May 2009
51 posts
“Also, are you excited for some of your friends to go into small-scale farming? I...”
– Mediation perfectly expresses the glories of Minneapolis in the summertime.
That magical moment of realization in the psychic...
Comma placements, over cream sauce.
One of the best parts about reading biographies is that occasionally the biographer will include descriptions of the meals the subject liked to prepare for him- or herself in the home kitchen. From those descriptions, you can usually figure out a workable recipe and make the same meal for yourself.
I’m not sure if cooking the same meals that the subject of the biography you’re reading...
A few intrepid friends of S. 12th are signed up to...
(Redirected from Deaf Leopard) →
Wikipedia goes the extra mile to ensure that, no matter how badly you mispell their name, you will be able to find the information you need on Def Leppard.
I wonder how often this redirection has been utilized by frustrated elderly Internet users, trying to reconnect with their estranged children after so many years, and saying to themselves, ”Maybe it’s finally time for me to learn...
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Burning pianos, or cellos. →
The link above is to an article in the Utne Reader, but the venerable Star-Tribune also reports “an upright piano was set ablaze at Carleton College in a ‘performance art’ show under the nighttime sky in Northfield.”
(Excellent use of air quotes, incidentally — that’s some great “arts reporting”! It will be “shame” to lose the Strib...
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Cleveland new wave roll call, 1980.
Names of musicians credited on WMMS-101 FM’s Pride of Cleveland, a 1980 LP compilation of Cleveland-area new wave bands:
John Zdravecky
Ron Ondercin
Dave Smeltz
Tom Dobeck
Rick Sostaric
George Sipl
Rich Spina
Wayne Cukras
Walt Tiburski
In another city, this list might have been a litany of Johnny Shitstains and Eddie Killemalls. Instead, Cleveland gives us a group of names that...
“I didn’t expect to get into the restaurant reviewing business loving...”
– One of the best things about being home in Louisville is temporarily having the freedom to endlessly complain about Louisville. Above is Nate’s (surprisingly loose) paraphrase of a certain local food critic’s opening line in his latest review, read to me over coffee this morning.
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Lazy city planners in the 763. →
Regarding the aforementioned Dysposium St., Ben at Liquid Chroma — himself an Anoka County native — follows up with some more northwestern suburban nomenclatural fun, including nearby Iguana Street, Nutria Street, Unicorn Street, Puma Street, Gibbon Street and Jackal Street.
Unicorn Street, incidentally — awesome a name for a tumblelog! Someone claim it, fast!
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Meanwhile, on Dysposium Street. →
MNSpeak linked to the article above in the Pioneer-Press this morning about a man who was arrested in Ramsey, Minnesota for allegedly waving a gun at some teenagers hanging out on his lawn. Ramsey is a northwest suburb of Minneapolis, about 30 miles from downtown.
The article mentions that the suspect lives at the “14200 block of Dysposium St. N.W.” Dysposium Street! How odd!
...
Your favorite novel about Dubrovnik.
A favorite southside artist and friend of ours, Patty McMeans, has recently accepted a summer position teaching art on a Mediterranean-bound ship, and sets sail in a few weeks. She must be mentally preparing for the trip, as she has sent along this email:
Say, can you or any of your [number redacted] friends recommend any literary works that are written in or about places around the...
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This weekend, I found a whole mess of great vinyl...
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S. 12th vs. Digital Television: the countdown to...
These are exciting times over at S. 12th. The nationwide switch to all-digital TV lurches closer, as does the expiration date for my government-issued digital convertor box redemption certificate. It expires this Thursday, May 21. The time to act is now.
For some background, we may look here. How will this end?
I am the owner of a gray plastic 16” combination DVD/TV, purchased from a big...
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“I asked him to join me, and when he accepted I went into my house and set coffee...”
– Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, via Better Matters.
I read this last night, and it sounded familiar. Nate told me once all the old veterans he knew (how does Nate know all these old veterans?) swore by it, as this is how they made coffee in the Army in World War II. He explained it thusly:...
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Tumblr’s call-in feature means never having...
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Once a loafer man, always a loafer man.
My tailor, a 17th Century French priest named St. Vincent de Paul, recently had a sale on cheap light-colored cotton suits, so I snapped up a couple to wear this summer and get completely trashed with bicycle grease and river water.
I’m never sure, though, what kind of footwear to pair with such suits. Maybe you’ve noticed, but biking in patent leather Oxfords utterly destroys them. I...
Eyeteeth lets me curate my top five picks for... →
You will have a weekend full of houseboats, teenagers, CPAs, bands floating on pontoons, baklava, roast pig and live radio in Northeast Minneapolis.
“A baby blue Styrofoam chrysanthemum. An auto hubcap, brand unrecognizable. A...”
– Catalog of “wonders” exhibited in New American Artifacts: The Ugly Show, curated by Donald Barthelme, at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, June 17-July 19, 1960.
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Just Brothers, “Sliced Tomatoes,”...
"Available Emblems of Belief for Placement on... →
Including the Sufist wings-and-heart, an atheist atom logo and the Eckankar “EK.”
À la recherche du bar bets perdu.
I once got in a leisurely argument with a friend in a bar as to whether or not I could draw a recognizable portrait of L. Ron Hubbard on command. He said there was no way, I said I could, absolutely. So we agreed to put a beer on the line.
I then drew, on a bar napkin, a little scrawling of a tubby, gray-haired guy in an ascot and a captain’s hat. That’s basically L. Ron Hubbard;...
Kevin Rafferty’s documentary Harvard Beats...
Everybody's heard about the bird. →
And so tumblelikeyougiveadamn has rounded up what may be the most comprehensive gathering of Tumblr links regarding the Minneapolis-St. Paul urban fowl situation to date: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Your job, now, is to queue up this deathless 1963 regional Minneapolis hit, and listen to as you read through the above links. It will be a sort of little bird montage for your Tuesday morning.
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The ice cream trucks of South Minneapolis.
Though none can claim the staggering cultural legacy of Mr. Softee, there are independent ice cream trucks everywhere in the neighborhood between May and August.
Summertimes in Minneapolis are shorter and more compressed than anywhere else in the country. Everything happens faster and with a strange, thrilling intensity. Overnight, everyone is half-naked. Previously inert neighborhoods suddenly...
The Baltimore Catchetism. →
It’s online, above — the original from 1885, as “Prepared and Enjoined by Order of the Third Council of Baltimore.” This is probably well-trodden territory for our Catholic readership (especially those of you hailing from Papist strongholds like St. Paul), but The Baltimore Catchetism is something completely new to me and, having come from a down-home Southern Baptist...
The Pentangle, “Light Flight,” 1969....
Programming note.
Tumblr is, I think, becoming more and more like a hostage house, a sealed-off cult compound, where my messages to the outside world are becoming more and more incomprehensible. Do you get that sense?
It is difficult, using this particular blogging platform, to remember that you are essentially writing for two audiences: Tumblr people internally who are reading this through their dashboards, and...
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Bleakest ball club nicknames of the minor league...
A hellscape of manual labor, economic collapse and grim, self-aware humor:
Wichita Jobbers
Springfield Jobbers
Joplin Miners
Springfield Midgets
Webb City Goldbugs
Leavenworth Convicts
Hutchinson Salt Packers
Hutchinson Wheat Shockers
Enid Railroaders
Tulsa Railroaders
Denison Railroaders
Salupa Oilers
Tulsa Oilers
McAlester Miners
Paris Survivors
Tulsa Producers
Webb City...
An update from Nate.
I hadn’t heard from my brother Nate in a while, which is nothing alarming in and of itself — he has a tendency to go off the grid for lengthy periods of time. My relatively anemic contemporary pop cultural intake is blisteringly Gawker-like compared to his.
So I got a text message from him apologizing for being out of touch, but his phone had been “in Mexico,” so he...
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"What happens if you get a band to rehearse in an... →
Jarvis Cocker is running a sort of one-person exhibition at Galerie Chappe in Paris this month, where he will be taking up residency with a band for several days and conducting a number of interactive projects with the public.
However, in answer to the questions posed above: if you have been in Minneapolis last month, you’d have found out at Art Of This last month with Sarah and the...
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“Go Now,” Bessie Banks, 1964.
The...
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Early-breaking May Day Parade Craigslist Missed... →
So, as of noon today, we’re on the lookout for:
an energetic sunburned girl in pigtails and blue pants that loves firepits and beer.
a fetching brunette in a peach-colored shirt near 34th Street.
a doober-lovin’ Australian bro on bicycle near 29th Street.
an attractive deaf nonprofit canvasser who thinks guys in red shirts are cute.
Go find them and make some anti-capitalist...
The great American last-minute bourbon cocktail...
So it was a long weekeend around South Minneapolis with simultaneous neighborhood celebrations of May Day (which is something like a national holiday here in our pinko enclave), Cinco de Mayo, the triumph of Tumblr and the Kentucky Derby, but our interns still found the time to tabulate the results of our bourbon cocktail competition.
There were actually quite a few more entries than anticipated...
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