Share the love on Give to the Max Day!
November 11, 2013
Please consider making a donation to the Saint Paul Almanac on Give to the Max Day, November 14. It’s a great way to celebrate the stories that express the heart and soul of our capital city.
Kellogg and John Ireland
November 4, 2013
My girlfriend lives in an apartment across the street from the Saint Paul Cathedral. She has a very Catholic upbringing that only shows when we get to fooling around on her bed with its view of the illuminated massive doors and dome of the church across the street. Then guilt kicks in and I wish there was a curtain to draw. More than once desire has been quashed and old morality triumphs over free love as I am sent packing. After my latest expulsion, I’m driving my economical four-cylinder Chevy II in a sour mood as I pass through the intersection of John Ireland Boulevard on Kellogg when a fast Pontiac Grand Prix roars through the red light and hits me.
Micheal “Eyedea” Larsen—A Great St. Paul Poet
November 3, 2013
We flip through the pictures You are moving We listen to each song You are undoubtedly alive...
Ocean Floating on the Avenue
November 2, 2013
I was feeling drab one Saturday afternoon in my Midway neighborhood. After a week of nine-to-six computer work in a cubicle and a morning of ticking off the weekly chores, laundry, groceries, scrubbing a few floors, and carting my teen around, what I needed was a pick-me-up. A look at my grubby nails confirmed where I knew I had to go to escape the routine of the dark days of November that were seeping into December and dragging me along.
At the Sparkle Laundromat on Rice Street
November 1, 2013
The teenagers are bored, having nowhere else to go, but not wanting to go home to the drab familiarity of housing projects and apartment complexes. We too are directionless, but directionless in the same place and time—between jobs, between loves, between ambitions; we are loitering without intent. Hank Williams echoes from a small dusty speaker, quarters tumble from the change machine, pool balls click with soft indifference.
Winter Coming
October 29, 2013
It’s autumn. Leaves have taken over the back porch and I sit at the window, hungry for soup. You have been gone for years now...
Reflections on Patricia Hampl’s “A Romantic Education”
October 28, 2013
I never saw the Schmidt Brewery that Patricia Hampl presents here, alive with its reverie-enhancing, rhythmic, red neon sign. But the first time I discovered the hulk of the brewery’s abandoned buildings sprawled out along West Seventh Street in the fall of 2004, I recognized immediately what I was looking at; its vacant structures flooded me with the memory of reading about that flashing sign in Hampl’s acclaimed 1981 memoir, A Romantic Education. Soon the Schmidt site will take on a different look as “developers” trick it out to new purposes—a welcome change.
The Goddess of Film
October 27, 2013
“Sally Dixon is the Goddess of Film,” asserts digital artist Bonita Wahl. A dancer with Kairos Dance Theatre, a cultivated soul, and a legendary angel for artists of all sorts, Sally was one of the first curators of avant-garde film in America. She exhibited pioneering experimental works by the likes of Stan Brakhage, James Broughton, Carolee Schneemann, Robert Breer, and Kenneth Anger at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art during the 1960s...
I Loved You
October 23, 2013
I loved you, and I probably still do And for a while the feeling may remain But let my love no longer trouble you, I do not wish to cause you any pain...
November 21, 2013 – Soul Sounds Open Mic with Joe the Great One
October 23, 2013
Joseph Terrance Adams was born one minute and two seconds after his deceased twin brother, Jeffrey Tyrone Adams, on November 19, 1983. God rest his brother's soul. Joseph graduated from Washburn High School in 2002 and is married to Tequilla Adams. They have two "whatever they want" lifestyle-living daughters, Alana and Alayia. Joseph describes himself as "over-the-top, overprotective, and over this 'whatever they want' world my girls reside in. But they are my pride and joy, and I pride myself on being able to provide the best life possible for them. I just complain about it along the way. I'm also a 'Rebel Music'-loving Bob Marley fan. And wish Dave Chappelle was my Black President."
November 20, 2013: Andrea Jenkins presents “Intersectionality” at the Lowertown Reading Jam
October 23, 2013
The Saint Paul Almanac is pleased to announce the second in its 2013–2014 season of acclaimed Lowertown Reading Jams, which celebrate the rich literary history of Minnesota's capital city and the widely popular genre of spoken word. The "Intersectionality" Lowertown Reading Jam is hosted by Andrea Jenkins, and features emcee Robert Karimi and performances by Andrea Jenkins, JP Arcani, Tracine Asberry, Nimo H. Farah, and a special guest performance by Neo-Soul singer Liz Lassiter. Cross-Culture, Cross-Issue, Cross-Gender, Cross-Border, and Cross-Genre—Intersectionality seeks to identify areas where we—as humans, activists, lovers, and creators—have similar goals, ideas, and places where we meet. Hear stories of passion and of progress, of struggle and of loss. Meet us on the corner of Equity and Truth-telling!
November 14, 2013 – Soul Sounds Open Mic with Kayla Steward
October 23, 2013
Kayla Steward, 19, graduated from Saint Paul Central High School, where she started writing poetry in the sixth grade and started slamming when she was sixteen. Kayla has won two local slams and was selected through the (K.)N.E.W. MN Youth Poetry Slam Series to be a part of the MN Brave New Voices team. She is currently enrolled at Saint Paul Technical College.