City Pulse

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The Turner-Dodge House will hold its annual Fairytale Festival noon to 6 p.m. Saturday.

A weekend full of festivities

Festival season is in full force this weekend, with four different celebrations throughout the Lansing area, including the Turner-Dodge Fairytale Festival, East Lansing Pride, the Celebrate Meridian Festival and Summer Fest at Dimondale’s County Creek Reception Hall. There’s also plenty of live music, new theater productions, a car show, a film screening and more.

Eastsider’s crosswalk paintings bloom and multiply

Drone footage of a painted crosswalk at the intersection of Hayford and Fernwood avenues.

Lansing’s east side is known for urban farms, walkability and, unfortunately, unsafe traffic in its neighborhoods. Just two weeks ago, a car flipped over at the intersection of Vine Street and Hayford Avenue.

Author Erin Bartels has been painting since she was a child. That experience proved useful when writing her newest book, “The Lady with the Dark Hair,” which follows a contemporary artist and museum owner who’s searching for answers about a piece of art that’s believed to have been painted by her ancestor.

Art history and mystery collide in Erin Bartels’ new novel

I learn something new every time I read one of Erin Bartels’ books. Her newest, “The Lady with the Dark Hair,” is an intriguing historical drama played out in dual timelines as an artist and museum owner searches for answers about a piece of art that’s believed to have been painted by one of her ancestors.

A packed Pride weekend

The third annual Lansing Pride Festival will take over Old Town on Saturday, but beyond that, there will be a bar crawl, drag shows and more this weekend to celebrate the area’s LGBTQ+ community. There’s also the Summer Solstice Jazz Festival, Grand Ledge’s Yankee Doodle Day, Unity Spiritual Center of Lansing’s Passion of the Creative Mind celebration and much more.

Eaton County Fair

The 2024 Eaton County Fair will run from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday (July 8) through July 12 and 9 a.m. to midnight July 13 at the Eaton County Fairgrounds in Charlotte. Throughout the …

Summer Scavenger Hunt

The Lansing Parks and Recreation Department’s 8 th annual Summer Scavenger Hunt runs through July 31, offering area residents a chance to compete in activities like geocaching, …

Muelder Summer Carillon Concert Series

The Michigan State University College of Music’s 27 th annual Muelder Summer Carillon Concert Series will feature performances by regional and international carillonists at 6 p.m. …

The cast of “Next to Normal” at the Lebowsky Center. From left: Adam Woolsey, Chad DeKatch, Anna Anderson, Joseph Gill, Amanda DeKatch and Dante Justice.

Talented cast and gorgeous set anchor Lebowsky Center’s ‘Next to Normal’

Friday night, 11 p.m., Lansing. My daughter: “How was the play?” Me: “It’s hard to describe … a rock musical about bipolar depression and maternal loss, …

Lansing Pride welcomes LGBTQ+ individuals and allies of all ages, even offering a kids’ area with a variety of activities. Board President Ben Dowd said, “We want to ensure everybody feels safe in a space where they can express themselves and be who they are.”

Ever-growing Lansing Pride aims to offer ‘enjoyment, happiness and love’

Since the inaugural Lansing Pride Festival in 2022, which drew around 3,000 attendees and 90 vendors, the event has increased in size each year. This year, organizers expect around 10,000 attendees …

Dustin Hunt

Dustin Hunt, one of Lansing’s prolific muralists, has been busy bringing a burst of color to Lansing’s westside neighborhood. A couple of weeks ago, bright, cheery faces of children began …

Author James Lee Burke is mostly known for writing about New Orleans and New Iberia, deep in the bayou country of southern Louisiana. He can count 46 novels in his nearly 60 years of writing.

At 87, James Lee Burke finds ‘no finer life’ than fiction writing

James Lee Burke is considered one of the gods of the crime novel genre. If he wrote in any other genre, which he could easily do, he would have won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book …

At the Summer Solstice Jazz Festival’s Education Stage, music lovers will discover a plethora of talented local students in a variety of combinations.

Penumbra of pulsations

From the relentless rhythm attack of drummer Randy Gelispie, still swinging at 89, to the jubilant, fresh sounds of CBS “Late Show” bassist and Michigan State University alumna Endea …