Riverfest Rockin’

My home town has a thing for summer festivals. I’m sure it is in no small part due to the three months of oft-times brutal winter weather we endure. Then again, perhaps this is some form of fertility rite, with lots of skin on display and somewhat suggestive food trucks (The G-Spot truck was selling tacos):

But nothing could top the apparently topless vendor selling her CBD Sweet Mana nostrums (body butter, anyone?):

A few days later our town had a concert in a downtown park. “Power of 10” were the headliners, doing respectable Sly Stone and Van Morrison covers:

Pontooners in the river made for a surreal backdrop:

“I’m gonna add a little bottom, so the dancers just won’t hide…”

Family Values

Twenty Years Ago on FITK


Two Harbors, Minnesota, July 7, 2006

After three hours on the road (and six hours since breakfast) the need for sustenance became apparent. "The Vanilla Bean Cafe and Bakery"- how inviting! We pulled into the side parking lot and left the car to go inside. On the way to the front door we passed by a row of Harley-Davidson motorcycles- big ones. Oh my...could be trouble...a vision of Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" emerges in my fevered imagination...oh well, you can only die in a gang-fight once, right?  We entered.

Inside, there were only frazzled tourists, like ourselves. No signs of the hooligans- perhaps they were at the bakery next door. The server bade us enter a side room, wherein she proceeded to sit us right next to the bikers! With leather jackets, chaps and proper motorcycle boots, their long hair falling down over their collars and...

...and it was carefully braided, on four young women and a girl, all absolutely beautiful in a fresh-air, wind-blown, healthy, no make-up way. Their parents sat in the corner, also in leathers, keeping an affectionate eye on the girls. When their food came, one of the Mothers led both tables in a silent grace. They ate their meal in a pleasant, congenial way, with no bickering or sibling jealousy. We ordered, and while we waited spent time admiring the "Coffee Art" which adorned the walls. A Finnish couple had perfected a way to make oil paintings with coffee as a pigment (think shades of brown) and, according to the guide, had exhibited in Finland, Iceland, California and Minnesota.

As we sat enthralled by all this beauty (the girls, not the pictures) the biker group began to migrate, from table to table, to the bakery next door and the bathroom. They then came back, one at a time, and proceeded to crowd into the corner until all nine were sitting at a table meant for four. One of the Biker Dads told a story, quietly, and then they arose, en masse, and departed.

Later, I mentioned to the Weaver that they were "Like the Amish, except they had Harleys."

RS commented:

Words and pictures blend into one. Your art is brilliant, storyteller.

Reposted

Mulder’s Signs

Deuel County, South Dakota, c. 1995

More on Mulder’s farm…

Mulder’s Parlor

Deuel County, South Dakota, c. 1995

More on Mulder’s farm…

A letter to you.

Twenty Years Ago on FITK

So maybe love is meant to be a little imperfect.

Maybe love is meant to be about you saying something stupid in our most intimate moments and me smiling it away and tousling your hair instead. About sitting in the theatre together and knowing that we'd rather be watching each other at home.

And now, that I'm miles away from you, I'm feeling your eyes on me all the time.
I'm waking up alone in the night and reaching out for you with my eyes shut (and I'm blaming you for spoiling me thus), but I'm only losing myself in the folds of a cold blanket. And I'm surrounded by people of so many pastel shades, while I'm only looking for your vibrant color.

Tell me now... isn't this slightly flawed love we share so much better than the ethereal head-rush of something that will never be? Isn't this what you'd always wanted?

Yours,
RS

Reposted

Mulder’s Workbenches

Deuel County, South Dakota, c. 1995:

This was an abandoned farm that I visited in the 90s, shooting mostly black and white film (TXP 120, Pentax 6x7) but I did do some in color, the coating of dust definitely put a mellow patina on everything:

More from Mulder’s farm…

Valþröng*

Like persistent weeds in a flowerbed, thoughts of a return trip to Iceland (#11) have sprouted.

An idle search for airfares and lodging revealed some real bargains, along with some caveats. One aspect of my fall sojourns to Reykjavík that remains constant is the travel dates: the last week in October through the first week in November. This is when the Iceland Airwaves music festival occurs and when the theatre season is in full swing. The weather then is usually pretty nice, although I’ve been unbelievably lucky in my last seven trips (my first three trips were in March.) I found a good price on airfare (under $400) and a great deal on lodging in a place I’ve stayed in and loved before (under $200 a night.) Inflation adjusted, these are probably the best prices I’ve ever seen outside of 2022, which was the year after Covid had shut everything down. 2009, the year after the crash, was also low, but I was burned by having my return flight canceled and had to return through Boston and Philadelphia, which was expensive and no fun at all.

My last four trips (2018, 2022, 2023, 2025) were rousing successes, in so much that any additional trips might be tempting fate. Last year I arrived a day after a record-breaking snowfall but rather than being a disaster it just made Reykjavík all the more picturesque. The Weaver says “Go for it, you can’t spend your money when you’re dead!” I guess that is a good a reason as any. On the other hand, I’ve looked at the musical offerings for Iceland Airwaves 2026 and although the schedule isn’t complete, those initial offerings were anemic at best, especially the Icelandic acts of whom I’ve seen many and, with a coupe of exceptions, wouldn’t want to hear again. Most modern pop music isn’t my cup of tea anyway and my interest in those trends have been dwindling for several years now. My back-up for the last three trips has been the theatre, and even those choices are diminishing too. Covid hit all the performing arts hard and Icelandic theatre is no exception. One constant plus I have enjoyed over the last 22 years has been the swimming pool culture, which just gets better and better. The intangibles, i.e., special events at Norræna Husið and other happenstances, are unplanned and unpredictable serendipitous events.

So…

I’m writing this on Friday morning (yesterday.) I have to pull the trigger soon, the airfare alone may jump a couple hundred dollars at any moment and the lodging will sell out soon. I’ll sleep on it and announce my decision tomorrow.

UPDATE: I’m going.


* valþröng = dilemma

Batty’s Workbenches

The professor’s garage, clean, for once:

Lots of tools, mostly scavenged:

But some bought new (’cause they were red):

Tune in Monday for a different kind of workbench.

Thinking Inside the Box

Twenty Years Ago on FITK

One third success. Two-thirds disaster.

The New Guthrie Theater complex is complete. My Weekend of Culture™ continued with a tour and preview of the facility that is located on the banks of the Mississippi River in Downtown Minneapolis. The theaters themselves: one is a thrust stage that virtually reproduces the legendary original; one is a conventional proscenium; and the third is a small (250 seat) experimental ‘box.’ Thankfully, all three are excellent, the thrust stage in particular maintains tradition and actually has had some of the old one’s problem areas ‘massaged’ a bit. I fully expect that those improvements will be appreciated more and more as the season progresses. The backstage and production areas (both of which were extremely limited in the old theater) have reportedly been elevated to the state of the art.

So: what, you may ask, is the problem?

A theater is, basically, a box within a box. There is the inner box, the sanctum mysterioso, where the dramatic experience happens. A place where technical requirements trump any ‘aesthetic’ concerns, once the house lights go down “The play’s the thing” as it should be, the form truly follows function.

The outside of the box, the architectural face that the new Guthrie Theater presents to the world, is massive, cold and impersonal. Even the laser-etched graphics suggest a remove from reality. Its scale and appearance are more suited to a race of metallic 40 foot tall robots than puny flesh and blood humans. Here is another take on the externals from Lileks.

In the critical space between the outside and the inside is where the "theater-going experience" takes place. This is where couples and groups meet and talk before, during and after the performance, where people see and are seen by each other. The coldness of the exterior is magnified in the interior, with dark, gloomy spaces accented by stainless steel and black enamel, Euro-Moderne circa 1960. The creepy hallways around the main auditorium are dismal, with tiny and crude photographic scenes from previous productions as the only decor. There is, of course, the skyway to nowhere: a stunt of a cantilever which is, admittedly, brighter. It opens to a balcony that overlooks a vital and often ignored component of Minneapolis: the Mississippi River. A bird’s-eye (God’s eye?) view is hard to condemn although this view is somewhat distant and removed from the immediate surroundings. Elsewhere in the complex there are tinted windows that allow partial vistas of the neighborhood, these views should improve as development continues (although the specter of a sea of tacky billboards and banners is always a possibility.)

Lest I seem reactionary in my opinions, consider these facts: in the old theater's common spaces, you entered and were bathed in north-light, you could see (and be seen) and connect with people on all levels, on the mezzanines, on the stairs, on the patio, even with those in the street and even with the beautiful sculpture garden beyond. All of this made you a performer in a wonderful, three-dimensional play with gorgeous lighting, a sense of expectation and drama—a completely integrated experience! Contrast that with entering the new building: dwarfed by unadorned (except for the vapid laser-etchings) 40 foot tall walls (hope you like dark gray), torture-chamber furniture and a vertiginous/claustrophobic 200 foot 4 story escalator to take you to the lobbies. Kafkaesque is the first adjective that springs to mind.

The stakes in this project are high ($135 million, about 1/3 taxpayer money) so I wish it well. If it can elevate the performing arts in Minnesota's cultural scene, so much the better. We will support it (and the actual theater company, under Joe Dowling’s direction has been superlative) with our typical Midwestern enthusiasm (“ya, it was pretty good”) and hopefully the new venues will bring back the excellence and daring of the 1960s, when Tyrone Guthrie created a dynamic and challenging regional theater. I heard Sir Tyrone speak once, in 1967, and he was brilliant, espousing a theater of danger, one that was a threat to mediocracy and complacency, a theater that made a difference.

You’ve gotten your new theater Joe, bring it on, but don’t ask me to linger in those hideous lobbies.

Absolutely Black & White

Car Show, Anoka, Minnesota via  “Retro Digital Camera” litho setting: