Arts and Culture : Buzz

Active.com includes Minneapolis and St. Paul as number eight in its list of the top 10 running places across the country.

“Aside from ample places to train and races to run, spirited running communities add color and support the local traditions that make certain cities ideal for runners,” the website reads.

The website cites events and infrastructure such as the Twin Cities Marathon, “called the most beautiful urban marathon in the U.S.,” a 50-mile city trail system, and the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway, and its home to the elite distance running-focused Team USA, coached by Dennis Barker.

New York City was named as the top running destination.

The local foodie website Heavy Table recently started a taproom directory for Minneapolis and St. Paul, which it plans to update regularly.

Ever since the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill in 2011 that “allows for brewers to operate an on-sale establishment on their brewing premises,” new brewing ventures have emerged all over the place, many of which include taprooms.

Dangerous Man Brewing, Indeed Brewing and 612Brew even make up a Northeast “Brew District,” the directory states.

It also includes listings for taprooms to come.

A short video on the TC Daily Planet website titled “Art Saves Lives,” from DJM film company with the help of Art Institutes International Minnesota and the Waite House, documents the making of a local youth-driven mural project.

The mini-documentary shows how a blank wall was transformed, going from the beginning of the project to the mural’s unveiling. The video also includes interviews with young artists and the project’s facilitators. They talk about how the mural beautifies the neighborhood, provides valuable personal and professional training for youth, and builds trust between teenagers and adults.

Monica Nassif Loves Minneapolis is the headline of a recent Huffington Post piece.
 
In a letter format, Nassif, the founder of the Caldrea company, which manufactures cleaning products and sleepwear, tells of her love affair with the city.
 
When she and her husband were stranded on a cold winter day years ago, she was impressed by the level of recreational activity happening around Lake of the Isles.
 
“We were star-struck--standing in front of the most charming lake I had ever seen--in the middle of our new city,” she says, adding that it’s a feeling that continues today.
 
“How can you not love a city--a major metropolitan city--with so much green space and water?” she asks.  
 
 


 

St. Paul parks designer Don Ganje recently joined the Council of Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects, according to Minnpost.

ASLA describes this induction as "among the highest honors the ASLA bestows on members and recognizes the contributions of these individuals to their profession and society at large based on their works, leadership and management, knowledge, and service."

ASLA goes on to say that with Ganje’s “eye for the smallest site detail and mastery of vast public open spaces, he has the ability to make places where people feel welcome and that comfort, excite, and encourage them to interact,” adding, “He further infuses his colleagues with a passion for the highest levels of design excellence.”  

Businessweek released a list of "America's 50 Best Cities," and St. Paul and Minneapolis came in at no. 10 and no. 12 respectively.
 
"St. Paul may be the smaller of the Twin Cities, but the state capital is also cleaner and safer, if slightly behind Minneapolis in median household income," the business publication notes.
 
Minneapolis, meanwhile, is recognized for its parks and lakes, as well as the University of Minnesota's numerous national championships in ice hockey. The article states, "Downtown Minneapolis beats the cold with a unique network of connected buildings, with the City Center mall at its core."
 
As for the best cities in the rest of the country, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. took the top three spots.
 
To get the results, Businessweek teamed up with Bloomberg Rankings to evaluate data on 100 of the country's largest cities, and looked at leisure attributes, educational attributes, economic factors, crime, and air quality.

Recently, Artforum, a national art magazine, included a review of a local art show from Andy DuCett at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis.

The story’s writer, Jay Gabler, is also from the area.

Gabler compares the installation, called, “Why we do this” to a film.

“DuCett has created dozens of distinct spaces and assembled them in an eccentric progression that draws the viewer through the gallery with the promise of a surprise around every corner. His themes are memory and life history—specifically, the memories and history of the thirtysomething Minnesotan man he is,” the piece reads.  

A recent story from the TC Daily Planet tells of a St. Paul resident’s home-crafted K'nex toy, dubbed Clockwork, which “has become a fast internet phenomenon since he released the video of it earlier this month.”

The toy has more than 40,000 pieces of K'nex--a creative construction material--plus eight motors, five lifts, a computer controlled crane and a couple of K'nex balls, according to the story.

It has attracted over a million hits on YouTube and landed on Reddit’s front page.

Its creator, Austin Granger, is quoted in the story, saying, “Every time I make one, I try to go bigger and more complex, and more ambitious than the one that came before it.”

Publishers Weekly recently reported on the Sept. 8 debut of a local literary journal called Revolver.

The new journal publishes a mix of prose, poetry, visual art, photography, and play excerpts, PW states.

Online content will be refreshed every couple of weeks, while a print edition will come out twice a year.

Revolver’s seven founding editors are part of a writing group that began meeting two years ago.  

Esther Porter, a founding editor, explains that the journal came out of their monthly conversations: “We’d go out and close down bars fighting over stories, literature of all kinds. We wanted to have something to show for it.”

Reflecting the group's energy, the journal publishes pieces “that hit the brain like a bullet,” she says.
  



 

Local arts journalist Matt Peiken’s new project, MNuet, is featured in a recent blog post from Knight Arts.

Peiken intends MNuet, which launched on Sept. 4, to be an online hub for statewide classical music coverage.

He wants to create a community around classical music. Furthermore, members of MNuet will help support that.  

"No media organization around here has a staff writer dedicated to covering the classical music beat any more,: says Peiken. "The coverage is all farmed out to freelancers."

While major media outlets broadcast occasional concerts, nobody's reporting on the scene, he says, adding, "You can learn about what the major players are doing, but you don’t get context, and you certainly don’t hear much from individual artists.”

For seven days, Minneapolis-based musician Mark Mallman will be perfoming one continuous song, in the back of a van, and streaming it online. The project, called Marathon IV, is so unique that USA Today recently featured it in its Popcandy section.
 
Kicked off on Saturday, September 15th, the 150-hour music performance features distinctive sounds from instruments like a keytar, as well as a heart-rate monitor that creates music while Mallman is sleeping.
 
During the project's span, the musician will be traveling as well, with stops in Chicago, Omaha, Denver, and Las Vegas. At his final destination, Los Angeles, guest musicians will join him. 

The Salty Tart in Minneapolis recently made a list of the top 10 bakeries around the globe from Departures magazine.

“Though it is a risky move to arrive in a new city and set up shop immediately, it paid off for pastry chef Michelle Gayer,” the story reads.

After working on Los Angeles and Chicago, the baker opened the Salty Tart in 2008 in the Midtown Global Market.

With everything from coconut macaroons to pastry cream-filled brioche to various kinds of seasonal tarts, “The bakery was an instant hit,” the article states.

The Minneapolis-based Game Informer magazine is the country’s third-highest-circulation periodical, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reports.  

While so many other print publications have reported declining sales in recent years, “Game Informer's circulation grew more than any U.S. publication in the past year,” surpassing Better Homes and Gardens in growth, and trailing only two AARP publications in total circulation, according to the Business Journal, which cites Bloomberg Businessweek data.

In terms of circulation growth, he second-place national magazine is Family Circle.

Part of the magazine’s success has to do with its connection to the Texas-based GameStop company, the article states.

In a recent piece, Midwest Living features Minneapolis as an ideal destination town for a two-day getaway.
 
“No matter what your mood, Minneapolis offers something to suit: beautiful lakes nestled among hip art communities, tree-lined trails behind modern museums, vibrant nightlife blocks from high-class cultural attractions,” the story reads.
 
For starters, the extensive art collections housed at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts make the museum worth a trip. “The Department of Contemporary Art shows works by living artists, and the institute’s collection of paintings spans more than five centuries,” it states.  
 
Also, Nicollet Mall’s pedestrian-level shops, restaurants, and farmers market, and scenic Lake Calhoun are just some of the city’s many attractions, the article adds.  
 

 

 

PedalMn.com has a short video that shows off the state’s extensive bike trails.  

It goes through a number of bike paths both in urban areas and in greater Minnesota. In Minneapolis, bicyclists are followed as they careen past the scenic Chain of Lakes, the St. Anthony Main historic area, and Nicollet Mall.  

Bike-friendly infrastructure, such as bike racks on buses, helps flesh out some of the reasons why the state has gotten so many props lately in this area.

The video will “will remind you why you love to get out and pedal in Minnesota,” the website states.