Keep citizen journalism alive in Phillips
It’s the “The Cat’s Meow”– Jeremy Messersmith in Concert on “Graveyard Stage” at Cedar and Lake
Saturday, October 8 Gates open & smartphone history hunt 1:00 pm Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles 2:00 pm Jeremy Messersmith 4:00 pm Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery, 2925 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55407 Tickets $10 in advance, $15 at the door; children 12 and under free (donations gladly accepted) Proceeds support restoration of the historic cemetery fence.
By Sue Hunter Weir
We are honored to have Jeremy Messersmith on the “Graveyard Stage” preceeded by Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles perform as part of a Cemetery Open House Gate Saturday, October 8th in conjunction with the Partners in Preservation Voting. Ticket sale proceeds will be used to continue our 1,853 foot fence restoration project.
Jeremy’s performance will include, without hesitation, songs from his most recent album, “The Reluctant Graveyard.” “The Reluctant Graveyard,” was named as one of the top ten albums of 2010 by National Public Radio’s “All Songs Considered” and best local album by the Star Tribune. Some of the songs on “The Reluctant Graveyard,” including “Toussaint Grey,” were inspired by inhabitants of Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery. Chris Riemenschneider, music critic for the Minneapolis Tribune, predicts that “this should be one of the most memorable concerts of the year.” To learn more about Jeremy’s music, visit: http://jeremymessersmith.com/.
Amusement, Medical Innovation, and Transit Allied for Success
After two cold and rainy summers that resulted in slow ticket sales, Wonderland closed in 1911. The only evidence on the landscape that Wonderland ever existed is the Infantorium, which is this apartment building on the southeast corner of 31st Avenue and 31st Street.
By Sue Hunter Weir
The story of the Wonderland babies is as much of a crowd pleaser today as it was when Wonderland Park was in operation between 1905 and 1912. When Wonderland opened its gates in 1905, it was not just a big news story—it was a huge story. It wasn’t just that having a modern amusement park was important to the city’s image and sense of itself as the gateway to the Northwest, it was the effect that the park had on the city’s infrastructure and economy. In 1905, for the first time, it became possible for Minneapolitans to take a streetcar from Hennepin and Lake to 31st Avenue and Lake without going through downtown. It was no coincidence that 31st and Lake marked the entrance to Wonderland Park. The following year, a newly constructed addition, the Selby-Lake streetcar line, provided easier access to the park for visitors from St. Paul. On busy days, streetcars ran as often as every thirty seconds to handle the crowds. In its first year of operation, over half-a-million people came to see the park.
The thing that made it all possible—the streetcars, the rides, and the 120-foot beacon of light that could be seen for miles—was electricity. What few people realized at the time was the electricity was also capable of saving lives.
At the far end of the park, stood the Infantorium, essentially a neo-natal intensive care hospital for premature babies. For the price of a ten-cent ticket, visitors could see the hospital’s shiny, new incubators. Incubators, at least those used for raising poultry were not unknown, but the idea of using an incubator to raise a human baby came as something of a surprise to many of the fair’s visitors. Many people were confused about how the baby incubators worked, and, drawing on their experience of watching eggs turn into chicks in “hatcheries,” thought that the babies were conceived and born in the incubators. The steel-framed boxes with their glass sides became known as “automatic mothers,” although some of the more poetically-inclined reporters described them as “glass castles.”
Searching – A Serial Novelle Chapter 30: Drop The Maybe
By Patrick Cabello Hansel
Luz and Angel walked in silence to the cemetery. The clouds had disappeared, and the nearly first quarter moon hung like a bowl tipped up to pour out blessings. They stopped by the closed gates and looked at the sky together. Midnight passed, and the slow December march t the dawn began quietly.
“Do you think we’re going to die?” Angel asked Luz.
“Yes—I mean everyone has to die,” she answered.
“No—are we going to die soon?” His lip began to curve into the same shape as the moon.
“I don’t know—why?”
“Poets Poet” in Tribute to Roy McBride
Louis Alemayehu, reading his poem “Caught” in tribute to Roy McBride accompanied by Steven Hasse on trumpet at a Memorial Poetry Reading August 12th at In the Heart of the Beast Theatre. Scores of poems, testimonials, tributes, and songs by many artists (including Carey Thomas, pictured here) were dedicated to the life and memory of Roy McBride—a poet who exemplified that “poets poet” and was Poet Laureate of Lake Street. Right on,! Lake Street!
By Louis Alemayehu
Roy Chester McBride: Caught
Intoxicated on Lilacs
& simply simple complicated life.
You got caught, I got caught, we got caught…
in the web of life
That voice…
The rhyme and repetition,
the rhyme and repetition,
the rhyme and repetition…
I hear you now, I hear you know, in my brain
In my brain,
my brain,
my brain
I see you now
marching
in another 30 mayday parades
From Phillips to Powderhorn,
step by step
by step
by step
by step
Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 & The Robber
Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Harry Potter and The Deadly Hallows: Part 2-2011
**** (Four of five stars)
Warner Brothers
Rating PG-13
Running time: 131 minutes
Drama/Fantasy
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliff (Harry Potter), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix), Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort), Robbie Coltrane (Rubeus Hagrid), Micheal Gambon (Professor Albus Dumbledore), John Hurt (Ollivander), Jason Issacs (Lucius Malfoy), Kelly Macdonald (Helena Ravenclaw), Gary Oldman (Sirus Black), Alan Rickman (Professor Severus Snape), Maggie Smith (Professor Minerva Mc Gonagall), David Thewlis (Remus Lupin).
For aching Harry Potter fans over the last decade, seven (“eight” films, additions (and some subtractions)of thespians, four directors arrive at the final Potter film: “Deadly Hallows Part 2”.The final battle is between the now grown, bespectacled Harry Potter, played by Daniel Radcliffe, and his nemesis Lord Voldemort, played by Ralph Fiennes. Voldemort planning to destroy Potter for good is what’s at play.
Between J.K. Rowling’s seven books and four directors Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron, Mike Newell and David Yates, respectively, the Harry Potter series is a phenomenon, perhaps the world’s finest as far as transformation from novel to silver screen.
Doo Wop And Cannon Falls
The luckier members of my generation were again able to watch public television’s annual review of the Doo Wop Pop Rock music emergence (late ‘50s—early ‘60s). As always, it was an awesome emotional head swoon. Moreover, let us self-reflect, the splendid performances of so many popular Black artists served to educate and humanize millions of white Americans
Note: I was born August 26, 1950…
How is it that these tunes are lodged in my brain and subject to recall? Probably it is owing to the daily school bus rides into the town of Cannon Falls. The good bus driver had the radio on all those years.
Yet the town remained white, with just a touch of Dakota blood mixed in. Any outside person of color was sure to incite such internal red flags as: Get a grip, be nice but do not touch. It was from elsewhere, moved by the music, that some white folks went South to confront the terror regime there. The news trickled in. We learned that some were killed.
The Alley’s Roving Reporter at the August 13 Bridging Event: “What is something about this event that you will take home with you?”
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![Brittany Freeman and Sharon Beckford (Above) [Friends who live on opposite sides of the bridge.] “It was our first time on that bridge! Our wish is that the murals don’t wear out in the winter! It was amazing to hear from the person who in 1973 tried to start an event about this bridge. It just shows that sometimes it takes a little while to get something started but once it starts…!”](http://alleynews.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Brittnay-150x150.png "Brittnay")
- Brittany Freeman and Sharon Beckford (Above) [Friends who live on opposite sides of the bridge.] “It was our first time on that bridge! Our wish is that the murals don’t wear out in the winter! It was amazing to hear from the person who in 1973 tried to start an event about this bridge. It just shows that sometimes it takes a little while to get something started but once it starts…!”
![Brittany Freeman and Sharon Beckford (Above) [Friends who live on opposite sides of the bridge.] “It was our first time on that bridge! Our wish is that the murals don’t wear out in the winter! It was amazing to hear from the person who in 1973 tried to start an event about this bridge. It just shows that sometimes it takes a little while to get something started but once it starts…!”](http://alleynews.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Brittnay.png "Brittnay")
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- Sandy Spieler “I loved the process of walking across the neighborhood and stopping at key spots and finding out more about a part of the community or a building from the people who were there. I was in a couple of places I had yet to step inside of and talked with people that I had not met before. I enjoyed hearing from Muriel Simmons and her beautiful idea for the community.”
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- Lee Cunningham “I really enjoyed the Sub-Saharan music. The audience engagement piece about soil that occurred near the bridge was very inspiring. My minor was soil science when I was an undergraduate at the U of M. I was reminded that there are microbes in a handful of earth than there are people on the globe! The bridge is a two-way bridge and we need more two-way bridges in our community.”
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- Julie “I was here today to be with my 16-year-old nephew who composed and delivered the poem spoken at the bridge today. I had introduced him to Dallas a few weeks ago and he just got right into it. I also got a chance to unveil one of the murals. I live in St. Paul but it is still very healing to see unity and beauty in a city. Art helps people to stop and consider the world around themselves.”
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- The Alley Newspaper says a special THANK YOU!!!! to our youth volunteers, Norah and Clarasophia (right) who spent an entire day helping us with our “Tell Us a Story” section at the Bridging event on August 13, 2011.
“Talking in the Backyard” Gardening Grows More than Food
by Ariele Strachan, Cultural Wellness Center
The Backyard Initiative (BYI) now has 13 Citizen Health Action Teams (CHATs) implementing health strategies developed by members who are local residents. The Growing the Backyard CHAT was given support by the BYI Community Commission on Health for their Family Garden Project in April of this year and have been working with families on gardening since late May. The Family Garden Project has connected with eight families in the Phillips, Powderhorn, Central, and Corcoran neighborhoods (the Backyard area) and has helped each of them to install a 4×4 foot raised bed garden. The Family Garden Project works with whole families — parents, children of all ages, grandparents and other members of the family — to make gardening a natural part of everyone’s day where different gardening activities are less chores and are more activities to bring the family and the community closer together.
1st Annual Bridging Festival was a Blast!
By Dallas Johnson
Our 12 hour event on 8/13 (two dozen activities moving through 10 sites) exceeded our wildest expectations. The active embodiment of an invitation, the majority of the day was hands-on and interactive. It was well attended and numbers grew with each stop along 24th St. From collecting the water at dawn, bringing the water together (w/ Sandy Spieler), Simone Speer’s dance workshop at E Philips Park, singing quietly in a circle (with Louis Alemayhu at PCC), decorating parade regalia (w/ Heart of the Beast), marveling at the Somali Mall, the parade up 24th St (with three 12 foot puppets, musicians and our decorated umbrellas), a big crowd and Patrick Nolan’s original poem at the murals unveiling (w/ artists Elissa Cedarleaf and Greta McLain), neighborhood skit honoring Muriel Simmons that ended in a spiral dance, party at Center for Changing Lives with art activities, seed balls, MPRB’s kids’ games, live African music, The Alley-hosted storytelling, snow cones and fudgicles, my original song with Julie Allen’ ASL interpretation)…we showed how creative, welcoming, willing and visionary we are when we come together.
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