The Cafe Barbette Bastille Day block party 2013

Cafe Barbette hosted their Bastille Day block party again, and it was a blast.  The weather was perfect, and Eureka Recycling was on hand to make it a zero-waste event. The event raises money for the organization People Serving People, a homeless shelter for families.

There was food and drink, lots of cute babies and people with elaborate tattoo sleeves, a guy who juggled fire and machetes,  burlesque Marie Antoinette, and several bands. Lucy Michelle played with her new band which includes Chan Polling and John Munson, and I stayed long enough for the set of the Suicide Commandos.
Here they are, on a segment of our local public TV show MNOriginals!

Snack! Snack! Snack! CRUNCH!

Hot Cheetos and ....Takis? What are Takis? Mexican junk food, yo.
And this great viral hit was made in Minneapolis! Our favorite snacks of childhood are powerful memories.

Tornado strikes North Minneapolis

Dear friends and readers, we are safe and fine!



A big tornado touched down in North Minneapolis this afternoon. They are saying that it's the worst tornado to strike the city in 30 years. Yesterday, I saw some cloud rotation as we left the Art-A-Whirl event in Northeast Minneapolis (across the Mississippi from North) so we knew that there was a chance of severe weather this weekend.
My daughter and I live in South Minneapolis, and we are safe and sound. We had to take cover during the storm while we were out shopping and the tornado sirens sounded, but nothing bad happened in our neighborhood. I was able to follow the news on Twitter in the moment, but the full extent of the damage is just beginning to become apparent.

I am heartsick for our neighbors in northern Minneapolis and the suburbs, whose homes or businesses have been affected.  Huge trees have fallen on almost every block, on cars and powerlines; houses and buildings are damaged, cars crushed, windows blown out. As is often the case, the damage skips around and one house might be leveled while another is untouched right next door. On TV, I can see pictures of homes with missing roofs (they are estimating one in five) and others with substantial damage. The trees did not snap and fall straight down, but were uprooted completely and fell over causing greater damage.
This video compiles some of the immediate TV coverage:



The City of Minneapolis is asking people to stay away to emergency services can get in and go door to door to check on people. There are a few gas leaks and evacuations. The police, the firefighters, Park and Rec employees, inspectors, traffic control agents, are have been deployed to the area.

A Family Assistance Center has been set up at the Armory on Broadway and Central. A shuttle will take people from 1926 Plymouth Ave. N. to take people to the shelter.

So far, one person is dead, but mostly minor injuries are being reported. It will take time to clear away the fallen trees, and many homes are without power. People are already out with their chainsaws, cutting up fallen limbs and trees.

Light rail coming to the UMN campus

Because I grew up in San Franciso riding buses and streetcars, I'm really excited that light rail is being extended in the Twin Cities with the Central Corridor line, under construction now, to connect downtown Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The current existing Hiawatha line that runs from downtown Minneapolis to the Mall of America and the airport, with stops along the way, has been a resounding success, especially for working people with no cars, folks coming to the new Twins Stadium, and commuters who don't want to deal with the high parking rates and horrible traffic of working downtown.
This animation shows what the reconfigured University of Minnesota campus route will look like. I can't wait for the busy, dangerous street that currently cuts the campus in two to be replaced with a more pedestrian and bike-friendly zone. Students will be well-served by having public transportation options increased.

Some people are concerned about how the LRT will fit on University avenue, where there are currently four lanes of traffic. In fact, there used to be streetcars there, and their right-of-way corridor still exists. The LRT will be routed along that existing slot, and not displace current traffic.

The history of steam and then electric streetcars in the Twin Cities,  and how the system was dismantled and plundered by embezzlers after WWII is an instructive one.

Walking our neighborhood

We didn't roast a leg of lamb for Easter, but we did have delicious French toast with Nutella and strawberries. Bacon from Pastures A Plenty. Fresh grapefruit juice for la chica, coffee for me.
Then we set off to have our first real walk of Spring. No snow, no ice, no rain, no gusty winds: blue skies, fluffy clouds, and mild sun.
We spotted a rabbit down the block, the second time I've seen one in that spot. Bird-watching was great: grackles, crows, robins galore, a yellow-rumped warbler, Canadian goose in the Walker Sculpture Garden, red-winged blackbirds and a mallard in Loring Park, assorted sparrows. We heard cardinals and finches but didn't see any. Blooming were forsythia, crocuses, blue and white squill, daffodils, lots of tulips, and our first dandelions of spring. The peonies are sprouting, still tender reddish shoots. In the sculpture garden, there were many well-dressed toddlers in their Easter outfits.

At Joe's Garage we had lemonade, fruit, potatoes, and desserts. By the time we walked home again, both of us were tired, but in that good way that comes from walking with a smile.
Today, I can't help but sing all the great Easter Parade songs by Irving Berlin:

Blizzard People! December 10, 2010

I'm so glad that Blas and Loren arrived home from Spain safely on Friday night before the blizzard arrived. There were safe at home the next day while it snowed and blew and busted the roof of the Metrodome. Many epic tales of digging out cars and shoveling were told the next day, as we woke up to a blue sky and frigid temperatures.

Snowpocalypse? Snomaggedon? SnOMG? This year's fun label/Twitter hashtag was #blizzardpeople, and lots of jokes were made about how our local weather celebrity, Paul Douglas, was vindicated in his projections of snowfall, after people mocked him for making us all worry about icy death (with reason) during our Thanksgiving travel.

But someone named galina put together this mashup of video footage with a great song about Minnesota blizzards.

Brother Ali made a blizzard rap last year. The New Standards do a version of "Snow Days" (originally recorded by Trip Shakespeare, bassist John Munson's group).

Sculpture Garden at the De Young museum 1/3

One of my favorite places to visit in San Franciso is a discreet installation in the sculpture garden of the De Young museum. To find it, you walk down a bamboo-lined path, then turn toward a structure set into the earth. It is called "Three Gems" and is one of the many Sky Space creations of James Turrell.


You enter an open-air pathway that curves around to the entrance into the chamber in the center.

The chamber entrance is arched, the room inside is domed, with a small round opening at the top.


Sunlight through the opening moves across the wall as the day goes by.

Look straight up; the clouds moving across the blue sky look like clouds on the moon.

I have just discovered that Turrell has a similar installation now at the Walker Art Center called "Sky Pesher!" People have made music in it, gotten married in it, made out in it....I will go see it today!

Snowpocalypse forecast

My brother's family lives on the Eastern Shore, across the Chesapeake Bay from Annapolis, MD. Apparently, the unusual snowfall in the greater DC area is giving the weather people conniptions.

(via Bob Collins at MPR's NewsCut blog) Excuse me, while I go out and shovel the walk. I'm glad we're only going to get 5-8 inches in our storm.

A great idea

Local Minneapolis crew at X Y and Z have a project that I love, called the Community Visual Restoration Project, about turning vacancy into art.

Amazing crow video

via Birdchick's blog, here is a video clip taken this Sunday at Loring Park in Minneapolis, of the tens of thousands of crows that fly in to roost their every night in the winter. One of my daily joys is seeing the crows fly overhead toward their roost, so this footage taken by TwinCitiesNaturalist is thrilling. I have to go see it in person some time soon! I highly recommend clicking on the full screen view icon in the lower right hand corner of the video to get the full effect.

Mason Jennings, "The Field"

Local musician Mason Jennings has been on the verge of super-stardom for years, but maybe it's just as well that he's been more of a cult favorite because it has let him live a normal life and make great music for appreciative fans. His latest album, "Blood of Man" has been getting heavy play on The Current, our local public radio music station, and we happened to hear it a few days ago on the drive to school. I was familiar with the music, but this time I really listened to the lyrics. By the time we got to school, I was sobbing. I couldn't help but remember the time last year when one of my students told me her only child had been killed in Iraq. Eight years of horror and wasted lives.
"I don't want no victory, I just want you back."

Pink Hobo, a geek art gallery in Minneapolis

We want to go!

How Twitter helps me filter and connect

I like this picture of the Ebro River rising in Zaragoza this winter, near the Basílica del Pilar.
*********
There is so much information to manage: what's the best way to do it? as usual, the answer is a question of individual needs and style. I found that Facebook overloaded me with information updates I didn't want, so I deleted my account, but other friends are delighted with how it helps them keep in touch with people.

For following blogs or news outlets, I have experimented with using RSS feeds in a number of ways: as part of the My Blogs Lists over on the right of this sight, on my iGoogle page, through Bloglines, on my browser toolbar. But I often feel as if I'm drowning in numbers if I look at a feed agregator; it triggers the somewhat obsessive-compulsive reader in me in a way that feels unpleasant.

I am finding that Twitter is working well for me as a kind of feed + filter, and so has enhanced my ability to pick up on stories that interest me. I'm following some really funny and generous people, who post tweets with links to stories, songs, images, or websites that entertain or teach me something new. I'm also trying to limit the number of tweeters I'm following so I'm not overdoing it. A tweet can be an end in itself, but also a door opening up on a blog post or a news story that leads me in unexpected and rewarding directions.

Here's a sampling of what I found today through tweets from people I'm following. I'm leaving out the personal greetings, jokes and academic musings, which deserve a separate post. I could have found some of these through an RSS feed to each of the relevant blogs, but the Twitter feed allows me to respond directly as well as leave comments on the news stories (which I do) or the posts.

via @VisitLakeStreet, a neighborhood news feed, I discovered the brand new "Living Green Twin Cities" website went live this week-looks great, and connects me to local events and writers about sustainability.

via @blogdiva and @nezalicious (aka Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen and Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican) Nancy Pelosi decides to use her powers for good, as reported in the SF Chronicle: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined hundreds of families Saturday evening at a church in San Francisco's Mission District demanding an end to the immigration raids and deportations that separate parents from children across the United States." As usual, I'll be following the extended stories on immigration politics at Nezua's site The Unapologetic Mexican. boohoo, blogdiva's server is down, but I'll keep looking for her tweets.

via @kottkedotorg and @sashafrerejones, my favorite mashup of the week: kutiman has taken tracks from YouTube videos and created some Thru-You jukebox that is awesome, whether you watch it or just listen to it in the backround, as I'm doing now.

by way of @torresburiel in Zaragoza, I found a post on International Women's day, which is today, March 8, on a blog called marilink: "ninguna lista de chicas geek". Although he highlighted the part of her post that seemed to suggest that we don't need special days (she says she reads people for the quality of what they say, not because of gender), she also points out why we still need to think about women's place in the world and why we still need an International Women's Day. A link at her post (to an article posted at the Women's Media Center) pointed out that women are now half of all bloggers, but that the media still doesn't make this visible.

@UMN News links to a profile of a colleague in Anthropology whose book on the ethnography of Wall Street trades has just been published. I've heard her talk about her research, and I'm going to buy her book, because it's the inside scoop on the culture of the traders that has been a major contributing factor to this iteration of the boom/bust cycle. I have noticed that I get much more news about the U through my Twitter account than through other sources, and I work there. I went to the U's Media pages and discovered that they do not have a link or widget allowing readers to know they are using Twitter, so I wrote and suggested that they add that feature. Let's see if they respond.

@jojeda --Julio Ojeda-Zapata is a reporter for the Pioneer Press who covers all kinds of tech stuff at YourTechWeblog. He has a round-up of the PiPress coverage of Amazon's new ebook reader Kindle. I was interested in checking out this new device, an he does an excellent pro/con story. Then I started following his links to other bloggers and got pleasantly distracted. I love serendipity!

Update: edited for spelling because I'm sloppy.

Urban geography

The blog Twin Cities Sidewalks presents fine, fine pictures of the sidewalks, lampposts, and streets of the Twin Cities, with informative and witty writing by an urban geographer. At the end of this post on the lampposts of St Paul was a little added bonus, a video presenting the lampposts of London, set to the 1812 Overture!

The courage to bike again

When I first arrived in the Twin Cities in 1988, I did not have a driver's license. In fact, I did not know how to drive a car (although I had passed the obligatory Driver's Ed course in high school), nor had I any experience driving while living in San Francisco or Berkeley. I lived in Minneapolis for two years before deciding to learn to drive, get a license and buy a car. For one thing, I could finally afford both a car and car insurance. For another, the winters in Minneapolis are sufficiently brutal so that riding a bike can be a miserable, horrible experience for months at a time. But finally, the reason that I decided to get a car was because sharing the road with cars and trucks in Minneapolis was terrifying in a way that I had never experienced when biking in the Bay Area. I feared for my life on a daily basis, and that was beginning to wear me down.

Later, of course, the car was extremely useful for transporting a small child to and from child care as well as for commuting to work or doing grocery shopping. Although a bus runs from my neighborhood to my work, it didn't take me close enough to the child care center to make it practical to use it in the winter.

Recently, Minneaplis police got in some practice for next year's Republican Convention by corraling, beating, and arresting participants in a peaceful Critical Mass event, one which had never had a history of violence in the Twin Cities.
In the ensuing coverage and discussion of whether or not the bikers "provoked" the police or whether the police were just being police when they maced, clubbed and hauled off citizens for the terrible crimes of riding their bikes and getting a little lippy with the cops when told to leave the streets although they had commmitted no crime, very few people talked about the reason why Critical Mass exists: because people are routinely killed and injured by traffic that treats bikers as if they had no right to ride on the street. Local wingnut columnist KKKatherine KKKersten railed about bikers, anarchy and the end of civilization, in the Strib, but for better information about what really happened, I checked out this great site on biking in the Twin Cities. It's starting to make me want to get back on the bike. If only my shoulders were not currently giving me pain, I'd do it, but I have to wait until the physical therapy helps relieve the rotator cuff impingement BS I'm currently dealing with.

In New York, artists have been putting up "ghost bikes" at sites where riders have been killed by cars or trucks. We need to put one up for Adam Finley, a man killed when struck by a school bus while riding his bike near Lake Calhoun.

A miraculous escape

The woman in this story, Djana Andic, was one of our majors and a co-worker in our department. She tells the story of her escape from one of the cars that plunged into the river when the bridge collapsed.

I'm so very grateful that she escaped with only bruises. Her experience was terrifying, but she is alive and well.

Rescue workers tell some of their stories. This man was riding his bike and was one of the first on the scene to help rescue people.

I think I"m not alone in feeling a kind of delayed shock. I've been thinking a lot about what happened in the earthquake of 1989 in San Francisco, where my family lives, and in New Orleans where the catastrophe was monumentally more dire. I'm also thinking of my experience in Spain of having passed through Madrid one day before the bombings of the train station in Atocha. I'm thinking of the victims of the plane crash in Brazil where inadequate airport facilities made such an accident a matter of time.

Every day in Iraq when a car bomb goes off and dozens, hundreds of people are murdered, the citizens of that country must experience the fear, horror and despair, compounded by the desperate lack of basic resources such as water,electricity, safety in the streets.

I believe that we will discover that budget constraints forced the state agency to spread out needed repairs to infrastructure in a way that contributed to the likelihood of such an accident. Some people wish that the "finger pointing" or political discussions would wait until all the victims have been identified, and I understand that desire. But we will need to understand how such a thing could happen, in spite of the fact that this state's agencies do a very good job in general, not commonly marked by corruption or incompetence.

The last budget cycle has been marked by acrimonious contention over the funding of transportation, with the governor and Republicans blocking bills that would have provided for more investment in roadways and public transportation, even losing out on matching available federal money in the process! I think that once the recovery work is done, we will see a set of hard-hitting reports on the fact that in the last six years Republicans have starved state and municipal agencies of all kinds in the name of "no new taxes."

The bridge

Jeremy Hernandez, the Waite House youth worker who got sixty kids off the school bus, handing them down to other rescuers who got them off the bridge.

Thank you so much to the friends and family who've been in touch. I've felt the need to reach out as well. Considering the magnitude of the event, it is astounding to me how many people were rescued and helped in the very first minutes. Watching and listening to the coverage, reading blogs and comments, seeing pictures from eyewitnesses who live and work in the area, like blogger Noah Kunin all have made clear how many people, both professionals and those who just happened to be there, acted immediately to rescue and comfort people who were injured, confused, or trapped. Sharon over at Birdchick wrote an eloquent post that shows a before and after picture, and links to a flikr set of photos taken from a boat on the river close by.

I used to live a few blocks from the bridge when I first arrived in Minnesota, and didn't have a car. Walking or biking on the river road around and underneath this bridge towards downtown was something I did quite often, and in recent weeks I've been walking several times very near that area. I crossed that bridge on my way to work almost every day at least once for the last twelve years, mostly without paying attention, but quite often (because I moved here from California) I'd think to myself, "I'm crossing the MISSISSIPPI RIVER!!" a fact that never failed to delight me. I love the river, and although this was not a walking bridge, or a beautiful bridge, the bridges we cross every day in this town are an intimate part of our lives. I don't feel a reaction of fear, but a senes of sadness and loss.

This is a message I received from the Deans of my College at the University. It really expresses well one of the ways this event has affected me and many others I work with.

Words cannot express the sadness we feel with yesterday's collapse of the I-35W bridge. Many of us have been deeply shaken by the suddenness of this event. Bridges hold a special importance for us in CLA since we are located on both banks of the Mississippi, and the ease with which we are able to cross the river reinforces our sense of a unified collegiate community. The I-35W bridge was virtually in the University's back yard and traveling across it was a normal part of the day for many of us and for our family and friends. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those whose lives have been affected by this tragedy.

This disaster is a stark reminder of own mortality and the fragility of life. But such events also remind us of the human ties that bind each of us to our community and to each other. We witnessed spontaneous acts of bravery by the first responders in rescuing many of their fellow citizens, and we remain grateful for the extraordinary dedication of our emergency service workers in trying to save as many persons as possible.

We hope that this email finds you and your family, friends, and colleagues safe and well. If there is anything that the college can do to support you during this time, please let us know.

ETA: Noticiero en castellano:

some video clips

still photos:

Ana and I are safe

We both left campus right about the time that the I-35 bridge collapse happened into the river. On another day, we would have been on it, but she was on her bike and I almost never take the freeway home during rush hour, so although we were crossing the river about that time, neither of us was on the span of the bridge that fell into the river. Instead, we took the 10th Ave bridge that crosses the river just a little way to the east. I came home and turned on the TV to check on something else, and saw the news unfolding. I immediately called my mother to let her know I was OK. Then my brother called me from Maryland because he'd realized that the freeway is the one that goes by the University.

Right now, the news is trickling in, rescue workers are on the scene. Boats and divers are in the water trying to find the vehicles that went into the water--maybe up to 50.

A few eyewitnesses are telling what they saw. A University colleague heard the noise and saw the whole thing from his fifth floor office on the West Bank of the U of MN campus. It looks as if there was some structural damage, some stress fractures in the steel structure.

A storm is moving in--I can hear the thunder. We badly need the rain because of the drought, but it is going to make rescue efforts more complicated.

Minneapolis City Libraries: as basic as police and fire departments

I sent this letter to the Mayor of Minneapolis and my City Council members:

Dear Mayor Rybak and City Council members,
As a resident of Minneapolis, a mother of a junior high student
who attends public school, and a professor at the
University of Minnesota, I respectfully urge you to make full funding of ALL of our library branches a top priority. The Library Board has voted to keep the branches open if you provide the funds. The people of Minneapolis have consistently supported our excellent library system in bonding bills in years past. Please do not starve the library system of the funding it needs to remain a vital service for ALL Minneapolis
residents, not just those in some neighborhoods. As a former resident of
California, I was delighted when I moved to Minneapolis to work at the
University of Minnesota that the city had a superior library, school and
park system. It is with extreme dismay that I witness the erosion of an
ethos of first-class public services in this city.

As a single parent, I am very concerned that children of Junior High age do not currently have enough safe spaces to go after school. After sixth grade they are not eligible for on-site after-school care, such as Minneapolis Kids. Those of us with the means to enroll our children in after-school activities patch together ways to keep them safe until we come home from work. Children this age are especially vulnerable to being initiated into such activities as smoking, drinking, and sex if they are hanging around unsupervised until their parents come home from
work. When I was this age, the library was a safe haven, a place to do homework, a place to learn. Children should be able to WALK or take a very short bus ride to a library.

As a university professor, I want to see all of our city's children end
up in my classes, and for many, the library may be the only access they
have to books or information. Closing branch libraries may seem like a
way to save money in the short term, but the impact on our children (and

on many others who rely on the library for a wide array of vital
services) must be a top priority in any decision we make. Closing
library branches is hobbles the ability of parents and public schools to
partner in preparing their children for higher education.

When the city has Wi-Fi, that will be great for those of us who can
afford computers. But those who cannot afford computers make heavy use of them in the
libraries. Closing branch libraries deprives communities of access to
information, much of which is no longer easily accessible in other
formats.

I use branch libraries in more than one neighborhood--in Uptown where I
live, in SouthEast where I work, and in other neighborhoods where I shop
or visit friends. They are always packed with people of all ages,
especially young people. Where will these children go to learn? where
will they go after school when these safe and FREE spaces are closed? I
also note the presence of senior citizens, new immigrants, and folks
from every age and background. Branch libraries are one of the very few
community spaces that are not segregated by wealth, age, race, or other
factors. Closing branch libraries deprives our city of public spaces
that are not commercial in which citizens can interact in safety with people of all walks of life.

Please do not allow the state's shortsighted funding priorities to drive
our city's public service agenda. I consider the library system to be as
important to public safety as the police and fire departments, as
important to education as the public schools, and as important to the
health of our communities as any jobs program. You have the opportunity
to invest in the health of the library now while we work to reverse the
priorities of the state's funding system.


So far, this is the only response I have received:
Hi Joanna,

Thanks for writing.

I'm not impressed with the Council's work on the budget thus far. We
could, and need to do a lot more to help the Library with its 2007
budget.

For the first time in five years, the city budget has many dollars of
new spending. With a 2% wage cap still in place for city employees, the
police department not adequately staffed and our libraries closing, I
can't support using our 8% tax increase on new funding for new staff
positions and new programs. Libraries are essential services. We need to
fund the basics first.

I authored motions put before the council designed to give an additional
$645K to the library for 2007, I came up with $250K previously, and my
colleagues have approved another $885. I will keep fighting for the
funds to keep our libraries open.

Please keep writing all elected officials. I am hopeful with the new
leadership at the State Capital we can get our LGA restored and reverse
the corporate property tax cuts that have harmed all city budgets in the
past four years.


Gary Schiff
City Council Ward 9

Urban Wildlife in Minneapolis

The weather is so mild for this time of year, we had to take a walk. It's a little over 3 miles around a lake in the middle of the city. We went clockwise. Heading in the other direction, we passed lots of folks walking, running, on skates, bikes, skateboards, skate-skis (no snow yet), in strollers, and on the ends of leashes. On the other ends were a parade of dogs: dachshunds, Great Danes, Scotties (black and white--or are those Westies?) a Pug, a few Huskies, your garden-variety yellow lab, Cocker Spaniels, a Standard Poodle, a Collie, the smallest Yorkie in existence, more we can't remember. In the water there were Canadian geese, mallards, and some coots. Seagulls at the end of a dock seemed to be plotting something (I've never been fond of those birds). We caught fragments of conversations, some in languages other than English. About two-thirds of the way around, we saw a creature swimming toward shore. It wasn't a bird, and didn't look like a dog. Not a turtle either, there was some kind of motion in the water behind its head that indicated paws or a tail. Beaver? as it approached, with a mouthful of bright green weeds, we realized it was an otter. It wasn't very large. We were standing at a site where the lake water entered an underground passage to a nearby lake or a creek, and it ducked and swam in. What a marvelous surprise!