Even the ultra-chic get puckish, and Alfred’s Grand Petit Magasin (big little store) has seen to a solution. Shopping in this modish and diverse mini-department store is hardly taxing, but that doesn’t mean you can’t kick up your Jimmy Choos for a while and compare purchases over a snack at Alfred’s Cafe. Crusty baguettes, elegantly … Read more
If you’re willing to drive until I-394 turns into a small-town cross street, you’ll be greatly rewarded. Ravello lives in an unassuming brown strip mall in the center of Long Lake, just west of the metropolitan area. On the outside, it looks like nothing special. But upon opening the doors, you’ll find a welcoming trattoria … Read more
A prince throws a lavish masquerade ball that’s the talk of Vienna–but what goes on there is hardly festive or light-hearted. Try deceit, lusty serenades, and a diabolical plan for revenge instead. (Meow!) The story of Die Fledermaus (“The Bat”) is dark, sexy, and sinful–and we have renewed faith in North Star’s seduction skills, ever … Read more
James McLure has taken the classic English farce by the same name and replanted it in the wild, wild West. That doesn’t mean it’s a shoot-’em-up with manners, though. Instead, the cast of slightly tweaked characters includes a hero who can stop a speeding train with one hand, a damsel in distress, and a confused … Read more
How does one achieve a legacy? In the American landscape of opportunity, it seems almost a requirement that we leave something behind to influence succeeding generations—something that symbolizes our struggles, something that tells a story of character and risk and ambition. In nineteenth-century Hastings, that idyllic river town south of St. Paul, William Gates LeDuc … Read more
Watching people in museums is often as absorbing as studying the displays. Some years ago, my old tutor was standing under the great sixth-century dome of the Holy Wisdom in Istanbul, lecturing to a rather tweedy group of English country gentry. His audience was starting to suffer from museum leg, when a pigeon detached itself … Read more
Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather have retired, Ted Koppel’s on his way out at Nightline, and Peter Jennings’s future is uncertain due to his health. As many have opined over the past couple of months, the era of the mighty network anchor appears to be coming to an end. Viewers suffering withdrawal from their favorite … Read more
Every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. during the legislative session, Chaplain Dan Hall hosts a two-hour prayer meeting. It is held around a long wooden table in Room 118 of the State Capitol building, just around the corner from the governor’s office. Attendance varies, averaging about twenty people who know Hall from his work as … Read more
The sun was out and it didn’t look like it would ever rain. Sopha’s mama was coming toward them, her black umbrella up over her head. She held it high, so it looked like she was reaching up her white hand to hold onto the raggedy wing of a crow. In the other hand, bright … Read more
It’s not easy to get your hands on a twenty-one-key embaire xylophone from Uganda; to acquire hers, Nichole Smaglick sacrificed a chicken. Through this act, she demonstrated her reverence for both the instrument and the Busoga tribe, giving thanks to and blessing its xylophone-playing ancestors. “When playing the embaire with the group in Uganda, I … Read more