This week is Mpls St.Paul Magazine’s Best of the Best Restaurant Week! You have until Friday to to enjoy things like $30 grand-prixe dinners at La Belle Vie and Murray’s, along with other places in St. Paul and the suburbs. I had completely forgotten until right now, so I’ve gotta figure out where I should eat before this is over. Are you taking advantage of this deal?

PRE-/INAUGURATION:

• If you will be stuck at home or work, every television network will be airing it. It will also be streamed online by CNN, who have a deal with Facebook. Lifehacker has a good list for keeping up with the Inauguration online, too.
• Riverview Theater will be showing the Inauguration on their screen. The event is free, open to the public (though non-perishable food donations encouraged), and begins 9:30AM.
• Minneapolis Central Library will air live coverage and pre-Inaugural commentary from Dr. David Schultz about inaugurations in history, the importance of the first 100 days and the significance of Obama’s election, with a post-Inaugural discussion led by the League of Women Voters Minneapolis.
• Little Wagon will show the Inauguration at 11AM.
• Bulldog NE will feature food and drink specials, $3 beer, door prizes, and Inauguration coverage beginning at 11AM and lasting into the night.
• Gold Thyme Cafe will serve light refreshments and cake during their party running from 9-4PM.
• Gluek’s will be running an “extended Happy Hour all day” with half-priced appetizers and other drink specials beginning 11AM until close.
• The Birchwood Cafe will begin airing Inauguration coverage at noon, with a replay of highlights from 5-9PM. They will have an Obama-inspired menu and a special kids menu
• Parkway Theater will show the Inauguration on their screen at 9:30AM, with an open mic afterward for people to talk about whatever.
• Lee’s Liquor Lounge will show the Inauguration and follow-up with live music at 10PM.
• Walker Art Center will show the Inauguration on their Cinema screen at 11:30AM, there’s no admission required to watch.
  

POST-INAUGURATION:

• Black Dog Cafe will have snacks, a cash bar, music, and a photo exhibit of St. Paul during the RNC beginning at 7PM.
• SEVEN will be replaying the Inauguration on 20+ TVs starting at 8PM. The event is free and open to the public (though non-perishable food donations encouraged), with Henry Lake from KFAN as Emcee and local artist Kerry Dikken “has created a limited edition Champagne Bottle with the face of Barack Obama.”
• Dakota Jazz Club will have Yolande Bruce, Ginger Commodore, Debbie Duncan and Tonia Hughes-Kendrick performing and large screens broadcasting the events from the Capitol, for $10 from 7-11PM.
• First Course is having a bash, and coincidentally, has half-priced wine on Tuesdays.
• Epic will be having a huge party with live music, DJs, and spoken word performed after Obama’s speech at 8PM. 21+ / Doors 7PM / $15 Advance / $20 Door
• The Caterpillar Lounge will be having a party at 10PM, with DJs playing “the best in underground house and techno music.”

The stereotype of Edina as rich flies out the window compared with other cities in the report — at least when looking at annual incomes.

Edina residents’ median household income of $76,805 ranks fifth among fully developed suburbs, behind Champlin, Minnetonka, Golden Valley and Shoreview.

It doesn’t include accumulated wealth, though. However, Edina is just as lily white as you suspected, with less than 10% of its population self-identifying as non-white.

Most of them are pretty affordable and low-key, though there’s a few rather expensive ones, like the five-course dinner and black-tie gala on the Mississippi.

Then, there’s this:

Toy Story NYE 2K9
@ Envy Nightclub

Doors at 9 p.m.
Cost: $90

Enjoy a premium open bar all night with admission. DJs, dancing, human toy performances, sexy clown doll go-gos, live wind-up toy entertainment.

I’m not really a club person, but really? $90? “Sexy clown doll go-gos”? Although, I guess the cost and the creepy clown/weird human toy thing would quickly become irrelevant with the open bar.

Have a happy New Year, stay safe (and warm)!

KSTP asks, “Have you ever wondered where the snow goes when it’s plowed?” I’m kind of ashamed to say that I’ve actually never thought about it. I was just glad it was gone.

According to Minnesota Department of Transportation officials, after trucks move the snow, it gets dumped off a short section of Interstate 94 in Minneapolis.

Storage sites are hard to find, so MnDOT officials are actually keeping the dumping location a secret.

“The city has a storage site, but we don’t like to advertise that. We can have a problem with illegal dumpers; it’s a very small site. If it gets filled up, we can’t do our job for tax payers,” explained Mike Kennedy with the Minneapolis Public Works Department.

To give you an idea how much these secretive snow depositories have to hold—it takes about 150 truckloads just to clear Nicollet Mall.

Secret snow storage site? Illegal snow dumping? Exciting!

Also: At the end of the clip on KSTP, it is mentioned that snow and ice removal will be impacted by budget cuts. I’m a bit worried about what that means.

Elizabeth Alexander, who teaches at Yale, was plucked last week from the relatively obscure recesses of contemporary poetry for a moment on the world stage. President-elect Barack Obama has commissioned her to compose and read a poem for his inauguration, making her only the fourth poet in American history to read at one and elevating the art to unaccustomed prominence in the national psyche, at least for a day.

Mr. Obama’s inauguration, on Jan. 20, calls for an “occasional poem,” written to commemorate a specific event. This is not precisely what Ms. Alexander does, but she is preparing for the challenge.

“Writing an occasional poem has to attend to the moment itself,” she said in an interview, “but what you hope for, as an artist, is to create something that has integrity and life that goes beyond the moment.”

We are presenting this film in conjunction with the Riverview Theater’s 60th Anniversary Celebration. It was on December 30, 1948 that the theater first opened. You’re invited to join in our celebration by attending one of the special showings of A CHRISTMAS STORY that we will be presenting on December 22 and 23 and, at the same time, helping to support the Minnehaha Food Shelf. Admission will be just 50 cents or a canned food item. All admission receipts and food will be donated to the food shelf. There will be special concession pricing as well. Popcorn and drinks (1 size only) will also be 50 cents.

In Minnesota, food shelves have seen a record increase in need this year, with a 15% increase this past fall, according to Minnesota FoodShare.

Here is the nitty-gritty:

Location: Riverview Theater (3800 42nd Street S, Mpls, MN 55406)
Dates: December 22nd & 23rd
Showtimes: 5 p.m. & 7:15 p.m.
Admission: 50 cents or a canned food item, popcorn/drinks will also be 50 cents

According to a buyout memo released this afternoon and newsroom sources, Nick Coleman and Katherine Kersten will lose their columns, though they may be able to remain at the paper as reporters. [...]

The paper’s other metro columnists — Lileks? CJ? — may not be breathing easy, either. Management’s buyout memo asked for “up to three” metro columnists and “up to one” editorial cartoonist, which seems a classification limited to Steve Sack.

The buyout roster also includes up to two reporters and/or editorial writers and up to three photographers and/or videographers.

Fiction on a Stick, Milkweed Editions

Fiction on a Stick, edited by Daniel Slager, is the newest Milkweed anthology. It features the work of 24 local writers: Ann Bauer, Jacey Choy, Pallavi Sharma Dixit, Anastasia Faunce, Shannon Gibney, Linda LeGarde Grover, Miriam Karmel, Chrissy Kolaya, Steven Lang, May Lee-Yang, Éireann Lorsung, John Reimringer, Marcie Rendon, Ethan Rutherford, Dominic Saucedo, Kaethe Schwehn, Sun-Yung Shin, Sarah Stonich, Josiah Titus, Diego Vázquez, Robert Voedisch, Michael Walsh, Diane Wilson, and Kirk Wisland.

The launch party is tonight at 7 p.m. at Open Book, and there will also be a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in downtown Minneapolis tomorrow from noon to 1 p.m.

Disclosure: I was taught poetry by contributor Sun-Yung Shin, and dated the brother of another contributor, Éireann Lorsung, in high school. It’s a small world in Minnesota, especially in art!