When it began to rain and the wind scattered the leaves from the two little trees out front, the solitary customer in the bar drained his beer and said, “It’s getting colder and colder every day now. Perhaps this year there will be a bit of snow to cover up the dog shit.” The bartender … Read more
Back in the 1920s, William T. Middlebrook, then a vice president at the University of Minnesota, had a bright idea. In order to attract and retain the most talented professors, the U would build them a truly unique neighborhood. Thus was born University Grove: eight blocks on which more than one hundred homes, each custom … Read more
A Saturday night in late summer and downtown Rochester was completely dark except for an exceedingly lively block of First Avenue Northwest. At one end, a tall Somali man leaned into the window of a black Chevy Cavalier and spoke with a woman wearing a red silk hijab, or headscarf. Behind the Cavalier, three Somali … Read more
It was a midmorning in August when the rooster went native in South Minneapolis. The city department of Animal Care and Control hastened an officer to the scene. The rooster, while inflicting no physical damage, had brazenly disregarded the matrix of propriety that binds people together and, more important, keeps them apart. An anonymous caller … Read more
When we called up Kevin Kling to talk about desert islands, we weren’t too surprised when the conversation turned to ice fishing. After all, this mysterious, frigid pastime has come up often in the work of the Twin Cities’ consummate storyteller. While Kling is Minnesotan to the core (he also squeezed in a Sven and … Read more
As the new Museum of Russian Art has mounted a couple of intriguing survey shows since opening last spring, the Weisman has delved into Mir Iskusstva, a multidisciplinary artistic renaissance that marked the turn of the twentieth century in Russia. Borrowing some principles and elements of Art Nouveau, the visual art produced as part of … Read more
We know where Kurt Cobain’s money goes, but what about the royalties from Jerry Garcia ties and Grateful Dead compilations? A chunk of it helped make this documentary by Garcia’s widow, Deborah Koons Garcia. In looking at the political and corporate forces that shape what we eat, The Future of Food may lack the gross-out … Read more
The other day I saw a television ad for something called Sedation Dentistry. Obviously, we are taking people’s fears of drills and root canals seriously. We are no longer shunning these hypochondriacs, and that seems like a step in the right direction. Maybe we are becoming more sympathetic as a culture. What else could be … Read more
If you’re a shareholder, the money is still pretty good, but in almost every other way this is a rough time for the middlebrow, mainstream media. Judging by all the hand-wringing, navel-gazing, and gloomy, self-flagellating punditry you’d think the mainstream news media–the “MSM,” as bloggers love to peck—are at the fiery brink as a consequence … Read more
In the past few months, Minnesota has hosted PEZCon X, an international PEZ convention; the Free Range Film Festival, screened inside a big barn in the heart of the state’s organic farm country; and the Hungry Cyclist, an Englishman biking across the world for Macmillan Cancer Relief. Chuck Olsen, a highly caffeinated thirty-four-year-old filmmaker who … Read more