2008 Selby Ave JazzFest, 11am-7pm, Saturday, Sep 13, 2008

2008 Selby Ave. Jazz Fest
Selby & Milton, St. Paul,
Sept 13, 2008
11a.m - 7 p.m.

The Selby Ave JazzFest was created in 2002 by Golden Thyme Coffee Café owner and community activist Mychael Wright. (Golden Thyme is on the corner of Selby and Milton.)

I used to hang out over there kind of a lot. That corner doesn’t normally look too exciting. In fact, it’s an oddly deserted and vaguely creepy feeling area considering Summit Ave, Grand Ave, and Selby-Dale are so close by. So I bet it’s quite a sight when the JazzFest is going on. Almost 10,000 people attended last year.

There’s food from “soul food” to “State Fair,” a marketplace, a health and wellness fair, activities for the kiddies, and music all day long.

More information is available at SelbyAveJazzFest.com and on their facebook page.

Schedule
11 a.m. Dick and Jane’s Big Brass Band with kickoff parade
12 p.m. Walker West Urban Legends of Jazz
1 p.m. Mikhalized
2 p.m. Wenso Ashby & Zsamé Morgan
2 p.m. - 6 p.m.Kids have the opportunities to engage in making puppets with Heart of the Beast
3 p.m. Yohannes Tona
4 - 4:15 p.m. Award Ceremony: Leigh Kammon & Merle Harris Awards
4:15 p.m. The John Raymond Project
5 p.m. Salsa Del Soul
6 p.m. Jason “Malletman” Taylor

Lazy Lightning and commentors discuss replacing vs renovating the currently-condemned Meadow Lake Bridge which carried bikers across the Minnesota River between Bloomington and Burnsville.

Cam Gordon (Mpls 2nd Ward city council member) has the deets on this year’s National Night Out.

TC Biz Journal’s 2008 Women In Business Honorees.

TC Biz Journal reports what downtown MNspeakers have known for weeks and that is that a SoupMan (of Seinfeld fame) is now open in the Minneapolis Skyway.

The great people of the Tale of Two Cities LiveJournal community discuss Minnesota’s representation in that CNNmoney list of Best Small Cities to Live. “[Y]ou’ll see most of what got Plymouth into the #1 spot isn’t even located in Plymouth.” MNspeakers discuss as well.

Mary Lahammer on Jesse’s non-announcement on Larry King Live. He did, in fact, talk to someone in the local media. Sort of.

MinnPost runs a University of Minnesota eNews report on a study confirming what people who use Facebook and Myspace already know, which is that kids learn technology skills and share/collaborate on creative efforts through social media. New news: the digital divide is perhaps not as big as we think it is. “The students participating in the University of Minnesota study were from families whose incomes were at or below the county median income (at or below $25,000) and were taking part in an after-school program, Admission Possible, aimed at improving college access for low-income youth.”

MnIndy: “Local immigration attorneys and advocates say Postville raid reflected ‘a complete lack of due process’”

NRP is sending a delegation to the 2008 Bank of the West Neighborhood Summit in Omaha. (Bank of the West is an actual bank.) “The Summit will be an opportunity to learn from residents of Des Moines, Omaha, Wichita and Kansas City what they are doing around key issues, share ideas, network, tour Omaha, and have fun!” 31 Minneapolitans attended last year. Apply to attend by August 1.

saintpaulitan visits the friendly neighborhood geodesic dome house.

vita.mn’s guide to all the drag shows in Minneapolis and St Paul. That’s not very many, but then, how many drag shows do you need? Feel free to edit the list.

TC Biz Journal says, in the wake of the dented nose cone issue, MSP is some new runway status lights at some yet to be determined time between now and 2011. The $400 million tab is to be picked up by the FAA.

Hopkins City Council just approved the operation of B&Bs. You couldn’t run a B&B in Hopkins before now and there are no hotels or motels or other such things to boot.

Apparently all you have to do is ask. Someone (maybe someone who owns a really nice house and wants to start renting out rooms?) asked the city why they didn’t permit B&Bs and so the issue was brought before the city council. The Zoning and Planning Commission recommended approval at the June 3 city council meeting (pdf) and the ordinance was passed at yesterday’s meeting.

Maybe it’s because I live here, but I never really think about B&Bs in the area. But you know what would be a great use of a B&B? Putting my parents up when they come to visit. It’s gotta be way better than one of the bajillion chain hotels along 494. Even the fancy ones which my folks can’t afford. My parents aren’t frequent or high needs travelers, but they do enjoy a comfy bed and a good breakfast. They don’t even care about internet access. Anything else they’d need or want I’d be responsible for anyway.

Google Maps suggests there aren’t many near Hopkins. A couple in Chaska. Some in Minneapolis. More in St Paul, mostly in that Grand/Summit/Selby/Lexington/Dale area. Surprisingly few near Lake Minnetonka. Predictably a few in Stillwater and Hastings.

If not for my parents, a weekend getaway that is not very far and is not my house and provides me with food is always a nice option. Especially in St Paul since I have always lived on the west side of the metro and that’s like a whole different city over there.

Are there any B&Bs in town that y’all would recommend?

twin_cities - LiveJournal is a wealth of information. Where to find a divorce support group. Where to get a whole hog. Where to unload your chinchillas. Where the cheap monthly parking is in downtown St. Paul. And that’s just today!

Minnesota Monitor - Podcast from the Neighborhood Sustainability Conference held at Augsburg College. MnMon’s all multimedia and shit. Follow them on Twitter, too.

MN Daily - U receives $1.7 million in grants to tackle obesity. I’m sure all the giant food companies based in town will be watching closely.

vita.mn - Pubes! Man, people get riled up over maintenance of The Hair Down There. See also, mnspeak and Sornie. Watch the euphemisms and metaphors come out of the woodwork.

NewsCut - Bob Collins reaction to the Keillor mansion non-story is the same as mine, and better expressed.

MinnPost - David Brauer on the cesspool that is twincities.com’s comments in light of a recent public defender’s argument that “her client’s trial — for making terroristic threats against 10-year-old boy — should be moved from Ramsey County because of public comments on twincities.com, the Pioneer Press website.” Pretty good analysis of the comment mechanism at the PiPress’s site. (As of right now, zero comments on this MinnPost story.)

Minneapolis Issues Forum - On the problem of architectural theft. Happens all the time with shady contractors and is really hard to document for insurance purposes.

Can someone explain to me why Garrison Keillor buying a Summit Ave mansion makes the TC Biz Journal? Their source is the Star Tribune, but… again, in the Biz Journal?

I guess they couldn’t resolve the issue with their neighbor over the garage and so they decided to just move instead.

Lots going on.

• Participate in Eating for Art. Restaurants in the Lyndale neighborhood will donate a portion of their proceeds to the Walldogs on Nicollet project. Thursday. (via)
• Drive by the weeHouse in Linden Hills. Is it still “wee” if you put four of them together?
• See the new statue of Mexican Revolution hero Emiliano Zapata in Powderhorn Park, a gift from the Mexican state of Morelos (and explain to your kids that there’s more to life than guns).
• Attend the beer/cheese tasting at W.A. Frost. Thursday, 5:30-7:30, $26/person.
• Ride the Minneapolis Bike Tour. Take a 15- or 41-mile course and see the Grand Rounds. Sunday, departing from Parade Field between 7:30 and 9:00.
• For the left-leaning residents of Senate District 60, go to the 3rd Annual Blue BBQ hosted by Southwest DFLers. Saturday, noon-4pm, Linden Hills Park.
• Go to a meat raffle at Grumpy’s Downtown. “It’s part game show, part variety show, part cabaret, and, alright, it’s part meat raffle. There’s probably some skits in there too, and all sorts of funny.” Saturday, 9pm. (via)
• Attend the first perfomance of the Electric Arc Radio Show recorded at their new venue by The Current. With musical guest Little Man. [tickets] Saturday, 8pm.
• Run the 15th Annual James Page Blubber Run. Free post-race beer, sandwiches, and entertainment by the J.R. Michaels Band. Saturday, walk-up reg and sign-in starting at 7:30, race at 10:00. Pets, costumes, and pet costumes welcome. Today’s the last day to register online.
• Go to the Bryant-Lake Bowl block party. A portion of the proceeds goes to the Fringe. Saturday, 5-10:30pm.
• Speaking of Fringe, the Fringe Invitational kicks off at the Actors Theater of Minnesota. Re-stagings of Bards, Blue Collar Diaries, Buckets and Tap Shoes, Circumference, From Here to Maternity, I Hate Kenny G, and Take a Left at the Giant Cow begin Thursday night and run weekends through mid-October.
• See a free “Climate Change Slideshow Presentation” (a la An Inconvenient Truth) at the Riverview Theater. Saturday, 10am.
• Attend the Summit Beer Dinner at Highland Grill. Monday night. $60/person. Call 651.690.1173 for reservations and time. It’s been canceled.

The 3rd Annual B-Girl Be Summit will be held this weekend, June 28 - July 1, at Intermedia Arts and other venues around Minneapolis.

Building on the last two years’ wildly successful festival, Intermedia Arts is proud to present the third annual B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip-Hop, a multimedia festival encompassing the four elements of hip-hop: MCing, DJing, breakdancing, graffiti–and more. The mission of B-Girl Be is to influence and inspire leadership to change the perceptions and roles of women in hip-hop for current and future generations. This annual event is a place to make connections, build confidence, sharpen skills and gain access to the tools to create music, film, poetry, rap, aerosol art and dance.

All the details are at Intermedia Arts’ website. The summit is this weekend, but the exhibition The Art of T&A: Truth and Activism is ongoing at Intermedia Arts through September 9.

The full schedule of summit events is available online. $30 gets you an all-access pass. Other participating venues include Bryant Lake Bowl, the Capri Theater, Fifth Element, Foundation Nightclub, Hennepin Center for the Arts, Jawahiir Studios, and Nomad World Pub.

If i had to pick one event of the summit to attend, it would be the spoken word show on Friday at 10:30pm at Nomad. Because Desdamona is the shit. And one of the founders of B-Girl Be.

(via The Dish)

For the tiny or non-existent sliver of the Metroblogging audience that hasn’t yet been to a Minnesota RollerGirls event: whatever positive hype you’ve heard is entirely true. Holy. Hell. The ladies bring the fun / drama / excitement. It probably doesn’t hurt to sit in the first row, where the fun / drama / excitement goes from “vicarious” to “if I don’t move fast enough, the laws of inertia are going to bring 120 pounds of skating woman into contact with my face in a manner that is way, way faster and harder than is desirable.”

The favorites won (the Garda Belts over the Dagger Dolls, and the Atomic Bombshells over the Rockits for the championship), but the drama felt true blue as the ladies skated all-out and the occasional mini-scuffle erupted, delighting fans and players alike.

Halftime? Half an hour of feel-good polka music by Alpenrose. Exactly the right fit for the crowd and event. And while misguided covers (Jimmy Buffet? Seriously?) may have been a little too plentiful, the rendition of Tequila on the alphorn more than made up for it.

Alphorns are awesome.

All that goodness aside, this wouldn’t really be blogging if there wasn’t an evisceration of the crap. So here it comes.
Read more

As promised, I spent a recent $100 windfall on local beer.

How much beer is that? I could have stretched it further, but I ended up with eleven different varieties, essentially chosen on random impulse. Most were six-packs of bottles, but there was a 12-pack of cans, a 12-pack of bottles, a 4-pack of tall boys and a growler in the mix.

The breweries we sampled included James Page, Surly, Summit, Barley John’s, Grain Belt and more.

Keep reading if you’re curious as to how they stacked up.
Read more

• Twinsville: Everything you ever wanted to know about the new Twins stadium. Including the fact that it’s going to be called Twinsville. (via an affair with urban policy)
• The Patrick Henry High School choir sings some holiday favorites. Scroll down a little. (via buzz.mn)
• Giant wooden crib floats to shore in Duluth. It was originally built and sunk to serve as a support structure for a railroad servicing a grain elevator. The people of Duluth are delighted.
• Northwest could buy Mesaba. This is not surprising to me, though the extent of the control that Northwest already has over Mesaba is.
• HWY 55 Tailgating Safety Project: Mn/DOT painted these dots on the road and you’re supposed to stay at least two dots behind the car in front of you. I’d go check it out, but you have to go all the way out to Wright County. I get twitchy just going outside the 494/694 loop. (via Roadguy)
• MNspeakers discuss what’s cool in North Minneapolis. Or they start out that way, anyway. The conversation quickly devolves, then sort of makes a comeback.
• Two Cities Two Wheels has a great wrap-up from the St. Paul Bike Summit that was held back in September.
• The Minneapoline: “Minneapolis St. Paul Street Fashion” aka “Things I would not be caught dead wearing except maybe on Halloween if I didn’t hate dressing up for Halloween.” (via east-lake.net)
• Andy sums up the year in gay news in MN.
• McClatchy selling Star Tribune. *yawn*
• NEWS FLASH: Ice rinks not doing so well in warm-so-far winter.
• mnpACT’s list of the 10 Worst Minnesota Politicians of 2006. Michele Bachmann’s only #6. Norm Coleman’s #2. I didn’t think he was unusually bad this year. (via the Minnesota Monitor)