Search for a Home for the UGM Sign
2010
I was fascinated by everything about the mission—I tutored boys there in the 1970s—and I fell in love with that sign. I saw the north side of it whenever I drove into town from my home in Roseville. When I learned in 1981 that the mission had found a new home and the building at Seventh and Wacouta was to be razed, I called the salvage company and asked if I could have the sign. The owner said, “Okay, if you move it.”
Saint Paul Hotel
2010
It’s 5:15 p.m. in the entryway of the old Saint Paul Hotel. It’s early winter, cold, and snowing. The lights across the street in Rice Park twinkle with the frost and people are rushing in to get warm and have the early evening cocktail at the famous bar where F. Scott Fitzgerald mulled over thoughts of The Great Gatsby. I just talked to the overworked, borderline frantic, new valet-parking operator, and he told me, “It will take a few minutes to get your car, we’re really busy.”
Third Annual Lowertown SantaCon; New writing from Jewel Hill Mayer, Chuck Tompkins and Aleli Balagtas; Chilling winter facts about the Twin Cities
2010
THIS WEEKEND! For the third year running, the streets of Lowertown will be overrun by a mob of costumed Santas, elves, reindeer, and other colorful holiday-related characters and objects. Saint Paul's answer to Minneapolis' popular zombie-themed bar hops, SantaCon is part spectacle and part mobile party. Led by Foxy Tann, who heads the Twin Cities only African American burlesque troop, and accompanied by the most mischievous Minnesotan marching band, The Brass Messengers, the 2010 Lowertown SantaCon is a jolly jaunt around the seven bars/restaurants that make up the Lowertown Entertainment District.
Welcome to Mount Como
2010
The sign mysteriously appears when the snow starts, at the foot of the golf club driveway, announcing the start of the ski season at Como Park: “Welcome to Mount Como.” When my husband tells a friend visiting from Switzerland, a snowboard instructor, that his kids took downhill ski lessons there, the Swiss fellow looks puzzled. “But there are no hills,” he says.
Dec 13th, 2010 Lowertown Reading Jam: Matthew Rucker presents “The Best Slam Poetry in the World”
2010
Hear the best in spoken word by members of the Saint Paul Soap Boxing Slam team — two time winners of the National Poetry Slam (“the Olympics of Slam Poetry”). The Saint Paul Almanac continues its year-round literary celebration of Minnesota’s capital city with the acclaimed Lowertown Reading Jams. The December presentation of the eclectic series, curated by Matthew Rucker, will be presented on Monday, December 13, 2010 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Black Dog Café, 308 Prince Street in Saint Paul. The Jams will continue on the second Monday of each month through July 2011.
At the Bar Where F. Scott Fitzgerald Drank Gin
2010
—even though I drank wine, and then only half a glass—I felt I owed it to myself and to the guests who’d sat politely through the reading —and to everyone in every college and university 20th Century American Literature class throughout history...
Weather
2010
The forty-fifth parallel runs through Saint Paul, Minnesota. This parallel is generally considered the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole. This is irrelevant to our everyday lives with the exception of one truth: it is the cause of our extremely unpredictable weather, a concept that consumes us. We talk about it with co-workers, we talk about it on dates, we analyze it on the TV, we use it as an excuse for being late, we complain about it, we use it to avoid awkward gaps in uncomfortable conversation, and most importantly, we live in it.
New writing from Todd Boss, Maximilian Selim and Nora Murphy; Last few shows of ‘A Klingon Christmas Carol’ this weekend; Massively Updated Events Calendar; Upcoming Lowertown Reading Jams; and another Saint Paul Fact to wrestle with
2010
It's the last weekend to see the Klingon Christmas Carol in Saint Paul! Scrooge has no honor, nor any courage. Can three ghosts help him to become the true warrior he ought to be in time to save Tiny Tim from a horrible fate? Performed in the Original Klingon with English Supertitles, and narrative analysis from The Vulcan Institute of Cultural Anthropology. The Dickens classic tale of ghosts and redemption adapted to reflect the Warrior Code of Honor and then translated into tlhIngan Hol (That's the Klingon Language). At the Landmark Center.
Final “Celebration through Stories” Reading on Saturday; 8 Upcoming Lowertown Reading Jams; New Writing from Molly Culligan, Angela Mack and Diane Wilson; Black Nativity @ Penumbra Theater; A Fact
2010
FINAL “CELEBRATION THROUGH STORIES” READING ON SAT DEC 4TH! That’s right, it’s the last one! This event series featured contributors to the Saint Paul Almanac reading their pieces from the 2011 edition. Come, listen to the final reading in this year’s series on Saturday! Writers who will read at the final event include Karen Karsten, Leslie Walters, Bob Deck, Alexander Theoharides, Virginia Dippel, Steve Trimble, Jeanne Souldern Pinette, and Judith Niemi.
S.O.S. Saint Paul to Buenos Aires: Juan Pablo, are You Listening?
2010
Funny how two people can get the feel of each other in two bars two bars of a tango a woman from the top of the world a man from the bottom of the world in the middle of a circus in the middle of an industrial zone en el Rio Plata in the middle of Buenos Aires.
November
By Diane Wilson ● 2010
I raise my baton, a rake, a half-chewed stick: dry leaves crackle, snap tympani for the horn toot of geese flying south.