Creative Economy : Buzz

The Star Tribune picked up two Pulitzer Prizes on Monday for local reporting and editorial cartooning, the newspaper reports.

The story goes on to say that Brad Schrade, Jeremy Olson, and Glenn Howatt won the reporting honor for their “powerful series of reports on the spike in infant deaths at poorly regulated day-care homes, resulting in legislative action to strengthen rules.,,,Since the series ran, the number of deaths at day cares has dropped dramatically.”

Steve Sack, an editorial cartoonist, won for his “diverse collection of cartoons, using an original style and clever ideas to drive home his unmistakable point of view,” the story reads.

City Pages has compiled a list of the top local clubs "to see bands before they break big."

"We are truly fortunate to have plenty of intimate rooms here in the Twin Cities, where local and national bands alike can find their footing in a live setting while building a solid reputation within the Minnesota music community--a rep that will follow them as they return to the area to play bigger clubs to match their rising profile," the story reads.

The Triple Rock Social Club, Turf Club and 7th St. Entry are among the most-established venues for seeing artists that have gone on to play for bigger audiences.

But the list also includes some new clubs, like the Icehouse in Minneapolis and the Amsterdam Bar & Hall in St. Paul. The Amsterdam has already "seen its fair share of breakout acts, including Cloud Nothings' rousing first local performance...and the emergence of the Girls Got Rhythm Festival."  

Efforts in St. Paul schools to serve nutritious lunches are getting props on a national level, according to the Pioneer Press.

On March 26, an official delegation comprising state and federal representatives dropped by Crossroads Elementary to see it in action.

The delegation wanted “to learn more about the district's all-out health-food kick and its bid to get a head start on stricter federal school lunch rules, announced earlier this year,” the story states.

New USDA guidelines require schools receiving federal funding to cut down on sodium and boost whole grains, an area where St. Paul schools are ahead of the curve, according to the story.

Last week, the James Beard Foundation released the names of the nominees in its various chef and restaurant award categories, in Charleston, S.C., Vita.MN reports.
 
Jack Riebel, the chef and co-owner of Butcher and the Boar in downtown Minneapolis, is up for best chef at these “Oscars of the food world,” according to Vita.MN.

Riebel used to work at the Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant in Minneapolis and La Belle Vie in Stillwater, the story states.
 
Michelle Gayer, the chef and owner of the Salty Tart, who’s been nominated for outstanding pastry chef before, is a candidate for regional best chef.
 


 

The Current blog has a recent post about Minnesotans in the running for a couple of Independent Music Awards, in which individual songs are judged by a group of well-known artists.

Sleep Study, a pop quartet, is up for an award in the Indie/Alt. Rock category for “Flower Song,” which the post describes as “a lo-fi, driving ’70s pop cut off their debut full-length, 2012′s Nothing Can Destroy.”

Secondly, Minnesota Remembers Vic Chesnutt, a compilation, is a nominee in the Tribute Album category. Luke Redfield, a Duluth songwriter, led the project, which nonprofit Rock the Cause released. It features covers of Chesnutt songs by local performers, including Dan Wilson, Haley Bonar, Dave Simonett, and Charlie Parr.

The results of the contest will be tallied up later this summer.

The Walker Art Center’s Internet Cat Video Festival was “an unparalleled and unexpected success,” according to a museum magazine piece.

The film festival turned out to be a viral success, “sparking news headlines worldwide, the festival itself saw the convergence of 10,000 people—some in costumes, others cradling kitty companions, all feline fanatics—on the Walker’s hillside one warm August evening last year,” it reads.

The festival has since led to a national tour, lots of media attention and an expanded event for next year. And a "legitimate" film festival in Austria has made a bid to host it.

Scott Stulen of the Walker is quoted, saying, “It was something unique. Also, we were very aware that we were tapping into a powerful meme, and we knew there was some interest with it.”

Minneapolis has the sixth largest arts economy in the country, according to city information.

A report from the Creative Index, which takes into account arts jobs, consumer spending, and revenue of arts organizations, shows that in Minneapolis, the arts scene “is an integral, thriving part of the local economy that has stayed steady even during tough economic times,” the city’s website states.

Go here to see the Minneapolis Creative Index data for 2013.

The index used some indicators “that have never been measured before in Minneapolis,” drilling down to the zip-code level.

Other cities that came out ahead of Minneapolis in the Creative Index include Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston.

Minneapolis outpaced the national average creative index score by 4.8 times, according to city information.

Local artist Jennifer Davis got a shout-out in the national art magazine, Juxtapoz.

Scroll through a gallery of her work on the magazine’s website.

Davis, who has shown her work all over the U.S., Canada and the U.K., studied art at the University of Minnesota.

It was during that time that she fell in love with painting and drawing, specifically. She’s continued to work in those mediums since she graduated with a B.F.A. in 1998.

“Her portraits of people and animals, acrylic paintings on panel (and sometimes paper) have a surreal candy-land exterior full of innocent charm, which only hint at an undercurrent of darker truths," says the magazine. 
 

Fast Horse featured Public Functionary, a new nonprofit art gallery in Northeast Minneapolis, in a Q&A on its blog.

The post’s author, Jen Kreilich, was among the 230 people who contributed to the gallery’s $30,000 Kickstarter campaign.

Right now, the gallery is preparing for an event centering on building momentum for such a campaign.

Kreilich says in the post, “I can’t wait for Public Functionary to open its doors. I’m thrilled by their focus on making art more accessible, cultivating young collectors and using content to expand the experience beyond the walls of a gallery.”

A new map for navigating the skyways in downtown Minneapolis is out on a website called, Skyway My Way.

The website has a map plus a searchable database of businesses within the skyway system.

This map-app differs from others in that “Searching for a location in other popular mapping applications puts you on the street, not in the skyway,” it states. “Our team of skyway gremlins have meticulously combed every nook and cranny to obtain all of the necessary information.”  

The website can help people find everything from a lunch spot to a chiropractor.

The New York Times recently featured the Minnesota Orchestra, which played a concert in early February despite a lockout that’s been ongoing since October.

“The Minnesota Orchestra and its players have been locked out since Oct. 1, after they rejected management’s proposal for a 32 percent cut in base pay and refused to make a counterproposal,” the story reads.

The special concert took place at the Minneapolis Convention Center, celebrating an orchestra ensemble’s Grammy nomination for its Bis recording of Sibelius’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5, the story states.

“The recording is indeed superb, easily one of the best of 2012, and the concert represented it well, despite compromised circumstances,” the story adds.

The Twin Cities is among “America’s Most Literate Cities,” a just-out report for 2012 shows.

Once again, Minneapolis came in third place while St. Paul was sixth, according to MPR.

The annual report from Central Connecticut State University looks at the number of bookstores, educational achievement, Internet and library resources, the publishing business, and newspaper circulation to rank cities.

Dr. John Miller, who led the study, is quoted in the story, saying that the marks are “a large-scale portrait of our nation's cultural vitality. From this data we can better perceive the extent and quality of the long-term literacy essential to individual economic success, civic participation, and the quality of life in a community and a nation."”

The Princeton Review recently listed the University of Minnesota as a "Best Value College" for 2013, according to a prepared statement from the university.

This is the third year in a row that the university has been singled out by the publication for the distinction.  

“The University’s commitment to academic excellence, financial aid availability and the overall value of an education at the U of M’s Twin Cities campus has again merited inclusion on this year’s Best Values list,” the statement reads.

The Princeton Review uses more than 30 data points related to academics, cost, and financial aid to single out schools.

This year, the publication recognized 150 schools out of 650 total.

The Atlantic Cities ran a story in January from Richard Florida that asks, “Does Human Capital Tend to Cluster in Center Cities or the Suburbs?”

Human capital, another way to describe educated people, represents “a key factor in the growth of cities and metro regions,” the story reads.

Florida studied the way that human capital spreads out in cities and suburbs throughout the country and its impact on local economies. He used 2000 U.S. Census data to get the percentages of college grads for those areas.

Minneapolis and St. Paul are among the top 10 large metros with the most college grads in the center city, it reads. About 35 percent of the area’s residents hold bachelor’s degrees, the study found.   

“Knowledge-based high tech metros top the list,” the story states.

A blog post from Bon Appetit, the culinary magazine, describes the “Return of the Tater Tot.”

“Most people forgot the Tater Tot once they graduated from the lunchroom,” writes Foodist blogger Andrew Knowlton.

But Knowlton has long kept a bag of Ore-Ida Tots on hand for late-night snacks or treats for his daughters. “They’re great baked, even better fried,” he says, adding, “And while they'll always be second to french fries, chefs are starting to show them some respect on menus.”

Some restaurants serve them traditional style, while others take them up a notch with "Totchos," Tot casseroles, he says.

Haute Dish in Minneapolis also has an “upscale version served with short ribs,” he adds.