News

I woke up Friday morning to a white blanket of humility. I had watched it begin to fall the previous afternoon as I sat in on one of the many events listed in the Almanac arts calendar. We looked out the window of the third-floor room of the Metropolitan State library to see heavy flakes against the backdrop of our downtown skyline and both of the capital city’s domes. I know last week, I hinted that we might be past all of this. I was wrong, but at the same time here I was in a room full of people happy not to be stuck in front of the television at home.

Okay. No kvetching! You can park on both sides of the street now. The snow will be with us for a while, but the air feels a lot better, light enough for us to seemingly glide down sidewalks without having to brace ourselves from the previous months’ harsh elements. They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Here, that image rings as thinly as that story about the groundhog. I can’t think of a good animal to reference in an allegory fitting to this Minnesota winter, but it does not matter. It’s nicer out. Let’s greet it with art in our 20th edition of This Week in Saint Paul!

The calendar on my kitchen wall claimed that spring had sprung last week, but Minnesota still predictably holds out. As a kid, and even now as an adult, I didn’t understand the connection of the equinox (nor that Pennsylvanian hedgehog) to any change in season. As a kid, I wasn’t sure if the groundhog myth was about adding six weeks or six months to winter. Hey, I was growing up in Minnesota! Anything is possible.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! If you have ever seen the sea of faces at Saint Paul’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, maybe you wonder, like I do, why March 17 is not a government holiday in Saint Paul. With all the crowds, as there should be in our city, my biggest question is whether the mayor will take out his bagpipes.

Last week, I checked out three movies from the library. I did not watch any of them. I am guilty of depriving the rest of the world of these copies of movies, but I have an excuse: I went outside. I saw things. I met with people who are doing things. I saw people—people not unlike the folks our stories celebrate each week. Whether I was meeting in Lowertown or Rondo, or working in my neighborhood, it felt great, likely at least in part due to the improving weather. It will grow even warmer this week, and some of the art will be even hotter! We have a few ideas to turn up the temperature.

One of the reasons that Saint Paul has a snow emergency protocol different from that of Minneapolis is that so many of the cross streets in many parts of town do not have houses or other buildings with numbers on them. This means that knowing which side of the street is “the odd side” can be tricky. This is why I was a little surprised when, Thursday evening, the city told us that the odd side of streets is where we must park on many roadways in town until further notice—just like Minneapolis. This means many of us have to move our cars. To where? Well, since you asked, we have a few ideas this week.