Dirty South or Grit Lit. Thanks for reading Slow Reader! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. I’m less than halfway through his memoir, A Childhood: The Biography of a Place, which recounts his boyhood in rural, poverty-stricken Bacon County, Georgia. His father works himself to death on the farm.

Jan 26, 2024 | mlive.com | John Counts

It’s no secret that Washtenaw Avenue between Ann Arbor and Ypsi is a nightmare. For both cars and pedestrians. Officials have taken note and are planning a project there, as well as along U.S. 23 between I-94 and M-14, Lucas Smolcic Larson reported this week. Officials are inviting residents to attend an in-person open house from noon to 2 p.m. or 4 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 1, at Washtenaw Community College’s Morris Lawrence Building to learn more and give input on each.

Jan 19, 2024 | mlive.com | John Counts

Fellow parents -- I feel your pain. We finally got the kids back to school after the long holiday break, then the snow hit. Then the extreme cold. So cold you have to time your trips outside. And all of a sudden the kids are back home due to school cancelations. And it just doesn’t feel right sending them outside to play when it’s four degrees. It feels like my daughters haven’t had a full week of school since before Thanksgiving.

Jan 16, 2024 | jcounts.substack.com | John Counts

Exile, scribe of filthy love letters, eye patch wearer, passable tenor, James Joyce was also a transformation agent for the English language. He also wrote a novel called A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which inspired such titular parodies as poet Dylan Thomas’ Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dogand the punk band Dillinger Four’s Portrait of the Artist as a Fucking Asshole. Thanks for reading Slow Reader! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.