Cinnamon Rolls and Neighbors
2015
A few years ago on the Fourth of July we wanted to invite some neighbors over for homemade cinnamon rolls. I make the rolls from scratch; my wife invites.
TWISP | This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, Jan. 5–Sunday, 11, 2015
2015
I hope your new year is starting well. The year looks bright. For the moment, the weather has decided that it is winter, just in time for Saint Paul’s world-famous Winter Carnival. Unlike in the past, we don’t have an ice castle every year. I wonder if climate uncertainty makes for uncertainty over whether we can have ice castles. Even so, the art climate is fine and this week is ready for your basking pleasure!
TWISP | This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, December 29, 2014–Sunday, January 4, 2015
2014
I have this strategy where I wait until the new year has come weeks after we have ventured into the next year before I buy my pocket calendar. My next wall calender has been fixed behind the old one for some time, my Minnesota Farmers Union calendar that I pick up each summer at the Minnesota State Fair. The pocket calendar is a different story. I wait because they go on sale at some places.
Rondo Pioneers
By Danta Wilson, D’Onna Clark, Damone Presley, Erica Dennis, Maya Clark, Mietta Green, DaVante Jackson ● 2014
As the Black poet J. Saunders Redding said: The relationship between a people and their history is the same as the relationship between a child and its mother; history not only tells a people where they are and what they are—history also informs us what we still must be and what we still must do.
“The Chug and Deubner Hill”
2014
I grew up in the West End on Arbor Street, by the old Schmidt Brewery. One of our pastimes in the mid-fifties was building and racing “chugs,” which were homemade go-carts, made entirely of found parts—boards, bent nails we straightened with a hammer on the sidewalk, and of course the most cherished find, wheels big enough to use (many baby carriages were wheel-less that summer).
“Painting is Easy Until You Know How”
2014
RICHARD ABRAHAM paints outside. “Painting is easy until you know how,” Edgar Degas knew, and now Abraham knows. His pictures delight.
TWISP | This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, December 22–Sunday, December 28, 2014
2014
We are halfway through Chanukah, on the verge of Christmas, and peaking at Kwanzaa around the next calendar corner, not to mention the other thirty-odd holidays that my friend Mooks tells us fall in December. If you have been looking at the Almanac arts calendar, you know how busy this world has been.
This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, December 15–Sunday, December 21, 2014
2014
The days are getting shorter, but only for another week. In the mean time, taking in some festivities will help brighten the brief days. If you look at the Almanac arts calendar, you might get a little dizzy with everything that is happening. If you need some help choosing, here are some ideas.
Lowertown Reading Jam 2014-2015: “Dakota Writers Speak to Presence: Honoring the 38+2”
2014
On the 152nd anniversary of the largest mass execution in the history of the United States: the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota men in Mankato for their role in the U.S. Dakota War, contemporary Dakota writers speak to Presence. We speak several generations after the U.S. Dakota War and the United States government’s expulsion of Dakota from Minnesota. We speak, even as we are often erased or misrepresented in mainstream media and culture. We are here. Please join us as we reflect, remember, and share.
Helping Father in the Garden on a Summer Night
2014
Swatting mosquitoes in the rhubarb,
I watch you pull husky potatoes from the earth.
You roll them in your palms and scuff the dirt from their bulging eyes and moony grins.
Here’s Mister Potato Head!
The River Bench Series, Garden Encounter
2014
The Cherokee Heights Garden Club has celebrated seventy-five years of service. They have faithfully beautified and tended the flowers on Smith Avenue at the High Bridge for years. Returning from
This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, December 8–Sunday, December 14, 2014
2014
I am already winded thinking about all the things that are happening this week in Saint Paul. I know that as the season progresses, you might need a break, but first let me take a deep breath and start you on your trek around town and the arts and culture that make this Capital City a capital city!