Talk: Burt Berlowe on Spirituality and Activism
Burt Berlowe is a longtime Twin Cities peace activist and author. His monthly radio show, Spirit Road Radio, debuted last month on Air America Minnesota (950-AM). We asked him about the intersection of spirituality and activism in daily life.
Explaining Wi-Fi: the Case for a Publicly Owned System
For several months, Becca Vargo Daggett has been working to help citizens better understand the ramifications of the city's move toward selecting a private vendor to create and manage a Minneapolis Wi-Fi network. Daggett, a research associate for the New Rules Project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, argues that, like suburban Chaska and other cities in Minnesota and across the country, Minneapolis would be better served by a municipally owned wireless network.
Talk: Dean Seal on Spirituality and Theater
Local impresario Dean Seal has long been known for his role in creating the local Fringe Festival and for his illustrious theater resume in general. The last couple of years, though, has taken Seal into a very different sphere—divinity school and work as a hospital chaplain. He hasn’t lost his connection to the stage—as evidenced by this weekend’s show, Spirit in the House, at Patrick’s Cabaret—but we were curious about his new vocation and about the links he’s been exploring between spirituality and theater. Observer editor Craig Cox contacted Seal earlier this week via e-mail and recorded this exchange.
The Points of His Compass
From Minneota to Minneapolis (and points beyond), writer Bill Holm is a fierce defender of place
By Anne Geske
I met up with critically acclaimed author Bill Holm on November 11, when he was here to read poetry at Magers & Quinn bookstore. Bill zips back and forth from Minneota—the small town he calls home in southwestern Minnesota—to Minneapolis quite often, considering it’s a 300-mile round trip. In fact, he’d just been in town two days earlier to warm up the stage for Mugison, an Icelandic singer-songwriter who performed at the 400 Bar as part of an Icelandic cultural festival. Holm is of Icelandic descent and spends his summers on the North coast of Iceland.
Black, Not Blue
Penumbra Theatre founder Lou Bellamy likes to say that he’s ‘paid to be black,’ but it’s a more serious responsibility than you might think
By Andrea Jenkins
I caught up with Lou Bellamy, director, actor, University of Minnesota professor, and founder of Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, on one of those spectacular fall mornings in October. He had just returned from Pittsburgh where he attended funeral services for playwright August Wilson. Bellamy, who was clad in faded jeans, a tattered denim shirt bearing the Penumbra logo, a desert-colored Carhartt jacket and cap, looked more like a construction site supervisor than the director of a world-class black theater company, and described the services as a “New Orleans–style” home going, complete with Wynton Marsalis providing the musical accompaniments. Of Wilson’s passing, Bellamy said, “he left us with enough material to mine for the next two decades.”
