Southwest Journal, Aug. 10–23, 2017

VOICES OF EAT STREET

Get Out Guide.

Bockley Gallery’s summer sampler PAGE B10

PAGE B1

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August 10–23, 2017 Vol. 28, No. 16 southwestjournal.com

Nominee for police chief pledges to rebuild trust Questions about officer training and accountability linger after July police shooting

By Dylan Thomas and Nate Gotlieb

Days after the apparent successor to former Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau pledged to repair the department’s relationship with the community, a town hall meeting in the Fulton neighborhood demonstrated just how much trust has eroded since a police officer shot and

killed a woman in that neighborhood in July.

Invited to Lake Harriet United Methodist Church by Ward 13 City Council Member Linea Palmisano, more than 150 people filled the pews for the Aug. 2 listening session, directing pointed questions about police training and

officer accountability to a panel that included members of both the Police Conduct Oversight Commission and the Office of Police Conduct Review. The panelists were put on the defensive by members of the audience who questioned

Medaria Arradondo, named acting police chief following the resignation of Janeé Harteau, was nominated to fill the post permanently by Mayor Betsy Hodges.

Photo by Nate Gotlieb

SEE ARRADONDO / PAGE A2

Questions remain Murals illustrate hope at Harbor Light after administration New paintings give voice to residents of the downtown homeless shelter

changes at Southwest Principal, assistant principals out

By Eric Best / ebest@southwestjournal.com

By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@southwestjournal.com

Where some may see a blank wall, Joan Vorderbruggen sees an opportunity for art to make a connection.

For Vorderbruggen, the Hennepin Theatre Trust’s director of public art and placemaking, the next canvases are the walls of the Harbor Light Center campus.

For the 400–500 people who stay at the downtown Minneapolis shelter each day, the two new murals, Vorderbruggen said, are meant to heal through designs inspired by the shelter community.

“I recognize and feel very strongly that this very large community is often highly invisible and marginalized and often seen as a negative,” Vorderbruggen said. “This positive activity is

an experimental attempt to see if (we can) not only we can make this community more visible and more appreciated but also give them something to be hopeful about.”

Murals have quickly become a regular experience of walking in downtown Minneapolis.

Thanks to the trust, international muralist and graffiti artist Eduardo Kobra painted the iconic Bob Dylan mural at 5th & Hennepin. There’s also a Pop Art-inspired piece at 10th & Hennepin from artist Greg Gossel. Now the projects at Harbor Light add two more to the shelter campus near 10th & Hawthorne, a corner of downtown Minneapolis tucked behind the ABC Ramps and the trust’s Orpheum Theater.

SEE HARBOR LIGHT MURAL / PAGE A10

Three of the four top administrators at Southwest High School have left the school in the past two weeks, sparking surprise and disappointment in the school community.

District leaders announced the retirement of longtime principal Bill Smith on July 27 and the departure of two assistant principals, Sue Mortensen and Brian Nutter, a few days later. They have appointed an interim principal, Karen Wells, for the 2017–2018 school year. They are also working with the school’s leadership council, comprised of staff, parents, community partners

and students, to fill the assistant principal positions before the start of the school year.

District leaders say they can’t comment on the moves due to state laws protecting the privacy of employees.

“We know some people have concerns about leadership changes at Southwest,” a district spokesman wrote in a statement. “And we understand. But state law prevents us from providing additional information about personnel changes.

Please know students’ success remains our top priority during this transition.

SEE BILL SMITH / PAGE A13

A2 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com FROM ARRADONDO / PAGE A1

whether the city’s system for civilian oversight of police could effectively shift the culture of a department described as overly aggressive, militarized and out of touch with the community they are sworn to protect.

Palmisano said she did not invite any representatives of the department because some of her constituents had expressed discomfort with the presence of uniformed officers following the July 21 shooting death of Justine Damond, 40, who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault. Officer Mohamed Noor, who responded to the call with his partner, shot Damond through the patrol car window when she approached the vehicle. She died at the scene, in the alley behind the 51st & Washburn home she shared with her fiancé, Don. One town hall attendee, who introduced herself as a neighbor of Damond’s, noted Noor had been on the force for just 21 months, and said the lessons instilled during officer training should have been fresh in his memory. What, she asked, were Minneapolis officers being taught?

An insider Similar questions await Medaria “Rondo” Arradondo, who is leading the department in the wake of Harteau’s resignation, submitted under pressure less than a week after Damond’s death. Nominated by Mayor Betsy Hodges to fill out Harteau’s term, Arradondo would be the city’s first black chief of police, and several City Council members said he was poised to win approval from a majority of their colleagues.

A 28-year veteran of the department, Arradondo began as a patrol officer in the 3rd Precinct. He later served as a school resource officer and worked a beat on the North Side, rising to inspector of downtown’s 1st Precinct before being named a deputy chief and Harteau’s chief of staff.

Palmisano said she hadn’t yet made up her

mind on his nomination and was still seeking constituent feedback at events like the town hall and a public hearing set for Aug. 9. It wasn’t the time for a “knee-jerk” reaction, she said.

Longtime department observer Dave Bicking, a member of Communities United Against Police Brutality, described Arradondo as an open and communicative leader who may very well be the best choice for chief. But Bicking said the council was passing up an important chance to conduct a wider search and to have a longer, public conversation about policing during what would likely be a months-long process.

“Stability in the department is not what we need,” he said. “We need change.”

Pledging change Both Noor and Officer Matthew Harrity, who also responded to Damond’s 911 call, failed to activate their body cameras either before or after the shooting. One of Arradondo’s first actions as acting chief was to announce on July 26 changes to the department’s body camera policy, including a new requirement to activate the cameras on all calls for service.

On July 31, Arradondo stood beside Hodges and laid out his vision for the department, pledging to focus on “culture change, accountability and outcomes.” He said he would seek community input while reviewing the department’s body camera and use-offorce policies “to evaluate whether they can be strengthened,” adding that he intended also to increase the department resources dedicated to the health and wellness of officers.

Pressed on how he would change the culture in the department, Arradondo acknowledged that shift would not come quickly or easily. He said it would require relationships built on trust and respect, both between members of the department and between its officers and the community.

“In the past several years, the Minneapolis Police Department as well as police departments all over the country have certainly been

At a listening session hosted by City Council Member Linea Palmisano, community members wrote down questions about policing. Photo by Dylan Thomas

scrutinized,” he said. “There have certainly been areas of our communities where the trust has been shaken. I am committed to making sure that when the history is written we are on the right side of history.”

The next day, the City Council Executive Committee met in special session and approved his nomination, paving the way for a vote by the full council on Aug. 18.

A base of support Those supporting Arradondo’s nomination include Lt. Bob Kroll, president of the union that represents Minneapolis police officers. Kroll described him as nice, reasonable and respected.

“We’ve always had good communications between us,” Kroll said.

City Council Member Lisa Bender (Ward 10), who attended the Palmisano-hosted town hall, described Arradondo as a “natural collaborator.” Bender said his status as an insider, one with nearly three decades of experience in the department, gave him a perspective and understanding that would help him shift the department’s culture.

North Minneapolis resident Manu Lewis, who attended Arradondo and Harteau’s July 31 press conference, said he’d known “Rondo” for several years and felt it was significant the department would be lead by an African-American chief for the first time. But Lewis said Arradondo still had work to do to broaden his base of support.

“Everyone wants opportunity in their community, so to work with who we have to get that done, to have someone familiar, is great,” he said.

southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 A3

By Michelle Bruch / mbruch@southwestjournal.com

WHITTIER FARMERS MARKET

Bonita Kitchen The new Filipino eggrolls at the Whittier Farmers Market come courtesy of Lenni Canell, who is making her mother’s recipe.

“My mother loved to feed people, and I love feeding people,” Canell said. “My problem is I keep giving them away for free.”

She said her mother routinely made 10-course meals, even though Canell was an only child, and opened a café in the ’60s in the Hennepin Avenue space where William’s Pub is today.

“I remember lines going out the door,” she said.

She said the lumpia, or eggroll, is a meal in itself, stuffed with pork, shrimp, water chestnuts, mushrooms, cabbage, celery and seasoning, with homemade sweet and sour sauce on the side.

“I like it because it educates people on another culture,” she said.

Family friend Nico Haight brought Filipino mementos to share at the market table. She displayed a statue made from the volcanic ash of the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo and a model of the American jeeps left behind in World War II that are still used as public transportation.

Canell’s late mother and father were graduates of the University of Minnesota, and they moved from the Philippines to Minnesota when she was 3 years old so her father could teach at the university. Bonifacio and Nenita died three

Bonita Kitchen owner Lenni Canell chats with a customer while her son Matt Graven cooks Filipino eggrolls.

Photo by Michelle Bruch

months apart, and the shop name is a hybrid of their nicknames.

Bonita Kitchen appears about twice a month at the Whittier Farmers Market, held 8:30 a.m.–1 p.m. every Saturday in the parking lot of Calvary Baptist Church, 2608 Blaisdell Ave. S.

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The Museum of Russian Art Museum Director Vladimir von Tsurikov said it feels like we’ve returned to Cold War days.

Von Tsurikov said constant media coverage that places Russia in a negative light impacts American perceptions of all Russian people and culture.

“It’s important to reintroduce something else into this dialogue,” he said. “Cultural diplomacy, people-to-people diplomacy.”

That’s why the museum is planning to facilitate a cultural tour to Moscow and St. Petersburg in 2018. Von Tsurikov said he wants to provide a chance for everyday Americans and Russians to interact.

“It’s the perfect time to go to Russia,” he said.

“It allows us to break barriers and deconstruct myths on both sides.”

Despite the negative press, von Tsurikov said he’s not seeing a direct impact on the museum.

But he worries it may impact public funding for Russian studies and the arts, at a time when there is a shortage of Russian speakers and experts in the U.S. Museum staff are thinking creatively to work around a Russian arts embargo in place for several years. Instead of acquiring pieces directly from Russian institutions, the museum displays work from private collections and other museums and relies on alternatives like multimedia as part of exhibits.

“There are ways to work around this if you’re not only looking at showing original artwork,” von Tsurikov said.

One current exhibition is called “Born in the USSR: Paintings of Childhood and Youth,” portraying youth in Soviet Pioneer uniforms and later becoming indoctrinated into the Communist party. The joyful piece “Milkmaids, Novella” by Nikolai Nikolaevich was recently installed in the museum’s gift shop, a spot that offers complimentary cups of tea.

The museum has tripled its events in recent years. They’re hosting family days, vodka and wine tastings, local artists and pop-up exhibitions. After-hours tours are available in English and Russian, and the Belarusian band Stary Olsa will perform the evening of Sept. 7.

“It’s a great opportunity to show there is more to Russia than you read on CNN,” von Tsurikov said.

NOTED: A crowdfunding campaign aims to raise $25,000 for The Uptown Dog House at a location to-be-determined.

Lyndale resident Melissa Winship said she learned Uptown likely doesn’t have other dog daycares because of zoning restrictions that limit them to industrial areas primarily along the Midtown Greenway. She works as a high school counselor, and said she’d love to find more dog daycare options for long workdays.

“It was crazy to me that there wasn’t anything [in Uptown],” she said.

Winship wants her daycare to feel welcoming, without breed restrictions. A retail space would sell locally made treats from businesses like Finley’s Barkery and offer a jobtraining program for youth.

A crowdfunding launch party is Aug. 20 from 4 p.m.–6 p.m. at LynLake Brewery.

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Stores flying yellow balloons in Uptown Aug. 19-20 signify there are deals inside benefiting charities.

Retailers in the newly formed Uptown Collective are banding together to hold events, the first of which is “Uptown Gives Back.” The new collaboration aims to draw more shoppers to Uptown.

Jamie Liestman, manager of John Fluevog Shoes, said each store is offering different deals that benefit charities of their choice. She empha-

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sized the chance for “guilt-free shopping.”

“Hopefully in subsequent years we can build on it,” Liestman said.

Participants include Magers & Quinn, Local Motion Boutique, Salon Sa Bel, CB2, Julia Moss Designs, SEE, John Fluevog Shoes, The Petal Cart and Aurora Spa. For each store’s promotion details, visit this story at southwestjournal.com or visit @UptownCollectiveMpls.

Great Northern Smokehouse Great Northern Smokehouse is under construction in the former Falafel King space at 701 W. Lake St. The “backyard barbecue-style” restaurant will feature fresh veggies, salads and smoked meats.

Restaurant representative Michael Veazey also owns the building.

“I’ve owned it for two years, tried to find some other local businesses to lease out the space, and then just came to the conclusion that I love food and I love business and I love real estate,” he told

city officials at a public hearing in late July. “So I was convincing somebody else to lease the space and I went, ‘What am I doing giving up the space to somebody else?’”

The City Council approved plans for outdoor seating and amplified music with 80 indoor seats.

“More importantly we’re trying to revitalize that corner and put a cornerstone business into what I believe is one of the more thriving and … growing neighborhoods in the city,” Veazey said.

Owner Hassan Samatar at Baraka Auto, located at 510 W. Lake St. Photo by Michelle Bruch

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LAKE & HARRIET

Baraka Auto opens for business while site awaits housing development While a developer works to secure funding for a six-story apartment building over the coming year, Baraka Auto Center has opened at 510 W. Lake St. This is Baraka Auto’s second location, and the first has operated in Northeast Minneapolis for nearly 20 years. Owner Hassan Samatar said Lake Street offers the perfect location to serve the East African community. He said the full-service shop performs everything from body work to engine rebuilds, and a large frame machine can handle bigger vehicles.

Samatar said many of his customers buy discounted vehicles at auction and bring them to Baraka Auto to rebuild.

“I always like to keep Plan B in my pocket,” said developer Steve Minn, whose company Lupe Holdings Corporation owns the site.

Minn hopes to secure funding to build

affordable housing through the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency; Hennepin County’s Affordable Housing Incentive Fund and Transit-Oriented Development program; and the Metropolitan Council’s Livable Communities Demonstration Account and TransitOriented Development grants.

Pending city approval, the project would provide 128 units with underground parking and additional enclosed and open-air parking spaces at ground level.

Minn said he could not reach purchase agreements with property owners to the north and west. The alley that empties onto Lake Street would remain navigable, he said, by building over the alley with 18-foot clearance. He said precedent for the flyover is evident at the Lime Apartments in LynLake and the Arts Quarter Lofts near 26th & Nicollet.

NOTED: Cajun Boiling is slated for the corner storefront at 1931 Nicollet Ave., according to a city wine and beer license application.

The owners did not immediately respond for comment. Reverie, the former tenant, has closed and is looking for a new space.

southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 A5

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Revel Apartments opened to residents Aug. 1, and the groundfloor Target store is slated to open in midOctober.

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Revel Apartments With a Target store headed to the ground floor in October, the Revel Apartments report that its 125 units are 42-percent leased. Pre-leasing began last winter, and staff adjusted pricing upward to move with demand.

The project opened Aug. 1. Staff said the fastest-moving units are 544- to 567-squarefoot “alcove” units (with separate sleeping spaces) leased for $1,450–$1,695, and onebedroom units of 691–988 square feet leased for $1,595–$1,795. Rents for the largest lofted two-bedroom units of 1,314 square feet are $4,500. To generate interest in the project, staff offered drinks at local breweries and

provided guests with VR goggles to virtually tour the building.

Amenities include gas grills, two rooftop patios, balconies, hammocks, pool tables and arcade games. Coils underneath a third-floor patio will allow the pool to remain open yearround as a hot tub in winter and dipping pool in summer. Aside from Target, additional retail space is available on the second floor.

Neon letters spell out “Cheapo,” the site’s former occupant, outside each elevator bay.

The development team includes the local CPM Companies and The Michaels Organization of New Jersey.

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Hopp said arrangements from conventional flower shops may already be weeks old by the time they reach customers.

“Mine were literally picked-to-order this morning,” she said.

She said her arrangements and flower choices tend to evoke a field of wildflowers. As many cutting-garden books come from California authors, Hopp said she’s spent lots of time researching long-lasting flowers for this latitude.

She invites other gardeners to visit her home for tips on growing more than 40 varieties that include snapdragons, zinnias, cosmos and

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“My design background is what gives me the artistic flair for putting things together,” she said.

Hopp works from home at her design firm 45 Degrees/Minneapolis, so she has more spare time for gardening. She said she started looking for a side project after becoming envious of her husband’s creative outlet as a member of the band The Melvilles.

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Harcey also closed the doors at his 10-yearold North Minneapolis restaurant Victory 44, a decision that he said wasn’t easy.

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The clock is ticking on an ambitious plan for Hennepin County to quickly develop new strategies and partnerships for ending youth homelessness.

The goal is to find housing for 150 teens and young adults experiencing homelessness in just 100 days, while also placing more than 100 of them into secure employment. Hennepin County was one of five communities across the country to recently accept the 100-Day Challenge, a national project launched last fall to inspire new approaches to ending homelessness for teens and young adults.

“It’s hugely ambitious,” said David Hewitt, director of the Hennepin County Office to End Homelessness. “It will require a communal effort.”

Hewitt said the county’s goals are significant but “attainable.” When he announced county’s entry into the challenge Aug. 2, Hennepin County was already three days into the 100-day countdown, he said.

Steve Cramer, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, a sponsor of the 100-Day Challenge, said meeting the housing and employment goals would require a partnership between local government, businesses and nonprofits. Cramer described ending youth homelessness as “a moral imperative,” and said there was also a strong business case to be made for filling jobs with local talent.

Cramer said downtown hotels are experiencing a workforce shortage, so some are partnering to train and place “several dozen” young people in hospitality industry jobs.

“Already we have a couple of models that are making a dent,” he said.

The team working on the 100-Day Challenge includes two young women who found supportive housing through The Link, a local nonprofit that works with

homeless and at-risk youth. One of them, Lele, connected with The Link in 2015 when she was coming out of treatment and found a place to stay in a Link-run housing program for youth in recovery.

Lele (who asked not to share her last name) said she is now two years sober and a 4.0 student at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. She said finding stable housing was an important first step for her.

“It’s a relief. It’s freedom,” she said. “It’s kind of unbelievable.”

Symmieona, 23, was homeless for five years and couch hopping before she found housing through The Link at age 20. The parent of a young daughter, Symmieona said stable housing made her a better mother.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development with private philanthropic partners, the challenge launched last fall in three communities: Austin, Texas; Cleveland; and Los Angeles.

At the end of 100 days, those three communities had found housing for 428 young adults, although the counts from Cleveland and Los Angeles included transitional housing placements.

In addition to Hennepin County, the communities participating in this round of the 100-Day Challenge are Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; Palm Beach County, Florida; and Louisville, Kentucky.

A press conference to announce Hennepin County’s entry into the 100-Day Challenge was held against the backdrop of active construction near YouthLink’s North Loop headquarters building. In partnership with Project for Pride in Living, YouthLink is developing a five-story, 47-unit building for young adults experiencing homelessness.

Ground was broken on the $17.8-million project in April, and its opening is expected in February.

southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 A7

City Council restricts menthol cigarette sales The City Council on Aug. 4 acted to restrict the sale of menthol tobacco products to tobacco shops and liquor stores.

The ordinance passed 10–2, with Council President Barb Johnson and Council Member Blong Yang, who both represent North Side wards, voting no. Both said the ordinance would unfairly target adult African-American smokers, who are much more likely to use menthol products than white smokers.

Johnson and Yang also expressed concern about the ordinance’s potential impact on the revenues of corner stores and convenience stores that sell tobacco products. The Coalition of Neighborhood Retailers, a group representing shop owners, argued that the council should have waited to see the results of an economic impact study before acting.

The amendment of the city’s tobacco sales ordinance, co-authored by City Council members Cam Gordon and Lisa Bender, goes into effect Aug. 1, 2018. While the ordinance originally would have limited sales of menthol tobacco products to just the city’s 25 tobacco shops, an amendment allowed for their sale at liquor stores, as well. That compromise opened a path for their continued sale in North Minneapolis, where no tobacco shops currently operate.

Gordon said the idea for the ordinance was brought to him Minneapolis residents with concerns about community health and youth smoking rates.

“I think every time something came up and I said, I need reassurance from the community this is supported, there was organizing and community support,” Gordon said, adding that the list of supportive organizations kept “growing and growing” past 50 groups.

But Gordon acknowledged the support was not unanimous, noting that a minority of those who testified at a public hearing on the ordinance spoke against the change. Many expressed concerns about the potential impacts on small businesses.

“I think it’s really important for all the people who support this move throughout the city to go to your convenience and corner stores, shop there, talk to them about this, thank them for trying to find ways to make this work and consider them partners, as they have been in the past, to prevent tobacco products from getting in the hands of young people so they don’t get addicted,” he said.

Sales of flavored, non-cigarette tobacco products were restricted to just tobacco shops after a 2015 City Council vote. That action was taken in response to the proliferation of flavored cigars, cigarillos and other products widely viewed as lures used by the tobacco industry to

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A youth advocate for menthol tobacco sales restrictions hugged City Council Member Lisa Goodman. Submitted photo

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That 2015 ordinance exempted menthol, mint and wintergreen tobacco products from the rules change, meaning they could still be purchased at any of the 300-plus Minneapolis retail outlets with a tobacco license. The action taken by the City Council in August removes that exemption for all outlets except liquor stores.

Yang said he found it “disturbing” that the council was acting without first measuring the potential impact on retailers, adding that his colleagues were making “hasty policy rather than good policy” in the run-up to a city election.

“I think that this ordinance unfairly targets African-Americans,” he said, noting that over 80 percent of black smokers smoke menthols.

That figure, which corresponds the results of an African American Leadership Forum survey of 407 black smokers in the Twin Cities, is slightly higher than the Minnesota Department of Health’s estimate that about 74 percent of black smokers statewide use menthols.

In Minnesota, black adults also smoke at a higher rate (22 percent) than their white peers (14 percent), according to a 2016 report from the department. Only about a quarter of white adult smokers smoke menthols. But a 2014 survey of Minnesota youth found 44 percent who had used cigarettes recently smoked menthols.

Yang said there wasn’t a strong case made that the new ordinance would lower youth smoking rates.

Johnson said it would’ve made “much more sense” to follow in the footsteps of Edina, where the council recently acted to raise the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products to 21.

“Who we are really hurting with this ordinance are adults that are basically addicted to cigarettes, to menthol cigarettes, in our community,” Johnson said.

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City Council members Cam Gordon and Lisa Bender, who authored an ordinance restricting menthol tobacco sales, pose with supporters.

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A8 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com

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By Jim Walsh

Twin Town turns 20

S

aturdays are typically busy at Twin Town Guitars, with a steady hum of customers strumming guitars, plucking ukuleles, pounding on drums, talking about music, music, music and making an all-together-now harmonic cacophony. To be sure, technology has made it easy to buy all sorts of musical instruments online, but there’s still nothing like whiling away an afternoon at Twin Town, caressing the gorgeous guitars and dreaming.

“There will always be something relevant about being able to go to the store, plug something in or give it a strum or look at it, touch it, feel what the neck profile is or give the drum a hit, to hear what the amplifier sounds like … that hopefully won’t go out of style,” said Twin Town owner Andrew Bell.

A recent Saturday was bustling like never before, as Bell and the rest of the Twin Town crew celebrated the store’s 20th birthday on Aug. 5 with a 20-percent-off sale, hot dogs, a pop-up show by Jeremy Messersmith and a BNLX-headlined birthday bash at the Triple Rock Social Club that night.

But the good vibes and great service aren’t relegated to special occasions. For two decades, the store on the corner of 34th & Lyndale has outfitted and inspired all sorts and stripes of musicians, and its dedication to teaching, organizing and providing a neighborhood one-stop for students and performing musicians alike has made it as vital a part of this community as the music itself. For proof, one need only get a load of the preponderance of Twin Town bumper stickers, T-shirts and other swag all over town.

“Community has been a really important thing for us,” Bell said, as dozens of customers, friends, music lovers and musicians wandered through the shop. “This is such an amazing place, an affordable city to live in. Great clubs, great publications, great radio, great restaurants, good schools. So we’re just super excited to be part of it all.

“My wife Carrie and I live ten blocks away, our kids are in the public schools, our friends and neighbors are curious and we want to be here.

That’s our mission. We’re not the only music store in town, and there are other amazing music stores here, too, but enough people have chosen us to keep us in business, and that is miraculous for us, actually. We wouldn’t be here without the support of all these people, right from the start.”

What sets Twin Town apart from the pack are those ties to the neighborhood, along with a unique dedication to programming, providing music lessons and sponsorship of numerous homegrown music events throughout the year.

“It’s super fun, and not just from kids’ perspectives, but families and adults,” Bell said. “When they reach a point and say, ‘That’s it. I’ve taken lessons for a couple years, and now I want to play in a band,’ we offer that. It’s a six-week thing, we take ‘em to the Whiskey (Junction) and they jump up and down on stage, and their two minutes on stage will answer thousands of questions and then (they’ll) ask a lot more. Anybody can get that experience. It’s just a little bit of dedication and practicing, and hopefully it’s affordable enough so

Twin Town Guitars owner Andrew Bell and crew were busy all day at an Aug. 5 party celebrating 20 years of music education and community on the corner of 34th & Lyndale.

Photo by Jim Walsh

you can try it out. But then if you really like it, find your neighbors, go to their garage and we’ll see you at Porchfest or something like that.”

It all started 20 years ago when Bell and former co-owner Jimmy Peterson found what they deemed to be the perfect spot. The two musicians had always dreamed of opening a store, and when the former Benedict’s Music storefront opened up, they grabbed it.

“It was just an empty storefront, but it’s the right neighborhood. Because as you know, between 50th (Street) and downtown, this place is just sandwiched with musicians and artists, and this is such a supportive neighborhood for that,” Bell said. “Jimmy and I just kind of had the idea of, ‘Let’s offer cool pedals, cool used gear priced really affordably, and let’s offer (guitar) set-ups.’

And sometimes set ups are this weird kind of elusive thing that people need to be educated on.

In Minnesota, you gotta get your guitar set up.

Summertime it’s 60 percent humidity with highs in the 80s and that can really tweak out your guitar.

And it goes 180 degrees the other way in the winter, with no humidity.

“And sometimes your guitar plays awesome and it’s ‘Aw, this is great,’ and sometimes it’s like, ‘This is a cheese cutter which is hurting me and I can’t play.’ So being able to spin around a quick set-up for twenty bucks is what we thought was a good idea, and we did that with and without (purchased guitar) strings for the first ten years.

“The whole idea was to help the people that we played with. We were playing in the clubs frequently, and we’d see all these friends that we knew, and people would be looking for pedals and looking for amps or ‘Oh, man, I really need a Tele,’ and that was really the idea. I had worked at Music Go Round and Jimmy had worked at Dave’s, and some of the things that really make sense to the musicians in this market that are playing in the clubs tonight was something that was kind of lost on some of those people. We’d be working there, going, ‘If we owned this place, we would do this,’ and — boom! — the answer is right there, and it’s

cheap, and it’s 20 bucks; this string, or this cable, or a set-up. You know, we’ll make your guitar play like a million bucks.

“But sometimes a corporate establishment would not necessarily see the benefit of that.

The whole thing for us was service after the sale, because we’re in the club later that night with our friends and the last thing we need is, ‘Dude, this thing I got from you isn’t doing what it’s supposed to.’ It’s a bad position to be in, so you’ve got to be not just honest and forthright and square with everybody, but really give them the solution they’re looking for.”

It worked. For 20 years now, that dedication to providing service and knowledge has made Twin Town a trusted name amongst both up-andcoming musicians and bona fide rock stars.

“One of my favorite guys, Paul Westerberg, comes in once in a while and I freak out a little quietly because … the Replacements,” Bell said.

“Or when (Dinosaur Jr.’s) J. Mascis runs in and wants to try a bunch of stuff. (Surf punk guitar legend) Dick Dale had a meet-and-greet here.

Dick Dale! The guy who totally kind of (was the) put-reverb-in-an-amplifier guy! Huge highlight for everybody in the store was the day (The Smiths’) Johnny Marr spent all day here. (Babes In Toyland’s) Lori Barbero bursting in and going, ‘Where’s Evan?,’ and it was (The Lemonheads’) Evan Dando.

“Rock stars are awesome, and it’s fun to see them, but the highlights are, and this sounds kind of cheesy and corny, but somebody playing their first guitar, child or adult, it’s just like, ‘Yes, I’m going to do this.’ Maybe they’ve been borrowing a guitar forever, or bass or drums or whatever, but now it’s time. Their very own guitar. You can see the gears turning, and they’re off. That’s pretty cool. We see that routinely with our youth bands and teen bands and it’s crazy how you never tire of something that optimistic and incredible.”

Jim Walsh lives and grew up in South Minneapolis.

He can be reached at jimwalsh086@gmail.com

southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 A9

Voices

Wary of Rex 26 There are plans for another building in the Wedge neighborhood at 26th & Lyndale. In case you haven’t been to 26th & Lyndale lately during the day, this intersection has turned into a parking lot. But do go ahead and build your 86-unit apartment building there and add an Aldi grocery store taking up 21,025 square feet in this space, with customers arriving to shop and to crowd this corner even more.

And where does all the space for this project come from, you ask? Some is coming from the old Rex Hardware store, now gone. Some will come from a home that has already been torn down. There are two more homes that are scheduled to be demolished. These are houses that are still occupied, and people are still living in them. One can’t help but wonder if the people who are living in these houses want to keep on living there and not move. The developer wants to demolish these two homes as space for a parking lot for the Aldi Store. The developer sees people’s homes as obstacles in the way of his plans.

Where were the people who run our city government, the council members and the planning committee members, who should be protecting our citizens and their homes? Don’t these homes and people have some rights in this matter? Where is the

city government official or the planning committee member to say no, no, no for a parking lot?

Once again, the city officials can’t be counted on to protect our rights. No one listens at City Hall to the voice of the people. Their voices are silenced by the sound of the money generated by the Rex 26 development filling the city’s coffers.

So why am I speaking out when so many see only sunshine and roses in this project?

Once again, this project is based on a prediction of what will occur, but predictions have a way not keeping their promises of success.

Just last week I read in the paper that some hospitals are closing their maternity facilities because people are having fewer children in these times. Another sign of what might come are all the “For Lease” signs at apartment buildings in the Lake & Lyndale area.

Perhaps a more cautious approach is called for — a wait-and-see attitude, if you will — and the money spent more wisely on what is really needed.

Joyce Aprea Murphy East Isles

Context for a candidacy Your story about Ward 10’s newest city council candidate (“Latest Ward 10 candidate wants ‘a seat at the table,’” July 27) lacks important context.

Saralyn Romanishan’s website candidate bio focuses on two things: one, her time running a Facebook conspiracy page (she calls it “community organizing”); and two, her experience as a Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association board member. She tells us those are the reasons she’s qualified for City Council.

We should talk about those things.

Romanishan’s Facebook organization, Minneapolis Residents for Responsible Development Coalition, described how it was founded in December 2013, just after Lisa Bender’s election, to counteract a City Council that wasn’t listening and to give neighbors “a voice and anew [sic] place to be heard.” Bender wasn’t sworn in until 2014. Romanishan has been acting in disgruntled opposition to Bender for longer than Bender has actually been a council member.

Romanishan has a long trail of disqualifying public statements. She has compared city government with Hitler’s Third Reich; called the city’s plan to empower underrepresented groups (Plan for Equitable Engagement) a “pogrom”

(I suppose because it might undo the existing power structure favoring white homeowners); advanced strange conspiracy theories about nefarious connections between the City of Minneapolis and Brazil; derided Bender as illegitimate for not having lived in the neighborhood long enough; ridiculed Bender by stating (incorrectly) that she is from a “4th ring small town suburb.”

As a woman of color and renter who has lived in Minneapolis for a relatively short time, the hostility to outsiders reflected in these statements is alarming to me. (Sources: https://goo.gl/ HTtTDY.) It’s odd that Romanishan claims she’s spent the last four years “promoting relations between the city, residents, and developers.” As a resident of Lowry Hill East, I know that’s the opposite of what she’s done. Romanishan is alarmingly unfit for public office and running a campaign that’s completely inconsistent with her public record.

Chandra Lalla Lowry Hill East

A10 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com FROM HARBOR LIGHT MURAL / PAGE A1

Harbor Light, located in a nearly century-old warehouse building in the densest area of shelter beds in the region, provides overnight stays, transitional housing and veterans support housing, along with clinical services and free meals on weekend evenings. The Salvation Army runs the non-profit shelter, the state’s largest.

Artists Bianca Pettis and Erin Sayer painted the murals in partnership with shelter residents, who gave them words like forgiveness, mercy and love. The two Twin Cities-based artists then worked the themes into their own unique styles.

“The most resounding message that we got was that people wished for a home. They want a home to go to,” Vorderbruggen said. “[From] that visioning session there was some sort of strength that I was bestowed that I don’t normally have.”

Pettis, an actress and painter who founded the local sound artist duo Beatrix*Jar, uses a complex array of her own cartoon-style characters in zany, soundwave-inspired pieces. She uses calm blue colors, rather than evocative warm reds, to make people feel happy, Pettis added.

“My intention is really always to make feel elevated,” Pettis said. “I feel like the parking lot looked a certain way before, and then we painted it and we lifted it up a bit. We added some color and life to it.”

The wall, once blank, now shows dozens of two-dimensional faces interspersed with inspirational words. The faces, she said, allow people to see themselves in the cartoon style. Two faces close together are meant to resemble two people she saw sleeping in front of the wall one morning. Others show people she met while painting or her own family members. Each has a different shape, color and size.

“I want it to be about humanity,” she said.

Sayer is a veteran mural artist, having helped paint Kobra’s Dylan mural and Gossel’s Prince-inspired Pop Art piece. The two largerthan-life figures were in the back of her mind when she looked to plan her own mural. Sayer

Artist Bianca Pettis painted a mural in her own cartoonish style at the Harbor Light Center in downtown Minneapolis.

Photo by Eric Best

drew imagery from Dylan’s 1975 song “Shelter from the Storm.”

“We’re a Bob Dylan town. We’re a Prince town,” Sayer said.

The mural fills the approximately 150-footlong wall with waves of storm clouds and a tornado on one side and a sun rising on the other. Pulling details from an old Dylan concert poster from 1969, Sayer uses 1960s and 1970s colors.

Sayer said the time working on her wall has humanized what was previously an area of downtown that she didn’t normally visit. The lives of people at the shelter can feel separate from the reality of others downtown, she added.

“What’s neat is working with people where it’s a meaningful thing. Everyone is so happy and so nice and grateful, even. It’s been really cool meeting people who use the services here,” Sayer said. “I just wish people would have more empathy instead of being afraid of people who need help.”

While the artists painted over the course of

a few weeks, the trust operated a booth at the parking lot around Harbor Light that offered the public food, water and refuge from the summer heat. Like the nonprofit’s “5 to 10 on Hennepin” initiative to regularly program a block of Hennepin Avenue, Vorderbruggen brought in MAD DADS, or Men Against Destruction, Defending Against Drugs and Social Disorder, to connect with people walking by the murals.

Funding for the project came from a Southwest Airlines Heart of the Community grant and the Downtown Improvement District.

Bill Griffith of Larkin Hoffman, a firm that represents parking lot owner and operator MVP REIT, said the mural project is going hand-inhand with improvements to the lot, such as new fencing, lighting and a security plan. The company didn’t charge the Hennepin Theatre Trust to use the parking lot, which Vorderbruggen said is a first for them downtown.

“What was terrific about this mural project is that it works very well with the site improvements,” Griffith said.

Captain Clara Braddock of Harbor Light said the project gives her often unheard clients an opportunity to be listened to.

“I think the artists capturing what people who live in the building want to say, I think that’s tremendous that the artists are able to do that,” Braddock said. “It is a voice because the murals came out of what people felt they needed or wanted in life.”

The trust plans to unveil the finished murals at an Aug. 23 event in the parking lot, located at 41 N. 10th St. The event, planned in partnership with Kulture Klub Collaborative, a nonprofit that brings together homeless youth and artists, will be modeled after the Minnesota State Fair.

When people leave the shelter, Vorderbruggen, they often go back into an unsafe environment. The murals offer them a bit of humility and compassion, she added.

“There are so many barriers that segregate and separate us. I feel very strongly that art is a connector and a healer,” she said.

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southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 A11

Ariel Waskewitch and daughter Nakoda Kootenay, visiting from Canada, pause at Bde Maka Ska (Lake Calhoun).

Photos by Michelle Bruch

Mni Ki Wakan water summit starts at the lake

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By Michelle Bruch / mbruch@southwestjournal.com

People stood in a circle near Thomas Beach the early morning of July 31, each taking a sprig of sage and a pinch of tobacco to burn before walking around Bde Maka Ska, also known as Lake Calhoun.

“Sometimes we get caught up in the city, but we have to remember how to step back into the circle of community,” said Thorne LaPointe, a member of the Sicangu Lakota tribe.

The Four Sacred Directions Water Walk kicked off Mni Ki Wakan Indigenous Peoples’ Decade of Water Summit Aug. 1-2, hosted at First Universalist Church in the CARAG neighborhood. The inaugural summit, dedicated to the protection of water and human rights, drew participants from as far as southern Alberta, Canada.

This is the second year that indigenous people have gathered for a walk around the lake. (Last year, they walked in the rain.) At points on the north, south, east and west ends of the lake, walkers stopped to listen to Native American songs and calls to clean and restore the water.

“How society views land reveals its innermost character,” LaPointe said.

His father, LeMoine LaPointe, said people from all walks of life visit the lake to find peace and “good positive medicine.” He talked about the movement to rename the lake Bde Maka Ska, and the current namesake John C. Cahoun’s role in the Indian Removal Act.

“The person this lake is named after is responsible for the Trail of Tears,” he said.

Bde Maka Ska, an early Dakota name for the lake, translates as White Earth Lake.

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is submitting a petition for the name change to the Hennepin County Auditor.

Members of First Universalist Church, host of the August summit, have spent years building relationships in the Native American community. The church rented space to The Sioux Chef, sent members to work camps at reservations and created a Native American connections group years ago.

LeMoine said the summit will give indigenous people a moment to reconnect. He said his grandfather remembered traveling on horseback and the remnants of the buffalo population.

“It was like being from a different dimension,” he said. “The patience, the wisdom was so obvious. It’s something I miss because we don’t see much of that these days. People don’t want to take the time to sit down and visit with each other. We as a people started coming apart when we forgot how to visit. How do we restore relationships that we lost?”

Participants in the summit will discuss those questions, he said, and will develop a vision for the next decade.

“Maybe one day we could encircle this lake with people,” LeMoine said.

Daryl Kootenay, Thorne LaPointe and Wakinyan LaPointe (l to r) sing July 31 at Bde Maka Ska (Lake Calhoun).

Contact Jennifer Miller to learn more.

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A12 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com

Moments in Minneapolis

By Cedar Imboden Phillips

Long before Zillow

O

ne of the most heavily used collections at Hennepin History Museum is our extensive collection of south Minneapolis historic real estate photographs.

These photographs, dating to the 1910s through the 1930s, were taken by the Confer Bros. Realty Co. (“Confer with Confer”) and show the rapidly growing city as the residents in the city’s south and southwestern neighborhoods purchased and sold homes. This undated photograph was taken during the sale of 4300 Xerxes Ave. S.; the listing price was $10,500.

One amusing story about this home: During the 1930s, singer and saxophonist Huck Holman, a member of Dick Long’s Orchestra, lived here. In one of those unexpected but convenient coincidences, a fellow orchestra member, the cornet player, lived at 4300 Xerxes Ave. N. When mail arrived at the wrong address, as it often did, they could easily swap letters at rehearsals or performances.

Cedar Imboden Phillips is executive director of the Hennepin History Museum. Learn more about the museum and its offerings at hennepinhistory.org or 870-1329.

Photograph from the collection of the Hennepin History Museum

southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 A13 FROM BILL SMITH / PAGE A1 Longtime principal Bill Smith retired July 31 after nearly 50 years in education, including 14 as principal at Southwest High School.

His departure was part of an administrative shake-up that’s caused outrage among parents and staff. File photo

We believe it will be another great year at Southwest because of the committed staff, families and students who make it such a fantastic school.”

However, many community members say they are concerned about sudden turnover and the lack of answers. Several spoke at the School Board meeting on Aug. 8, questioning the late date of the moves and the lack of transparency in the process.

“I appreciate that (this) is a private matter that you cannot share with the public, but what I ask is that we have the ability as a community to address those issues effectively,” parent Karen Kleinhans said. “So, keeping it under wraps is problematic.”

Thomas said Cecilia Saddler, his deputy chief, will host a training session for the Southwest leadership team so they know what “the parameters are” and what questions they can legally ask. The final hiring decision will rest with the superintendent, he said.

The former administrators at Southwest worked to ensure the school would continue to be successful after they departed, Thomas added.

“What we’re going through at Southwest, we literally go through this every year,” he said. “But we also know that we’ve got a community (at Southwest) that’s involved, staff that are involved and a common vision so that we can support and build a leadership around that next leg of the race.”

Administrators well liked

Concerns remain

Smith came to MPS in 1997 and was named principal of Southwest at 2003. In an interview, he said his decision came after a yearand-a-half of thinking about it.

“The thought that my retirement was going to happen was already there,” Smith said.

In a blog post, he called his years at Southwest “the highlight of my professional career.” He pointed to the school’s graduation, proficiency and “college success” rates as evidence of success.

“I trust you will understand my request for time and privacy,” Smith wrote near the end of the post.

He’ll be working on special projects for the district through the end of the year, a spokesman said.

Wells, the interim principal, has years of experience as a building principal. She has been a coach and mentor for principals and newly appointed teachers since her retirement in 2014.

She wrote in a letter on the school’s website that her intent is to support and advocate for the stable learning environment that families and students have come to expect.

Assistant Principal Tara FitzGerald, who is entering her second year at Southwest, will join her in the school’s administration.

Still, some parents and community members are wary of the changes. They note the complexity and size of the school and have asked that Nutter, the assistant principal, be allowed to stay.

“Moving forward we just simply need stability and a plan for stability,” said Spurgat, the parent and leadership council member.

In her comments, Kleinhans cited an article by local education writer Sara Lahm, who reported that an investigation took place at the school. Lahm reported that the fallout appears to have included the administrative shake-up.

The district spokesman confirmed the district received a complaint, which was investigated.

“Per state law, the only public information is the district received a complaint,” he wrote.

Parent Matt Voda at the meeting asked for more engagement from the superintendent and demanded more transparency.

“It’s missing now and it’s breaking the trust with us parents,” Voda said. “We’d love to know what the plan is beside just backfilling a principal.”

What we’re going through at Southwest, we literally go through this every year.

But we also know that we’ve got a community (at Southwest) that’s involved, staff that are involved and a common vision so that we can support and build a leadership around that next leg of the race.

— Michael Thomas, chief of academics, leadership and learning

School Board Chair Rebecca Gagnon, who had two of her children attend Southwest, said Smith had incredibly high expectations for all students and was excellent in developing talent in staff. Gagnon noted that she’s only seen him wear clothing with a Southwest logo on it.

Isaac Van Wert, a student and member of the school’s leadership council, said Smith came to a large majority of basketball games and even showed up at 4:15 a.m. one day to send off the choir on a trip to Colorado.

“I’m told he didn’t own a shirt that wasn’t purple or white,” parent and leadership council member Gwen Spurgat said, referring to the school colors.

Mortensen and Nutter also appear to be well liked. Mortensen had been at Southwest since 2000, and Nutter had been there three years.

Ellen van Iwaarden, outgoing executive director of the Southwest Foundation, said Mortensen was “the kind of assistant principal who really develops relationships with the kids.”

“Everyone liked her,” said Van Wert, the student.

Nutter, a Roosevelt High School alumnus, is easy to work with and helpful, van Iwaarden said. Southwest math teacher Annette Gorgo-

glione said she considered going into administration because of his example.

“Southwest had become his community (and) his school,” Nutter’s wife, Jada, said at the board meeting. “Brian’s new assignment was beyond surprising and disappointing for him to learn about.”

Selecting new leaders When the moves were initially announced, parents expressed frustration about the selection process. The district had granted Southwest greater autonomy in 2016 by granting it community partnership school status, and parents felt that the designation meant the community would get to choose the next leader.

There initially appeared to be miscommunication about the level of community involvement in the process that district leaders later attempted to clear up. It’s now understood that Southwest’s leadership council, comprised of parents, students and staff, will interview candidates and make a recommendation to the superintendent, who will have the final say.

It’s a standard process across the district, said Michael Thomas, chief of academics, leadership and learning.

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A14 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com

By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@southwestjournal.com

City, neighborhoods fund solvent switch at LaMac Cleaners LaMac Cleaners received $47,500 on July 21 to switch out equipment that uses a hazardous solvent.

The business received $37,500 through the nonprofit Environmental Initiative and the city of Minneapolis’ Green Business Cost Sharing Program. The Tangletown and Windom neighborhood associations each contributed $5,000.

“Sooner or later, everybody has to convert to green cleaning,” said Nick Zedania, owner of LaMac. “It’s great to be part of a healthy environment.”

The solvent, perchloroethylene or perc, is by far the most commonly used solvent in dry cleaning shops, according to the Occupational Safety & Health Administration. Perc may pose serious health hazards if exposure is not properly controlled.

“Dry cleaning workers who routinely breathe excessive amounts of the solvent vapor or spill perc on their skin are at risk of developing health problems,” the agency says.

Through the Green Business Cost Sharing Program, Minneapolis offers up to $35,000 for dry cleaners to switch to alternative solvents.

The city also offers up to $25,000 to auto body shops to switch to water-based paints and up to $100,000 for green business practices that focus on air quality improvement by reducing volatile organic compound emis-

From left to right: Tangletown Neighborhood Association board member Kathy Kornblum, Windom Community Council President Steve Rawlins, LaMac owner Nick Zedania and Patrick Hanlon, environmental initiatives manager for the City of Minneapolis.

Photo by Nate Gotlieb

sions, particulate matter emissions or other harmful hazardous air pollutants.

Equipment conversion costs between $80,000 and $100,000 for dry cleaners, according to Patrick Hanlon, the city’s environmental initiatives manager. There’s not a lot of return on investment for the switch, he said, Minneapolis used to have 12 dry cleaners that used perc. Now it’s down to three. Two other dry cleaners have submitted applications

to the cost-sharing program. Hanlon said the city is working with a third, Osman Cleaners in South Minneapolis.

Including this year’s applicants, more than 70 businesses have participated in the Green Business Cost Sharing Program, Hanlon said.

The program operates in partnership with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce’s Energy Smart program, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Minnesota Technical

Assistance Program. It was developed by business owners, multiple government agencies, nonprofits and utility companies.

The city estimates it will reduce air pollution by nearly 120,000 pounds in 2017 because of the project.

“This has been really eye opening to see (with) bringing funding partners together what we can do to accelerate the pace of change,” Hanlon said.

Watershed District invites comment on management plan The Minnehaha Creek Watershed District is inviting the public to review and comment on its draft 10-year update to its watershed management plan.

The plan establishes priorities to focus the district’s work and provides flexibility to respond to needs and opportunities identified in real time. It builds on the previous plan’s technical understanding of watershed resources and emphasizes collaboration with communi-

ties to align water resource goals with local land use goals.

The Watershed District is distributing the draft plan to cities, townships, counties, state review agencies, lake associations and other stakeholders for 60-day review and comment.

Following the end of the comment period on Sept. 5, it will provide written responses and hold a public hearing to solicit further input.

The revised plan will then be submitted to the

state review agencies for final review.

The district developed the plan with community guidance through committees, events, publications and special meetings.

The Minnehaha Creek Watershed District is the local unit of government responsible for the 177 square miles that drain into Minnehaha Creek and ultimately the Mississippi River. The Watershed District works in partnership with the public, private and civic

sectors to help protect and improve natural systems, make investments in infrastructure and improve the quality of water and quality of life.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Watershed District, and its staff is commemorating it with events for the public. The next event will be a Lake Hiawatha cleanup 10 a.m.– 2p.m. Saturday, Aug. 19. Learn more abut the events series at minnehahacreek.org/50.

Minneapolis posts deleted climate change data to website Minneapolis has joined cities around the country in posting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s deleted climate data.

The web pages contain basic information on the basic science behind climate change, the ways weather is impacted from increasing greenhouse gas emissions and actions the federal govern-

ment has taken to reduce the impact.

The goal was to ensure people have access to information on climate change, according to a city news release.

“While this information may not be readily available on the EPA’s website, in Minneapolis we know climate change is real,” the webpage says.

Burning fossil fuels pumps more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, creating a blanket effect that traps in heat. The city warns that doing nothing could create a future that’s hotter with more violent weather, fewer species and disrupted systems.

Other cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Houston,

San Francisco and Seattle, have also posted the information, according to Minneapolis.

The EPA updated its website this past April to “reflect the agency’s new direction under President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt,” according to a news release.

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Greater & Greener Conference comes to Twin Cities Urban parks conference showcases local parks

A conference of the world’s urban park leaders recently brought Twin Cities parks into the limelight.

More than 1,000 officials from more than a dozen countries came to Minneapolis and St. Paul July 29–Aug. 2 as part of the Greater and Greener Conference, an urban parks conference that travels to a North American city every two years.

Jayne Miller, superintendent of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, played a major role in bringing the gathering to Minnesota. Since 2013, Miller has been connecting with officials to prepare the Twin Cities to show off the best of its nearly 160 neighborhood parks, its regional system and upcoming park initiatives.

“That four years went by really fast,” she said. “This is really where the high-level thinking is done, at this conference.”

The Greater and Greener Conference, which is organized by the City Parks Alliance, draws park leaders from a wide array of industries, from municipalities and government posts to nonprofits and landscape architecture firms. Miller estimates the conference hosted guests from approximately 40 states and 17 countries, from a mayor from Albania to Korean officials. While it has an international audience, it primarily brings in leaders from North America.

Over five days, attendees go on dozens

Happy Haynes of Denver’s Parks and Recreation Department, Superintendent Jayne Miller of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, and Mike Hahm of St. Paul’s Parks and Recreation Department exchanged a bonsai tree as part of a Greater and Greener Conference ceremony.

Photos courtesy Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board

of tours, take part in workshops and host panels. Unlike a typical industry conference, participants of the conference get to experience parks firsthand.

For example, Tom Evers, executive director of the Minneapolis Parks Foundation, led a walking tour of future project sites in Greater and Greener Conference attendees met with Team Teamworks, a Park Board program to give local youth on-the-job training through work in the parks.

Northeast Minneapolis and Nicollet Island.

The foundation is a philanthropic partner to the Park Board and supports initiatives like RiverFirst, a series of future riverfront improvements and destination park sites.

Evers said the “place-based” conference allows urban leaders to understand how unique park facilities operate face-to-face.

“It allows people to get out and see it in practice,” he said.

Miller, who now serves on the board of the City Parks Alliance, said guests were log rolling at Minneapolis lakes and bicycling through the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway System. She noted that the board’s implementation of street outreach staff, who engage at-risk youth, and its approach to proactively creating safe space for protests were of interest to attendees.

“People were blown away by the system of parks that we have,” she said.

Instead of meeting rooms and lectures,

many of the events feature staff in the community who have a passion for the work, Evers said.

“We live in the system, we love the system and sometimes we take it for granted,” Evers said. “It reminds you of how much you have.”

While Minneapolis officials get to brag about their parks, they’re also soaking in all the work others are doing in their field around the world.

Evers noted an initiative from the mayor of Philadelphia to raise $500 million for park and library improvements through a soda tax. He said he learned about larger financing systems, engaging communities more equitably and finding solutions for climate challenges like flash flooding. He was particularly inspired by the story of speaker Sabina Ali of Toronto, an organizer who turned a neighborhood park into a thriving community through a market and new amenities, he added.

This year’s keynote speakers were Glenn Harris, the president of the new Race Forward, a social justice nonprofit, and Lykke Leonardsen, the program director for the City of Copenhagen’s Resilient and Sustainable City Solutions.

The Park Board and St. Paul’s Parks and Recreation Department co-hosted the conference. Both cities are known as some of the top cities in the world for parks. The Trust for Public Land has named the Minneapolis park system the country’s best for the past five years. St. Paul has typically trailed just behind Minneapolis or tied for the top honor.

“It was a true partnership between the City of St. Paul and the [Park Board],” Evers said.

The Greater and Greener Conference was in San Francisco in 2015. It will move to Denver in 2019, Philadelphia in 2021 and Seattle in 2023.

Miller said the diverse range of host cities give the conference an opportunity to showcase what cities are doing to take charge of different challenges, from the very livable and rapidly growing Denver to the historic Philadelphia.

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REMODELING SHOWCASE

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BATHROOM REMODEL: MODERN LOOK WITH NOD TO THE OLD Bluestem Construction understands workings of older homes

J

ackie Krammer and Daniel Shaw knew they had to remodel the second-floor bathroom of their Lynnhurst home if they were ever to sell the property, but they also wanted to enjoy the remodeled space right now.

They asked friends for contractor recommendations, went on the Remodeler’s Showcase home tour and visited the Southwest Journal Home Improvement Fair at Burroughs Community School. The couple chose Bluestem Construction because they felt a rapport with the design team and because owner Timothy Ferraro understands the workings of older homes.

“I felt like he understood old houses, and he really got the complexity of both the design and the systems piece, so that he was realistic,” Krammer said. “It felt to me that he understood what it would take to do it right.”

Except for a newer toilet and tub-shower combination, the bathroom was original to the 1919 Arts & Crafts house. It had a pedestal sink and no storage other than a medicine cabinet. A large radiator took up much of one wall, and white subway tile covered the tub surround up to within a few feet of the ceiling.

Everything was open to everything else – tub, toilet and sink, with no opportunity for privacy should someone need to share the space. That would have to change, as would the tub/ shower arrangement.

For the vanity, Krammer selected a unique grain of wood from Bluestem’s cabinetmaker, Siteline Cabinetry.

Photos courtesy of Bluestem Construction

Krammer and Shaw wanted a walk-in shower for the bathroom to be accessible as they age. They also wanted a separate space for the toilet, and some storage in the bathroom.

“If we could do all that, that was what we were going for,” Krammer said.

Rather than expand the house, they decided to borrow

space from a large built-in hall linen closet and from Shaw’s very deep closet in the adjacent bedroom. Shrinking the hall closet yielded room for a recessed vanity. Shortening Shaw’s closet allowed for a private toilet area that Bluestem Director of Client Services Tamatha Miller referred to as the W.C., short for the European “water closet.” A pocket door can separate it

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REMODELING SHOWCASE

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from the rest of the bathroom.

“It’s nice to have a separate W.C. so you can do multiple uses if you need to,” Miller said. “It’s a hall bath, so if they have guests, that’s the bathroom.”

Nearly doubling the room’s size also allowed for built-in storage space. Bluestem crafted a custom hutch at one end of the tub, with drawers in the bottom half topped by open shelves and capped by a pair of glassed-in cupboards at the ceiling. The drawers provide some privacy to the tub area while the open shelves allow natural light to penetrate the room.

The couple chose to replace the original subway tile with a grayish-green subway tile for the tub surround and the lower portions of the rest of the walls, excluding the shower.

The shower floor is white hexagonal tile in a nod to the house’s history. Shaw wanted marble for the shower walls and the rest of the bathroom floor, but Krammer worried it might be slippery. They went with a satin-finish porcelain tile designed to look like marble.

“What I liked about that tile was that it wasn’t trying to be Carrara marble,” Miller said. “It was more of a transitional representation of it without trying to be it.”

For the vanity and hutch, Krammer selected a unique grain of wood from Bluestem’s cabinetmaker, Siteline Cabinetry.

Siteline builds custom and semi-custom cabinets, which buyers can tailor further by adding a glaze to one of 35 stains.

“It’s fantastic, because you can alter that color to tie it into the rest of the palette,” Miller said. “We were able to pick this green that she just fell in love with and add a brown glaze to it and give it more depth and tie it in with the other choices she made.”

Bluestem finished the room with brushed nickel plumbing fixtures and oil-rubbed bronze drawer pulls and hardware. “Their existing doors have an oil-rubbed bronze, dark finish to them,” Miller said. “We were trying to bring in a tone that existed throughout the house into that space to tie that together.”

During construction, Miller also worked with Krammer’s request to extend the subway tile up all three walls surrounding

the vanity to retain more of the bathroom’s 1919 style. But, the electrical outlets had already been roughed into the side walls, and they would have disrupted the aesthetic of the added tile.

Miller offered a compromise — extend the tile only behind the vanity to the ceiling. That satisfied Krammer.

“The thing that I like about Bluestem is that there is a responsiveness,” she said. “I wanted to modernize, but I wanted a nod to the old.”

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The couple chose to replace the original subway tile with a grayish-green subway tile for the tub surround and the lower portions of the rest of the walls.

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A18 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com

News

By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@southwestjournal.com

Test scores flat in MPS; leaders not pleased State test scores remained flat in Minneapolis Public Schools this past school year, and district leaders aren’t pleased.

About 9,395 students were not reading or able to do math at their grade level, according to Superintendent Ed Graff. He called it “not acceptable.”

“Anyone who cares about kids can’t be happy with our results,” he said.

Graff said the district will acknowledge the challenge with achievement but focus specifically on the individual student. He cited the district’s literacy work, which includes a new, district-wide pre-K–5 literacy curriculum, and efforts in social-emotional learning, equity and “multi-tiered systems of support,” also known as MTSS. MTSS is the idea of instilling practices that ensure students have high-quality

MINNEAPOLIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS PROFICIENCY RATES, 2017 50

Percent proficient (math) Percent proficient (reading) Percent proficient (science)

40

30

2014

2015

2016

2017

instruction while differentiating that instruction to support individual students, Graff said.

“Without that, it’s catch as catch can, and we’re not working in that manner effectively,” he said.

The Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments occur once a year, but the district doesn’t want to wait that long to assess students, Graff said. He said MPS has a new screening tool, called the FAST, that allows teachers to get information about where students are and adjust.

“That, to me, is really going to be a gamechanger,” he said.

Graff recognized there are pockets of success within the district and that many staff members are doing great work. But he circled back to the students who aren’t at grade level.

“We’ve got to do things differently,” he said.

“That’s the commitment that we’re here to make. It’s not a quick turnaround, it’s not a fix for tomorrow, it’s addressing it today and being here for the long haul.”

Statewide, MCA scores showed little change from last year, according to the Minnesota Department of Education. Math scores decreased slightly for some grade levels and remained constant for others. Reading scores remained largely the same.

Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius said in a statement that test scores are just one

part of the picture to understanding student achievement. But she conceded that it’s frustrating to see the slow growth.

Cassellius cited “ambitious” goals to address achievement gaps in a draft plan under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. The plan will evaluate all Minnesota schools in five areas: student achievement on tests, academic progress over time, graduation rates, progress toward English language proficiency and constant attendance.

The Education Department released the standardized test scores Aug. 7. Students in grades 3–11 take the tests, which measure performance in reading, math and science.

Statewide, about 60 percent of students were proficient in reading and math, and about 54 percent were proficient in science. Rates were lower for students of color and higher for white students.

MPS’ proficiency rates were below the statewide averages, and the gap in achievement was even starker between white students and those of color. About 78 percent of white students met or exceeded the reading standards, for example, compared to 22 percent of black students, 26.5 percent of Hispanic/Latino students and 51.5 percent of students who identified as two or more races.

Public Safety Update

By Michelle Bruch / mbruch@southwestjournal.com

Prison sentence issued in Uptown rape A Hennepin County District Court Judge has sentenced a Bloomington man to 16 years in prison for first-degree criminal sexual conduct in a 2016 assault in the CARAG neighborhood. Davon Allen, 35, will receive credit for serving the past year in custody.

According to findings detailed in court documents, an adult woman slept at her

apartment at the 3400 block of Colfax on July 23, 2016, and awoke at 5 a.m. to find a man she didn’t know on top of her and penetrating her. The man fled her apartment when she awoke, documents said.

The woman’s cell phone was missing and she drove to a Cub Foods to contact police. Court filings said police recovered fingerprint impressions from a window that

matched the prints of Allen. Suspect DNA collected during a sexual assault examination at the Hennepin County Medical Center matched Allen’s DNA sample, documents said.

Officers discovered a plastic patio side table underneath the apartment’s ground level kitchen window and said two windows were missing screens and one was cut. Offi-

cers said they located the woman’s phone in a drain several blocks away.

Southwest Minneapolis’ 5th Precinct documented 48 reports of rape as of Aug. 7 year-to-date, which is an 11.6-percent increase over this time in 2016 and a 108.7percent increase over 2015.

Coin box burglar sentenced to 10 years in prison A Brooklyn Center man charged with at least 14 burglaries since 1990 is now facing 10 years in prison.

Surveillance video at an apartment in The Wedge showed Ernest Lee Baugh, 61, using vice

grips to break into a washing machine coin box, according to court documents.

Most of Baugh’s prior convictions involve coin box thefts in laundry rooms, the complaint said. A landlord who owns

more than 30 buildings told the court that although the amount of stolen money was small, machine repair is expensive and the crimes make residents feel unsafe.

“This might look like using a sledge

hammer to drive a nail, but Mr. Baugh’s career of crime has had a real impact on people,” Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a statement.

tainment districts at Lake & Lyndale and Lake & Hennepin, said Sgt. Matt St. George.

Police are encouraging bar owners to

communicate so that problem patrons can be trespassed from all locations.

No arrests in Uptown shooting Police have not made arrests related to July 1 shootings at Lagoon & Humboldt and on the 3100 block of Hennepin, according to officers

speaking at a recent East Calhoun Community Organization meeting.

Four new officers are focusing on the enter-

southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 A19

Dateline Minneapolis

By Steve Brandt

Beneath scarecrows, a neighborhood landmark blossoms

B

arb Balcom may be responsible for more distracted drivers over the past 28 years than anyone in Southwest Minneapolis.

Any driver was who has traversed the stretch of Lyndale Avenue a few blocks north of Minnehaha Creek has spotted the two silent sentinels standing guard over her garden at 46th Street. At first glance, they seem lifelike.

Their garb changes with the season, warm clothes for winter and lighter for summer.

When there’s construction nearby, they may sport safety vests and ear protection.

Although they’re now a landmark, they started in 1989 with a more utilitarian purpose — to scare foraging birds away from Balcom’s garden on the southwest corner of the intersection.

Her first figure sported a head crafted from Styrofoam chips stuffed into old pantyhose and initially wore only a shirt over his stick frame. She sliced potpie tins for fingers. Juice can lids served as eyes. After a short time, she added a second figure, a woman to keep the man company.

After a few years, and they got more upgrades. A passerby donated a Styrofoam head. She added a wig and hats. For a time, the man sported a pipe, but they kept disappearing, and her daughter Katie chided her, saying pipes set a poor example.

As scarecrows, the pair has been something of a bust at intimidating varmints. One year, a family of rabbits nested at the base. One day, she showed up and found that an entire crop of peas — her favorite vegetable — had vanished.

She resorted to a chicken wire fence.

But despite what they lacked in frightfulness, the figures redeemed themselves by capturing the hearts of passersby. Some dropped off clothes to replace those faded by the weather; Balcom always adds new layers over the worn ones, so the figures have taken on bulk as they age. Another family brought their preschoolers by to shake hands with the scarecrows, whom they had given names. Still another area family took their Christmas photo with the figures.

The area adopted Balcom too. Some folks offered her pickle recipes when her cucumbers came in. One neighbor brought by some homemade blackberry brandy to share in Dixie cups, telling Balcom she was working too hard and needed a break.

Balcom, her figures and the garden have become such a fixture at 46th & Lyndale it may come as a surprise that she doesn’t own the corner. Long ago, the YMCA’s men’s club sold Christmas trees there. Then the neighboring Ulrich family bought the vacant lot to have room for their five children to play.

Barb Balcom and her scarecrows.

Photo

by Steve Brandt

But those kids had grown and left by the time a desperate Balcom knocked on Margaret Ulrich’s door in 1989. Although Balcom lives not far away, her yard is plagued by slugs. She’d gardened for several years in a community plot in Uptown, but the adjoining company that owned it had served notice that it was reclaiming the parcel.

To understand how important having a space for flowers and produce is to Balcom, consider her childhood. Although her family lived in various states where her father worked, her touchstone was the fifth-generation farm her maternal grandparents owned in western New York.

It’s there she learned the hard work that raising food requires. Many gardeners plant

seeds or seedlings but fall short on following up with the harder tasks of weeding and watering.

On the farm, Balcom discovered the wondrous tastes of fresh peas and corn but also discovered that neither arrived at the table without the work of shelling or husking.

“It was sort of in my blood,” she recalled.

After canvassing the neighborhood for potential gardening sites, Balcom couldn’t have picked a better first door to knock on than Ulrich’s. Her new landlord’s requirements were simple: Just leave some place in the middle of the lot for neighborhood kids to play.

“I offered to pay, but she wouldn’t hear of it,” Balcom said of the handshake deal.

She dug up the grass that fall with her farmraised mother and grubbed out volunteer trees

and shrubs than had enmeshed themselves in the fence around the lot. Balcom recalled Katie, then 8, tugging mightily on an elm seedling: “She said, ‘You are tough, but I am stronger.’ ” Eventually, she carved out two 15-by-25-foot plots, plus a smaller one for raspberries. Besides tending vegetable and perennial plants, she raked and shredded leaves each fall for mulch.

Her husband Tom, a now-retired state worker and a historian of the area, contributed muscle for the seasonal heavy work.

Meanwhile, her relationship with Ulrich deepened.

“She was the sweetest and most trusting woman, or like I like to believe, a judge of good character,” Balcom said. “She was a social worker, and I think she could tell.”

Balcom has hung onto the notes that Ulrich wrote to her, telling her tenant how much the garden meant to her. Ulrich also passed on notes from neighbors who told her what the landscaped plots meant to them. The garden also garnered Blooming Boulevard awards.

All went well until Ulrich died. Besides losing a friend, Balcom said, “I thought, well, there goes the garden.” But the Ulrich family made sure the new owner, Paul Dunleavy, knew that the garden came with the house. His mother knew that the neighborhood cherished the garden.

“She said, ‘You have to let the gardens stay,’” Balcom recalled.

So with her tenancy informally renewed, Balcom kept gardening. Dunleavy eventually married and expanded the house. Initially, the contractor was able to pile dirt to spare the plants that yielded her three types of berries, asparagus and cherries. But the city mandated that piled dirt be piled farther from the excavation, for worker safety, and with short notice, Balcom lost some plants.

The garden has diminished in size due to the construction and the workload on the retiree, who also maintains a hosta-dominated garden at home and a flower garden at her church. But she still marvels that the Dunleavys allow a relative stranger to invade their yard all growing season.

Of course, the return on that is a landscaped corner brimming with the splashes of color of poppy, peony, New England aster, bellflower, spiderwort, iris, bee balm and zinnia, to select a few. And there’s produce from tomatoes, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, beans, beets and kale. She’s never had an issue with them disappearing, a tribute to the neighborhood.

At 70, she looks back with satisfaction: “It’s given me a lot of pleasure and I don’t think I can imagine a life without it.”

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Southwest Journal August 10–23, 2017

Kim Heikkila interviews Sami Rasouli, former owner of Sindbad’s Café and Market at 2528 Nicollet Ave., for the Eat Street Oral History Project.

The voices of Eat Street

AN ORAL HISTORY PROJECT TELLS THE STORY OF NICOLLET AVENUE ENTREPRENEURS

By Michelle Bruch / mbruch@southwestjournal.com

The road from Vietnam to Eat Street was not easy for Hung Duong, owner of the Truong Thanh Market.

Her family paid all they had in gold to escape the Vietnam War. They traveled on rough waters to a refugee camp in Malaysia and sold spare clothing along the way to buy rice. Duong was willing to move to Canada or Australia, but a Minnesota church sponsor brought them to Minneapolis, where they packed 10 people into a three-room apartment and wore up to five layers to keep warm in winter.

Duong’s story is now preserved as part of the Eat Street Oral History project by Kim Heikkila, a project commissioned by the Whittier Alliance neighborhood organization.

The neighborhood is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the street’s identity this year.

Inspired by a Star Tribune headline, a Whittier neighborhood marketing campaign embraced the “Eat Street” name as part of a streetscape project in 1997.

“Eat Street has really been about the success of immigrants,” Heikkila said. “Many came here when Whittier and Nicollet Avenue were not prosperous.”

The neighborhood was historically an industrial part of town with workforce housing, said Ricardo McCurley, executive director of the Whittier Alliance.

Kmart arrived in the ’70s as part of a city project to clean up “urban blight.” By interrupting Nicollet Avenue access, McCurley said, Whittier became a no man’s land with cheap commercial space for purchase. He said the street illustrates what happens when small entrepreneurs can purchase their own buildings, rather than face the potential for eviction at any time.

Hung Duong, owner of the Truong Thanh Market at 2520 Nicollet Ave., participating in the Eat Street Oral History Project.

Photos by Rasun Mehringer

SEE EAT STREET / PAGE B3

B2 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com

Creative Class

By Susan Schaefer

NOVELIST PETER GEYE:

A man for all seasons W

riting is considered one of the most solitary of the creative arts. Writing literature perhaps takes that solo endeavor to a peak level. Unlike journalists or bloggers who may garner regular interaction with their readers, or playwrights who generally workshop their plays with both audience and actors, a novelist labors in sometimes stifling solitude for hours, days, weeks, months and even years on end.

Writing novels conjures images of cramped writing spaces or private retreats where the author holes up away from distraction to carry out the painstaking deed of putting visions to paper or computer screen. And when your work has become accepted at the top levels in the field — a top-notch New York publishing house, reviews in the New York Times and New York Journal of Books — we imagine ever increasing alone time to forge the next bestseller.

But the Fulton neighborhood author Peter Geye (say “guy”) is scaling new heights by courageously leading aspiring wannabes in the art and craft of doing what he has done with such national acclaim. Geye, who elevates weather to character status in his latest novel, “Wintering,” published by New York powerhouse Alfred A. Knopf, is pioneering a unique and intensive almost one-year-long writing project called simply, the Novel Writing Project, through the Loft Literary Center.

So popular is his work and his undeniable

Photo by Susan Schaefer

teaching ethic that the Loft has had to run not one but two sections of his novel writing program. Not only is this a colossal time commitment, but the course also comes with a hefty price tag. Studying with our local master is a gourmet, not a fast food proposition. And such a commitment from both teacher and student is rare outside the academic setting where such projects are typically MFA programs.

If anyone is up to the rigors of teaching alongside continuing one’s ongoing serious writing, it is Geye, who is indeed working on the next book.

Geye reflects about the rigors of teaching the course: “I’ve loved every minute of it. My students are an inspiration, and their work is spectacular. The main challenge has been helping 24 novelists write 24 different novels. That’s a lot of stories and a lot of personalities and learning styles to balance. If I’m being honest, I’d say going into it I was worried about keeping so many stories straight, but that hasn’t been a problem.

There’s amazing work being done in this class.”

The Twin Cities as a world-class writer’s mecca Geye mulls the question about why Minnesota lends itself to such a robust literary tradition, why we produce so many outstanding writers.

“There is so much support here,” he motions to our surroundings. “Take the Loft, for instance.

SEE GEYE / PAGE B3

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF THE CREATIVE ARTS IN MINNEAPOLIS ASTONISHES. Estimated at over $4.5 billion in sales, or eight times that of Minneapolis’ sports sector according to the 2015 Creative Vitality Index (CVI), an economic measure used by the city, it has earned our region a lofty place as a national creative mecca. ¶ Behind such stunning statistics toil humans whose creativity and innovation fuel this so-called creative class, dubbed by author Richard Florida. Frequently laboring for the sheer love of their craft, many visual and performing artists, directors, inventors and innovators produce from an inner creative core more likely fueled by passion than personal gain. These makers are marked by an almost holy drive to create – and when their artistry and intent collide, it often yields something extraordinary in its wake.

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southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 B3 FROM GEYE / PAGE B2

There isn’t any institution like this anywhere else in the country. There are lesser versions, but nothing like this in terms of scope and support.

“And there are the grants. There’s the McKnight Artist Fellowships administered by the Loft. A Minnesota writer can apply for and win a $25,000 grant. Then, there’s the Minnesota’s Legacy (Arts and Cultural Heritage) Fund, which is unique. Established as a result of building the Twins (baseball team) stadium, it offers exceptional funding for the arts in Minnesota, and I’ve benefited greatly from these.”

Geye continues, “Minnesota is filled with world-class amenities, from wild places and water to an astounding array of arts and cultural organizations. When you have this as an artist, you stay.

“People go to places like California for the weather. They are here for 100-plus colleges and universities, a fantastic metropolitan area, theater, culture and so on. And so we end up with an unbelievably rich community of writers,” he concludes.

From North Minneapolis to Minnesota’s great Northwoods Speaking of wild places, what about his relationship with the Boundary Waters and North Shore areas that he writes about with such passion, knowledge and authority?

“I’m a professional visitor,” he laughs. “I didn’t grow up with the cabin and a Northwoods lifestyle, rather I discovered this area of the world through occasional canoe trips with my dad.”

In fact, Geye grew up in North Minneapolis, “to parents of modest means. My Norwegian grandmother lived with us for most of my childhood.

There were five kids in my family, and we mostly got along, which is to say we spent a lot of time together. I was very happy as a boy and young man. Went to great schools and had great friends.”

Assuredly, though, he has staked our northern wilderness region as his fictional epicenter.

“Wintering” takes the reader through each blade and grove, each cascade and ravine, until

we’re literally hovering above, paddling along or hiking through this mysterious and threatening terrain.

What entrances the reader is the luxury of the book’s every line. Geye’s sentences are carved like fine wooden artifacts, meticulously sanded and polished until each is an object worthy of a spotlight on a shelf.

“Wintering,” just released as a paperback in early June this year, is a holy whisper. Set in the achingly majestic borderlands of Northern Minnesota, Geye’s writing is a paean to the complexity and ultimate triumph of the human spirit that is often as much at odds with itself as it is against the forces of nature. Delving deeply into the human psyche, this book mines universal themes in a unique tale of love, loss and revenge traversing decades and points of view, set in a landscape of ancient and menacing wilderness.

He calls “Wintering” a “sister book” to his award-winning previous two novels, “Safe from the Sea” and “The Lighthouse Road.” “I like that term,” he acknowledges, since his previous works were not published under the Knopf imprint, and the prestigious New York publishing house prefers not to consider the set a trilogy.

His Knopf editor, Gary Fisketjon, who has redlined the likes of Donna Tartt, Annie Dillard, Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff and Jay McInerney, has waxed lyrical about how Geye builds his work “line by line,” and such writing is ecstasy for serious readers. “Charlie’s goal was to pillage the wilderness and get rich from the wreckage.”

This sparse sentence packs “Wintering” villain Charlie Aas’ lifetime of malfeasance. The book is a cavalcade of such images.

I am typically not a reader of wilderness books or thrillers, nor particularly a fan of Midwestern history. Hailing from the East Coast, I gravitate towards works that blow grit in my eye or existential angst in my chest. But beginning with Geye’s “Far from the Sea,” I became a convert, opening to tortured frozen landscapes replete with themes of revenge and nature’s conquest.

I’ve learned that the crust of ice on melted snow often yields to a deep and soft interior.

Northern exterior, southern interior, 100-percent family guy Geye’s own exterior, sometimes scruffy and slightly unkempt, masks a highly approachable, warm and gracious inner reservoir. Editors, students and fellow writers alike testify to his generosity of spirit, and my personal experience as one of his students echoes the chorus.

Many might not take Geye for a highly engaged, primary caregiver father, but he is. After an amicable divorce, he sees his kids every day.

“Now that it’s summer, we’re with each other all day, which is a pleasure,” he says. “They’re of an age (12, 9, 7) where it’s sort of non-stop fun and adventure. We head up to the North Shore each summer for our annual summer trip to Lake Superior.”

During the school year his routine rotates around them and he basks in the role of ushering them safely off to school, feeding and getting through homework, story and bedtime.

“I have written literally thousands of words with one or two kids between my legs,” he grins.

Regarding the tough tangle between fulltime fatherhood and creating literature, Geye sees writing as his “chance to have life outside my family.”

“When you spend 15 hours a day with kids, no matter how much you love them,” he says, writing books, inventing characters and having these characters then invent you, is a monumental release.

Geye admits that the regular transition from inhabiting his fictional world back to his real one isn’t always easy. Like an actual family, he experiences a true sense of grief once his books are complete and his characters, his creations, no longer accompany his days and nights. “It’s a resounding sense of loss” as he returns to his real world.

The creative process unlocks a feminine muse Writing in longhand, Geye concedes that his writing process doesn’t flow. It’s hard work

and he embraces it. He’s a yeoman. Part of his process includes taking those written sheets around with him, reading and rereading, later word processing the longhand, (typically the same night), crafting, editing and re-crafting.

This intense labor shows. As Knopf ’s Fisketjon attests, Geye’s work evolves “line by line” with the rare result of producing a literary tour de force “that knocked him sideways” when he first read it.

The character of Berit is the touchstone of “Wintering” — a rock really, one who may acutely strike women readers by her usual and compelling nature. How did a guy like Geye channel this iconic female character who is charged with guiding the reader through the unfolding layers of far past, past and present?

“I knew I wanted a narrator who could help navigate the reader through more than one story,” Geye says. “It takes more than one story to tell our lives. I tried a few points of view and then wrote 50 pages. It was Berit who I ended up wanting in this role.”

He says he became reliant on her in a way he’s “never experienced from a character before. She became my companion. I felt camaraderie. She ended up telling me the story.”

And so, Geye has unlocked the major feat of great fiction writing, which is when the characters share their story from their point of view with the writer. It is then that a writer surrenders to his or her characters, being freed to create the all-encompassing fictional world — a world where none of life’s daily problems or passions interferes with the reading experience. It is a triumph few achieve.

In this time of dramatic distraction that skill in this book is worth a trip to the local bookstore, he encourages Southwest Journal readers to visit Open Book’s Milkweed Book Store and tell Hans that Peter told them to stop by. Then, find yourself a quiet spot in the coffee shop and enjoy a reading journey out of time and mind. “Wintering” delivers this magic with the punch of a summer storm.

FROM EAT STREET / PAGE B1

Hard work Duong told Heikkila she was thrilled to buy her building on Nicollet Avenue — the $350,000 price tag seemed reasonable when she expected it to cost $1 million. She needed a new storefront because customers were repeatedly towed from her first shop at 11 W. 15th St., and Duong often personally paid the $100 bill to reclaim their cars.

Duong’s late father Xuong Mau Duong worked as a doctor in Vietnam prescribing herbal remedies, and he continued his practice at the Nicollet Avenue market, becoming so busy they had to ask customers to give him breaks to eat. The shop grew to stock 70 different varieties of vegetables in two weekly shipments, and Duong earned a reputation for her honesty. She once cautioned a customer to buy a small amount of mango, which wasn’t very sweet that day, and another patron said she’d never seen anyone do business like her.

“She (would) say, ‘No wonder you’re so busy,’” Duong said.

The oral histories cover a range of people who can speak to different eras of the street’s history. The 90-minute interviews typically start with each individual’s background and how they came into business.

Heikkila said she was struck by how hard new immigrants worked. Kids became involved after school, pitching in to make sewing kits or deliver baked goods.

“For the vast majority, they didn’t know how to do this. They learned it by doing it, and they decided it was their best shot,” she said.

Lung Tran and her brother Michael talked about Lung’s continued daily presence at Quang Restaurant after 30 years. Isidro Perez of Marissas Inc. discussed mixing baking and business. Christos Greek Restaurant owners Gus and Carol Parpas talked about the tough restaurant business. Harry Singh talked about his Original Caribbean Restaurant’s hand-

made roti. Christian Johnson of Spyhouse Coffee talked about visiting the farmers that make the shop’s coffee beans. Tammy Wong talked about her family-run business Rainbow Chinese Restaurant and Bar. Former Acadia Café owner Tom Berthiaume and Joanne Christ of the Black Forest Inn spoke about the 1990s revitalization of Nicollet.

Preserving memories Interviewer Heikkila — a longtime boxing instructor at Uppercut Boxing Gym — previously completed an oral history project on nurses who served in the Vietnam War, and authored a book on the topic. She is currently compiling oral histories of the “Booth girls,” describing the Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital that served as a home and hospital for unwed mothers on Como Avenue in St. Paul.

The Eat Street project will be archived in the Special Collections section of the Minneapolis Central Library, and the Hennepin History Museum will showcase an exhibit on the project in the fall.

Some of the businesses Heikkila profiled have already shut down and live in historical memory. Sindbad’s Café and Market, located on the block now home to Icehouse and Vertical Endeavors at 2528 Nicollet Ave., closed in 2008. Owner Sami Rasouli now splits time

Twenty years after it was dubbed Eat Street, Nicollet Avenue between downtown and Lake Street remains a multicultural dining destination. Photos by Michelle Bruch

between home in Najaf, Iraq and Minnesota, and describes his current position as a peacemaker. Rasouli thought of Sindbad as an ArabMuslim “oasis” and cultural center, complete with pita bread, baklava and books.

“You get in and you learn about many things besides the music, beside the food, the spices, the aroma of the spices, yeah, and they were all welcome,” he told Heikkila.

A civic lesson Shots were fired through Rasouli’s shop window when he protested the decision to go to war with Iraq in 1991. And the day after 9/11, he was afraid to open the store, as he had recently posed for a magazine cover prominently describing him as a Muslim Arab business owner. But schoolchildren came with flowers during the

Gulf War, and longtime customers arrived with offers of safe haven after 9/11.

“So that was a civic lesson, profound wisdom, that I learned from it,” he said.

Rasouli said he felt the pull to return to Iraq and help build peace, even though his hometown had become a dangerous place.

“And explain to them that the U.S. is not like always John Wayne or Sylvester Stallone, like Rambo or George Bush, or these guys they met during the invasion/occupation,” he said.

“Explain to them what’s the Whittier Alliance is; the people that I met there; people give me business, supported me. … And often I’m asked, Sami, please make up your mind. Are you an Iraqi or an American? And actually I explain that I’m an Iraqi 100 percent; I’m an American 100 percent and that makes me 200 percent human being.”

B4 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com

By Dustin Hertzog

Wishing for tomatoes this birthday

M

y grandfather was an avid backyard gardener and challenged himself to have ripe tomatoes by his mid-summer birthday.

This was an easier task in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

I have tried to replicate his same quest for years here in Minnesota, and even with an early August birthday have yet to match his success.

Wondering why this may be and when I could expect my tomatoes to turn, I spoke with Peter Marshall of Peter’s Pumpkins & Carmen’s Corn farm to get an update on the 2017 growing season. Peter and his wife, Carmen Lopez Marshall, farm in Shakopee and sell at Neighborhood Roots’ Kingfield, Fulton and Nokomis farmers markets.

As of Aug. 1 — although perhaps things will have changed by the time you read this — tomatoes have yet to hit the tables at Peter’s farmers market stands, and everyone is asking where they are. Their absence is due in part to the 65-miles-per-hour winds back in early March, which knocked one of their greenhouses down.

Peter and Carmen managed to pack their second greenhouse to the brim in an attempt to get everything started from seed. Once the tomatoes were growing, however, they could only plant a few hundred at a time, with days long pauses in between. All of this spring’s precipitation had caused the fields to turn into mud and prevented them from working.

Although tomatoes are night-ripeners and can turn on a dime, Peter said to expect his about two weeks late this year due to the recent

Carmen Lopez Marshall and Peter Marshall of Peter’s Pumpkins & Carmen’s Corn.

Submitted photo

lack of warm evenings.

It has also been a challenging year for Peter’s onions. All it took was five minutes of peasized hail to topple the young plants and slow their growth. Peter had to return to the rows to hoe and bury them all upright, which accounts for the delay, but the farm’s sweet red, yellow, Walla Walla and white varieties will picked as soon as they reach softball size.

The corn harvest is excellent so far, he reports, and picking started early on the 15th of July.

Everything looks on-track for his vine crops, and

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he is anticipating his famous pumpkins to be picked the second week of September.

Melons also look good and will be ready mid-August. This year, in addition to the iconic, sugary, oblong sangria watermelon of childhood seed-spitting contests, he has planted varieties such as orange seedless flesh, red flesh, black diamond seeded and seedless and yellow doll seedless. Minnesota almost never gets hot enough for an early melon season, but during the last two weeks of August our climate produces some amazing results.

The usual end-of-summer dry spell puts stress on plants and trees, causing them to put all of their energy into the survival of the fruit or vegetable — and intensifies their flavor in turn. Generally, Peter and Carmen try to keep the fields clear of weeds, but during the dry spell they begin to allow weeds to come up so the fruit will be shaded against sunscald.

Peter maintains the ugliest portions of fruits are often the sweetest. Don’t be hesitant if they have bruises or scars, as this is where they are tastiest.

With the inventory from the field unpredictable, Peter and Carmen have increased their canning efforts to continue participating at area markets. When there is a surplus of beets, beans or berries, they freeze or process them to be dealt with later and eventually sold.

Find updates on their salsas, jams, pickles and produce on their website, peterspumpkins.com, or visit their Facebook page for pictures from the farm.

When we are finally in the full swing of our beautiful tomato season, Carmen suggests replacing the lettuce of a BLT with long slices of cucumber for a refreshing twist on the classic sandwich. Meanwhile, I will be standing on my porch and speaking affirming words to my heirloom cherry tomato plants and wondering if this is the year I get juicy, red birthday treats.

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southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 B5

Mill City Cooks

Recipes and food news from the Mill City Farmers Market

Eat your colors with eggplant

W

hile it’s obvious that the amount of vegetables we eat is crucial, the color of those vegetables is just as important — if not more.

Eating a variety of colored vegetables provides vitamins and minerals that aren’t obtained from a restricted, monochromatic diet. Many dieticians argue what is most detrimental to the American diet is the lack of variety. Red, green and orange tend to be our go-tos, excluding many vibrant purple, yellow and pink vegetables for just that — their color.

Eggplant is a versatile vegetable. Many people avoid them because of their texture, but this flaw turns out to be one of their greatest features.

Eggplant can greatly benefit people who choose a vegan or gluten-free diet, as they are an easy substitution for lasagna noodles. Their chewy texture mimics the taste of noodles, especially when cooked. Eggplant can be thinly

sliced, roasted with some olive oil and Italianstyle spices (rosemary, thyme, oregano, etc.), and then incorporated in layers with sautéed vegetables, vegan or regular cheese and pasta sauce, then baked just like traditional lasagna.

If the bitterness of eggplants is what keeps you away, try sweating it. After cutting the eggplant, place it in a single layer on a baking sheet and cover with a moderate amount of salt. Cover and let sit on the counter, about 45 minutes. Rinse the eggplant to get rid of the excess salt and continue with the original recipe. This process reduces eggplant’s bitter taste and makes it tenderer.

Avoid peeling eggplants. It’s not only a great time saver; the skin holds the vegetable’s phytonutrients that act as antioxidants in the body, protecting cell membranes from everyday wear and tear. Copper, a vital mineral, is also found in larger amounts in Purple eggplant.

Submitted photo

eggplant than in other vegetables. It not only protects bones and tissues, but also works alongside iron to increase energy.

Although it’s versatile, eggplant doesn’t stand well alone due to its lack of distinct flavor. Try it in the curry recipe that follows, adding other vegetables found at the farmers market to bring out eggplant’s earthy flavor.

The Mill City Farmers Market is open 8 a.m.–1 p.m. every Saturday until the end of October and 3:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m. Tuesdays until the end of September at The Commons near U.S. Bank Stadium. Learn more at millcityfarmersmarket.org.

— Karlie Weiler

CURRIED CHICKPEAS WITH VEGETABLES By market chef Jenny Breen Ingredients 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil 2 leeks or 1 large onion, cleaned and sliced 4 cloves garlic, minced 2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and minced 2 medium carrots, sliced ½ head cauliflower, chopped ½ head broccoli, peeled and chopped (including top half of stem) 1 small eggplant, diced 1 red pepper, seeds removed, diced

2 cups green beans, trimmed 1 14-ounce can coconut milk 1 cup apple or orange juice ½ cup stock or water if needed 2 cups chickpeas cooked in 6 cups water (or 2 cans) 1 tablespoon turmeric 1 tablespoon cumin 1 tablespoon chili powder 2 teaspoons fresh thyme 2 teaspoons cayenned or red chilis 2 teaspoons salt

Method Heat oils in pan, add leeks and carrots and sauté about 3 minutes, until leeks are soft.

Add eggplant, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower and green beans and sauté another 5 minutes. Add spices and apple juice and continue to cook making sure the spices are well blended. Add coconut milk and chickpeas and combine well. Turn the heat to low and let simmer about 20 minutes. Serve over cooked grain or noodles.

Makes 8 servings

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B6 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com

News

By Michelle Bruch / mbruch@southwestjournal.com

Whittier seeks votes for Big Ideas Grant finalists The Whittier Alliance is collecting online votes to award up to $4,000 to a “big idea.”

There are two finalists.

TigerLion Arts is proposing a free twoweek September run of “Nature,” an outdoor walking play about Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, at Washburn Fair Oaks Park.

Trailhead Games aims to create engaging outdoor games drawing as many kids as possible. Their “Clean Energy Future” game would teach kids about the environmental impact of energy systems.

The deadline to vote is Aug. 24 at whittieralliance.org.

The finalists will appear at the “Great

Whittier Summer Get-Together” at Whittier Park the night of Aug. 14, featuring art-making with the Minneapolis Institute of Art; screen printing with The People’s Library; and food from Karmel Mall, Marissa’s and Pimento Jamaican Kitchen.

Neighborhood groups say ‘YIMBY’ to Rita’s House for youth Neighborhood associations have pooled more than $100,000 to help fund the renovation of a house at 2200 Emerson Ave. S. The neighborhood associations currently represent the largest source of funding for the $220,000 project. The Bridge for Youth plans to house 12 renters between ages 18 and 20 at high risk of becoming homeless. The housing would provide an option for youth that age out of other programs at The Bridge.

Scott Engel, executive coordinator of the CARAG neighborhood, said the board had considered earmarking funds for lowinterest loans before hitting on the Rita’s House project.

“We felt like this is so important,” he said.

“Sometimes I think neighborhood organizations have been portrayed as NIMBY [Not In My Backyard]. This is an example of a YIMBY concept.”

The East Isles Residents Association was the first to contribute and worked with CARAG to reach out to other neighborhood groups. East Isles is contributing at least $20,000, the Armatage Neighborhood Association is giving $25,000, the West Calhoun Neighborhood Council is giving $10,000, CARAG is giving $20,000, the Cedar-IslesDean Neighborhood Association is giving

Affordable rental housing for a dozen youth at risk of homelessness is slated to open at 2200 Emerson Ave. S. by early 2018. Photo by Michelle Bruch

$10,000 and the East Calhoun Community Organization is giving $20,000.

The Bridge for Youth Executive Director Michelle Basham said she visited East Isles in early 2017 to gauge potential opposition to the project. She said neighborhoods are often hesitant to support programs for the homeless in their communities.

“But they were not only very supportive of the concept, they were the first to want to contribute,” she said.

Basham said the number of homeless youth in Minnesota has grown 46 percent since 2012.

“This is a challenge that continues to get bigger,” she said.

Residents of Rita’s House would pay low rents, stay in single bedrooms, share common spaces and access case management and job placement services.

The building is scheduled to open by early 2018.

Kingfield reports on pedestrian safety efforts at 43rd & Nicollet After months of study, the Kingfield Neighborhood Association is further investigating bump-outs to shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians at 43rd & Nicollet.

The focus on pedestrian safety comes after the unsolved hit-and-run death of Barbara Mahigel in late 2016.

Research by city officials found the intersection would not rank as a priority area for new traffic signals and pedestrian-activated flashers. The city’s Public Works Department said average speeds on Nicollet near 43rd are 32 miles per hour. There were 10 crashes in the area from 2013–2015, with two at the intersection, a frequency that ranks below the top 100 non-signalized intersections. During peak travel times, average walkers have one “acceptable gap” every 30 seconds to cross, and slower walkers have a gap every two minutes to cross.

The Kingfield Neighborhood Association said city staff should continue to monitor the intersection, as there is widespread interest in a pedestrian flasher system.

For the moment, however, the board said it supports only research of bump-out options to cut the distance between curbs.

NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHBOOK

BY

southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 B7

By Meleah Maynard

Battling Japanese beetles

I

n the last half-hour since I came in from the garden, at least two Japanese beetles have flown out of my hair, headed for who knows where in my house.

But that was nothing compared to the one that just crawled boldly out of the waistband of my jeans. I squished it.

Just one week ago I was breathing a sigh of relief that our Southwest Minneapolis neighborhood seemed, once again, to be mostly dodging the Japanese beetle plague after being hit really hard in 2011. And then I spotted them on my roses — and the Virginia creeper and the grape vines and the river birch trees. Soon they will move on to other plants they love, including my basil, and I will hate them for that, especially.

I have been battling Japanese beetles in earnest for five days now and, as you probably already know from having experienced them yourselves, I am losing.

There are a lot of reasons for that; the biggest being that they are demons from hell and there is nothing mortals can do to stop them. But that aside, I also don’t like to use chemicals outside or inside, so my strategy for getting rid of them amounts to going around knocking them off of my plants and into a plastic bowl filled with soapy water.

Yes, I do wear a glove on the beetle scooping hand. I have heard anecdotally that the beetles can bite, but that has never happened to me. I just prefer to keep them off my hand skin whenever possible.

Before I say more about how to deal with these gross creatures, let me first explain a bit

about Japanese beetles for those who have been living in a cave or condo for years, and/or are just new to the perils of gardening.

About the size of a dime with futuristiclooking gold and green bodies, Japanese beetles are actually kind of attractive if you’re into metallic bug robots. They were first spotted in Minnesota in 1968, but with the exception of a brief period in 2000 and 2001, they didn’t become much of a problem until about 2005.

The Japanese beetle life cycle is a short 60 days or so, but they can do a lot of damage in that amount of time. Females lay eggs beneath turf grass in the summer, and around June or early July the following year their offspring emerge and fly off to their favorite plants (they are attracted to about 300 different plant species) where they mate in zombie-like orgiastic piles while skeletonizing leaves and pooping everywhere.

Pheromones released by the beetles during this whole scene, which I swear I am not exaggerating, attract more and more beetles, and in a

Japanese beetles were first recorded in Minnesota decades ago, but the destructive garden pests have become increasingly common in recent years.

Photo by Meleah Maynard

short time the areas where they gather are both denuded of foliage and reeking to high heaven, as my grandma used to say.

Anyway, let’s get back to how to get rid of them. Because the pheromones they release attract more beetles, it’s best to reduce their numbers if you can. So, as I said earlier, I go around murdering them every day with a glove on one hand and a bowl of soapy water in the other. I do this by slipping the bowl under a bunch of them, and then I gently brush the beetle piles into the water and move on to the next spot. Even when they are not enraptured by beetle sex, these are not fast-moving creatures — unless they start to fly — so it’s pretty easy to knock hundreds of them into a bowl of

water in about 20 minutes.

Here’s a tip: Don’t get super ambitious like I did today and try to brush a wide swath of them into the bowl at one time because loads of startled beetles will fly up and into your hair, your shirt pockets and your jeans. One even ricocheted off my lips.

And here’s another tip: Don’t hang up one of those Japanese beetle pheromone traps because they work by attracting lots of beetles. The problem is they attract a whole lot more beetles to your yard than that trap will ever be able to deal with. Study after study has shown this and yet hardware stores keep selling out of these traps. Spread the word.

If you don’t handpick Japanese beetles or use ill-advised traps, all of the other reasonablesounding ways to control them involve insecticides, either synthetic or organic, and most if not all of those are toxic to pollinators and other living things in one way or another.

I love my gardens and it pains me to see them torn apart by ravenous, sex-crazed beetles. But it doesn’t make sense to me to resort to chemicals that are known to be harmful, even when used according to their labels, which often advise spraying at night so the product will hopefully be dry by morning when bees start visiting plants.

What? No. I can live with a few beetles in my hair.

Check out Meleah’s blog, everydaygardener.com, for more gardening tips or to email her a question or comment.

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Nourishment for body, mind & spirit.

Top-notch, round-the-clock nursing care.

Comfortable and active long-term community for seniors in the East Harriet Neighborhood. Spiritual support that offers hope and healing.

Call 612-827-8632 or Visit WalkerMethodist.org Take a tour to experience our updates. Mark your calendar for the Fall Open House on September 12 @ 4:00 pm.

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B8 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com

SOUNDS FOR SILENTS: FILM + MUSIC

Get Out Guide.

After 38 seasons, the Walker’s Summer Music and Movies is changing from a month of weekly concerts and film screenings to a single event. The free Monday-night events held at Loring Park, which began in 1973, became one of the most popular summertime traditions in the Twin Cities. Instead of Loring Park, Sounds for Silents: Film + Music will be held on the museum’s hillside, and features a world-premiere commission from Ryan Olson (Poliça, Gayngs) and his innovative noise ensemble Marijuana Deathsquads, with special guests including Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, the Pines’ Benson Ramsey and Poliça vocalist and songwriter Channy Leaneagh. The live, cinematic scores will be set to 1920s experimental short films by iconic avantgarde artists Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and René Clair, drawn from the Walker’s Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection. Food trucks Hot Indian Foods and Fro Yo Soul will be on hand along with DJ Sean McPherson from 89.3 The Current.

By Jahna Peloquin

When: Dusk (about 8:30 p.m.) Thursday, Aug. 17 Where: Walker Art Center (hillside), 1750 Hennepin Ave. Cost: Free Info: walkerart.org

‘GRAVEYARD SHIFT’ AND ‘LOW VISUAL DISTANCE’ Abstracted landscapes with a psychological bent are the connecting thread between two new visual art exhibitions by Minneapolis artists Jim Hittinger and Shannon Estlund. In “Graveyard Shift,” Hittinger creates sparsely populated, otherworldly landscapes littered with empty lots, chain-link fences and abandoned suburban parking lots with oozing oil paint and smudged graphite.

The desolate palette of black, white and gray is interrupted only by an occasional pop of color — a neon sign, a pair of yellow balloons — as if to further emphasize the bleakness. Similarly, the abstract landscapes of Estlund’s “Low Visual Distance” use the contrast between light and dark to psychological effect. Inspired

by Rice Creek and the surrounding forest, the paintings are brimming with expressive color and repeating pattern, contrasting with the starkness of Hittinger’s works.

IRISH FAIR OF MINNESOTA Since 2001, Harriet Island Park in downtown St. Paul has hosted Irish Fair of Minnesota, a celebration of Irish heritage with music, dance, family activities and food on the banks of the Mississippi. Said to be the largest free Irish festival in the U.S., last year’s event brought in 100,000 attendees. This year’s musical lineup includes Grammy award-nominated Irish fiddler Eileen Ivers, who was on the cast of the original “Riverdance” and a nine-time, all-Ireland fiddle champion, plus local bands including the Belfast Cowboys, who play a mix of Van Morrison covers and originals, and punk-infused guitar trio, the Tim Malloys. New to the fair this year is the Celtic Kitchen, which will host food-related events, such as demonstrations, sampling, competitions and unique Irish foods, throughout the weekend. The Celtic Kitchen will kick off with a special ticketed Friday night event. (7 p.m., $25)

When: 3 p.m.–11 p.m., Friday, Aug. 11; 10 a.m.–11 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 12; and 9 a.m.–7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 13 Where: Harriet Island, 200 Dr. Justus Ohage Blvd., St. Paul Cost: Free Info: irishfair.com

When: On view Aug. 12–27 (Saturdays and Sundays noon–4 p.m.) Opening reception: 7 p.m.–10 p.m. (gallery talk at 7 p.m.) Saturday, Aug. 12 Where: Rosalux Gallery, 1400 Van Buren St. NE, #195 Cost: Free Info: rosaluxgallery.com

MINNESOTA RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL

PRINCE PRE FAME PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION

Where else but at RenFest can you drink mead (that’s fermented honey), eat a turkey leg as big as your biceps and see a jousting act that’s like a “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” outtake? Some of the comedy acts are hammy, but it’s hard to argue with the cool factor of live armored jousters, knife throwers and fire-juggling tightrope walkers. With its intimate village grounds, smaller crowds and plentiful (and largely free) entertainment and amusements, the Renaissance Festival is the quirkier, Dungeons-and-Dragons-playing little brother of the Minnesota State Fair. Highlights include Tuey, a fire-juggling ropewalker who’s been at it for more than 40 years, and Puke and Snot, known for their pirate witticisms and double-entendres. If you like bad jokes, dangerous stunts, traditional folk music, men in tights, handmade artisan goods, good food and fermented beverages, the RenFest is a must-go.

In 1977, one year before the release of his debut album, a local musician named Prince Rogers Nelson came to the attention of Minneapolis music agent/manager Owen Husney and his partner Gary Levinson. The pair approached photographer Robert Whitman to take promotional photos of the young artist, who would one day become one of the most important musicians of the 20th century. The resulting images are part of a photography exhibition dubbed “Prince Pre Fame,” which includes three never-before-exhibited images. Whitman photographed Prince in his Minneapolis studio, in Husney’s Linden Hills home, and on the streets of downtown Minneapolis, including the front of the mural of Maurice Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit” painted on the side of the Schmitt Music store. The opening night party includes hosted hors d’oeuvres, cash bar and Prince music all night long. A portion of ticket sales benefits Hopewell, a local organization supporting music education for north Minneapolis youth.

When: 9 a.m.–7 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays Aug. 19–Oct. 1, plus Labor Day and Sept. 29 Where: Minnesota Renaissance Festival Grounds, 12364 Chestnut Blvd., Shakopee Cost: $23.95 adults, $21.95 seniors, $14.95 kids; $37.95 for 2-day pass; $94.95 (adults) or $54.95 (kids) for season pass Info: 952-445-7361 or renaissancefest.com

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When: On view Aug. 18–Sept. 15. Opening night party: 5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m. (VIP) and from 7:30 p.m.–11 p.m. (general admission) Thursday, Aug. 17 Where: Mpls Photo Center, 2400 N. 2nd St., #200 Cost: Free to view; $35 general admission, $100 VIP for opening night party Info: facebook.com/PrincePreFame

southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 B9

BLOCK PARTY BONANZA Every August, the streets of Minneapolis fill up with block after block of parties hosted by area restaurants and breweries.

BOROUGH BLOCK PARTY

NE BREWERS BLOCK PARTY

This 5th-annual event is hosted by foodie haven Borough and its speakeasy-esque cocktail bar Parlour, so you know the food and drink are going to be top-notch. The party also includes live music by Viva Knievel (a hard-rocking cover band with a full horn section), all-brass band Black Market Brass, neo-soul group Nooky Jones and Private Oates (a Hall & Oates cover band).

Northeast Minneapolis is home to more breweries per capita than any other part of the state. Take advantage of the opportunity to try them all during this block party hosted by Sociable Cider Werks, who will host nine other neighborhood breweries, plus four food trucks, games and live music from atmospheric indie-rock band Enemy Planes and electro-pop three-piece Apollo Cobra.

When: Noon–8 p.m.

Sunday, Aug. 13 Where: Borough, 730 Washington Ave. N. Cost: Free Info: eventbrite.com

When: 2 p.m.–9 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 20 Where: Sociable Cider Werks, 1500 Fillmore St. NE Cost: Free; $5 drinking wristband, $40 VIP Info: eventbee.com

BOARFEST While Butcher & the Boar’s 7th-annual summer party technically isn’t a block party — it takes place in the beer garden and covered patio outside the restaurant — it features all the trappings of one. The event will feature Surly beer, selections from Butcher and the Boar’s extensive collection of bourbon, boar brats, sausages and oysters. Live bands are also slated to perform throughout the day. (21+)

When: 1 p.m.–9 p.m.

Sunday, Aug. 20 Where: Butcher & the Boar, 1121 Hennepin Ave. Cost: Free Info: facebook.com/ Butcherandtheboar

PIZZA LUCÉ BLOCK PARTY Since 2003, Lucé’s bash has been supreme among Minneapolis summer block parties, with a stellar live music lineup of acts ranging from big names to local favorites, with genres spanning hip hop, punk rock and everything in between. This year’s event touches down in downtown Minneapolis outside of the eatery’s storefront with a bill that includes a solo set from Minneapolis native Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, rising hip-hop star Allan Kingdom and singer-songwriter Haley (formerly known as Haley Bonar), plus pizza by the slice, brats and locally brewed beer, cider and spirits from Surly Brewing, Loon Juice and Tattersall Distilling.

When: Noon–10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 12 Where: Pizza Lucé, 119 N. 4th St. Cost: Free Info: pizzaluce.com/blockparty

CROSSWORD PUZZLE ACROSS 1 Feathered Nile wader 5 Tropical hardwoods 10 Title of respect 14 Have a flat?

15 Barbera’s partner in cartoons 16 Sea eagle 17 Designer Schiaparelli 18 Moving 19 Journalist Jacob 20 Sustained nuclear chain reaction requirement 23 Room where you may have to stoop 26 One working with dough 27 Really botch things 31 Port and claret 32 __-Magnon 33 The Cowboys of the NCAA’s Big 12

63 Ticklish Muppet

34 __ one’s time: waited

64 Inexact figs.

12 Liqueur flavoring

42 Sixth sense letters

35 Haphazard

65 “My heavens!”

13 Mr. and Mr.

43 Stubborn beast

38 Tires (out)

66 Prince’s “Purple __”

21 HDTV maker

44 Muppet who plays lead guitar in The Electric Mayhem

40 Give in to the munchies 41 __ green 44 Emmy nominee Fischer of “The Office”

Minos

22 Explorer with Clark

DOWN

23 “Preacher” network

1 Intense anger

24 Black goo

41 __ favor

45 Baseball division 46 Blokes

45 Edible seaweed

2 __ Paese: Italian cheese

25 Ref’s ruling

48 1992 Disney film featuring a magic lamp

3 GEICO product: Abbr.

28 Zingers

4 One of Barbie’s siblings

29 That, in Tegucigalpa

50 Wild West brothers

5 Pad __

30 More definite

51 A breeze to use, in adspeak

6 Right direction?

34 Information units

7 Opposed

35 Tegucigalpa’s country

8 Madison Square Garden hoopsters

36 Tablets that can’t be swallowed

9 Clear wrap

37 __ tai

59 “Enough gory details, thanks”

10 Mythological swimmers

38 Jai alai balls

60 Ages and ages

61 35-Down house 62 “I give!”

11 Daughter of King

55 Moscow news acronym 56 Retired racehorses, often 57 Thames museum

Crossword Puzzle SWJ 081017 4.indd 1

39 Observing Ramadan, say

47 Become an expert in 49 Point of contention 52 Killer whale 53 Blend 54 Doesn’t allow to rust 58 Mobile’s st.

Crossword answers on page B10

7/31/17 11:20 AM

Southwest High SWJ 072717 4.indd 1

7/24/17 3:41 PM

B10 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com

Summer sampler

Encrypted meanings

Two solo exhibitions close out the summer at Soo Visual Arts Center

By Dylan Thomas / dthomas@southwestjournal.com

On one of several video screens that are part of “Interference,” Liza Sylvestre’s new solo exhibition at Soo Visual Arts Center, clips from an animated film of 1980s vintage and a black-and-white movie play with closed captioned text flashing below the images.

Instead of describing the dialogue and action, the subtitles transcribe the internal monologue of a deaf viewer, an inversion of the closed captioning process. The viewer, who we assume is Sylvestre, picks up clues to the plot by reading facial expressions and gestures, but her thoughts drift at a distance from the action on the screen, and the act of watching without sound pulls her further into her own head.

“It is impossible to read cartoon lips,” the subtitled narration notes, as animated mouths open and close. “A hologram of movement.”

‘INTERFERENCE’ AND ‘RIM’S EDGE’ When: Through Aug. 26 Where: Soo Visual Arts Center, 2909 Bryant Ave. S. Info: soovac.org, 871-2263

In “Interference,” Sylvestre, an Illinois artist who began losing her hearing at age 6 and received a cochlear implant in 2003, explores that space between the hearing world and the deaf world. The exhibition shares its name with a series of Sylvestre’s drawings in which the artists writes out long paragraphs of text in her spidery hand, then scribbles out letters and whole words until the paper is speckled in black ink.

Sylvestre’s video pieces make clear that this is how she experiences the world, through snippets of sound that she must then piece together for herself to create meaning. In “The Invisible Language,” the shot frames Sylvestre’s head and shoulders as she looks directly at the viewer with piercing blue eyes and speaks, but the sound that comes through a pair of headphones isn’t her voice; it’s a dissonant squeal of static that seems to pulse whenever her lips form words.

That same tight framing of Sylvestre’s face is repeated in a separate, minute-long video projected on one of the gallery’s walls, but this time her features are only revealed piece by piece, as a worm-like squiggle of light moves from her lips to her nose, circling an eye before running down her cheek. She describes “a

feeling like words hanging in the air.”

“An updraft of wind carries them away,” she continues. “I feel them passing, almost touching my skin.”

Showing alongside “Interference” is a separate solo exhibition, “Rim’s Edge,” featuring the sculpture and assemblage work of Brooklynbased artist Christine Rebhuhn. There is again a kind of puzzling out of meaning at work, but Rebhuhn’s interest in language seems to be the absurdity of making the figurative literal.

“Pass the Potatoes (On the Left-Hand Side)” is a visual pun — a polished steel lunch tray mounted like the side-view mirror of a big rig. For “Swallow,” Rebhuhn places a pink coffee cup inside a clear glass pitcher and hangs it high on a gallery wall, like a bird’s nest.

Rebhuhn’s sparkling humor is evident even when the meaning of her work is elusive.

“Overnight Low” consists of a large window frame resting against a gallery wall. Two panes of glass are replaced by the clear-plastic clamshell packaging for a pair of headphones, and inside one hangs a taxidermied bat. If there’s a punchline, it’s the visual echo between window the cover of a vintage Playboy resting on its frame; both the window sash and the rear of the cover model’s pants hang open.

The eclectic summer group show at Bockley Gallery in Kenwood features a number of the gallery’s returning favorites.

Among them is Lauren Roche, who continues in her mixed-media pieces to plumb a darkly surreal world populated by wild animals and women covered in tribal markings. Here, longnecked birds clutching snakes in their hooked beaks surround two women who embrace like lovers. One rests on her back, grasping at a jaguar that slinks between her legs.

Also returning is Dietrich Sieling, whose visionary drawing explores combinations of line, pattern and color — here in a grinning, red-eyed skull whose nasal aperture is an upside down blue heart. A panoramic drawing by Andrea Carlson is in the same vein as the complex, hyper-detailed work she contributed to the 2015 Midwest Biennial at The Soap Factory, exploring issues of cultural representation and exploitation in art and cinema. There are rewards in attempting to untangle its layered meanings, but Carlson’s fluid line is distractingly beautiful.

Two large abstract paintings by studio-mates Kim Benson and Barbara Kreft hang on opposite walls in the main gallery and seem almost to be in dialogue with one another.

Benson’s ecstatic, multi-layered painting — with areas of smudged paint that transition sharply into patterns and back again — seems to cohere around a familiar shape, like the head and shoulders of a figure in a Renaissance portrait.

One might see the structure of a still life in Kreft’s painting, which clusters flower-like pops of shape and color — rose-petal reds and Aquafresh greens — into something like a bouquet.

BOCKLEY GALLERY SUMMER GROUP SHOW When: Through Aug. 12 Where: Bockley Gallery, 2123 W. 21st St. Info: bockleygallery.com, 377-4669

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Make a lifelong friend from abroad

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Giorgio also plays the guitar, and his dream is to join a drama club at his American high school.

TAMMY 715-497-6696 AMY 1-800-736-1760 (Toll Free) host.asse.com or email info@asse.com Founded in 1976 ASSE International Student Exchange Program is a Public Benefit, Non-Profit Organization.

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Crossword on page B9

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southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 B11

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3/3/17 10:26 AMExteriors Midwest SWJ 052115 2cx3.indd 1 612.436.5072 TO PLACE AN AD IN THE SOUTHWEST JOURNAL CALL

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A RATING

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southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 B13

A Real Lumberyard

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LUMBER & MILLWORK, INC.

2536 Marshall Street NE, Minneapolis | Monday–Friday 8am–6pm, Saturday 8am–4pm | 612-781-3333 350 Valley View Dr, Jordan, Minn. | Monday–Friday 7am–5pm, Saturday 8am–1pm | 952-492-6666 Siwek Lumber SWJ 051817 6cx2.indd 1

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B14 August 10–23, 2017 / southwestjournal.com

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1

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southwestjournal.com / August 10–23, 2017 B15

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