May 18, 2005 - MPR’s Tim Pugmire reports on how globalization has brought an increasing diversity to places like the St. Paul School District. Now officials are trying to spice up their lunch menu to satisfy the tastes of students from all over the world.
May 20, 2005 - Former Vice President and Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale shares his thoughts about Nixon’s trip to China in 1972, and of Minnesota Opera's performance of "Nixon in China" by John Adams.
May 23, 2005 - Major League Baseball has asked Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire to make sure his players are on their best behavior in this week's series against the Cleveland Indians. MPR’s Tom Crann gets insights about situation from former Twins star pitcher Bert Blyleven.
May 30, 2005 - Popular Twin Cities author Lorna Landvik is trying something new in her novel, Oh My Stars. For the first time she's set a story outside of Minnesota and in a period before she was born. It's the depression-era story of Violet Mathers, an 18 year old Kentucky girl who's been beaten down by life. Just as she reaches her lowest point, she winds up traveling the Midwest with a trio of musicians.
May 31, 2005 - MPR’s Tom Crann interviews North Dakota poet Larry Woiwode on his dismay over Minneosta Governor Pawlenty’s decision to veto bill that would have established a poet laureate for Minnesota. At least 34 states have poet laureates. Like the majority of those writers, a Minnesota poet laureate would have received no tax dollars. But it wasn't the money that concerned Governor Pawlenty. Instead, he feared that naming a state poet would lead to requests for a Minnesota mime or state interpretive dancer.
June 1, 2005 - All Things Considered’s Tom Cran talks with Mo Chang, the charter school liaison and special project coordinator for St. Paul Public Schools, about the closure of Wat Tham Krabok and what life was like in the camp. As a child, Chang lived in Thai refugee camps. In 2004, she was part of a group that traveled with St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly to learn more about life at Wat Tham Krabok.
June 2, 2005 - MPR’s Bianca Vazquez Toness reports on the growing influence of women in the Twin Cities hip-hop music scene. They call themselves B-girls. That's B for “breakdance,” and that's what some of these female hip-hop artists do, but others use verse, spray paint, and music to tell their story.
June 3, 2005 - MPR’s Karl Gehrke interviews Minneapolis saxophonist Pete Whitman about his love for the improvisation of jazz and the complexity of performing within a group.
June 13, 2005 - MPR’s Bianca Vazquez Toness profiles La Loma, a commercial kitchen in Minneapolis that makes about 13,000 tamales a week. Toness interviews the owners about how they started and there goals for the future.
June 14, 2005 - Michael Cunningham's new novel has just been released. It's called "Specimen Days." Tonight Cunningham shares a stage with a woman he calls "an ideal reader", his friend, the poet Marie Howe, as part of the Literary Friendships series at Saint Paul's Fitzgerald Theater. His frist novel -- "The Hours" was a surprising success and it put Cunningham's work in the spotlight like never before. "The Hours" won the Pulitzer Prize, and inspired the 2002 film of the same name. The movie garnered 9 Academy Award nominations. Michael Cunningham says he truly enjoyed the big-screen version of his book "The Hours" despite the fact that the movie couldn't possibly contain all the details of the novel.