Secrets of the City

Here’s a tip of the hat to the many people who stopped by The Affair expo this past weekend and visited with us at the Secrets of the City ultra booth, signed up for emails, told us about your favorite restaurants, and checked out Theater All Year. It is always – yes always – fun to meet with people who have been absorbed in our writing, recommendations, discussions, and typos, and who return their opinions freely!  To readers old and new, check out our deals page for some fresh offers, and feel free to comment with tips of your own – momentarily suspending the No Self Promotion rule on MNSpeak.

With the recent updates to Secrets of the City, including MNSpeak’s reclaimed front and center position, we’ve been planning on expanding both the breadth of topics covered and the number of voices contributing to MNSpeak’s posts and comments.  So now seems to be the time to transition our editorial leadership from Max Sparber to Cristina Cordova.  Max has been the man for more than two years now and has brought humor, journalistic chops, arts sensibilities, and all-’round coolness to the position.  We expect no less from Cristina, and welcome her back from a sort of hiatus since her earlier stint editing The Rake and Secrets of the City. To MNSpeakers: Please continue to check out Max’s stuff at his blog, Sailor Martin and MinnPost’s Daily Glean.  On this site, expect to see some resurrected MNSpeak features like 7 Quick Questions and the local blog aggregator, plus regular posts by new contributors who know their stuff in areas we’ve traditionally under-covered (sports, music, out-state news, etc).  To everyone else: please submit a post, keep the comments coming, or just lurk around.

Well, we thought 24 hours was enough public beta testing, so we launched the new site.  Most stuff seems to be working, except for the stuff that isn’t.  Let us know what you think because we’ll be tweaking quite a bit for the rest of the week.  Some things to look forward to this month: The return of 7 Quick Questions and the Local Blog Aggregator.  The happy hour database should be completely filled in over the next few days. Note: Archives from the Rake can now be found at archives.secretsofthecity.com.

City Pages points us to newsbobber, which has ranked the top 100 blogs in Minnesota. Who has two thumbs and is number five on the list? This blog!

As it turns out, everybody wants to go home and watch Project Runway instead of going to a seedy bar and talking about schlocky fiction. So tonight’s mnread is off… But how would people like to read The Graveyard Book (which is now in paperback) for Halloween? I think that could be good scary local literary fun. Maybe I can even talk Neil into coming. I just have to, you know, actually meet him first.

The next MnRead project is herby officially announced as taking place on June 14, at Como Park, around 4 PM. The picnic area is by Horton and Hamline in St Paul. The book we’re MnReading is Sigurd F. Olson’s The Singing Wilderness, about which I know practically nothing, but I’ll read it when I’m up north in a couple weeks, with the laps of the lake against the rocks and the distant mournful cry of the loons as the fitting soundtrack.

MnRead is a reading group comprised of MnSpeakers. We read a book with some kind of local connection and then get together somewhere to talk about it. Here are some suggestions for the book we’ll read next. Please vote if you think you might be interested in joining. Feel free to recommend other books here for future MnRead events. Our next meeting is likely to be in June, perhaps somewhere with a deck or patio. http://doodle.com/5nibugpigxebfzsc

Because Cooper counts, but just barely. The MnSpeak/SoTC book club is discussing The House at Sugar Beach on Monday at 6. We’re meeting at Vicky’s in BP, corner of Brookdale & Humbolt. More here in the original thread. Anyone wanting a double dose of Liberian interest can go see the president of Liberia today. More here at the U of M site.

I propose a MnRead gathering to discuss Helene Cooper’s House at Sugar Beach, an impressive memoir of a Cooper’s Liberian childhood and repatriation to the United States (which included a stint in Minneapolis, working for the now defunct Skyway News).

I suggest that this gathering be on April 13 at Vicky’s Place in BP, so we can match discussion of the book with appropriate cuisine. (It’s almost appropriate as a date, too, since April 12 is the seismic date of the coup that changed Helene’s life, but it seems Vicky’s is closed on Sundays.)

- Your MnRead Organizer  

Please join several of your MNSpeak pals on Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at Merlin’s Rest for some good clean pub trivia. Trivia kicks off at 730pm but someone should plan on getting there at 7pm or earlier to ensure we get a good spot. All are welcome, even if you’re an introvert, think you’re bad at trivia, a smoker or a non-MNSpeaker, so please bring your friends! If this goes well, hopefully we can make it a regular thing. And, as long as you’re nice to people, we promise not to kick you off the team. Who’s in?