Downtown

Fixing the state icon

By Lee Ann Schutz Wahi, Session Weekly/Session Daily

To illustrate the need for repairs, Rep. Dean Urdahl holds up a stone scroll that fell off the State Capitol. The House failed to pass a bill April 19 that would provide $221 million to restore the building. (Photo by Andrew VonBank)

By one vote, funding for needed repairs to the State Capitol may have to wait.

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Minnesota Opera's "Madame Butterfly" Twitter experiment: Epic fail or surprising success?

By Jay Gabler, Front Row Seat

This morning (Sunday, April 15) the local media Twittersphere is buzzing over a series of tweets issued last night by the Minnesota Opera's official Twitter account, @mnopera. After warning via Facebook that "someone is sneaking in to the opening night of Butterfly to tweet her super hip interpretation of what's really going on," the opera issued a series of irreverent, slang-filled tweets about the opera as it unfolded. Example: "Oh dayummm. Pinkerton’s totes a hawtie. Would be better w/hipster glasses & less showering."

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Front Row Seat

2012 Minnesota Book Awards: Local literary luminaries lionized

By Courtney Algeo, Lit Lyfe

On April 14, Meghan Murphy (editor-in-chief of Paper Darts) and I were delighted to attend the 24th annual Minnesota Book Awards, at the Crowne Plaza St. Paul Riverfront Hotel. The event is presented each year through a partnership between the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, the St. Paul Public Library itself, and the city of St. Paul. The gala celebration this year comprised three parts: a reception where guests were invited to mingle, order drinks from the cash bar, and buy books for the finalists autograph; the awards ceremony itself; and a post-gala party. Of all three, the post-gala party was by far my favorite in terms of socializing and people-watching—by the time we left some teens and parents were grooving heartily to music by the Endband (a trio with members from Cloud Cult and Seymore Saves the World), who were really bringing the noise in the best way possible.

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Lit Lyfe

One night in Bangkok

By John Bailey, GreenLineGems

It was time to bring the whole family out for a Green Line Gem tonight and we picked Bangkok Thai Deli (315 University), which has been on my list for a long time. It’s in the “sparkly smokestack” building on the north side of University just east of Farrington.

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GreenLineGems

TUESDAY PICK | "Madame Butterfly" takes flight via the Minnesota Opera

By Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet

Arturo Chacón-Cruz and Kelly Kaduce in Madame Butterfly. Photo by Michal Daniel, courtesy Minnesota Opera.

When the Guthrie Theater staged Henry David Hwang's M. Butterfly in 2010, they circulated a handy guide for people confused at the difference between that 1988 play and Puccini's 1904 opera Madame Butterfly. The guide clarified that there's not nudity in the latter (sorry), but it is a classic opera that's brought generations to tears. The Minnesota Opera is staging Madame Butterfly from April 14 to 22 in what's certain to be one of the spring's most sumptuous local productions. Indulge your senses and take this opportunity to see one of the touchstones of 20th century music. Update: Read my full review.

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MUSIC REVIEW | Minnesota Opera sets an elegant "Madame Butterfly" aflight

By Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet

Kelly Kaduce in Madame Butterfly. Photo by Michal Daniel, courtesy Minnesota Opera.

I've recently become hooked on a poignant blog called Old Loves. The blog is simply a series of photos of past celebrity couples, presented with little or no commentary. It's compelling not only as a time capsule (Jim Carrey dated her?), but as a testament to the eternal spring of hope. These are people leading lives that are not conducive to long-term relationships, and yet they keep trying—dating and marrying again and again and again, hoping that this time, against all odds, those promises will be kept.

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Joe Soucheray vs. artists: Is Lowertown finally an active front in the Culture Wars?

By Jay Gabler, Front Row Seat

I just sat for 20 minutes, thinking about Joe Soucheray's Pioneer Press column "Saints ballpark would feed starving artists, but do they want to eat?" It seemed like I should have something to say about it, but what? Soucheray's rhetoric is almost unassailable in its flamboyant offensiveness.

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Front Row Seat

THEATER REVIEW | "Cirque de la Loon" by Fools Productions: An (overly?) ambitious little clown show

By Matthew A. Everett, TC Daily Planet


Cirque de la Loon from Fools Productions at the Lehr Theatre was a slightly schizophrenic viewing experience for me.

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WEDNESDAY PICK | The world's first skyway

By Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet

Photo by Many Highways (Creative Commons)

You've been inside the Twin Cities' skyways all winter; now that it's warming up, it's time to step out and take a look at the skyways from the outside. Or not...but at least take a glance up from Fourth Street between Robert and Minnesota in downtown St. Paul. You're looking at what is certainly Minnesota's highest skyway, and is believed by many to be the world's first. It was built in 1931, connecting the 17th floor of the First National Bank Building with the 16th floor of the Merchants Bank Building. The skyway's construction was simultaneous with the construction of the First National Bank Building, which overtook the Merchants Bank Building as St. Paul's tallest skyscraper and held that distinction for 55 years—until Galtier Plaza went up in 1986.

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FRIDAY PICK | "Wits" returns, with Tim Meadows and Rhett Miller

By Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet

Tim Meadows

Guests have been having such a great time on Minnesota Public Radio's show Wits, host John Moe told me when I interviewed him for a Vita.mn feature that they've been evangelizing the show to their friends. That good word has helped the freewheeling program book a star-studded lineup for its spring season, which opens Friday night with appearances by Saturday Night Live standby Tim Meadows and Old 97's frontman Rhett Miller. A possibly unforseen result of the producers' decision to make seating open rather than assigned is that the first thing people tweet about using the well-trod tag #wits tends to be the long line they're waiting in before the doors of the Fitzgerald Theater open, so plan accordingly.

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