I’m aware that I am not alone in missing Michigan football — I do believe, however, that my specific reasoning for missing football is more unique than most others, because I do not miss the actual game. I barely know what a fourth down is, and I could not tell you our quarterback’s name. I also do not miss tailgates, or the smell of beer on State Street, or my brother’s inevitable depression whenever we lose to Ohio State.

This article is a part of the Arts b-side on Icons. For a full look at our b-side pieces exploring this theme, click this link.

I adopted my cat from a small shelter in Grosse Isle, Mich. The two-room cat rescue was run out of a 20th-century house with one desk and two dozen felines; the cat that would become mine sat nestled under a plastic folding table right next to several packages of food. He purred as soon as I picked him up, gently rolling his 18-pound body into a cradle position with his back against my arms, looking directly into my eyes.

It’s said that every theatre is inhabited by at least one ghost, and contrary to legends propagated by Halloween, these ghosts do not like the dark. Thus, when the curtain falls and a theatre’s house empties, an employee will leave a light — a ghost light — to burn onstage until the performers return. Across the world, ghost lights have remained on and untouched for months. But the lives of performers continue offstage, each day adding pressure to find performance spaces on digital platforms.