July 6, 2001 - MPR’s Kamoi Goetz profiles the 21st annual Hmong International Freedom Festival sports competition in St. Paul. 25,000 people are expected at the two-day festival which features a parade, food and souvenir booths, and sports competitions. Hmong youth from across the country will compete with Minnesota athletes in soccer, volleyball…and Takraw, a sport that blends aspects of both volleyball and soccer.
July 9, 2001 - Where can you hear works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Darius Milhaud, (me-YOH) and Bernstein's (BURN-stine) "West Side Story" performed on the same Wednesday evening? In Duluth, of course. The Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra's adventurous artistic director and conductor Warren Friesen, says he programs concerts the way he fixes dinner -- tossing together a tasty variety of interesting flavors and textures. Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Hemphill samples a few courses.
July 10, 2001 - MPR’s Greta Cunningham talks with Jacquelyn Mitchard about her book "A Theory of Relativity," which opens with a fatal car crash and focuses on the question of who should raise the orphaned baby girl left behind. Cunningham says the book was inspired by a real-life court battle.
July 11, 2001 - Mainstreet Radios Dan Gunderson reports from Fergus Falls, where Artspace, a Minneapolis non-profit agency, is hoping to renovate the Hotel Kaddatz. The empty historic building is the organizations first attempt to create space for artists in rural areas. Artspace builds affordable space for artists to live and work. It has developed projects in the Twin Cities and Duluth, as well as several large cities across the country. It was the organization behind the much publicized moving of the Shubert Theater across downtown Minneapolis.
July 11, 2001 - When author Ann Patchett heard the story of how terrorists seized a group of dignitaries at the Japanese Embassy in Peru and held them hostage, she felt there was an operatic quality to the story. She took that feeling and created "Bel Canto" the critically acclaimed novel about what happens when a world famous soprano is seized by terrorists, along with dozens of international businessmen in an un-named South American country. As the stand-off drags on, from days into months hostages and captors become almost an extended family, tied together by the soprano's singing. Ann Patchett told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr she wanted to create a utopia.
July 11, 2001 - Weekly visits to a local farmers market have become an important summer tradition for many Minnesotans. Farmers markets offer an abundance of home grown produce as well as arts, crafts and even music. City Pages Restaurant Critic Dara Moskowitz has toured many Twin Cities choices and stopped by to talk about them.
July 11, 2001 - Governor Jesse Ventura is in Canada today, to promote Minnesota trade and tourism. Later this morning he'll meet with business leaders in Toronto. The governor's three-day tour of Canada is his fourth international trade mission since he took office. Later this week in Winnepeg, the governor will participate in a ceremony solidifying an agreement between the Winnepeg Art Gallery, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Joining us on the line is Patricia Bovey (BOE-vee), director of the Winnepeg Art Gallery.
July 12, 2001 - Public television stations across the state are facing a crisis. By May 2003 all public TV stations in the country must convert to digital broadcasting technology. But Minnesota's public broadcasters are having trouble funding the switch, and the Legislature in its recent session provided far less money than supporters had requested. As a result, some stations including TPT in the Twin Cities may eliminate popular programming, and others could have to shut down altogether.
July 16, 2001 - In Carol Muske-Dukes' novel "Life After Death" a St. Paul woman tells her husband, in a fit of anger, to drop dead. The following day he does just that, collapsing of a heart attack while playing tennis. She is left angry, confused, guilty, and troubled by strange memories, such as the time he proposed to her in New York. Carol Muske-Dukes says when she began writing "Life after Death", she intended to write a satire on the funeral industry in the spirit of Evelyn Waugh and Jessica Mittford. But as she did her research, talking to funeral directors, she began wanting to write a book about what actually happens to people, both living and dead, when someone passes away. Then, as she told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr, things took a bizarre twist. The week she mailed the finished manuscript for publication, her own husband collapsed and died on a tennis court.
July 18, 2001 - Joe Dowling, Guthrie Theater artistic director, sits in the studio with Gary Eichten to talk about the future of the venue and answer questions from MPR listeners.