December 2, 1998 - A former giant of the exercise equipment industry passed from local control this week. NordicTrack, which sold millions of dollars-worth of cross country-ski machines since the mid-eighties, has fallen foul of changes in US exercise habits. Minnesota Public Radio Sports Commentator Jay Wiener has this analysis... Minnesota Public Radio Sports Commentator Jay Wiener is on leave from the Star Tribune Newspaper to write a book on the politics of sports stadiums. Sun 28-MAY 07:43:20 MPR NewsPro Archive - Wed 04/11/2001
November 27, 1998 - INTRO Just as this time of year is vital for retailers, the holiday season is hugely important for arts organizations. The flurry of ticket buying to holiday shows like A Christmas Carol and the Nutcracker, brings in a significant part of the year's operating budget for Twin Cities arts organizations. Its also a time when may young people get their initial exposure to the arts. Yet Despite an almost-guaranteed holiday audience for some shows, nationwide, audience numbers for cultural events are stagnant. And so, like any business, arts organizations are dreaming up creative new strategies to pack 'em in. Minnesota Public Radio's Mary Stucky has more.
November 23, 1998 - Things are seldom entirely what they seem in the short stories in Joseph Clark's new collection "Jungle Wedding." A paranoid father believes the government has bugged his house... not realising his family's really the subject of an elaborate and outrageous sociology experiment. A woman spends her time shopping in tears, feeling anonymous because her of her ex-husband's behavior, not knowing she the staff considers her an institution in her local mall. And a woman returns to her childhood home to prepare for her mothers funeral, but ends using the building as a massive but anonymous mausoleum. Clarke, who is currently living and working in Vermillion, South Dakota, told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr he is so interested in the idea someone is always watching... that he writes with a camera in mind.
November 12, 1998 - The day after telling students at his old High school he didn't apply himself much to his studies... Minnesota Governor-elect Jesse Ventura is back at school. Every two years, a few weeks after the November vote, the National Governor's Association puts on "Governors school" for first-time governors --- a few days in specialized seminars and private consulations with experienced governors currently on the job. Nancy Marshall reports from this years Governors school in Wilmington Delaware. SFXX 1: Welcome to the 1998 Governor's session. . . TRXX 1: Governor Thomas Carper of Delaware is the host -- and a professor -- at this year's National Governor's Association
November 10, 1998 - TO FOLLOW STEIL'S PIECE To the north.... The Highway Patrol has closed parts of Interstate 29 because of vehicles in the ditch and poor visibility. The patrol says southbound Interstate 29 is closed from Grand Forks, and northbound Interstate 29 is closed from Hillsboro. Interstate 94 eastbound is closed temporarily out of Mandan because of jackknifed semi. The storm is now reaching across Northern parts of our region. Minnesota Public Radio's Tom Robertson reports from Bemidji...
November 5, 1998 - Frank McCourt's wee brother Malachy was actually famous long before "Angela's Ashes" was even in draft form. Just a few years after Frank paid his passage from Limerick, Malachy was a fixture on the New York scene. He'd invented what he claims was the first singles bar, appeared in plays around the city, and become a regular guest with a pioneer late night television Jack Paar. Malachy McCourt chronicles his days in New York in his autobiography "A Monk Swimming." He also tells how he things eventually went horribly wrong, and he ended up a gold smuggler. He took what would now be seen as incredible risks, both with the international authorities and in the houses of ill-repute in Bombay. McCourt told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr the humour laced through his book is born of tragedy...
October 2, 1998 - Childhood memories can be at times a comfort or sometimes a scourge. However there is no real guarentee they are ever accurate. Canadian author Andre Alexis, who was born in Trinidad, explores how time and circumstances can change how and what we remember. Alexis told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr his novel Childhood is quite different from more famous literary accounts of childhood.
September 29, 1998 - It's an unusual mystery for grown-up in which the pictures are as important as the text...but that's the case with the new book -- DIARY OF AN AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER -- by artist Graham Rawle . Rawle's provocative collages provide clues in solving the mystery while presenting a scathing critique on society's views of women, sex and consumer culture. Rawle was in town recently ----.MPR's Mary Stucky caught up the artist at an exhibit of his work currently on display at the College of Visual Arts in St Paul.
September 28, 1998 - Country musician and novelist Kinky Friedman likes to irritate people. He grew up in a liberal Jewish family in Texas, but soon was making people wince if only through the name of his band "Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys." In time Kinky turned to writing novels: crime thrillers with a jewish Texan detective called, strangely enough, Kinky Friedman. His eleventh novel "Blast From the Past" was just published, and now he is touring the country reading from the book and irritating people some more. However when he came into the MPR studios today, brandishing his trademark cigar, it was his turn to be a little miffed when he heard how Garth Brooks sold out a series of concerts at the target Center in just hours last week. Friedman told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr he considers Brooks to be "the anti-Hank", the epitome of everything Hank Williams was not.
September 16, 1998 - The small town of Halifax in Novia Scotia has seen more than its share of tragedy and disaster. The Titanic went down nearby, a great deal of the town was blown up when a ship carrying nitroglycerine exploded in the harbor. Two zepellins crashed there in as many days, and most recently the town has been dealing with the crash of the Swissair jetliner. The town... and the impending disaster of the Holocaust is the backdrop for Howard Norman's new novel "The Museum Guard". It tells how a painting in a small art museum changes the lives... and the identities... of some of the people who see it. Norman told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr he can trace the novel's genesis back to a chance meeting with an elderly museum curator in the Halifax train station.