Made Here showcases Minneapolis street art

By |

Made Here is an ongoing street art festival sponsored by Hennepin Theatre Trust and Andersen Windows. It launched Friday night (July 11) with performances, great food and a tour of visual art stationed around downtown Minneapolis. As a lover of street art, I think it’s fantastic. Street art gives people an opportunity to stop and pay attention. It spurs conversation. In a climate where we run from our car to the building to car because it’s too cold to stop, it’s fun to have an excuse to get out of the car, to visit downtown and to dawdle on the way to a meeting or appointment.

Continue Reading

MUSIC REVIEW | Tourniquet Noise series at Kitty Cat Klub: Good sampling of Noise

By |

Last night I went to the first in a series of Noise shows at the Kitty Cat Klub. Every Monday in July, Kevin Cosgrove is gathering a wide assortment of Noise performers in what the City Pages called a revival of Noise. I suspect they are right.The attendance last night was good. Many people had come specifically to the show – including potential performers and aficionados from as far away as Nashville. A few folks had stumbled onto the scene accidentally, such as the group of Shiners who had been in the area for a parade earlier in the day. Continue Reading

University Avenue’s artwork, crumbling walls tell its history

By |

I walked down University Avenue from the Capital to the University of Minnesota the week before the Green Line train opened in St Paul. It was a quiet Sunday, not many walkers, not a lot of cars and many storefronts were closed. Quiet and a little sad. The art on University Avenue reveals some of the sadness (such as the tiled tower coming down in Frogtown)……but it also celebrates the different people who live and work in the neighborhood, especially in the photos from Wing Young Huie on Fairview. Artify’s THIS IS HOME art projects emphasize community, even in the closed Midway car dealerships.There’s a strong sense of community on University Avenue as demonstrated by community art near Hamline and community-sponsored art in other areas.The businesses have gotten into the game too. Continue Reading

Did you know you were a public hotspot hub for Comcast?

By |

Here’s an ideological question – would you forgo personal privacy and security for the common good? If you could open up your home wireless router to others would you? I have certainly heard of people finding a way to share access with their neighbors since I’ve been in involved with ISPs. I remember in 1995, customers of MRNet found ways to connect their network through a dialup connection. (Can you imagine sharing a dialup connection now!) But the decision was always on the customer to share. Comcast has turned that around a little; according to CNN… Continue Reading

Nowhere to Go But Everywhere: Geometry and permanence

By |

A weekend dedicated to art began with a visit to the Larson Art Gallery on the University of Minnesota St Paul Campus. I became a fan of C.J. Renner’s art at the Art in Bloom show this spring and was happy to see more of his works at the Nowhere to Go But Everywhere show. The show included Renner and two other artists, Charlie Sisson and Jordan Rosenow. We learned that the three had not worked together before but were put together by the gallery. I’m not sure how much research went into the decision, but their work fit nicely together.Renner’s work sets out to meticulously replicate the art of Robert Motherwell, who himself subscribed to a method more in tune with automatic drawing, a much less meticulous method of doodling to tap into the unconscious. Continue Reading

Green Line grand opening at Union Station

By |

Our best intentions to walk and take the train from downtown St Paul to Minneapolis and back again were derailed when the rain hit. Once the rain came at us horizontally, staying local made more sense. That was OK since there were plenty of activities at Union Station to keep up hopping!My nine year old companion and I started at Union Depot to see Koo Koo Kangaroo. It was a perfect start to the day: live music and an hour-long dance workout. Neil and Bryan were in great form. Continue Reading

Northern Spark: Art for the purposeful and accidental audiences

By |

My best purchase of the week? An umbrella for Northern Spark, the citywide art festival in Minneapolis. Saturday night was soggy and windy and got a little cold. Some art got moved, some obscured, some cancelled but a lot of it happened. And the lightning and tumultuous skies were an art show in themselves.Northern Spark began for us at the launch party at Orchestra Hall where Mayor Hodges observed that art transforms your life whether you are purposeful about it or not. Continue Reading

MUSIC REVIEW | Adventurous, improvised music from Adam Linz and Paul Metzger

By |

Sometimes when your summer days are much busier than you’d like, it’s nice to be transported, if only for an hour or two, to a calmer place with no deadlines, no rush hour and no answers, right or wrong. That’s what I most enjoyed about the inaugural gig at the new Thursday “adventurous improvised” music nights at the Khyber Pass Café in St. Paul. The summer-long series started June 12 with the Adam Linz / Paul Metzger Duo. Metzger plays a modified banjo; Linz plays an upright bass, often in a modified way.Their improvised set was created based on a set of African field recordings from the 1950s. Continue Reading

President Bill Clinton’s advice for broadband expansion in rural Minnesota

By |

Last night I saw President Clinton speak to a sold out audience at the Northrup Auditorium as part of the Keeping Faith with a Legacy of Justice series. OK his main topic might not have been broadband, and really many he never used the word broadband but he had some good advice for a more civil society and I think the lessons he offered would be helpful to adopt when looking at deploying border to border broadband in Minnesota. Continue Reading

LynLake Festival and Open Streets Lyndale: Traditional arts, alternative transportation and food

By |

Sunday was a gorgeous day for a street festival. Lyndale and Lake was the place to be, where Open Streets Lyndale coincided with the LynLake Festival. LynLake is a music and food extravaganza from noon to 8:00 pm featuring a row of food trucks and local bands such as Dosh and Secret Stash Soul Review.We saw Dosh, who record live beats and immediately play them back with the live performance to produce many layers of sound with just two performers. They were fun to watch; the sound was great. A little experimental but also very accessible to a beer-drinking, sun-loving audience.Open Streets is a block party from 22nd St to 42nd St that celebrates alternative forms of transportation – really any form other than the one-car-one-driver model. Continue Reading