When I first came to Minnesota twenty years ago, I had never taught a class larger than ten students—mostly I had conducted the one-to-one tutorials that are at the heart of the Oxford system. My first term here I was given a class on the Roman Republic that numbered some seventy souls. The learning curve … Read more
Last winter, over the holidays, a restaurant manager I know clocked what she wryly calls the “Best Five Minutes Ever” of her career. Just seconds after punching in, she was called to the bar to break up a couple of brawlers. While showing one-half of the drunken duo to the door, she came across a … Read more
I was beginning to suspect that I was the last person on the planet who hadn’t read The DaVinci Code, and so I remedied that situation last weekend. I like a good page turner as much as the next guy, and this was a good one. But man, I can sure see why this is … Read more
A few miles from the McStop off 35W, down a road that winds along black-dirt fields and stretches into downtown Lakeville, you’ll find the last Twin Cities-area Ben Franklin five-and-dime store. Once a staple of small-town Minnesota, and the anchor in any tiny downtown, Ben Franklin was the place we all biked to on our … Read more
The other day, the McNally Smith College of Music held a press conference to note the creation of a special scholarship in the name of producer, actor, and rapper Ice Cube. The school is housed in St. Paul’s old Science Museum building, and the feeling one has in its familiar corridors and public spaces is, … Read more
Though it now seems long ago, it’s only been a few weeks since a brace of bona fide Hollywood stars descended on downtown St. Paul. The city was abuzz with famous people and the regular folks who admire them, but nothing rivaled the enthusiasm of the international, domestic, and local press. Since this was, after … Read more
Aimee Mann has a knack for imbuing her songs with emotional intelligence as well as pop hooks, but her idea of what constitutes a hook continues to move further away from the radio-friendly songs she sang with her old band, ’Til Tuesday. Her recent music is a new animal entirely. She seems to be writing … Read more
Now that the reanimated Pixies have proved to be an arena-sized success, Black is back to focusing on his solo career, and this double album shows he hasn’t been just counting his cash. He called back several Nashville session players from his last album, Honeycomb, and brought in other guests as disparate as The Band’s … Read more
The Jayhawks seem to split up and get back together about as frequently as Eminem and his wife/ex-wife/wife/ex-wife Kim Mathers. Meanwhile, the individual members of the band have been working on some very cool side projects. There’s a new Golden Smog album, Gary Louris plays on both the new Rhett Miller and the Dixie Chicks’ … Read more
KBEM continues to surprise us—and not just by staying on the air. Amid continued funding threats, this tiny, low-budget, low-profile radio station keeps its programming fresh and relevant. Thursday nights, for instance, there’s “Riverwalk Jazz,” a Texas-produced show that explores the history of jazz through archival recordings, interviews, and performances of classics by the Jim … Read more