[Editor's Note: HD, a.k.a. Dave Askins, editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, is also publisher of an online series of interviews on a teeter totter. Introductions to new Teeter Talks appear on The Chronicle.]

Of the possible opera singers who could appear on the totter, I figure it’s always best to go with the kind that alliterates with the venue: a tenor. But if I ever had occasion to invite a soprano to ride, I suppose it might be possible to relax my rigid instance on “teeter totter” as the name of the equipment, in order to achieve a “Soprano See-Saw.”

But no such accommodation was necessary for Shawn McDonald, who is not a soprano, but a tenor with the Arbor Opera Theater. He’s the artistic director for the upcoming production of Die Fledermaus from June 18-21 at the Mendelssohn Theater. The AOT website includes a full schedule of Die Fledermaus events, including specifics of performance times and ticket information.

When I think opera, I think of the movie “Moonstruck.” There’s a scene where characters played by Nicholas Cage and Cher go to an opera. The opera in “Moonstruck” is one of those weighty affairs, fraught with desperate emotion and death. Which is not at all what Die Fledermaus is like, based on Shawn’s description.

Die Fledermaus is a light, comedic piece, accessible to the whole family – that’s what he told me on the totter. From the sound of it, it could work as a “starter opera” for someone who’s unfamiliar with the whole genre. Say, for someone like me, who did not recognize the name “Zeffirelli” when Shawn dropped it on the totter. For more on the Zeffirelli connection to AOT’s production of Die Fledermaus, as well as what it’s like in Ann Arbor to earn your living as a musician – if not as an opera singer – read Shawn McDonald’s Talk.

Book cover of "Riverwalks" by Brenda Bentley.

[Editor's Note: HD, a.k.a. Dave Askins, editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, is also publisher of an online series of interviews on a teeter totter. Introductions to new Teeter Talks appear on The Chronicle.]

There’s been an unintended two-month hiatus in tottering. Talking on the totter resumed last week with Brenda Bentley.

I met Brenda around this time of year standing on the Broadway Bridge – the one over the Huron River, not the one over the railroad tracks. I first thought it was last year, but my recollection is hazy.

Through that haze, I think I remember the reason I was hanging out on a bridge that’s not in my neighborhood: I was waiting for Liz Elling to pass through during her swim along the length of the Huron River.

Elling swam around a 100 miles down the Huron in July 2007. So it’s actually been two years since I first met Brenda.

On that occasion, she was taking notes for a book she was writing about walking routes that lead to the river. Consistent with my habit, I invited her to come ride the teeter totter once she completed the book.

The book is done. Last Friday, she took delivery of the first edition of “Riverwalks, Ann Arbor” which was printed by Goetzcraft Printers. So on Friday morning, we  tottered on location where North State tees into Fuller Road, just east of the Gandy Dancer restaurant. It’s a place included on one of her riverwalks.

For more on what’s in the book, and what the impact of the long tottering hiatus was on the equipment, read Brenda’s Talk. The book can be purchased at Downtown Home & Garden as well as Crazy Wisdom Bookstore. Both stores are located in downtown Ann Arbor.

On location, the endcap of the pipe resisted my ordinarily vise-like grip. Even the blue channel lock pliers, which were called in for delivery to the tottering location, could not make it budge. Back at totter central, the frozen threads yielded.

The southern-most roundabout on North Maple Road was the site of teeter totter ride No. 170.

[Editor's Note: HD, a.k.a. Dave Askins, editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, is also publisher of an online series of interviews on a teeter totter. Introductions to new Teeter Talks appear on The Chronicle.]

I first met Zak Branigan outside the UPS store at Westgate shopping center, when I was dropping off a load in the course of my bicycle delivery duties. He’d recognized me by the sign on my bicycle trailer for ArborTeas, which is run by a friend of his, and alum of the totter, Jeremy Lopatin.

Subsequent email correspondence to recruit Zak to ride the totter led him to suggest the middle of a roundabout as a place to teeter totter. With three such junctions recently constructed on North Maple Road, and others planned at Nixon and Plymouth as well as on Geddes and US-23, Ann Arbor area drivers are getting more familiar with these road intersections where traffic flows one-way around a central island. I figured Zak was kidding. He wasn’t. It turns out he’s something of a roundabout geek.

It’s one of the briefer Talks on the Totter, but we were out in the middle of the roundabout for long enough to see people we knew drive by. Zachary Branigan’s Talk also touches briefly on his work with Habitat for Humanity.

Christopher Taylor's hand holding an orange mug.

Christopher Taylor, one of two Ann Arbor city council representatives for Ward 3, rode the totter a couple of weeks ago. His conversation is ready to read.

I would highlight the discussion of city-university relations as a topic of broader significance that was touched on while teetering. For details, read Taylor’s Talk.

Other topics on the totter included the orange mug he drank from on the occasion, the CTN mugs from his recent appearance on CTN’s Conversations, getting stuff done at the individual constituent level, snow removal in Ann Arbor, and how Taylor came to live in Ann Arbor.

With Christopher Taylor’s participation in Teeter Talk, the voting block on city council consisting of totter alums has been restored to its peak of 5 (of 11) current members. To be clear, I am in no way suggesting that alums of the totter on council represent a coalition of any kind or that they lord their participation in Teeter Talk over other non-tottering councilmembers.

Taylor also joined a select subset of totter alums that is likely tracked by few people other than me. Call them the “Orange Mug Gang,” or O.M.G. for short.

[Editor's Note: HD, a.k.a. Dave Askins, editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, is also publisher of an online series of  interviews on a teeter totter. Introductions to new Teeter Talks appear on The Chronicle.]