Features

Features Rick Coates The term “Silent Disco” seems more like an oxymoron than the latest entertainment craze. Yet crowds have been jamming the Silent Disco tent at several festivals in the area ever since Porterhouse Productions introduced the concept to the region a couple of years ago at the Traverse City Microbrew & Music Festival.

Features Patrick Sullivan The mystery of Adamczyk’s disappearance is almost rivaled by the mysteriousness of the legal case into his death. Police and prosecutors have said little about the case, though recent filings in Manistee County Circuit Court shed some light on what’s going on in the investigation.

Features Patrick Sullivan

It’s been almost five months since someone took a saw to an orchard in Garfield Township and wasted 428 cherry trees.  The search for the culprit or culprits has gone cold, despite a $10,000 reward in the case.  Three other cases of orchard or vineyard vandalism have also gone unsolved in Leelanau County.  In two of those cases, 15 cherry trees were cut at one orchard and 22 at another. At a vineyard, someone destroyed 161 grapevines.

What’s partly stymied investigators is how strange these acts of vandalism are...

Features Erin Crowell So when a friend propositioned me on helping him with an upcoming book project that would have me running my first marathon, my initial thought was excitement, which was immediately followed by doubt as I pictured the number – 26.2 miles – in my head.

Features Patrick Sullivan Opponents say this wetlands complex is exactly what is supposed to be protected under the Wetland Protection Act, and the developer and state shouldn’t be allowed to get away with flouting the law. They say the project could ruin habitat for several protected species and threaten a wetland complex that is crucial to the health of Green Lake.

Features Erin Crowell

For those of us who are completely lost when it comes to interior design, there are folks like Diane Kolak, design consultant and owner of Dwelement Home Design, who can help make our spaces more than just “livable.”

The Grand Traverse resident shares her tips on several common interior design topics in this year’s Home & Furnishings issue.

Features Mike Terrell The silence was deep and golden as we glided along at times under branches of overhanging cedar along the river. Snow covered the banks and helped illuminate the darkly wooded shoreline. The only sound was the gurgle of rushing water as it swept along the gravelly riverbed and around fallen trees and submerged logs.

Features Patrick Sullivan When Alward’s daughter told her she’d been repeatedly left unsupervised at the motel during an extended summer visit with her father, Alward said she was terrified. When she feared her daughter was alone again on Aug. 22, Alward drove to Gaylord, called the girl and then called police.

Features Patrick Sullivan They say it’s too soon in the process to be debating whether to sell the former Bech’s Mustard Factory to Short’s. First the village has to decide whether to sell the property at all, or to go ahead with plans started in September to build boat slips and a park at the site.

Features Al Parker Since those early Colgate-on-cardboard days, she’s become an award-winning landscape artist whose oil works hang in collections and galleries across the country. At the Northwest Michigan Regional Artists show currently at the Dennos Museum, Saxon’s The Sky Above the Lake.

Features Patrick Sullivan It is a struggle to make any money as an organic farmer in Northern Michigan, he says, as entrepreneurs in the industry face a bewildering patchwork of township and county regulation. Add in taxes and consumers who may talk up organic food, but who are unwilling to pay a premium for it, and organic farming begins to look like a recipe for bankruptcy.

Features Erin Crowell In May 2005, Jeanne Oleniczak received a package from her brother, Winfred Roy Compton II. In it was a diary written by Compton from 1970 to 1995 describing his life living as a homeless veteran, wandering through the streets of countless cities. With it was a note from her brother telling Oleniczak to do whatever she wanted with it.

Features Express Staff The series kicks off Feb. 4 with Hollywood veteran Vince Gilligan. He will appear onstage with NWS founder Doug Stanton to discuss his writing for AMC’s hit series “Breaking Bad.” Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Hollywood Reporter and Paste magazine all named the show #1 on their lists of 2011 Best TV Shows, with Stephen King naming the program #1 on his list of 2011 Pop Culture Favorites, hailing it as “an American classic.”

Features Patrick Sullivan As Christopher Hildreth and Gary Ellis prowled from one bar to another, it looked to some like the pair was desperate for a fight. Shane Marquette was out that night, too, making his way from bar to bar, and though he said he was not looking for a fight, he found one.

Features Mike Terrell Located just a snowball throw off I-75, Gaylord is arguably one of the best cross country towns in the Lower Peninsula. The village has a charming alpine motif that would fit right into the Swiss Alps, and there’s close to 60 miles of trails, both tracked and untracked, to choose from.