October 8, 2001 - SPCO Music Director Andreas Delfs says music has taken on more meaning since the September 11th attacks. Nine major Minnesota arts organizations are joining together for a special performance, called "Elegy," to honor the victims of September 11th, 2001.
July 24, 2001 - For a long time, writer Martin Amis was known in book circles as "the brat." The son of literary giant, Kingsley Amis, young Martin was regarded with suspicion and scorn as he launched his own writing career. Amis writes about that period of his life in his funny and bittersweet memoir "Experience." The book came together after another tumultuous period in his life. In the mid-nineties, he walked out on his first wife for another woman and became a frequent target of criticism in the English press. He also lost his father. On top of all that, he met his teenage daughter, Delilah, for the first time. Amis told Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Curtis that he never knew how deeply he was affected by his seperation from Delilah until it was pointed out to him by a critic:
June 12, 2001 - Thisbe Nissen's (this-bee ni-sen) parents met while on their hands and knees in some bushes outside a Manhattan apartment in the late sixties. They were both trying to get into a dinner party and the hostess, with a poor aim, dropped a set of keys from an upper story window. A scramble through the foliage led to dating, marriage and eventually a daughter. Thisbe Nissen steals that story from her family lore to kick off her first novel, "The Good People of New York." The book follows a fictionalized version of her parents, Edwin and Roz, from their first meeting through their daughter Miranda's tempestuous teenage years. Nissen told Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Curtis that while her father grew up in a small town in the Midwest dreaming of New York CIty, she grew up in New York dreaming of living someplace where she didn't feel anonymous. She now makes her home in Iowa City.
February 21, 2001 - Veteran French Director Agnes Varda discovered the subject for her new film at the open food market near her home in Paris. After the stalls closed and before cleaning crews swept up... she saw people descend on the discarded food. Where most would see garbage, these folks saw a meal. Agnes Varda spent a year getting to know these scavengers living on the fringes of society. Her documentary about them, " The Gleaners and I", played at the Cannes Film Festival, and premieres Friday in the Twin Cities at the Walker Art Center. The 72-year-old Varda told Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Curtis making the movie changed how she sees her country.
February 1, 2001 - What could lead a parent to kill a child? Dutch author Renate Dorrestein tries to answer that chilling question in her new novel "A Heart of Stone" The book centers on Ellen, whose mother murdered Ellen's father and siblings before killing herself. Ellen struggles to understand why her mother committed such a horrendous act and why she alone was spared. Dorrestein told Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Curtis she was inspired to write the novel four years ago, when a series of murder-suicides within families shocked the Netherlands. She says most of the cases involved husbands and wives caught in bad divorces or violent arguments, but one stood out from the others.
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.
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 20, 2000 - A blizzard is whipping up snow across much of the Red River Valley this evening. Visibility is down to zero in many areas and temperatures are dropping along with the wind chills. Forecaster Greg Gust, with the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, North Dakota, says many of his co-workers barely made it to work this evening.
December 20, 2000 - For skiiers across the state bitter temperatures and treacherous roads are a small price to pay for picture perfect trail conditions, particularly after the mild and ski-unfriendly winters of recent years.
November 29, 2000 - Margaret Atwood's latest novel "The Blind Assassin" focuses on an octegenarian looking back on the events leading to the death of her younger sister. But the book-- which recently won Britain's prestigious Booker prize- also contains a novel-within-the-novel and yet another science fiction tale within THAT. One of the Booker judges said the novel "demonstrates Atwood's immense emotional range, as well as her poet's eye for both telling detail and psychological truth." Atwood told Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Curtis many of the moments in the novel came from the experiences of her mother and grandmother.