Secrets of the City

I will have more tomorrow afternoon, but I’m a finicky post-processor, and am tired.

I’ll be the first to say: thanks for the company, thanks for the conversation all.

Max, these are great photos. Except for the one of me. The camera seems to add about 40 pounds, or maybe that was the beer that did that.

No shots of the midget clowns? And where’s the picture of Sarah’s muffins?

Great to meet everyone though. And the building really is gorgeous. Thanks to Tom for arranging the tour!

Max – I second the photo nod. Mad props and all.

it was a good time… thanks Tom!
nice to see y’all.
i wanted to have a video up for tomorrow, but too much editing given that i have a 10am meeting.

slacker

Nice meeting you all. I’m still in love with the new library, despite its lack of internal enticement upon first entry (ooo, that sounds so dirty). And I’lll follow this all up tomorrow with a great new post that’s brewing.

Cristina, are there midget clowns involved?

ach, out so late drinking that I’ll have to put mine up tomorrow when I get off work. I’ll also have to start a blog just because being a non-blogger made me feel a bit left out. It was great to meet everyone, though!

oh and big thanks one more time before bed!

My blog depends on my low resolution happiness:

http://s4xton.com/1259/minneapolis-central-library/

Nice to meet a lot of you…

If you missed Max’s speech:

I was surprised my “A rabbi walks into a bar” joke went down so poorly. It’s always been such a dynamite speech-opener.

By the way, Bartel, we now expect you to use your clout to get us into the new Guthrie building.

Whoops, speaking of which, John Townend caught me slagging off Joe Dowling again. The money quote:

“Dowlings tendency toward casting New York actors in lead roles. I dont really care if an actor has appeared in Law & Order and has a handful of Off-Broadway credits, and I doubt many Minnesotan audiences do as well.

“Ive always argued that our local talent pool is strong enough, and should be the first place the Guthrie looks for casting, instead of an afterthought used to flesh out supporting roles.

“Tony Guthries desire was to create a genuine American regional theater, and instead, it often seems as though the Guthrie is a misplaced Off-Broadway theater, filled with New Yorkers doing New York-style productions for the sake of adding the Guthrie to their playbill credits in their next New York play.

“There is no real sense of a community of theater professionals, only a series of out-of-state hired guns who have no real concern for creating a uniquely Minnesotan world-class theater.”

Actually, that’s the entire quote.

Really great photos, Max. Sorry I couldn’t be there. I was in Lakeville, informing the public of the scourge that is teenagers walking into open garages and helping themselves to cases of Miller Hi-Life. Awesome.

Wait, suburbanites don’t even close their garage doors?

oh man …

“There is no real sense of a community of theater professionals, only a series of out-of-state hired guns who have no real concern for creating a uniquely Minnesotan world-class theater.”

But aren’t there two levels of theatre professionals in the Twin Cities — the OOS hired guns, and then everyone else who puts a bunch of work into the smaller local productions? (I’m pointing at Leigha.)

What’s “Miller Hi-Life?”

Kevin: I’m not yet awake. Of course, it’s Miller High-Life. The champagne of beers.

The Guthrie’s main stage sometimes seems as far from local theater professionals — particularly actors, directors, and playwrights — as if it were actually located in New York. There shouldn’t be two levels of Minneapolis theater — the Guthrie and everybody else. I see no reason why there shouldn’t be a constant cross-pollination between the two.

To be fair, I also included kudos to Dowling for the Guthrie Lab, which hires a lot of locals and often even puts them in lead roles, although John neglected to quote me on that.

Aaron- love your pics too. Glad to see how good looking the people on the MNSpeak tour are (especially my WCCO buddy, Jennifer). Seeing all these pics almost makes me want to go read something.

Max is right — we need a tour of the Guthrie as well. Maybe we can uncover their deadly secrets too?

Jason, you would’ve been better off covering the dangers of the library’s cool new automated stacks that can crush a man with but a push of a button.

Kevin: I’m not yet awake. Of course, it’s Miller High-Life. The champagne of beers.

The packaging says that, but it’s real name is Miller Low-Life.

Oooh… I’ll pitch that tonight!

City leaders said, it would be a place for learning.
But we’ve uncovered the real lesson– is death!
Killer stacks, tonight at ten.

Stealing beer out of garages? We used to do that back in the early ’70s. And here I thought juvenile delinquincy had made some meaningful advances over the years.

I seem to recall, quite a while back, that Lakeville had a town motto: “Safely south.” Not anymore, suckers!

Will there be midget clowns at the Guthrie as well?

Actually, I’m dying to understand the functionality of the Guthrie. It makes absolutely no sense to me from the outside. Has anyone seen the inside space.. or at least the plans? Demystify it for me.. pleeeease.

Killer stacks

Flip that around to “The Stacked Killer” and it’s even more titillating. Good work!

Cristina, the Guthrie has an image to maintain as a bastion of the arts and culture. Midget clowns would be far too gaudy.

Midget mimes, on the other hand…

Midget mimes would do. Midget vaudeville would be better.

Miller High Life cannot be dissed!

As refered to in TMBG’s Alienation’s for the Rich Lyrics

Well I ain’t feeling happy
About the state of things in my life
But I’m working to make it better
With a six of Miller High Life
Just drinking and a-driving
Making sure my dues get paid
Because alienation’s for the rich
And I’m feeling poorer every day
Hey hey hey

I’m kind of glad the stop button worked, because I would have hated to be responsible for the first new library death.

I’ll leave that honour to someone on Hennepin Ave with a gun.

I’m also terribly confused by just what the hell is up with the Guthrie. I have to look at it across the river every day and it seems to make less and less sense the more I look at it. Giant downtown riverfront IKEA funplex for plays and cheap furniture? Docking station for alien craft? Really bad design decision?
It’s kind of a toss up.

I’ll take one Summit or Gluek over six Low-Lifes.

Here are some more take a week ago

I’d take six High Lifes over six Summits any day.

So what was the Rabbi joke?