Secrets of the City

We wanted to make sure you didn’t miss this news: After a brilliant career where she worked with everyone from Elvis Costello to Willie Nelson, Sue McLean sadly lost her battle with cancer last Friday.

McLean was one of the most prominent features of the Minneapolis music scene, and her dedication throughout her almost 40-year career made her Pollstar’s top independent female promoter in the world.

McLean’s legacy will undoubtedly continue on—even just this summer, her company has over 30 shows lined up for this summer’s Music in the Zoo, as well as a number of other performances around town. Her funeral will be on May 24, at 11 a.m. at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis; check McLean’s site for details on a upcoming memorial concert and fund for her 12-year-old daughter.

Touted as the “best musical of the decade” by Entertainment Weekly, this undoubtedly pop-u-lar show returns to the Twin Cities for another run at the Orpheum Theatre. If you’re not familiar, Wicked—which is based on the 1995 best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire—chronicles the life of the highly misunderstood Wicked Witch of the West and the straight-laced and conventionally attractive Glinda the Good, both adapted from The Wizard of Oz.

Tickets are officially on sale at 10 a.m. today for the show’s five-week run. All three of the previous tours in Minneapolis sold out instantly—so consider this your not-so-secret warning: act fast!

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

Just because we’re thousands of miles from an ocean doesn’t make Minnesotans any less capable of solving the problem of slowly disappearing breeds of fish. There are a handful of these entrepreneurs right in our backyard, and Dara Moskovitz Grumdahl sought them all out for her piece in this month’s Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.

A warehouse behind Cub Foods accommodating 10,000 perch and a forest of lettuce? Tiliapia swimming behind the walls of the abandoned Hamm’s Brewery? Piranha-like pacu beneath the Duluth Grill? Dreamers are making sustainable aquaponics systems a reality under our noses. They’re stocking lunchrooms and restaurants across the Twin Cities with Minnesota-raised seafood, taking pressure off the ocean systems that are so endangered.

Check out Dara’s story and ask your next server how far that lobster roll had to travel from ocean (or Twin Cities warehouse) to plate.

Everyone’s favorite little sticky notes have come a long way over the years. What started out as little yellow squares have grown and evolved into a variety of shapes and colors to personalize, not to mention organize, any person’s style. And now, 3M has introduced the newest line to it’s Post-it family: the limited-edition Post-it Signature series.

Aimed at attracting business from smaller, independently owned boutiques, these fancy notes feature 21 different design themes by 16 artists. The St.Paul-based company wanted to stick to its home roots, so six of the designs were actually created by MCAD students.

Artistic versions of aquatic scenes, geometric shapes, and even fashion are just some of the designs you can expect to see on sticky notes, list pads, and page-markers—all for $20 or less.