Christy DeSmith The spring collections usually lend levity to our wardrobe, but this year, that’s not necessarily the case. Many of the season’s prettiest party dresses and tissue tops are coming fully loaded with all manner of heavy metal hardware. Surely you noticed such chains, charms, pendants, and toggles stitched onto last season’s winter things. Now the … Read more
Since Minnesota is not a noted home to the polar bear, one might wonder where the name White Bear Lake comes from. If you believe Mark Twain, it originated with an Indian legend. In his 1883 book, “Life on the Mississippi,” he tells of a Romeo and Juliet type romance between a Sioux maiden and … Read more
Republicans know where to find one another, according to Stephen B. Venable, president of CELSIUS, an exclusive new dating service for educated, well-off Minnesota liberals. We were chatting in his office the other day when Venable ventured that conservatives are meeting each other “at work,” “in bars” or “in the parking lot at Vikings games.” … Read more
It’s one month and counting until the Twin Cities release of Factotum, the Minnesota-made film based on a semi-autobiographical book by Charles Bukowski. Since filming of Factotum wrapped late in the summer of 2004, anticipation in the local film community has been eclipsed by other higher profile, more star-studded projects—with the fall release of North … Read more
Every holiday season since 1963, a baroque, fairy-tale-inspired display has been assembled on the eighth floor of the original Dayton’s store in downtown Minneapolis, a tradition that began as the Dayton family’s annual “gift to the community.” But earlier this year, when Federated Department Stores became the new parent company of Marshall Field’s and vowed … Read more
"I’ve always found you get more spiritual energy if you have things made by two hands—especially your own two hands,” said Kimber Fiebiger. If so, then her home is coursing with such energy: The entire place was built with her hands, and those of friends. It sits atop Fiebiger’s Joan of Art gallery, which, with … Read more
Not long after the new Design Collective boutique opened in Uptown, its display window featured a two-tiered, amphibious-looking skirt whose ruffles, shaped with wires, were so impressive they stopped a passerby in her tracks. “It makes me think of a nudibranch,” explained Barrett Johanneson, months later, as he fished the skirt out of the trunk … Read more
Libby Larsen has an athleticism and youthfulness that’s unusual for her fifty-four years. Her tiny, five-foot frame is lithe and wiry like a marathon runner’s. And she talks as fast as it looks like she can run. From the moment she walked into the D’Amico & Sons café near her South Minneapolis home, she was … Read more
Over the summer, as a new orchestra season neared, Minnesota Orchestra Artistic Director Osmo Vänskä started cropping up with more frequency and in interesting places. He fell out of the Sunday New York Times, for example. His smiling face was spotted on a friend’s bookshelf, atop a collectors’ edition bobble-arm, and, in one colorful portrait … Read more
When it’s snowing and everything is white, it looks like an Alaskan weather station,” said Chris Lange of his office building on Garfield Avenue South in Minneapolis. Even in balmier weather, the headquarters of Mono, the two-year-old advertising agency co-founded by Lange, is striking enough that people will stop in “at least once a week” … Read more