Minneapolis Observer Quarterly - Exploring the Bucolic City

The Quiet Jewel in our Midst: Minneapolis is home to a premier example of Byzantine mosaic art

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:34:33 -0500

If you’d like a peaceful break from the economic and political tornadoes raging around us, you could spend a few moments inside the chapel at Lakewood Cemetery in the heart of Southwest Minneapolis, where Hennepin Avenue meets West 36th Street. Upon entering, the first thing you notice is the quiet calm -- the noise of the city fades away, and even your own footsteps are muffled by the carpet runner down the center of the aisle. Next comes awe -- at the intricate mosaics, the soothing symmetry, and the elegant lines of the Arts and Crafts décor. The interior of this modestly scaled chapel is considered to be the premier example of Byzantine mosaic art in the country.

Is There a Ghost in the House? Spectral visitors just might offer a history lesson

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:40:18 -0500

Richard Hagen remembers playing around the neglected Stevens House as a child. “The house sat by the bridge, it was boarded up. When I was a kid, we would play at Minnehaha Park. We would peek in the windows and yell ghost!” • • • Many years later, after retiring from a career with the Air Force that took him all over Europe, Hagen still had a fondness for the historic residence of John H. Stevens, dubbed the birthplace of Minneapolis for its pivotal role as a gathering spot for early city planners. The house has since been restored and moved to a picturesque glade in Minnehaha Park. Hagen served for 20 years on the Stevens House board of directors and volunteered on Sundays to show people around the second-floor rooms.

When Harry Met Kitty: How foul plans went awry in 1890s Minneapolis

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:28:42 -0500

An impressive five-foot granite monument at Pioneer’s and Soldier’s Cemetery in South Minneapolis marks the final resting spot of members of Minneapolis’s Hayward family. The patriarch, William W. Hayward, was a respected lawyer and real estate developer, but the more famous member of the family was the younger son, Harry T. Hayward, who died on December 11, 1895, at the end of a rope for plotting the notorious murder of the hapless Catherine “Kitty” Ging. The Hayward grave is just one of the spots on the Murder and Mayhem tour of the cemetery scheduled for this Saturday, Oct. 11.

Norwegian Dreaming: In Cod We Trust by Eric Dregni

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:45:36 -0500

Reviewed by Craig Cox
Plenty of nostalgic genealogy buffs set out to locate their dusty origins, but how many spend a year in their forebear’s homeland, witness the birth of their first child, and eat a whole lot of weird fish in the bargain? That’s just part of the story this fourth-generation Norwegian-Minnesotan spins in this fascinating memoir/travelogue. Dregni, a local writer, musician (Vinnie and the Stardusters), and assistant professor of English at St. Paul’s Concordia University, takes us on a sometimes rollicking, sometimes tragicomic tour of modern Norway, where the welfare system rules, the language vexes, and the food challenges even the most determined cook. On the subject of lutefisk, for example, Dregni receives this advice from one of the Trondheim natives: “First you dry the cod for months; then you put it in lut -- do you know lut? You can use it to take the paint off of wood. It is what you use to clean out your sink when it is stuck. . . . When you are ready to cook it, you soak the fish in water. There should be no yellow left; otherwise, it has too much lut left and doesn’t taste so good.”

Bright Lights, Small City: David Carr’s memoir recalls fast times in our slow lane.

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:23:18 -0500

By Craig Cox
I’m pretty sure that I first ran into David Carr sometime in 1986, when we were both guests on Brian Lambert’s cable-access TV show. We were talking about some political difficulties St. Paul Mayor George Latimer may or may not have been facing at the time, and I recall being pretty impressed by how much street-level intelligence Carr displayed. He was not shy about dishing the dirt on players I didn’t even know existed. I was the editor of City Pages at the time and Carr was, I believe, a staff writer for the Twin Cities Reader, our nemesis. The Reader is long gone now, the victim of a 1997 acquisition by Village Voice Media, which turned the local alternative media scene on its head. At least, that’s how I remember it.

MOQ Cover Artist Emily Hoisington on Art and Nesting

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:57:34 -0500

We are pleased to feature the art of St. Paul artist Emily Hoisington on the cover of the fall issue of MOQ (pictured at left). Hoisington earned her MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) in May, and is currently an adjunct faculty member there and at the College of Visual Art (CVA) in St. Paul. She is participating in a faculty show at MCAD through September 24, and will have a piece in an exhibition of artists’ books curated by Jeff Rathermel at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, September 21 through October 19. She has been accepted into the Emerging Printmaker’s Residency at Highpoint Center for Printmaking, and will exhibit her work there in February. To see more of Hoisington’s art, visit her Web site.

Rivalry and Ruins: The river holds the remains of a century-old battle between two aspiring river cities

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:37:00 -0500

Later this month, the National Park Service is offering an interpretive tour of the Meeker Island Lock and Dam ruins, led by historian John Anfinson. Craig Cox attended last year’s tour and wrote about it for the fall 2007 issue of MOQ.
STRADDLING THE BOUNDARY between Minneapolis and St. Paul, the ruins of the Meeker Island Lock and Dam peek out from the gray waters of the Mississippi’s eastern bank, just downstream from the University of Minnesota campus. The mysterious concrete walls -- which had such a brief useful life that even local U.S. Corps of Engineers staffers were at a loss to identify them until a few years ago -- exist now as a stark reminder of the fierce inter-city rivalry that defined the great river’s development more than a century ago.

Roll Call: A local business recalls home entertainment, circa 1920

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:54:50 -0500

By Jack Armstrong
On a mild Saturday, we motored into Southeast Minneapolis to listen to some piano players -- but not the sort you might imagine. Nestled in a nondescript warehouse off University and 27th avenues, the Barton Player Piano Company houses the city’s only collection of player pianos and the rolls of music that make them sing. The occasion was the Eighth Annual Piano Roll Flea Market and Movie Event, a clever collaboration between the innovative Mr. Don Barton and the purveyors of cinema at the refurbished Heights movie theater in Columbia Heights.

Draw Too: A Drawing Show in Four Acts

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:40:57 -0500

When Soo Visual Arts Center staged an exhibition titled simply Draw in 2004, I was eager to understand the curator’s criteria for what to include in the show; what defines a drawing as opposed to a work of art that is something else? At that time, my question wasn’t answered, and I found the show a bit overwhelming -- there were too many works exhibited for the amount of wall space available, and they lacked a clear sense of a unifying theme. But the current exhibition, Draw Too: A Drawing Show in Four Acts, not only improves upon the first in communicating what is meant by draw, but also in limiting the number of works and artists shown, and displaying them in a viewer-friendly arrangement with plenty of space around and between them.

Book Review -- The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:08:58 -0500

Kao Kalia Yang will be discussing her book, The Latehomecomer, on KFAI’s Write On Radio, 11 a.m. this Thursday. Craig Cox reviewed the book in the summer edition of MOQ.

Thirty years ago, Kao Kalia Yang’s still-teenage parents began their new life together by fleeing Pathet Lao soldiers who were intent on wiping out the Hmong in Laos, and her stunning memoir traces their refugee journey through wretched camps in Thailand (where she was born) to the family’s arrival in St. Paul. Equally adept at recounting the young family’s harrowing escape across the Mekong River or drilling deeply into the mixed emotions of her refugee childhood, Yang invites us inside the Hmong diaspora in a way few other writers have dared.

Planting a Seed: U of M program cultivates urban farmers

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:32:34 -0500

By Jason Ericson
The University of Minnesota’s farmers market opened Wednesday, July 9, on Church Street, on the Minneapolis campus, and continues every Wednesday, from 11 til 2, through the growing season. Local growers will offer produce, berries, and fresh flowers, and the University’s Landscape Arboretum will sell maple syrup and, later, apples. But perhaps most unique among the vendors you would find at any farmers market are the students participating in Cornercopia, the University’s three-year-old student-run farm, which becomes officially certified organic this month.

Reading Between the Lines: A little library perspective

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:28:57 -0500

Editor’s note: With the recent news reports that Hennepin County’s acquisition of the Minneapolis Public Library system is costing $3.5 million more than expected, we thought readers might find it interesting, if not illuminating, to view this whole merger business with a little historical perspective, by way of this annotated timeline from the spring issue of MOQ.

The Locavore’s Dilemma: A new book touts local food in Minnesota

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:31:23 -0500

By Brett Laidlaw
This is The Locavore Moment: The trend toward eating local, in-season foods has gained remarkable momentum over the last few years, celebrated in best-selling books and championed by movements like the “100-Mile Diet,” the brainchild of Canadians Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, and Slow Food, the international group that works to preserve food traditions. Where sophisticated eaters once sought rare delicacies from distant lands -- Italian truffles, Caspian sturgeon caviar, French foie gras -- now those same savvy gourmands are likely to rhapsodize over more homely fare -- an heirloom tomato, a parsnip, house-fermented sauerkraut.

Amazon Bookstore Lives On

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:04:13 -0500

In the summer issue of MOQ, we bid a fond farewell to the Amazon Bookstore Cooperative at 48th and Chicago in South Minneapolis. But it turns out we said goodbye too soon! Today we learned that a buyer has come forward to save the 38-year-old institution from oblivion. The new owners will take possession by the end of the month, staff have started to re-stock the shelves, and they are once again taking special orders.

Artist Scott Anderson Paints ‘Em Like He Sees ‘Em

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:21:56 -0500

“In 2001, after 22 years as a magazine designer, I left my computer to go outside and paint,” says Scott Anderson. We first met Scott when he was still a magazine designer at Request (for Sam Goody record stores), and have enjoyed watching him paint (so to speak) ever since. Currently, he’s working on a series of paintings on location at the site of the new 35W bridge construction (for an MPR interview with Scott at the bridge site, go here).
The paintings will be on display this August in the Thrivent Financial Building, 625 Fourth Ave. S., in downtown Minneapolis.