Jen’s Neighborhood

Under the sea

Patty
Yesterday
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I'm taking scuba lessons and I'm pretty darn excited about it.

While Dave's away in Germany this time, he signed me up to get certified so we can go diving together. He's already official, gear geeked up and ready to go and I'll be able to join him once I pass the test.

The class takes place in the pool, but our final exercise happens in the ocean waters off Monterey Bay.

I've got some homework to do, but I know lots about breathing calmly under pressure so I should do just fine!

Harbinger for a New Cold War?

No one seemed to pay much attention to Russia after the Cold War ended, but lately I've been noticing several bands with Russian references in their names. Could Russia be in style again? It would only make sense, since Putin's bringin authoritarian back (Medvyedev's a puppet), and the Bushies are probably getting bored with having the Middle East as The Enemy. In case it is, I'll fill you in on these bands and the meaning behind their names, putting my Stolaf education to important use once again.

The Decemberists The Decembrists were a group of 3000 Russian army officers who revolted against Tsar Nicholas I's 1825 assumption of the Russian throne after his older brother Constantine opted out. Colin Meloy and the rest of this semifamous Portland lit rock band were probably not there, but they are the most likely to be actually saying something with the band name.

Sons And Daughters

Ghost of the Russian Empire The Russian Empire began with Peter the Great and ended with the Russian Revolution of 1917. It's hard to say whether autocracy or serfdom is more deserving of the honor of ghost from that period that still haunts Russia today. But both are more likely than this Austin shoegaze outfit. My bro the Russian historian went with autocracy, so that's probably what I'd put my money on.

August 1914

Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin Boris Yeltsin was, of course, the first president of the Russian Federation, 1991-1999. He surprisingly resigned before his term was up, begging forgiveness for not fulfilling the Russian people's economic dreams, as he had promised. At least the four members of this Springfield, MO indie pop group forgave him.

I Am Warm and Powerful

¡Forward Russia! A political party formed by Yeltsin's finance minster Boris Fyodorov during 1993-94. It was still going as of 2003, but does not play a significant role in Russian politics. This Leeds, UK, dance rock band put an inverted exclamation point at the front of their name, so I'm sure their name is full of deep political significance.

Twelve

Russian Circles This one's tough. My best guess is that their name refers to an early Soviet period phenomenon of "mathematical circles," since their music can be described as "math rock". Apparently all large Soviet cities had lots of study circles, including math ones. They were like school math clubs, but much more intense, both intellectually and socially. With the Chicago trio's taste for experiment and math rock, maybe they think of themselves as a mini Russian circle themselves.

Death rides a horse

The Russian Futurists This Toronto electropop outfit is named after a group of artists, actors, and writers who were influenced by the original futurist Marinetti's Manifesto, which rejected traditional art, theater, and writing, and embraced technology, speed, and violence. Russian Futurism took on an even more socially and politically revolutionary nature than the Italian version. The poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was probably the most well-known Russian Futurist.

Paul Simon

Since this a post about Russians and music, I suppose I should include one ACTUAL Russian act. Hmmm... t.A.T.u is definitely the most famous Russian export, but it's because the two members of t.A.T.u. pretended to be lesbian lovers, playing into Lolita and girl-on-girl fantasies, as exemplified by their first hit single about a lesbian affair between two young girls, "I've Lost My Mind (I Want Her)." Good stuff. Then there is Dima Bilan, the Russian Enrique Iglesias who recently won the international Eurovision Song Contest with an R&B ballad "Believe." Instead, I'll go with St. Petersburg's Jane Air, one of the most popular alternative bands in Russia right now (which isn't saying alot, but hey). Since I would sooner throw my laptop out the window of my third floor apartment during a flood than download an MP3 from a .ru website, their MySpace will have to suffice.

Pinball Mini-Golf!

Stephanie
6 days ago
1 comment

The Walker puts together an artist-designed mini-golf course every year, and my friends and I checked it out last weekend. One hole was a huge water hazard, which consisted of dozens of plastic water bottles dangling from ropes.

Water Hazard

Another had you hitting your ball up into Teddy Roosevelt's mouth via his 3-feet-long tongue/ramp, as long as you could get it past Paul Bunyan's swinging ax.

Paul & Teddy

But the coolest, by far, was the People-Powered Penny Arcade. There was an old bike in the middle facing a giant pinball machine. To tee off, you had to pedal a bike backwards while dropping your ball into a big funnel.

Marcela Rockin the Mini-Golf!

The bike launched your ball into a giant pinball machine in front of you. Once in the pinball machine, you had to use the bike brakes to control the flippers. If you could hit into a hole in the middle, your ball would come out on the side of the hole. If you couldn't hit it into the hole, it would end up on the other side.

Check Out Them Flippers!

I love summer...

Here's a description of all the holes that I found on mnartists.org.

Canoeing the Namekagon

Stephanie
Jul 10, 2008
1 comment

Siir and I spent 3 perfect days up on the Namekogan last week. We launched at 1:30 from the County K Landing and right off the bat, we saw several deer lapping up water from the river, blue herons, and bald eagles. Iris were blooming all over the place. We paddled about 4 hours and found a great little campsite. Here are a few pics of the site, plus there was a lovely little ridge of pines downriver from us.

Morning Mist

Breakfast

We had a raccoon as our constant companion, but since he didn't get any of our food, I can say it was kind of cute to hear him sniffing outside our tent that night. Psychically, though, he obviously made an impression on me, since I dreamt that I was in North Minneapolis, running from building to building amid constant gunfire (all in pursuit of an ice cream cone)! Yes, we successfully tied up our food stash in a tree!

That Raccoon Just Didn't Try Hard Enough

The next day, we paddled about 7-8 hours, during which I finally figured out how to steer a canoe! I've made many attempts over the years, but always looked like I was paddling drunk. Until we stopped for lunch, we only saw 2 other human beings for the first 24 hours of our trip. During the day, we saw lots of turtles, a muskrat, and a pair of minks swimming side-by-side, in addition to all the deer and birds. And like the previous day, it seemed like every bend in the river revealed a ridge of tall pines, and it was just breezy enough to hear the wind blow through them. We found an even better campsite the second night, nestled right in one of those pine groves. No raccoons, lots of firewood, and an awesome sunset, though there was one evil-looking tree...wa ha ha ha ha!

On our last day we only had a couple hours before our pull-out at Riverside Landing, so we ambled lazily along the end of the Namekagon and into the St. Croix. Along the way we debated whether or not we wanted to avoid the Class II rapids on the St. Croix. (What can I say? Neither of us had paddled rapids before.) But before we decided, it turned out we had already passed through them. Guess we could handle it!

Here is our full route. Someday I'll have to do the whole river from the Namekagon Dam to the St. Croix!

County K to Riverside

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Gobama!

Stephanie
Jul 8, 2008
1 comment

My Hard Work on the Obama Campaign has Begun

It's all in the cards

Patty
Jul 2, 2008
1 comment

At a two day management off-site. My favorite parts are the personality tests.

Color me yellow, mostly. Except for the jelly beans. With those, I like the black licorice ones best.

what color am I today?

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Who Am I?

Stephanie
Jun 30, 2008
1 comment

Who Am I?

Walking on Nicollet Ave. Saturday night, I saw this little bit of grafitti on the sidewalk outside Christo's. Does anyone have an idea who it is? I'm thinking it's someone super famous I'm not recognizing, because a coworker saw a similar one of Martin Luther King Jr. near Lake of the Isles recently. Despite my fear of unknowingly participating in some obnoxious corporate graffadi campaign, I'd love to know what it's all about.

Clarity and gratitude in the details

Patty
Jun 29, 2008
6 comments

I've been feeling a wee bit sorry for myself, for no particular reason other than a confluence of life's regular up and down stresses and a need to remind myself to focus on what I have to be grateful for.

When I get like that I tend to make myself feel better by buying things and so last week I opened my Amazon Wishlist and one-clicked ordered a couple of new lens for the camera; a telephoto * and a macro **. I haven't played around much with the telephoto, but yesterday I took a few shots with the macro just to start to learn the settings.

I'm feeling better already.

Raise a glass to a cold beer on a hot day!

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Blowing in the wind

* Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 IS
** the Canon EF-S 60mm f 2.8 Macro USM

Look! Cute Baby Feet!

Stephanie
Jun 27, 2008
1 comment

My niece Susannah opted for a snooze during a mini-family reunion this week.

Do Not Disturb

Shearwater at the Entry

Stephanie
Jun 26, 2008
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All of the critical praise being heaped on Shearwater's recently-released Rook piqued my curiosity, even though the album cover gives me a seriously bad case of the creepy-crawlies. The 6 tracks they have up on their MySpace page were interesting enough, but I honestly couldn't decide if I liked them or not. So when I saw that they were playing the Entry with a local band I had wanted to catch, I had no choice but to go!

It was a fun show, both intentionally and unintentionally. The Austin band is full of skilled musicians, and they played a butt load of instruments: acoustic and electric guitar, acoustic and electric bass, banjo, melodica, whirligig, tambourine, trumpet, and keys (2 sets). And drummer Thor (yes, THOR!), who looks like an older buffer Garth, nearly doubles that number.

Thor!

He jumped around from vibraphone (played both with mallets and by bowing the edges!), to xylophone, to clarinet, AND to homemade dulcimer, in addition to bass and keys. The lead singer's voice and the music's overall tone was really rich live.

Overall though, it was much too melodramatic and prog-rocky for me. Said melodrama and prog-rockiness was especially evident in the lead singer's phrasing and his trembly falsetto. He was clearly a drama kid in high school, as he even took two dramatic bows at the end of the set. Century Eyes is a good representative of the melodrama.

Century Eyes

The fact that the only words I could make out during the set were "mother and child" in one and "God" in another were another tip that they might be taking themselves a little too seriously.

All that said, the lyrics are supposed to be about the destruction of the environment and love of nature, so if the library ever buys it or I'm ambitious enough to track down MP3s on the web, I'll probably give Rook a few listens. And more than a few members of the crowd seemed to be having a spiritual experience, so vive la difference!