June 17, 1999 - For the last seven decades watercolor artist. John Cody has been obsessed with the nocturnal insects few people see. Cody is known as the "Audubon of Moths"... creatures he says are misunderstood. More than sixty of Cody's moth paintings are on display at the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum of Natural History. Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr took a tour with the artist.
June 10, 1999 - For the last 40 years Ed Rusha has been taking the ordinary things of American life and making them extraordinary. Considered one of the most influential of American Graphic artists ... he makes pictures of buildings, signs, and sayings, giving each a whole new meaning. This weekend the Walker Art Center opens a major retrospective of Rusha's work including his famous books of pictures of gas stations and parking lots. Rusha is in Minneapolis for the opening, and walked round the show with Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr.
May 24, 1999 - One day after the "made-for-tv" movie "The Jesse Ventura Story" air from coast to coast on NBC, the reviews have been uniformly bad. And Governor Ventura added his own thumbs down today at the annual meeting of the Minnesota Film Board saying he only watched the first few minutes.
May 21, 1999 - On Sunday evening, NBC will broadcast "The Jesse Ventura Story" a made for TV movie commissioned shortly after Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota. Critics have panned the movie, calling it shallow and inaccurate. Still it presents a generally favorable --- if simplistic --- view of Ventura and his anti establishment message.
May 21, 1999 - The Twins haven't been doing so well recently. But as commentator Nanci Olesen has found out, recently winning isn't necessarily the important thing.
May 18, 1999 - While it seems we're constantly assailed with stories of writers being offered huge advances on the strength of a single sample chapter: the journey to being a published author is often long and lonely. Just ask Minneapolis writer Wendy McCormick who labored for years, and crossed an ocean, before she finally saw her name in print. McCormick's first book, a picture book for children, is appropriately enough, about travelling.
May 3, 1999 - On this segment of Mainstreet Radio’s Rural Diversity series, commentator George Rabasa wants to talk about the immigrant "home."
April 29, 1999 - Tales of torture and abuse are the stuff of nightmares: this weekend a such a story is being retold, but this has, if not a happy, at least a hopeful, ending. The Macalester College theater department is presenting the world premiere of "Return to Kanburi" a remarkable story of how Eric Lomax, a British soldier tortured in by the Japanese during World War 2, found one of the men responsible decades later, and forgave him.
March 25, 1999 - You may not know his name, but you probably know his work. Ralph Rapson has put his mark on the Twin Cities as only an architect can -- in the buildings many of us see and live with nearly every day... the Guthrie Theater, the Cedar West highrise apartments, and many houses for people of modest and not so modest means. Perhaps most importantly -- he was head of the University of Minnesota school of architecture for 30 years --- educating the architects of the future. And now opening this weekend the first major retrospective on Rapson career along with a new book on his life and work.
March 23, 1999 - Note time reference in intro. The crash of the Cirrus SR 20 this afternoon is raising serious concerns for Duluth-based Cirrus Design in addition to a lengthy investigation by Federal authorities. Prospects were bright for Cirrus when its new single-engine airplane was approved by the FAA last year, and orders brisk for the single-engine, four-seater aircraft. But now the cause of the crash, and the consequences for the company, are unclear.