Loved the new book by Clyde Edgerton. Reviewed it very favorably in the Star Tribune. Not as glowing for Jenna Blum's The Stormchasers.
What an interesting contrast in markets. Jenna Blum's book is commercial fiction written for family- and romance-loving women. Clyde Edgerton's book is literary fiction written for art- and music-loving humanists. Still—the basics of storytelling must apply. Good lesson.
Both reviews appeared on the same day, so it looked like I was dominating the books section. The reality is that's all the time I have for book reviews for the next six months. I begin teaching again soon—this year at Minnesota State University, Mankato (instead of St. Cloud State University).
It will probably be January before I review any books again.
I'm not sure you would call what I did with Andy Sturdevant recently a "lecture"—it was more of hilariously weird loose-improv-with-Power-Point. This was for the "Games" show of Salon Saloon—an arts-forward talk show sampler produced by Works Progress and hosted by my longtime pal Mr. Sturdevant, bon vivant and man-about-town.
Andy asked me to talk about games I played with my family, and I led him and the audience through various games my children have invented, including Pop Goes the Weasel, Kick in the Crotch, and something really wonderful called "Baby Ewok".
Let's just say Andy and I are not afraid to pretend we are dinosaurs with each other. Or play Stuffed Animal Olympics with on-the-spot Howard Cosell commentary. Or pretend to be Ewoks and crawl under a blanket together and then "birth" ourselves (oh, now you know how to play Baby Ewok!). And all to an audience of about 80 people, most of whom are strangers.
Andy is amazing. He is more than my friend. He is my brother.
Photo by Sean Smuda.
Chris Koza and Rogue Valley asked Geoff Herbach and I to pick up our narrative where we left off last spring. Chris and Rogue Valley have been writing and recording four albums in one year, based on the cycle of seasons. We helped launch the first album at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul with love letters from a set of star-crossed lovers that wrapped into the music, and we helped them come full circle again with the winter album at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis.
Koza is a wonderfully true artist—and by that I mean that he has great personal and great creative integrity; you can believe in what he does because he believes in it. It is a joy to be around him and the band, doing what people like us love to do—make beautiful things.
It's also a joy when Pamela Diedrich from How Was the Show takes my photo while I am wearing a Muppet coat.
I recently reviewed this book from novelist Rae Meadows. She lives here in Minneapolis. It's a great book club pick for midwestern women, and a nice birthday gift for a mom or daughter too (though there is one character I didn't find quite convincing enough).
For those of you interested in the orphan trains from the turn of the century, this book has a wonderful child character who ends up on one. It's cool for midwestern women to read about these orphan trains, and imagine ourselves (or our sons and daughters) on them. How frightening, and how real, for many children—many of whom eventually became the second generation of working pioneers in our American midwest.
And for those of you interested in Virginia Woolf, there are a lot of allusions to To the Lighthouse in this novel.
If you didn't go, you know you wish you would have. I wrote about it for the Star-Tribune AND I got to go, too.
That's my boy in the middle of the biggest build pile in the 25,000-square-foot joint. He's the crouching one in the turquoise shirt. (Crouching is his most assumed LEGO position.)
One of the most interesting things I learned: AFOLs—Adult Fans of Lego—are an actual thing. Really, they're a thing. They have clubs and stuff, and the things they build are astounding—like working trains that require warehouse storage in Northeast Minneapolis industrial parks.
This is a very wonderful world that we live in, and an even more wonderful city (Minneapolis).
Speaking of Poor Farms (as I'm sure you were), a few months ago I wrote a feature for the Star-Tribune about the Blue Earth County Poor Farm, which included, among other things, a fabulous photo essay by Strib photog Tom Wallace and myself that didn't get room in the printed paper. (Yet another example of creative cross-medium feature writing/presentation.)
Don't miss the sidebar on the history of Minnesota's Poor Farms. (One of the drawbacks of the Strib's online presence is that sidebars aren't literally on the "side" of the actual feature; the related sidebar content can get lost to readers.)
This photo of Amy Wurdock's is from a great feature I wrote recently for the Star-Tribune on Powderhorn 365. Wurdock heads this community-based daily photo blog.
What I love about this feature is how well it translates online—there was no room in the printed paper for the accompanying photos.
It's a lot like the online presentation of the Strib story I did on the Blue Earth County Poor Farm, which had a whole on-line portfolio of photos that also didn't appear in the printed paper.
I just got back from a four-hour bar fight. Not kidding.
My friend Phil Harder is shooting a movie about my friend Karl Raschke's dad. Karl's pop is none other than Baron Von Raschke, the professional wrestler villain whose signature move was "The Claw." The film is one-third documentary, one-third vintage footage, and one-third narrative. To my delight, Phil asked myself and my partner Geoff Herbach to participate in a scene in which a waiter at Mancini's (a well-known professional wrestler hangout) angers a wrestler named Mad Dog Vachon, inciting a massive bar fight.
Geoff was the obnoxious waiter. I came in at "bar fight." (Ha! Don't I always?) Actually, it was the perfect place for me. At six feet tall and an unmentionable weight we can graciously call "Rubenesque," I was big enough to hold my own against Minnesota Independent Wrestlers Mitch Paradise and DOS, and The Crusher (played by Mark Har of the Bill Patten Trio).
Judging by the tales the wrestlers both new and legendary told (the Mancini's bar fight is a legendary true story), and the bruises all over my body, I can say this to you with certainty: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING IS REAL.
Geoff—with Phil Harder, Mitch Paradise, and other bar fighters—as an obnoxious German waiter at a classy Italian restaurant in St. Paul. Photo by Patrick Pierson. Amazing ambience provided by Mancini's Char House and Lounge, at which we only broke one lone glass Christmas ornament, and which was also the venue for a party Molly Priesmeyer of Good Work Group once held in honor of Geoff and myself.
John Akre from Sloppy Films animated a sketch we did based on a character I invented for PowderKeg Live!. She's called Urban Agrarian Woman and she's a farm girl in an urban setting with amazing agricultural and building superpowers. And you can watch the trailer here. (It debuted this fall at the Riverview Theater, and will be shown again on December 3rd at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design as part of the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival.
Mr. Akre also made a video from a song from the original musical I co-wrote called Don't Crush Our Heart!—it's called "I Feel Tight".
Oh, it is lovely to be collaborative artist and share your work with people who can do things you could never do. Bliss!
Alexa is a St. Paul girl with a new memoir out this week called Half-Baked: The Story of My Nerves, My Newborn, and How We Both Learned to Breathe (at Amazon here). I wrote a feature about her for the Star Tribune. Her daughter, Simone, looks exactly like daddy (Scott Wisgerhof). Alexa's popular blog—flotsamblog.com—topped one million visitors last year.
How fortunate I am that such smart mommas inhabit my world.
