Archive for January, 2023
SOMETHING I SAID: The Animal Factory
Book Review By DWIGHT HOBBES Dwight Hobbes Rule of thumb goes, the book’s better than the movie. Edward Bunker’s The Animal Factory (St. Martin’s Minotaur) and Franchise Pictures is a tossup. Both are brilliant. The novel’s narrative is fluid, with compelling immediacy. Co-screenwriter John Steppling teams with Bunker for an ingenious adaptation. Bunker (Education of a Felon: A Memoir /St. Martin's Griffin,) made his way from the wrong side of the law to a career as screenwriter-actor (Animal Factory, Straight Time). He was “Mr. Blue” in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. Franchise Pictures The Animal Factory protagonist, 20-something, privileged Ron Decker is slapped in prison so the judge can stand hard on white offenders, not just criminals of color. Never mind that Decker, no angel for sure, dealt weed and coke, but this is his first bust. He’s a politically correct scapegoat. Street spawned, veteran of incarceration Earl Boen takes him [...]
Artifacts and Curios (and a Piano)
Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery: 206th in a series By SUE HUNTER WEIR The caretaker’s cottage is a wonderful place. The two front rooms were built in 1871, which means it may well be the oldest existing stone building in South Minneapolis outside of Fort Snelling. The back room was built during the Great Depression by workers employed by the Works Progress Administration, a program designed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to create jobs for displaced workers. But it’s not just the structure that’s interesting. The inside of the building is something of a way-back machine. There are artifacts and relics dating back in some cases to the 1870s. None of the items are of any great monetary value, but they capture a piece of Minneapolis’ history that might otherwise have been lost. The Layman family, the cemetery’s original owners, were prodigious recordkeepers. There are dozens of ledgers in which they recorded the sales of cemetery plots, some for as [...]
January 23 Events
Community Journalism Trainings Thursdays: January 5, 4 PM - 5 PM January 19, 6 PM - 7:30 PM February 2, 12 PM - 1:30 PM Online (Zoom) Free Interested in learning more about community journalism, or getting involved in the alley? Receive free, professional community journalism training through these upcoming workshops being offered in partnership with Journalism of Color. While we're still scheduling local in-person trainings, we do have a few Zoom trainings already on the books. Trainings are always FREE and always open to members of the Phillips community. You can attend one training or more (each training will have similar content). RSVP by emailing ciriens@journalismofcolor.com Thursday Evenings at ASI Thursdays 3 PM – 8 PM American Swedish Institute 2600 Park Avenue Free Explore the ASI with free museum admission from 3-8pm. There will be live music on select Thursdays. https://asimn.org Organ Recital by Katelyn [...]
