The term streetwear is not easily definable. It’s not hip-hop fashion, but it is inspired by the music. It’s not luxury wear, but it pushes the prices and exclusiveness of luxury brands. Its shoes of choice are Nikes, yet most of the clothing companies are independently owned. Whatever the definition, the streetwear scene in the Twin Cities is about to see some major changes.
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Wading waist deep in a chilly northern Minnesota lake, a shirtless James Snapko moved forward with only camera in hand. His crew stood by and watched his patience in catching the sun glare off the moving water, his patience in becoming a full-time director.
Expand the playlist. It’s what Minnesota Public Radio set out to do in 2004 when it purchased St. Olaf’s WCAL to create 89.3-The Current. It also happens to be The Current’s slogan.
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The pavement outside Heimie’s Haberdashery is a dichotomy of neatly arranged, aged brick pavers fused with recent slabs of imposing bland concrete. In a world of e-mail, hybrid technology and multi-tasking, Heimie’s itself is a dichotomy – a throwback to the era of leisure, attention to detail and time to kill.
With St. Patrick’s Day looming, many communities are preparing for parades, Irish pubs are stocking up on ales and lagers, and Irish-Americans (and others) are decking themselves out in green. But does anyone know what this celebration is about or who St. Patrick was?
The vast pine and birch forests of northern Minnesota have provided hundreds of local entrepreneurs with a natural resource to make unique and sustainable wood products ranging from furniture to walking sticks.
Hundreds of drums of all shapes, sizes and colors, originating from as far away as Morocco to as near as the workshop in the basement cover the walls and flood the showroom floor of Ellis Drum Shop in St. Paul.
When St. Paul-based Graywolf Press started business in 1974 its first book was hand-set and hand-printed on treadle-operated machines. The process took six months. Within four months, all 1,500 copies of Tess Gallagher’s Instructions to the Double were sold.
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The rattling of glasses, high-pitched whine of machinery and chattering of patrons filled the shell of an old car dealership in downtown Cannon Falls, Minn., on a recent February day. These are familiar sounds in what is now Cannon River Winery when owners John and Maureen Maloney throw a bottling party for one of their wines.
I can picture Steve Roberts and LeeAnn Juckll scanning groceries at their respective registers in the morning while nit-picking the details of the night’s action at Pot O’ Gold Bingo Hall. Neither would lose focus in their cashier duties as they reminisce about the time when Steve was one daub away from winning the “speedo” round or when the two of them were waiting on O-62 to complete their diagonal and win a round of double bingo.
When he gets excited spit follows the words out of his mouth. “Sorry about that,” he said, while wiping saliva off my shirt. He cannot contain himself because of the “beautiful tag” he saw at the Midway bus yard.
When my great-grandpa came from Sweden to work in the Iowa iron mines in 1916, it only cost him a couple cents to write home.
Ninety-two years later it costs 90 cents to send a letter to Sweden, something that is becoming increasingly rare as letter writing is replaced by e-mail. As Americans lose contact with their cultural heritage I try to keep an element of my “Swedishness” alive by sending frequent letters to friends and relatives in Scandinavia.
“With ‘Swedishness’… we mean Swedish thought, Swedish will, Swedish dreams, which we have brought with us as our essential wealth. We mean the planting in American soil of the seed we have not only brought with us, but which we are,” wrote David Nyvall, a Swedish immigrant to Minneapolis in his 1921 pamphlet “Svenskhetens bevarande," published the same year my great-grandpa brought his family to the United States.
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At one time, a dollar could buy 20 trips to the neighborhood nickel theater. Times have changed and with the popularity of multiplex theaters, ticket prices have climbed to around $9 per trip, not including $7 or so for concessions.
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It’s been seven years since the rise and fall of local rap hero Lil Buddy reverberated throughout downtown Minneapolis’ hip-hop scene. Perhaps Minneapolis’ first real hope for mainstream hip-hop success, Buddy was at the threshold of national stardom before finding trouble in his personal life and robbing a Rosemount bank.