Secrets of the City

If you’ve ever wanted to see University Ave worked into a rap song, or, well, pretty much every single street in St. Paul, Labratz offer an ode to their city.

The Star-Tribune reports: Unmarried couples — same sex or not — will soon be able to register their names with the city of St. Paul to get a certificate saying they’re in a committed relationship.

The Strib reports: The St. Paul school district let go of 143 teachers on Tuesday in a long-anticipated move to help deal with a budget deficit for next year.

Jonathen Franzen, the man who scorned Oprah, wrote a Desperate-Housewives-esque short story about fictional characters living in the Ramsey Hill neighborhood of St. Paul in this week’s New Yorker. He mentions passive agression, Hennepin County, St. Kate’s, Star Tribune, WA Frost, “some fat guy over in Minneapolis,” Paul Bunyan, the Guthrie, and, of course, Prince. The story doesn’t exactly flatter Minnesota and seems to be using it as a random setting for a tale of bickering moms and their skanky teenagers. Did any of you read it this week?

The newish and sort of horrible word “staycation” inspires a rather well-done site filled with events and locations in St. Paul that could make Pigseye the go-to place to, er, stay home. Added bonus:You may recognize many of the writers from SOTC.

Brauer, among others, points out the Minnesota Daily’s terrific piece of intellectual rights piracy in Pigseye: Selling pirated movies had become Cheesy’s full-time job. He had established a loyal clientele that kept a stream of customers surrounding his worn SUV that night with little attempt at inconspicuousness. On the hood sat four plastic crates overflowing with discs in white paper sleeves and two thick binders cataloguing available titles, most of which were still in theaters.

Cathy Wurzer does a story about a hand-carved, and rather glorious, puppet stage in the St. Paul Public Library. MPR has smartly decided to pair Wurzer’s audio interview with one of the puppeteers to a slideshow of images, including some old photographs of the stage. Not being a St. Paulite, I’ve never even heard of this. Anybody grow up seeing shows at that puppet stage?

The PiPress and MinnPost review Blue Collar Diaries, a one-woman show about growing up working class in St. Paul.

Hi, I’m new to MN and I am so tired of the cold I started to think about summer to warm myself up. I could not find any good links on google about playing softball this summer in the twin cities. Can anyone point me in the right direction to find a fun, laid back, beer league style softball to join this summer?

Minnesota Monthly looks back at a year of high weirdness in the Twin Cities, including the fellow who tore the head off the duck, as well as embarrassing comments from a variety of locals, including Jason Lewis and (perhaps inevitably) Michelle Bachmann; also included are stories of mayhem and madness from Wisconsin. What stories were forgot, but should be added to the list?