11.30.07

workin’ for a livin’

workin' for a livin' - click to enlarge

Jack pauses to take stock of his career plans at the Children’s Museum block factory.

11.29.07

the plan for full employment

the plan for full employment - click to enlarge

One of our favorite Children’s Museum activities is the conveyor belts. There are two levels to this contraption: on the bottom level is a series of conveyor belts that kids run with big wheels to move gray foam cubes, terminating in an elevated belt that carries the cubes to the top level; at the top level are more conveyor belts that terminate in a chute through which the cubes are dropped to the lower level’s conveyor belts. An old fashioned intercom system (plastic tubing with a grate at either end) connects the workers on the two levels, who yell up and down for more cubes. It’s a perfectly closed system that keeps everyone busy–a much more realistic introduction to the workplace than any “Take Your Kiddo to Work Day” . . .

11.28.07

shadow play #3

shadow play #3 - click to enlarge

Rockin’ out in the Children’s Museum shadow room. The museum doesn’t actually provide a sound track, but the boys have been known to hum the songs from “Dance Dance Revolution” while practicing their moves; surely “Centerfold” and “Do Ya Wanna” are appropriate for 6-year-old boys to hum…

| Posted in 35mm, Black & White, Children's Museum, Kids, Pinned & Wriggling, Saint Paul, Yashica | No Comments »
11.27.07

shadow play #2

shadow play #2 - click to enlarge

More fun at the Children’s Museum shadow room.


buy unique gifts at Zazzle

| Posted in 35mm, Black & White, Children's Museum, Kids, Pinned & Wriggling, Saint Paul, Yashica | No Comments »
11.26.07

shadow play

shadow play - click to enlarge

The Children’s Museum features a room where kids can play with light; here, Jack experiments with the shadows that different colors of light make (which all turn to shades of gray with Ilford Delta film, of course).

| Posted in 35mm, Black & White, Children's Museum, Kids, Pinned & Wriggling, Saint Paul, Yashica | No Comments »
11.25.07

Catch of the Day

Catch of the Day - click to enlarge

At La Sirena Gorda (“The Fat Mermaid”), Midtown Market; did I mention the seafood molé?

| Posted in 35mm, Black & White, Lake Street, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
11.24.07

At La Sirena Gorda

At La Sirena Gorda - click to enlarge

The Midtown Market, housed in the old Sears building on Lake Street, may be the best place in town for a family lunch. There’s a whole collection of fabulous food stands, serving everything from Mexican to Italian to West Indian to Middle Eastern chow–no fussing, no negotiating, just head to the stand that has what you want.

Me, I’m torn between the torta Cubana at Manny’s and the seafood at La Sirena Gorda (“The Fat Mermaid”). Here we see the queue at La Sirena–the seafood molé was more than worth the wait.

| Posted in 35mm, Black & White, Minneapolis, People, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | 2 Comments »
11.23.07

anchored to the infinite

anchored to the infinite - click to enlarge

The builder who first bridged Niagara’s gorge,
Before he swung his cable, shore to shore,
Sent out across the gulf his venturing kite
Bearing a slender cord for unseen hands
To grasp upon the further cliff and draw
A greater cord, and then a greater yet;
Till at the last across the chasm swung
The cable then the mighty bridge in air!

Anchored to the Infinite by Edwin Markham

Not that Hiawatha Avenue is quite “Niagara’s gorge”, of course, but this is still pretty darned impressive for a bicycle bridge. Would that the design of the new 35W bridge were as inspiring…

This print available at Etsy.

anchored to the infinite at Etsy

| Posted in 35mm, Architecture, Black & White, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
11.22.07

bridge lines

bridge lines - click to enlarge

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

| Posted in 35mm, Architecture, Black & White, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
11.21.07

sweeping

sweeping - click to enlarge

Read more about the new Greenway cable-stay bridge at MinnPost. (The little smudges in the middle of the bridge are Jack and Peter, on their way back from a Saturday lunch outing to the Midway Market, where the kids can get pizza, Mom can get a vegetarian tamale, and Dad can get an amazing plate of seafood molé…)

| Posted in 35mm, Architecture, Black & White, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
11.20.07

soaring

soaring - click to enlarge

The new Greenway cable-stay bridge over Hiawatha Avenue; now, this is what a bridge should look like–a soaring piece of art, not a boring piece of infrastructure!

| Posted in 35mm, Architecture, Black & White, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
11.19.07

nocturnal

nocturnal - click to enlarge

| Posted in 35mm, Autumn, Black & White, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica, through the spaces of the dark | No Comments »
11.18.07

Sanford Doors

Sanford Doors - click to enlarge

Sanford Middle School by night.

| Posted in 35mm, Architecture, Black & White, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica, through the spaces of the dark | No Comments »
11.17.07

38th and Hiawatha #2

38th and Hiawatha #2 - click to enlarge

Grain silos behind the ADM mill at 38th Street and Hiawatha Avenue.

This print available at Etsy.

38th and Hiawatha #2 at Etsy

| Posted in 35mm, Architecture, Black & White, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica, through the spaces of the dark | No Comments »
11.16.07

38th and Hiawatha

38th and Hiawatha - click to enlarge

Tracks behind the ADM mill at 38th Street and Hiawatha Avenue.

This print available at Etsy.

38th and Hiawatha at Etsy

| Posted in 35mm, Architecture, Black & White, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Trains, Yashica, through the spaces of the dark | No Comments »
11.15.07

let us go: MinnPost stories

MinnPost, a new on-line and print news outlet largely staffed by refugees from the Twin Cities’ two daily papers and primary weekly, has started with a whole slew of wonderful stories. MinnPost challenges the current media models in two interesting ways: its focus on deep coverage (their tag line is “a thoughtful approach to news”) rather than fast-breaking, short-lived stories; and its economic model, more like membership-driven NPR than like the shareholder-bound dailies. With veteran writers like Jim Walsh, Sarah Janacek, and Joe Kimball on board, I’m expecting a lot of really good reading. (Arts editor Casey Selix is a pub-quiz teammate, short-story first-reader, and good friend, but I certainly wouldn’t let that sway my opinion of this site …)

A few articles you ought not to miss:

  • Sam Grabarski wants cars on Nicollet Mall by Britt Robson: a look at the lobbying efforts to turn Nicollet Mall, which is currently restricted to bikes, buses, taxis, and pedestrians, into a car-centric thoroughfare. While I can see the point of the retail consultants/lobbyists who worry that no one will know what’s on Nicollet Mall if no one drives it (see the next story), I also can’t imagine the Mall without its luxuriously-wide sidewalks, clogged with honking cars.
  • Urban designers critique Minneapolis and offer this idea: Tear down all those horrible skyways by Steve Berg: the extensive downtown skyway systems (over 7 miles in Minneapolis, over 5 miles in St. Paul), argue architects Jan Gehl and Gil Penalosa, aren’t good for us; they rob the city sidewalks of crucial pedestrian traffic, and create a stratified city, both literally and socially, with the affluent striding through the climate-controlled halls above and the poor on the gray and lifeless streets below. I don’t spend as much time in the downtowns as I’d like, but it’s true that the downtown streets, especially in the fall and winter, are pretty desolate; the skyways, by contrast, are vibrant, colorful, and busy during the weekdays, though in a decidedly private (think shopping mall) rather than public (think outdoor plaza) way. When I worked downtown a decade ago, I had to keep two conflicting maps in my head, one of the street grid and one of the skyway maze, and there were places I could reach by one route but couldn’t navigate by the other. Perhaps the answer to the Nicollet Mall problem above is to chase people out of the skyways, at least during the glorious summer days we frequently experience on the tundra: temperature-controlled gates, maybe, that lock when it warms up? Or photosensitive skyway walls that disappear when the sun is out but close us in during those bleak weeks when we get less than 9 hours of sunlight a day? This seems like something a creative mind could puzzle out…
  • Word by word, typo by typo, page by page by Dave Wood: though afflicted with a Parkinsons-like disease that makes typing a Herculean challenge, Jon Hassler continues to work his magic with words. Indeed, he expects to finish a new novel for Viking in December. I’m not sure whether a writer should be inspired to greatness by his example, or shamed into silence by his perseverance.
  • | Posted in let us go | No Comments »
    11.15.07

    Sanford at Night

    Sanford at Night - click to enlarge

    Maria Sanford Middle School, Minneapolis–named for “the best loved woman of the North Star State”, about whom more can be found here.

    | Posted in 35mm, Architecture, Black & White, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
    11.13.07

    Riverview Lights

    Riverview Lights - click to enlarge

    Riverview Theater, Minneapolis.

    | Posted in 35mm, Architecture, Black & White, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
    11.12.07

    and dark the night and chill

    and dark the night and chill - click to enlarge

    Dowling Community Garden at night (well, at 5:30 PM, which is the same thing as night in November at the 45th parallel).

    This print available at Etsy.

    and dark the night and chill at Etsy

    | Posted in 35mm, Autumn, Black & White, Dowling Community Garden, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica, through the spaces of the dark | 1 Comment »
    11.11.07

    let us go: stumbling about

    Four things I’ve stumbled upon lately:

    | Posted in let us go | No Comments »
    11.11.07

    Riverview

    Riverview - click to enlarge

    Riverview Theater, 38th Street and 42nd Avenue.

    | Posted in 35mm, Color, Maxxum, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, through the spaces of the dark | No Comments »
    11.10.07

    Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

    Bloodletting & Miraculous CuresAlthough everything was fragile and crucial right now, it would all be perfect once they achieved the state of being medical students. It floated before them like a transcendental and elusive plane of existence. They allowed that it would be a challenging profession, but it felt obvious that once admitted, the difficult thing would be done.

    Vincent Lam, “How to Get into Medical School, Part I”, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

    In these dozen interwoven stories, Vincent Lam charts four characters–Fitzgerald, Ming, Sri, and Chen–from medical school through to the middle of their careers. The focus is as much the personal as the professional, but this is no “Grey’s Anatomy” nor even “E.R.” soap opera; Lam’s language is far too poetic, his characters’ internal lives too rich, to boil the stories down to the romantic triangle and emergency-room drama that nevertheless run through them.

    The book’s richness owes much to its form. As a novel, the pull of the soap opera may have been irresistable. But these really are stories, each able to stand by itself though gaining much from the echoes that run across the pieces. We are given a chance to spend at least one story in the head of each of the male characters (interestingly, we are never in the head of Ming, the female recurring character, though she does have a solo turn or two), and there are also stories seen from the point of view of non-recurring characters which give us the opportunity to see the quartet from outside as well. By shifting the stories’ voices and tenses, Lam keeps us on our toes, and draws out aspects of the characters that may have been hidden in a more conventional telling.

    This isn’t just an interior book, though. There is plenty of excitement, too: a midnight medical flight to Guatamala, a harrowing encounter with SARS (the stories occur, for the most part, in Toronto between about 1990 and 2003), an emergency C-section, and enough emergency room chaos to fill a few episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy”. Lam handles these sections as masterfully as he does the slower, more thoughtful passages; the tension is as gripping as that in any thriller.

    “Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures” won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious award, in 2006; he has also gained the attention of prominent writers like Margaret Atwood and Sherman Alexie, attention that is certainly well-deserved. A novel, “Cholon, Near Forgotton”, is due out from Doubleday soon, apparently based on one of the stories in “Bloodletting”.

    | Posted in Talking of Michelangelo, Till human voices wake us | No Comments »
    11.10.07

    boo lights (color)

    boo lights (color) - click to enlarge

    The same boo lights, but through the Minolta Maxxum with slide film.

    | Posted in 35mm, Autumn, Color, Halloween, Maxxum, Pinned & Wriggling | No Comments »
    11.9.07

    night pumpkins

    night pumpkins - click to enlarge

    Pumpkins at Mother Earth Gardens, 38th Street and 42nd Avenue, Minneapolis. These are the pre-Halloween gourds, of course; Mother Earth Gardens is currently in the fallow period before the Christmas trees arrive around Thanksgiving. (Though if you’re in the neighborhood, stop in anyway; there’s plenty of stuff inside the shop to keep a gardener happy through the dark days of winter.)

    | Posted in 35mm, Color, Maxxum, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling | No Comments »
    11.8.07

    fire safety

    fire safety - click to enlarge

    | Posted in 35mm, Autumn, Black & White, Halloween, Kids, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
    11.7.07

    gruesome twosome

    gruesome twosome - click to enlarge

    | Posted in 35mm, Autumn, Black & White, Halloween, Kids, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
    11.6.07

    skull talk

    skull talk - click to enlarge

    | Posted in 35mm, Autumn, Black & White, Halloween, Kids, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
    11.5.07

    boo lights

    boo lights - click to enlarge

    | Posted in 35mm, Autumn, Black & White, Halloween, Minneapolis, Pinned & Wriggling, Yashica | No Comments »
    11.4.07

    Dia de los Muertos

    Dia de los Muertos - click to enlargeDia de los Muertos ofrenda at the Minnesota History Center honoring fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; read more about offrendas in St. Paul at the Night Editor.

    | Posted in 35mm, Black & White, Pinned & Wriggling, Saint Paul, Yashica | No Comments »
    11.3.07

    speedboat

    speedboat - click to enlarge

    | Posted in Black & White, Holga, Kids, Medium Format, Pinned & Wriggling, Up North | No Comments »
    11.2.07

    rocket boy

    rocket boy - click to enlarge

    Jack on the “rocket swing”.

    | Posted in Black & White, Holga, Kids, Medium Format, Pinned & Wriggling, Up North | No Comments »
    11.1.07

    swing out

    swing out - click to enlarge

    How about something a little lighter after all that Halloween Sturm und Drang?

    Back at the start of October, we took our last “camping” trip of the season; we were planning to go in the tent, but the weather was wet and grim, so we ended up at a friend’s place up north, in Outing, Minnesota.

    In front of their place was a simple swing–a board on a rope on a tree–that went far out over a steep hill. The big kids–Jack and Peter, 6, and Ella, 7–demanded “rocket rides” on this swing, which involved a big push over the precipice. I was only too happy to oblige.

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    | Posted in Autumn, Black & White, Holga, Kids, Medium Format, Pinned & Wriggling, Up North | No Comments »