February 2008

Flat Earth’s leap of faith is paying off: Despite Flat Earth’s popularity and the Williamsons’ ambitious 2008 goals (find retailers in Wisconsin, move from one to two brews a week), not much has changed from the first days. All beers are still bottled one at a time, and Jeff takes care of everything from phone calls to promotion

Twin City Sidewalks takes on the Washington Avenue Bridge.

Finally, after almost thirty years of planning, the Central Corridor Light Rail line is going to run thorugh the U of MN campus, and tomorrow the Metro Council is going to vote to close off Washington Avenue to passenger cars, and turn all this space under the bridge into a pedestrian-and-transit mall like Nicollet Avenue downtown.

I’d say that nearly everyone in Minnesota has some memory of walking across this bridge, whether as a student at the U or not. I used to spend a lot of time on the bridge in High School, rollerblading with friends, and with living near the River Road, I’ve driven under it thousands of times. When they painted the underside of the bridge maroon with big gold M’s on it, I thought it was a great decision - it made the bridge stand out even more. And driving eastbound under the pedestrian bridge was made a treat by the Gerhy designed Weisman Art Museum.

It will be interesting to see how the bridge changes over the next ten years. I look forward to seeing another transit line, and I think serving the University will be a good use for it. But I also believe that making the Central Corridor run on the street level is a mistake and a major shortfall made by the fiscally cheap administration.

But on the other hand, TC Sidewalks believes that moving car traffic away from Washington Ave might be a good thing.

I think the “compromise” option is actually far better than a tunnel would have been. This way, the campus can maybe start to rethink the relationship between automobiles and people.

I guess we’ll just have to see.

Tricia and I watched the Oscars Sunday night, even though we really hadn’t seen many of the movies nominated. It’s always a good opportunity to hear about movies that we might not have heard about so we can add them to our Netflix queue. But even as a casual observer of the Oscars, I was cheering for a few people, especially Diablo Cody and the Coen brothers. Well, I’d say the ex-Minnesota residents had a decent night.

The highlight of the entire night though for both of us was seeing Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform the song Falling Slowly (YouTube clip of the performance) from the movie Once. It is such an unbelievable song, and even if they hadn’t won, it was a treat to see them perform it live. I really didn’t think they were going to win, so when it was announced that they did, Tricia and I both jumped and pumped fists.

Glen had a very nice acceptance speech, but Marketa was cut off by the band before she even had a chance. Thankfully, Jon Stewart, came out shortly after and gave her an opportunity to say what she wanted to say. And it was well worth it. Here is a YouTube clip of both speeches.

Last week, it was reported that The Rake was for sale. Today, we learn that they are closing up shop and will no longer exists in print form, but instead a limited version online. This really sucks. Though in a perfect world, maybe this will make some of the other publications that much better. Maybe Minnesota Monthly, MSP Mag, and Metro Mag will all step up and hire some of the good writers from the Rake and continue that form of journalism.

City Pages stopped being good many years ago, while The Rake was consistently a good read. But at the same time, I can see why running a print magazine just isn’t worth it anymore. I, like most of my friends, get all of our information online, and rarely pick up a paper.

More at MNSpeak, which is still being run by Matt, the son of Tom Bartel and Rake owner. Now if only Rex would come back and fix everything.

KARE 11 Exclusive: One-on-one with Norm Green: KARE 11 last night did a story with Norm Green, the old owner of the North Stars, to tell his side of the story of why he took the team out of Minnesota, and I have to say that I know look at it a lot differently. I was definitely one of those kids back in the early 90s, chanting “Norm Green Sucks” as we watched our hockey team leave. But looking back at the whole situation, I can see why he moved.

The finances of professional sports had changed and Norm knew that he could make it work somewhere else where he would get a new arena. Playing at the Met Center in front of 8,000 people just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Had they been able to work out a deal with the Wolves, they might still be playing in Minnesota, though it would be in a far inferior arena and they might be in a similar situation that the Chicago Blackhawks are in.

Yes, it was painful to watch them leave, and it sucked to watch the Dallas Stars win a Stanley Cup, but it might have all been for the best for Minnesota Hockey fans. The game of hockey never left our state, and when a professional team came back, we were rewarded with the best hockey arena in the world and a team that has had it’s share of playoff excitement.

It was a good story and you can watch part 2 of the story tonight.

But of course, the folks on wild.com message boards are ripping it, most before even watching it. And those that try to look at it objectively are made fun of and ripped up. Some people just don’t get it.

And here is an interview with Scott Goldberg, the guy that did the interview with Mr. Green, from local hockey blog Hitting the Post.

F*&^ the H*ppy F&ing Gn&me - Al, the beer guy at the Blue Nile gets an email from someone who had a conversation with the owner of the Happy Gnome. Basically the Gnome is upset that the Nile gets so many of the Surly events, and that he doesn’t understand why people go there anyway. He feels he should get them because he has more taps. I just can’t believe the arrogance of this guy.

Welcome to the Twins’ brave, new world of luxury suites: Douglas fir cabinets. Kasota stone counter tops. More flat-screened TVs than your neighborhood Best Buy. A bar. Oak floors. A kitchen to die for. Cool, light Scando motif to the max. Did we mention 12 leather-covered stadium seats in this 540-square-foot entertainment venue? The new Twins suites are being sold for annual rates running from $90,000 to $200,000, based on location. They are 10-year commitments.

Fanny och Alexander (1982): Watched this 3 hour Ingmar Bergman film last night, which won Best Foreign Language Film at the 1984 Oscars. Fanny and Alexander are two children in 1907 Sweden, who are forced to move with their recently widowed mother to her new husband’s home where they are trapped and immediately miserable. Bergman has said that he prefers the 312 minute version he made for Swedish TV. Don’t think I’d be able to make it through that, but we did feel that the shorter film version was rushed at times. But still, it was an incredible film. (5/5)

Helvetica (2007) is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.

I had never really thought of it before seeing this movie, but it’s incredible just how many street signs and businesses use Helvetica. And while driving around this weekend we became even more aware of it. You just can’t escape the power of Helvetica. For a movie about a font, it was much better then I had expected. (4/5)

Immigrant businesses thriving on St. Paul’s east side: “Amid talk of recession, there are signs that small businesses are thriving in one neighborhood on Saint Paul’s east side. Community developers say the immigrant entrepreneurial spirit is driving this growth.”

This is a great story, and it’s nice to see credit given to who is mostly responsible to the success of the turnaround of areas that needed. Both the east side (Payne Ave) and Lake St (Lake and Bloomington) were greatly changed because of the immigrant community, and through the help of immigrant business organizations. My friend Amber has been very involved with Plaza Latina, in creating a service center for Latinos, and working with the community to make these changes.