December 28, 2000 - A Voices of Minnesota, part 1 features Ray Christianson, a radio announcer and Voice of Golden Gopher sports. Tonight he calls his last game. William Wilcoxen has more. Part.2 is a rebroadcast of an interview with John Gagliardi from September 24, 1999.
December 29, 2000 - The Jayhawks play two shows at First Avenue in Minneapolis this weekend playing songs from the band's latest album, Smile. This is the Jayhawks first recording since Mark Olson, one of the two chief singer-songwriters left the band. Many people thought the band would fold after his departure, but commentator Kate Sullivan says instead, the Jayhawks released the best album of their career:
December 29, 2000 - The Happy Penguin Film Festival in Rochester. Sacred Sounds og Kwanzaa celebrate Kwanzaa through song and theater.
January 8, 2001 - Acclaimed local photographer Wing Young Huie is being recognized at the Ordway Center with a U.S. Bank Sally Ordway Irvine Award for his installation of "Lake Street USA." Huie spent four years taking photographs on and around Lake Street which were then blown up and displayed outdoors on storefronts, bus shelters and buildings. MPR’s Mary Stucky met with Huie as he began installing these enormous portraits, and filed this report.
January 9, 2001 - The first novel by Englishman David Mitchell, has ended up on many critic's lists of the best books of the year 2000. "Ghostwritten" weaves together nine different tales, each featuring a character from a different spot on the globe. The novel incorporates espionage, romance, the supernatural and mystery while careening from Japan to Mongolia, Russia, Ireland and points inbetween. Mitchell himself is no stranger to travel. He makes his home in Japan where he works as an English teacher. He told Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Curtis that when he first got to Japan he found it frustrating not to be able to read or understand Japanese very well....but now he is used to it.
January 10, 2001 - If you started your morning with a bowl of cereal, you probably didn't think much about where it came from. But artist Jeff Morrison is trying to change that. He has a new exhibit at the A-Z Gallery in St. Paul called Cereal Killer. It looks at where we think our food comes from through the eyes of children. The exhibit looks like a classroom. 158 pictures and essays are taped up on the blackboard. They were created by first and second graders in Minneapolis and in rural South Dakota. Morrison asked the kids to answer the question: "Where did your breakfast cereal come from?" I stopped by A-Z Gallery to take a tour with Morrison, who says there's a purpose behind the art.
January 11, 2001 - Who IS Charles Keating? Well, he's an actor, but after four decades on the stages and soundsets of the world, he's played so many roles for so many different and seperate audiences, he's become many things to many people. His largest audience was his Emmy Award-winning portrayal of the villanous Carl Hutchins in the tv soap opera "Another World". He's done many films, including "The Bodyguard" and "The Thomas Crown Affair". But he's also in TV dramas including "Brideshead Revisited" and been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Now he is completing a circle of sorts by returning to the Guthrie Theater to play the love struck butler Malvolio in Shakespeares "Twelfth Night" opening for a second run this week. Keating was a Guthrie Company member for three years starting in 1968, working under Sir Tyrone Guthrie, an experience he told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr is almost impossible to describe. Outro: Charles Keating who is again tying on the yellow garters to play Malvolio in the Guthrie Theater's remounting of it production of "Twelfth Night" which runs through February 4th. He talked with Word of Mouthy's Euan Kerr
January 11, 2001 - It's the quintessential teenage fantasy -- join a rock band, become famous, make a lot of money. Throw in a tragic plane crash and a troup of witty European actors and you have the makings of experimental theater RIPE for the Walker Art Center's annual "Out There" festival. Tonight marks the North American debut for the English-German ensemble, called Gob Squad. Their name refers to a type of schooling fish-- Gob-- that cares for its ailing members. At least that's what the performers say, prefering to ignore the other meaning's of the word which are British slang for both mouth and spit. The Gob Squad's play "Safe", opening at the Southern Theater, has been touring Europe for the past two years. The troup's Simon Will and Sean Patten say "Safe" is part theater, part plane disaster and part rock concert.
January 11, 2001 - A consumer's guide to satellite radio.
January 15, 2001 - The theme at 2001 Martin Luther King Day rally and march in St. Paul was progress in race relations. But many of the speakers gave their view of the distance to go before equity and justice are achieved.