Northeast Community Library says goodbye to senior librarian
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After 14 years on the job at Northeast Community Library, Senior Librarian Lois Porfiri will soon move to the Maple Grove Community Library.
Nature, environment and a sense of place in fiction
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New novels, especially the pulpy best-selling ones, again will victimize countless square miles of forest this year. Though a few of these books will figuratively take away our breaths, together, subtly and literally, they will be doing just that. Continue Reading
Author Matthew Quick on David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook”: “A f*#ked-up fairy tale”
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One of the surefire Oscar contenders opening this holiday season is Silver Linings Playbook, written and directed by David O. Russell (Flirting With Disaster, Three Kings, The Fighter) and based on acclaimed novelist Matthew Quick’s dramedy. Silver Linings Playbook won the Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September; many past Audience Award winners—including Slumdog Millionaire and The King’s Speech—have gone on to Oscar glory. Opening in limited release this weekend in New York and L.A. and opening locally next Wednesday, November 21, the film has already been lining up certain nomination “locks” in Oscar pools for categories including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. When Pat (Bradley Cooper) returns home from his stay at a state institution for eight months on a plea bargain, he has basically lost everything. His wife has left him, he’s lost his job and his home, and he’s picked up by his mother (Jackie Weaver) to go and stay with his folks, including his Philadelphia-Eagles-obsessed father (Robert DeNiro). Continue Reading
Danny Klecko: Tattooed baker, rebel poet
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One of the first things you notice are the tats: 42 of them in all – and more to come for, as Danny Klecko explains, “Being Polish, I don’t always share my feelings and I guess that’s my way of doing it.””As my wife will tell you – when I’m pissed off, I head to the parlor.”Polish or no, these days Klecko, the CEO of St. Agnes Bakery in St. Paul, has found a whole new avenue of personal expression: poetry and literary publishing. He still maintains his other careers: celebrity baker — among other gigs, he’s appeared on Martha Stewart’s radio program — social entrepreneur and founder of the St. Paul Bread Club, and author (his most distinctive tattoo is the ISBN of his book of dog biscuit recipes, K-9 Nation Biscuit Book: Baking for Your Best Friend, published by the Minnesota Historical Society.)Conversation in Silenceby Danny KleckoI took you to the playground at nightSo you could have the swing set to yourselfYou said – Push me higherPush, me higherAnd I didThe chains began to creakYour body became a blurSilhouetted against the starsA tiny frame whooshing like a cometThere’s going to be hell to payWhen Grandma discovers our adventureExplanations will be pointlessYou said – Push me higherPush, me higherAnd I didBecause nothing is more beautifulThan the glowing faceOf a granddaughterWho smiles backAt the moon“I like to tease him that he embodies both humility and self-reflective qualities with being a megalomaniac,” says Alison Aten at the MHS, who met Klecko when she publicized his book and went on to become personal friends with him. Continue Reading
FREE SPEECH ZONE | “B is for Battle Cry” Teaches Children about Lincoln’s Time
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As the parents of four grown children, my husband and I enjoyed sharing our interests with them, and searched for ways to incorporate what they learned at school into our daily activities. Museums, festivals, parks, library visits, are not only treasured memories for us, but helped our children find their path to academic success.Free Speech ZoneThe Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. This is an open forum for articles that otherwise might not find a place for publication, including news articles, opinion columns, announcements and even a few press releases. The opinions expressed in the Free Speech Zone and Neighborhood Notes, as well as the opinions of bloggers, are their own and not necessarily the opinion of the TC Daily Planet. Parents who are looking forward to Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln opening in theaters this month, can share their excitement about this time in history and this great president with their children through the book B is for Battle Cry: A Civil War Alphabet, written by Minnesota author Patricia Bauer and published by Sleeping Bear Press (2009). The book, beautifully illustrated by Bauer’s husband, David Geister, describes the people, places and events of the Civil War, in easy-to-understand alphabetic verse for the younger reader, while text in the margin gives additional information to older children and adults. Geister’s full-page paintings depict the four years of bloody conflict in a manner that conveys both the emotions and gravity of the times, but with subject matter suitable for young children. Continue Reading
Jeffrey Skemp presents a cacophony of poetry at the Bryant-Lake Bowl
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Despite a great number of near-meets, sightings, and acknowledgements of friends-of-friends, I still haven’t met poet Jeffrey Skemp. Prior to October 18, I had watched him read once, at the Hazel and Wren Words at WAM open mic last February, and in June, noticed him watching (and enjoying) Sierra DeMulder, Haley Lasche, Cary Waterman, and Richard Robbins reading at a Maeve’s Session, while I sat hoping that he would get up and read as part of the open mic. No dice.
10 years later, Wellstone inspires young authors
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Minnesota students are learning about history, not by reading a book, but by writing one. Over the past several years, seven middle schoolers have interviewed people who knew Senator Paul Wellstone and his wife Sheila, whose lives were cut short in a plane crash 10 years ago this week.
Zadie Smith, at the University of Minnesota: “People who write on the Internet are not idiots”
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“People who write on the Internet are not idiots,” said Zadie Smith by way of concluding her remarks October 23 at the University of Minnesota’s Coffman Memorial Union. With that benediction, I stood up from the spot on the floor that had been my vantage point in the over-capacity theater and walked out, grabbing a slice of literary cake on my way.
THEATER REVIEW | Sandbox Theatre’s “Beatnik Giselle”: Stand by your daddy-o
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There’s a lot to admire about Sandbox Theatre’s new show Beatnik Giselle. There’s some superb dancing, the music is expert, and much of the Beat poetry recited by the characters genuinely comes alive. The show falls victim, though, to a pitfall common to devised theater: though the bodies move, the plot doesn’t.
Anything but “Twilight”: Trying to choose just one book at the Twin Cities Book Festival
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One book, that’s all you get; just one book and nothing more. That’s the phrase one often hears a parent utter to a child at the bookstore while wondering why Junior won’t play with G.I. Joes or Barbies instead. But those who make that request have no idea how impossible “just one book” sounds. How can you choose just one when you see the hard-bound covers adorned with gold leaf lettering or the glossy pages with ink that leaves stains on your fingers? Continue Reading