creative economy : Featured Stories

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities--call it an editor's-note-as-blog-entry. This week: A web site that makes hiking through our towns an exercise in historical imagination.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities--call it an editor's-note-as-blog-entry. This week:The Science Museum of Minnesota kicks off its 2012 Beaker and Brush discussion series--a chance to explore the still-mysterious zone where science and art intersect.

German-born Katharina (Katie) Eggers has studied politics in Paris, taught in Thailand, and worked as a UN-EU liaison in Brussels. Now this young, internationally connected overachiever is preparing to launch a print magazine that will highlight the Twin Cities' connections to the nation and the world. And she has some pointed things to say about what it's like to be a newcomer in our towns.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities--call it an editor's-note-as-blog-entry. This week: Do you live in, or know about, a great microneighborhood in Minneapolis or Saint Paul? A block, an alley, a corner where people come together regularly to have fun and share their lives? Tell us about it.

Native American trail, gaudy entertainment district, forge of gay consciousness, showcase of the arts: Minneapolis' Hennepin Avenue has been all of these and more. Recently, historians, urbanists, and the public gathered to explore the avenue's colorful history as part of the city's initiative to shape its future.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities--call it an editor's-note-as-blog-entry. This week, a visit from an old friend, a lunch on Mears Park, and a film about an ancient pilgrim route produce a Spanish-accented take on Twin Cities cosmopolitanism.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities--call it an editor's-note-as-blog-entry. This week, I note the unusual Facebook alert I received the other day: In Saint Paul on Saturday, March 10, there's going to be a poetry reading in a wholesale bakery.

This concept-contest, with a deadline later this month, not only rewards great ideas for a better Minnesota--it helps make them happen. This year's theme: connecting across cultures and faiths as the state becomes less white, less Lutheran, less Lake Wobegon.

A far-seeing developer and an innovative culinary artist are turning a hard-luck Minneapolis intersection around with present and future projects that are "artisan, local, sustainable."

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities--call it an editor's-note-as-blog-entry. This week: Carlyle Brown's American Family opens at Saint Paul's Park Square Theatre in mid-March. It's the nationally acclaimed, locally based playwright's first attempt to explore the black experience through a white central character. And it will also mark Brown's first appearance onstage at Park Square. 

A handful of local coffee shops are redefining the coffee experience as an art form. From sourcing to roasting, grinding to "latte art," their watchword is quality. If you're looking for quick joe to grab and go, you may need to adjust your expectations upward.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities--call it an editor's-note-as-blog-entry. This week, a look at an innovative art-and-ideas center in Omaha that we just might want to emulate.

He's an architect in a hot firm who also builds model rockets and raises African desert tortoises. She's a psychologist. artist, and author. Their Merriam Park house is as vibrant and unconventional as they are. But getting it built  required convincing the neighborhood that they weren't "the enemy."

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities--call it an editor's-note-as-blog-entry. This week: the first five of my Top Ten Reasons to Visit (and Love) the Twin Cities. It's a list of offbeat but worthy places and happenings that you might miss if you only visit our big-ticket attractions.

In one magical zone in the Twin Cities, there's a loon made of junk, a chimney covered in shattered glass and ceramic shards, and a place to buy tarantulas. It's called the Central Corridor. Here's a second look at what photographer Bill Kelley and managing editor Jon Spayde picked out last year as they traveled down University Avenue and Washington Avenue, seeking out their favorite offbeat, oddball, one-of-a-kind things.