#minn post

[the-menagerie-hive]

I stare at all of you and I wonder, could you have been me? If the dice had fallen differently, if the faults and splits had seperated just so. If one of us had been weaker.

A million cracks waiting to happen, to widen, to seperate us into islands of identity. Who am I? Am I You? Are you Me? Which of these fragments reflects Us? Do any of them? Do All of them?

We're a mosaic, bright and shining pictures of moments all our own that fit together to make a life. Different notes in a melody, different masks dancing across the stage to its tune, as needed by the eyes that watch as the players who perform. Did we trade them? Did we become them? Where does one dance end and another begin? When did we Switch? How long have I been Me? Does it matter?

It's a carousel, in a way. Each and every seat a different creature, a different throne to hold aloft the passenger god of Ego, garishly painted as though to scream "I am here! I am not the Wheel on which I turn!"

And yet, the post holds them to the canopy, forcing them to parade along before the endless faces that witness them. The Carousel is none of them. The Carousel is ALL of them.

We are a thousand faces, reflected in the mirrors we pass, distorted and shaped in the different ways we've come to exist, the shapes we've learned to be. This existence is a hall of mirrors where every reflection is twisted to fit the context they occupy. But whose body is casting the reflection? We ask, we theorize, we doubt, we fear. Reflections debating the existence of reflected. But none of us stop to notice.

This hall of mirrors is Empty. - Minn & Bunny

[melvillehouse]

Writer’s quest to understand the concept of penis theft yields 'The Geography of Madness'

Bures explores the connection between culture and mental health, centering on a global phenomenon in which men believe their penises have been stolen.

Frank Bures, author of The Geography of Madness, interviewed in @minnpost: "Bures traveled the world in search of these outbreaks of penis theft, and returned with an understanding that our surroundings make all the difference in what we believe and how we feel."

[listeningfromthebackrow]

Update on the Minnesota Orchestra "situation"

11 months in  and there is still no agreement at the Minnesota Orchestra between the locked out musicians and management. In recent weeks there has been some development of sorts between the warring sides in this continued struggle for the survival of…

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[mikemichelmusic]

RRTR’s Women Who Rock Minnesota Series! 3 Creative Forces Who Are Changing Music Culture In Minnesota!

  Creative Force #3 Pamela Espeland

In order for any city or town to cultivate a healthy arts scene, it’s takes much more than the artists who reside and practice their art. It’s a collective force of progressive arts media, business owners (venues, promoters), and a supportive population of listeners who are open to diverse music forms and support their local artists without bias. We happen to be living in one of them. Smack dab in the middle of the Northern Plains is a big old state with a big music heart we call Minnesota. Minnesotans are extremely fortunate to have a rich cultural heritage of progressive female musicians and female music business entrepreneurs that have worked the different music scenes of each decade.  RRTR would like to feature three multidimensional & creative music forces behind Minnesota’s thriving music culture; Andrea Swensson, Stacy Schwartz, & Pamela Espeland All three women have promoted, wrote about, photographed, marketed, and assisted more musicians and Minnesota music institutions that one could ever imagine. On top of this and most importantly, they are great human beings void of trend, attitude, and bias who in turn just like the musicians they promote, want Minnesota to continue to be a global music force. RRTR will feature one each artist each week and celebrate their contributions to Minnesota Music

1. Name

Pamela Espeland

2. Hometown

Born in Glen Ellyn, IL but consider Minneapolis my hometown.

3. Current music creations, endeavors, music occupations

 I cover music and other arts/culture happenings in the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota for MinnPost.com in a column called Artscape. I write about jazz for my blog, bebopified.com; for mnartists.org, a partnership between the Walker Art Center and the McKnight Foundation; for JazzPolice.com; for the Minneapolis Star Tribune; and for National Public Radio. I’m an Art Hound for MPR.

Mostly I try to see and hear as much live music as I can. Jazz is my passion, though my definition of jazz is loose. I especially love free, outside, highly improvised jazz – music played locally by people like George Cartwright, Fat Kid Wednesdays, Milo Fine and his many collaborators, Brian Roessler and Nathan Hanson, Ellen Lease and Pat Moriarty. But I pretty much love our whole local jazz scene and its many layers, from New Orleans traditional to straight-ahead to free, with one exception: smooth jazz.

 I also enjoy classical music, especially contemporary classical/post-classical/new music. Rock, of course, though if I have to choose between jazz and rock on the same night, I pick jazz. Some pop/indie. Some hip-hop/rap. I love Dessa and Brother Ali. Some country, some folk. Bluegrass, not so much, but put Bela Fleck on the same stage with Edgar Meyer and I’m good. World. And electronica. What else? I’m forgetting something.

4. Proud music creations & endeavors of the past

 I created the Twin Cities Live Jazz Calendar, then maintained and sustained it for five years. This was an attempt to list every live jazz event happening here every day of every week. It was my time-sucking labor of love, and a real eye-opener: who knew so much live jazz happens here on a regular basis? Isn’t jazz dead? Guess not. It’s not America’s popular music anymore, as it was during one brief, shining moment, but jazz is still being learned and played, studied and dug by a lot of people, including many musicians who make their homes in or near Minneapolis-St. Paul. You can now find the live jazz calendar at JazzPolice.com, which stepped up and took it over when I had to let it go.

I’ve interviewed a lot of people, including plenty who intimidate the bejesus out of me. My first national interview was with the bassist Charlie Haden, who spent the early part of his career with Ornette Coleman. Looking back – holy crap, what was I thinking? Since then I’ve spoken with Ahmad Jamal, Maria Schneider, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Kurt Elling, Ethan Iverson, Bill Carrothers, Esperanza Spalding, Dr. Billy Taylor, and more big names in jazz, most of whom were wonderful to talk with. (A few, none named here, were jerks.) I’m especially proud of a series of interviews I’ve done for mnartists.org, called Conversations on Improvisation. When I wanted to know more about improvisation, which is a huge mystery to me, I asked people like Milo Fine and Douglas Ewart and George Cartwright to tell me about it. I want to do more of those interviews because I still have much to learn.

I guess I’m proud that I’m able to write about music, in particular jazz, in a way that reaches people, in a way they can understand. Writing about jazz is hard, almost impossible. Whenever I sit down at the keyboard to try, I think I must be crazy. But I want more people to know about it, to go out and hear it, and maybe to experience that moment when our bizarre cultural resistance to jazz and the barriers we set up to block it – the convenient and rote “I don’t understand jazz” and “Jazz is too hard” and “Jazz is just noise” excuses – all crumble and the music breaks through. Because jazz is the most consistently exciting, inspiring, and satisfying music I know. And it’s the only music that embraces and includes all music.

 5. Biggest source of inspiration outside of music

Theater. Dance, as I learn more about it. Film. The visual arts. Pottery. Indian food. Cocktails. My husband and partner, John Whiting, jazz photographer and great supporter of my crazy writing hours.

6. Under the radar artist, event, venue that everyone should know about

These are constantly changing. Here’s right now, this minute.

Artist: violinist Kip Jones, who has played around the Twin Cities at Zeitgeist and Café Maud and Barbette, and who just became the newest member of ETHEL, the New York-based post-classical string quartet. I first met Kip Jones through accordionist Patrick Harison, another very fine young musician, who said, “Watch out for Kip.”

Event: The Dakota calendar lists some great upcoming shows: Pat Metheny Unity Band (with Chris Potter) in early September, and, all in October, Cassandra Wilson, Bela Fleck with the Marcus Roberts Trio, Kurt Elling. Also in October, at the Artists’ Quarter in St. Paul, Ari Hoenig and Bill Carrothers. Plus the chamber group Accordo’s season starts soon. And the Walker’s performing arts season, which includes a whole day with John Zorn and a night with Craig Taborn. And Kate Nordstrum’s new Liquid Music series for the SPCO. And did I mention I love opera?

Venue: Icehouse any night of the week, but Monday nights are my favorite, when JT Bates does that thing he used to do at the Clown Lounge and brings his friends in to play, people like Dave King and Adam Linz and Michael Lewis. Also Studio Z, a performance space on the second floor of the Northwestern Building in St. Paul’s Lowertown, home to the Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble.

7. Earliest inspirational music moment

Maybe it was singing “Carmina Burana” with my high school choir. Maybe it was in the concert hall at Carleton College when the Juilliard String Quartet was playing and I actually left my body. Maybe it was hearing Abdullah Ibrahim at the old Dakota in Bandanna Square and bursting into tears. Maybe it was when The Bad Plus played Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” Maybe it was hearing the Stones play “Sympathy for the Devil.” I have no idea.

9. Your number one tip for up and coming music biz kids

Remember there may be writers in your audience. Throw us a bone. Tell us what you’re playing, especially if you just wrote it last night.

10. Where can we find you and your creations online

 MinnPost.com, “Artscape,” Tuesdays and Fridays. Bebopified.com, my blog. Mnartists.org, “Conversations on Improvisation.” Out and about.

[stuffaboutminneapolis]

Tangletown: a neighborhood that feels like its name I'm hoping I won’t receive a bunch of nasty emails for making such a heartless observation, but I generally find the vast majority of Minneapolis neighborhoods to be largely indistinguishable from one another. This isn’t to say that they don’t have their individual charms and identities, because obviously they do — no one would mistake Kingfield for Whittier, because everyone knows Kingfield is full of bungalows and precocious children and wine bars, and Whittier is full of old mansions and storefront restaurants and art students. But the majority of Minneapolis is so flat and so mercilessly gridded, and the style of the architecture changes so gradually from block to block, that for large swaths of the city, there isn’t much in the way of physical cues to indicate that you’ve passed from one neighborhood into another. Tangletown is one of the few neighborhoods that completely steps off the grid and throws off the alphabetical-numerical nomenclature of the rest of Minneapolis. via Andy Sturdevant on MinnPost.

[ladyjournos]

How a school district became a suicide contagion area.

MinnPost || December 7, 2011

[neighborhoodr-minneapolis]

Skyways are a conundrum. Minneapolis and, to a lesser degree, St. Paul can't seem to live without them. Yet these downtowns can't fully thrive as 21st century cities as long as skyways continue to pull energy and vitality off of the sidewalks. The celebrated urban designer Jan Gehl has gone so far as to describe Minneapolis as a relic of the 1970s that won't be able to revive itself without tearing down its skyways. Short of a 9.0 earthquake, that's unlikely to happen. And so it was smart of Architecture Minnesota Magazine to launch a video competition aimed at exploring the impact of skyways on urban life. The entries — 24 of them — came from a wide swath of designers, technicians, entertainers and video hobbyists. The top six were featured at an exuberant event at the Walker Art Center on Thursday night. Click link to see all 24 videos http://www.aia-mn.org/ext_architecture-mn/videotect/Videotect/Videos.html

[neighborhoodr-minneapolis]

There are two ways to think about the decline and impending decay of the inner suburbs, a hot topic around the country. One is to consider it part of a natural progression. Just as older Northeastern and Midwestern cities began their downward spiral in the 1950s, losing both population and relative wealth, now it's the turn of their first-ring suburbs. Responding to evidence in recent Census reports, a gloomy audience at the Bloomington Arts Center on Wednesday night watched clips from two films by Andrea Torrice depicting the decline of 1950s-era suburbs near Philadelphia and Cincinnati. Panelists then lamented some of the same trends in Brooklyn Park, Richfield, Robbinsdale and other first-ring Twin Cities communities. Increasing poverty, crumbling infrastructure, struggling schools and abandoned strip malls were all part of the discussion, as were reductions in population, tax base and political influence. Everyone seemed to agree that shifting racial patterns complicate the picture. As the new Census results show, African-Americans, Hispanics and East African immigrants are moving to the inner suburbs in large numbers, not only here but across the country. Their hopes for better schools and jobs, safer streets and tolerant attitudes aren't always realized, however. Click link to read the rest of this great Minn Post article