Minnesota

Selected FITK posts on the Professor’s sojourns in the Land of Lakes:

2021

Mysteries of Grand Marais
Wine Tour (Stillwater)

2020

Honky-Tonk Woman (Waverly)
The Last Gig (Northeast Minneapolis)
Jono’s Letter (Grand Marais)
Heroes and Villans (South Minneapolis)
Yard Concert (Robbinsdale)
Nature Preserve (Anoka) 
Prom Nights (Saint Paul)
State Fair Memories (Falcon Heights)
Adventures with the Green Van (Bemidji)
My Last Cigar (Cambridge)

2019

Take-out (Anoka)
Paradise Found and Lost (Minneapolis)
The End of Winter (Anoka)
Small Town Talk (Anoka)
Skaterdater (Minneapolis)
() (Minneapolis)
Halloween Terrors (Anoka)
Weekend in New Ulm

2018

Five From the Frigid Fair (Falcon Heights)
On the Town (Anoka)
Art-A-Whirl (NE Minneapolis)
I Live in a Magical World (Anoka)
I Dig the Nightlife (South Minneapolis)
Savoury Summer (Anoka)
Surreal Saturday (Downtown Minneapolis)
Waseca Wonders

2017

Grand Marais by Night
More Grand Marais
Farewell Grand Marais
Harriet and Desha (Saint Paul)
Food Truck Frenzy (Anoka)
Midnight Serenade (Chatfield)
Purcell-Cutts House (Minneapolis)

2016

Jack Clark’s Bar and Cafe (North Minneapolis)
Transition (North Minneapolis)
Green Lake (North Minneapolis)
Anoka Home Tour
Four More from the Fair (Falcon Heights)
Four from the Fair
Fair Friday Final Four
North (Cook County)

2015

Art-A-Whirl (Minneapolis)
Ergot Museum (Dassel)
Rivertown Ramble (Anoka)
Saturday in the Park (Waseca)
River Rats (Anoka)
Four From the Fair (Falcon Heights)
Four More From the Fair
Further Fair Foursome
Fair Final Four

2014

Trail Center (Cook County)
Young at Heart Records (Duluth)
Country Auction (1970-Upsala)
Art-A-Whirl (Minneapolis)
A Jolly Excursion (Minneapolis-Saint Paul)
From Paradise to Sunrise (Kanabec County)
The Crazy Lady’s House (Kanabec County)
Clambering in the Fog (Anoka)

2013

Street Street (Anoka)
Playing Hooky (Minneapolis)
Art-A-Whirl (Minneapolis)
More from Art-A-Whirl
Mr. Lucky (Minneapolis)
Family Values (Two Harbors)
Stale Pop (Minneapolis)
Mansion on the Hill (Anoka)
Loring Park Girls (Minneapolis)
I Love the Fair (Falcon Heights)
Pipestone

2012

Art-A-Whirl (NE Minneapolis)
Prairie Home Cemetery (Anoka)
Alice in Wonderland (Waverly)
William A. Porter (North Minneapolis)
Frank R. MacDonald (North Minneapolis)
Charles C. Webber (North Minneapolis)

2011

Sleepy Eye
Bands, Beer and Birds (New Ulm)
New Ulm
Hot Rods and Custom Dreams (Anoka)
Ye Old Mill (Falcon Heights)
Aprés-Ski (Morrison County)

2010 and older…

Postcards from the Fair (Falcon Heights)
Old Camden (Minneapolis)
Street Corner Philosopher (Minneapolis)
Twilight of the Goddesses (Minneapolis)
Luncheon on the Grass (Waverly)
Mysteries of the North Country
Curiosity Shop (Northfield)
The Interlopers (Lanesboro)
Beaver Flicks (Grand Marais)

Postcards from the Fair #3

In 1964, probably in response to The Beach Boys, The Beatles and the "English Invasion", the Minnesota State Fair set up a "Teen Fair" with exhibits aimed at teen-agers. The first year was pretty lame- the highlight being a "smash a car" booth, where you could, for a dollar, get three hits with a sledge hammer on a junk car. The next year was a whole different story. There were several stages set up where amateur and pro bands could play. My band, The Others, played twice, once at a music store's small stage, and once at a department store's big stage. We were awful, but the experience was fantastic, if only for being in the same place as local legends The Underbeats and Suzie Q. and the Originals or really good teen bands like The Jaguars. The teen fair went on for several years, but teen music changed and became not nearly so innocent.

In 1969 I returned to the fair, where a few of us thought it might be a good idea to partake of an illicit substance to enhance the fair going experience.



Everything was ever so much more colorful! Even the sugary beverages had a new sensory dimension. The simplest of stimuli became somehow more meaningful and intense.



There was lot of giggling that day.

After the fair, while we were still pretty high, we went to a movie, Linsday Anderson's If.... which was (and remains) pretty mind-expanding in its own right.

A year or two after that the fair authorities decided against further hosting a playground for trippers and converted the whole area into "Heritage Square", with a big emphasis on "Square" and this brief but intense bit of fair history was gone forever- to be replaced by faux western and pioneer booths, selling faux history, booths which remain to this day.

Postcards from the Fair #1

In remembering the dozens of trips to the fair in my lifetime, I must start with my childhood. Those early memories were dominated by the Midway, of course, for the freak shows were a true novelty, it was real in a way TV and other forms of media which lacked the immediacy of these tacky diversions were not. At the fair one could see real Siamese twins, a "fat" family, giants, alligator women and pop-eyed hucksters, showgirls(!), black showgirls(!!), and even a fading movie cowboy or two, all "performing" to small crowds of wide-eyed youngsters and their indulgent parents. The thing that tied it all together was the banner art for the various acts. Perfectly awful, yet undeniable in its tawdry appeal:



Jack Sigler

The idea of pain and suffering as an attraction was hardly new, much of my religious instruction was based on that, but here it was, presented as an entertainment (with a little titillation thrown in for good measure), even though it was really just part of a long tradition of circuses and morality plays. You just had to respond- whether in horror or fascination (or both.) This Art, outside of a few preserved examples, is long gone.

There were other childhood attractions, the livestock, along with their owners, created a world just as removed from my own as was the carny's. Those animals offered us a glimpse of grace, as did the young people who handled them:



This remains the same as it ever was, and remains just as beautiful.

The fair is also a little mini-history of Minnesota, each building and construction reflecting the times in which it was built. With almost nothing ever getting demolished, one can walk through the fair and simultaneously through the decades, with the grand buildings of the twenties and thirties still glorious:



Even their details bespoke a higher aesthetic sense:

Postcards from the Fair #2

Not buying...

A lot of people go to the fair to buy stuff, or, more accurately, to be sold stuff. There is a definite seduction/surrender dynamic going on here, with the pitchman selling the experience of selling as much as the products.



Resistance is weakening...

And like an experienced street hustler, the pitchman's never ending patter insinuates its way into the mark's brain until resistance is futile.



Surrender!

This is a long-standing tradition, as old as history, and still thriving in spite of The Shopping Network and Amazon.

Postcards from the Fair Week

This week I'll be featuring impressions from the
Minnesota State Fair, in a mash-up of images and
rambling, possibly unrelated personal stories;
I've come to the conclusion that it would be
almost impossible to make a coherent narrative
out of this kaleidoscopic experience.

Postcards from the Fair #4

Random impressions:



8 AM




Those crazy Aussies, what'll they think of next?




"Gee, Wilbur, I told you never to sneak up on me like that!"




My fillings start to ache just by looking at it.




Been too long at the fair.