10 Questions About…

It was great to be home –mostly it was 10 days of work. Well work and really good restaurants. But one night Dad and I went to see Bob McChesney (founder of FreePress.net) and John Nichols (Washington correspondent to The Nation.)

They were in town promoting their new book: The Death and Life of American Journalism. They were interesting because of the tremendous amount or research they had clearly done and their perspective. They had a couple of points that I noted. First that the idea that the constitution was intended to be revisited every 20 years or so. That answers a lot of questions.

Second, they promoted uncensored government support of the media. They pointed out that countries that supported the media had more civic engagement and other great things that naturally I’ve forgotten. But they had an idea that each citizen should have $200 in government funding to give to a nonpartisan, nonprofit news source. I love that idea. Someone in the audience was worried that other people would give their money to the wrong resources, like to sports coverage – but they had clearly had that question before. They pointed out that sports coverage is rarely nonprofit. They added that most people would give their money to a news source – even if they never really read the news source. Because most people appreciate that access to information is essential. While the questioner looked skeptical, I think they had a goodpoint.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is going to see El Vez with Billy and Anita. This year I signed us up to get a picture with El Vez before the show. So we’re kind of like the famous people. Before the show we had a yummy dinner at Solera. And we got a sneak peek at life in Sex in the City watching the other people at the bar. I’m pretty sure we were the only ones drinking beer and certainly ate more than anyone else at the bar.

Back to El Vez – the show was really different this year. To start he played with Los Straightjackets – not after. It was a great mix. I tried to take some video during the slow songs; I danced during the fast songs. The Elvettes were new. Billy was pretty quick to pick up on that one. He had to move during the last few songs to be nearer her favorite Elvette – Lisa Maria.

There were lots of great costume changes. I was super sad that there wasn’t a secret set after the holiday show – but it was a great show. What was fun about the after show was that there was an ages disco. There was some really awkward dancing; one guy brought his own hula hoop; and there was one good break dancer.

And here are some more videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_sKYlGUFZI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8widG4c9w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBOTeKAtvY4

We’ve had two fun visits to The Walker in November. First we went to the Dan Graham show on the first Saturday, which is always a good kid’s day. Sadly we missed the Suicide Commandoes because I went to a conference with the Twin City Media Alliance. The conference was good – but the Suicide Commandoes would have been good too.

Back to what we did do – Dan Graham is very modern art. He uses plastics, perspectives and a video from Minor Threat circa 1983; sadly not filmed in the Twin Cities, but still fun to watch. Actually one work I really liked was installed in a small room; on one walk you could see a video of someone rolling down the hill holding a video camera; on the other wall you could see what was being videotaped.

Despite the fact that it was November in Minnesota, it was also a great day to visit the sculpture garden. So we walked around there too.

A couple of weeks later, Patrick and I went back for the After Hours show – where they gave a sneak preview of the benches and binoculars exhibit. Even Patrick liked the new exhibit, which was really lots of classic Walker pieces all posted in one very tall room. It included the Chuck Close face, which I think is the most classically Walker piece ever. Except of course for the talking dolphin, which they are taking down. That’s the family favorite exhibit. In fact I’ve started a “Dave the Dolphin” Facebook group you can join if you too love the Dolphin. I read where they were talking it down mid-December – but someone at the museum said February.

Anyways the After Hours was a lot of fun – great people watching. We saw a fun band. I tried a new cocktail, which really reminded me that I’m a beer girl.

Earlier this week Patrick and I were invited to a brand new restaurant – Cooper. It’s one of Kieran’s restaurants and he invited us to a sneak preview.

The décor is pretty spectacular. Apparently most of it came from Ireland. Kieran said it’s meant to be like an Irish manor house and it is. The food was very good. The artichoke dip was a little spicy for me – but I’m pretty wimpy. I had the walleye sandwich and it was good. The French fries were excellent – though I was very strong and didn’t have too many. Which was good since then I had room for dessert. They had sneak peeks of apple crumble and some kind of chocolate molten cake – which was super, super yummy.

St Louis Park is pretty far for us to drive – but it was worth it.

We spent our morning at the Bakken Museum. The girls learned about circuits as part of the Bakken Museum super science Saturday. It’s always fun. Aine is still too scared to hang out in the Frankenstein room. We learned that Earl Bakken (inventor of the pacemaker) is lives in Hawaii.

After the Bakken we headed to the Second Annual Ground Breaker Battle – a break dancing contest. We went last year too. I think the dancing is just amazing! But this year it was the impromptu singing that blew me away.

The emcee was sort of killing time when someone started beatboxing and then they looked for a singer and suddenly we’re on the set for Fame. We were kind of like the nerdy extras who can’t really sing or dance but maybe could write haikus if necessary.

At night Patrick and I went to the Guthrie. We had an amazing meal and saw The Importance of Being Earnest. It was good but I bet it’s better if you haven’t read or seen it a hundred times.

So on Friday night I went to see Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann at the Northrup. I thought there would be a ton of people there – but there weren’t really. The audience didn’t fill the main floor at the Northrup. The crowd was divided into at least three camps. There were the Paulites, the protestors and the Bachmann fans.

Somehow Kathleen and I scored second row seats. My only disappointment was that Billy couldn’t be with us. I think the folks ahead of us were Bachmann supporters. So I tried to avoid them. It was funny to watch them sort of argue about who would sit where – in the best seat in the house. Behind us were some Ron Paulers. Otherwise the rest of us in that little area were kind of nondescript. The protestors were all on one side – and were focused on health care. Well there were other comments in the audience but that one group of placard-carrying protestors.

It was interesting to hear the speakers. I have to give them props for starting on time and really most folks were pretty quick. They knew that the crowd wanted to see Ron Paul. Even Michele Bachmann wasn’t as long as she could have been. I’m going to try to not say anything about her since I’m working with the girls on the credo – if you can’t say anything nice, say nothing. I’ve got a lot of nothing to say about Bachmann. (Except that maybe someone who is her friend should clue her into the fact that the Soviet Union is no longer.)

I got a little bit of Ron Paul on video – and then my Flip ran out of batteries. I don’t agree with him on all of the issues – but I have room for a lot of what he has to say. He advocated: bringing the troops home (all of them), adding transparency to the federal reserve bank and others, living and let live and speaking out when you disagree with the government. It was funny to see Bachmann applaud some of his point that you know she just doesn’t believe. I went in part to see how they would handle those differences. Ron Paul spoke as he always would and she clapped.

One of the historical aspects of the day vis-a-vis Ron Paul is that Congress started to look at his bill (HR1207), the Federal Reserve Transparency Act on Friday. So that came up a lot too.

The event lasted almost two hours. Afterward I got to shake Ron Paul’s hand. Again I was so sad that Billy wasn’t with me.

I have a new favorite pastime – buying mystery art for $99.

The Soap Factory, an art gallery in Minneapolis, has a fundraiser where you can buy any work of art for $99. The art is all the same size – about 5×7 inches. It’s not framed and it’s not signed. Some is worth more than $99; some is not. You don’t find out who the artist is until you buy the work.

I went with Anita, who is always a good sport and I bought 2 works. One was by Lindsay Roth, a painter from Inver Grove Heights.  Her piece reminded me of the exhibit we saw in IMMA in Dublin. The other was by Katherine Rochester, a program manager from the Gallery. I just liked that one.

The next day when I went to pick up the art, I let Aine pick out a work too. She picked work my Liz Miller, who I feel is the most established of the artists we selected. Maybe Aine has a calling.

Luckily this is not an ongoing event or I would own it all. I loved going through the art and trying to decide were possibly valuable. Also I like the idea that you pick what you like – not what’s valuable to someone else. Also I like that you just get the artists name so then if you’re not so knowledgeable in local art you have to go home and stalk the person.

My plan is to frame everything and put them in the dining room. I might get the girls to do works that are the same size and frame them too. Then guests can guess which are ours and which are gallery pieces. Regardless I will definitely be going to the next arty crap shoot!

Sorry no video – but just have to say that Billy and I saw Motorhead at First Ave. Last time I saw them was 1987!

The Bakken Museum is a “one of a kind museum exploring the mysteries of our electrical world.” We had never been there. It’s in a beautiful old house near the lakes in Minneapolis. They had a happy hour there and I decided it was OK to bring kids because they also had the Raptor Center there.

It’s very cool. There’s a super cool exhibit on Frankenstein – but it was a little too scary for Aine so I wasn’t able to hang there too much. We got to see a very early pacemaker and try some electrical experiments.

In the Twin Cities there’s a great May Day tradition in and near Powderhorn Park. There’s a big parade with floats and stuff, then there’s a big production by the lake, and a festival. The theme this year was the environment and the people versus the big corporate bail outs. The weather was amazing.

Heart of the Beast puppet theater is responsible for much of the cool activities on May Day. People are welcome to come into HOB week leading up to the parade to help prepare the various floats and costumes. We don’t’ usually participate to that degree but we do enjoy seeing it all.