“I sure do wish that Danny and Gordo would wear helmets if they’re going to ride that Harley all the over the field. They might hit TC, and that would be a disaster for everyone involved…” Read more →
Posts tagged: Conversations Real & Imagined
CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: LAST NIGHT AT THE BALLPARK
CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: THE CAT WHO OUTLIVED CHRIST
“Baby” is thirty-seven years old. This is the claim of one Al Palusky, of Duluth, who considers the black, long-haired cat to be his best friend. This is not news to Al’s wife Mary. “When we were married Al’s priest told him that he couldn’t call Baby his best friend anymore,” she said. Al just shrugged and added, “It’s true, he’s still my best friend.”
CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: “WE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG”
On a perfectly sunny day for a baseball game, as thousands of fans swarmed to the dust heap that is to be the future home of the new Twins Stadium, a good half-mile away a small but dedicated group of curmudgeons gathered outside Cuzzy’s Bar on Washington Avenue. They were preparing for their own little celebration.
“We’re geniuses, you know,” boasted Julian Loscalzo, chewing on a fat cigar and quaffing the first of many beers. “My good, personal friend Sid Hartman used to call us geniuses, back when he was all for the Dome,” he explained, his words punctuated by hoarse laughter. “We’ve proven him wrong by actually being geniuses.”
CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: COOL HAND LYNCH
Inside a booth at the recent Back to the ’50s classic car show at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, Sven Lynch labored in the sweltering heat over a slim stripe on the side of a black ’36 Ford coupe. Various gawkers had gathered, including a pair of corpulent, bearded twins clad in matching Twins shirts, a pock-marked kid wearing religious slogans, and a parade of purists dismayed that Lynch would dare to gild the lily of a classic auto. Lynch steadied one hand with the other, drawing a flawless canary-yellow line. His panache, not surprisingly, prompted one spectator to inquire about a custom job. “Sorry,” Lynch told the man without glancing up from his work. “By then I’ll be back in Stockholm.”
The Twin Cities boasts not a few pinstripers, but none are as highly regarded as Mr. Lynch—or “Von Sven” as he’s known when behind the brush—who has become the reigning pinstripe king of Sweden. Unlike most of today’s custom painters, Von Sven, a Twin Cities native, is decidedly old-school. He eschews stencils, choosing instead to eyeball a particular hot rod before creating a complex and utterly wicked design on the fly. Each of his pinstripes is unique.
CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: THE CHILL SHACK
“I made this so that my daughter Ayla and her friends from Watershed [High School] could have a place to hang out,” said Phil Vandervaart of his “Logville Café.” The café is a sort of a miniature shed/diner amalgamation, a rec-room that ascended from the basement and set up in Vandervaart’s South Minneapolis backyard. Its walls, made of cast-off goods from his sign-painting job, are a testament to his faith in the re-use philosophy—as are the used chairs scattered around the fire pit and the giant spools used for fencing.
Ayla has since left home for college, but her friends can still be found at the café, nursing cups of Vandervaart’s strong coffee while lounging in salvaged wood booths from a long-gone diner.
The structure is partly sheltered by a black locust tree hung with a trio of vintage plastic rocking horses. As the tree ages, Vandervaart hopes the wood will envelop the horses, so that someday, if he has to cut it down, he might have an intriguing piece of art on his hands.
“We do three things with old stuff—turn it into art, use it, or burn it,” Vandervaart said. He knocked on an old sign, pulled from the set of Feeling Minnesota. “These old things deserve to go that way. They’ve served humanity well.”
This article originally appeared in The Rake magazine.
CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: THE MAN BEHIND THE CAMERA
Phil Harder is an expert at making something out of nothing. He lives with his wife and son in an 1890s house he remodeled himself, an amalgam of retro styles and one of the last private residences fronting the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. He helps organize impromptu movie screenings on a nearby island, motoring friends out to watch old footage salvaged from dustbins. He’s also gone from shooting music videos with a Super 8 and pocket change to becoming one of the country’s most in-demand video directors, making spots for Prince and the Foo Fighters in addition to iPod commercials.
So what can we expect now that Harder is set to direct his first full-length feature film, with a $3.4 million budget and Thora Birch (American Beauty) eager to play the lead? Tuscaloosa may well be one of the most original movies to emerge from Minnesota.
CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: THE LAST PICTURE SHOW-ER
Local 219 of the International Union of Showbiz and Theater Entertainers was recently called to order over breakfast at the Edina Perkins. Bob Anderson, at seventy-nine still an imposing presence with broad shoulders and a strong handshake, pushed his omelet aside, pulled out some notes, and addressed his audience—myself and a waiter.
“There are about eight remaining union projectionists,” he explained. “Only a few of us are still working, and I’m the one with the most seniority …” He cleared his throat. “Which means I’ll probably be the next to go.”
CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: THE SHRIEK OF SILENCE
“Our work is a subjective observation of sound,” said David Berg. As a scientist of sorts for the Acoustics and Audio Group at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, Berg listens for a living. For instance, if you ever wondered what noise a cell phone’s seemingly silent display makes, he has the wherewithal to tell you. Not only that, but he can analyze the tiny purr and determine whether it can be improved upon. To do so, he would probably retreat to a room at the center of the Labs, a spot the Guinness Book of World Records has named the quietest place on earth.
CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: TINKERER EXTRAORDINAIRE
“Dig around and find something!” Steve Jevning said, poking through a box of doll heads. “That’s how we do it here. See it, touch it, if something talks to you, grab it!” Jevning is the founder and executive director of Leonardo’s Basement, a South Minneapolis educational center for children of all ages. In a space beneath the Anodyne Coffee Shop on Nicollet Avenue, kids can do anything from computer animation to welding to mummifying Barbie dolls. The place is packed to its dusty rafters with the detritus of salvage shops, electronics warehouses, armament factories, and other enterprises that donate materials. As the pirate captain of this strange organization, Jevning presides over nearly two dozen instructors; in summer the place kicks into high gear, tripling the number of classes it offers.
CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS (IN EIGHT PAGES)
Nick Hook never envisioned himself as an editor. When he was thrust behind the helm of the Whittier Globe in April of last year, he had virtually no writing experience. Nick had been shuffling between gigs as a rocker with Vinnie and the Stardusters and a lackey in the corporate world when he decided to submit an article to his brother and then-Globe-editor, Jamie. Suddenly, Jamie was fired or quit, depending on whom you ask. And since the Globe’s two-member board president, Ralf Runquist, a spry eighty-four-year-old, had no interest in managing the paper, he allowed Nick to take control on a temporary basis. After three months, another Hook was officially in charge.
12
