Posts Tagged ‘downtown Minneapolis’
Ani Concert
We were out on the town again last night, hustling to downtown Minneapolis after feeding the dog and horses to see Ani DiFranco performing at First Avenue.
Cyndie purchased the tickets last September and then choreographed getting us there in perfect timing to select a spot where we wouldn’t have tall people standing in front of us. I just had to show up and enjoy the show.
Ani was in fine form and the crowd showered her with love.
It made for a very pleasant night. I’m a bit out of practice for a concert performance that requires standing for the entire night and for a venue where the volume makes earplugs advisable. I had no hearing protection and regretted it.
We are fans of Ani’s earlier albums, having discovered her at an outdoor music festival at Hyland Lake Park Reserve in the early to mid-90s. It was obvious that the crowd last night shared a similar appreciation for Ani’s music from that period and we were all treated to a variety of our old favorites.
Ani mentioned a recent interviewer asked if she was still singing protest songs. Not appreciating being labeled a protest singer, Ani said she performs to bring people joy. She certainly achieved that last night, and from the look on her face, I think the warm responses from the audience returned the joy right back to her.
.
.
Out Holidaying
Last night was a festive dinner and a [somewhat] holiday-ish concert at the Dakota in Minneapolis with our friends, the Wilkuses. Singer/songwriters Karla Bonoff and Livingston Taylor performed a mix of their solo pieces with duets and a handful of Christmas songs.
It is such a treat to hop in the car and find ourselves transported from the rural countryside to the downtown streets of the big city within an hour.
Tall buildings!
Highlights include the delicious deviled egg bite followed by a chicken sandwich and fries. Food and flavors that matched my desires perfectly on this occasion.
I was greatly entertained by one of Livingston’s songs where his lyrics sort of break a fourth wall if that can be applied here. I’d never before heard his song, “Railroad Bill” in which the main character, Bill, gets into an argument with the songwriter, Livingston.
Karla performed each of the songs that I wanted to hear in addition to her renditions of the holiday tunes and duets with Livingston, frequently backed by the very effective guitar artistry of Sean McCue.
The one thing missing that I truly enjoy in live concert performances is a blending of voices and spot-on harmonies, to put it in as gentle a way as I can think to say.
Despite that minor gripe, the show and audience contributed to a pleasant dose of holiday cheer. Getting in and out of downtown was a breeze, for which I, as the driver, was very pleased. It didn’t hurt that the weather was unseasonably gorgeous with temperatures well above average.
It felt more like October than December, which made it only a little bit weird to be reveling in the season of having ourselves a merry little Christmas now.
.
.
Opening Night
After an afternoon of monkeying around to install a new replacement storm door over our front door –of which I only got halfway– we hustled to feed animals early and get cleaned up for a night out on the town with our friends Barb and Mike Wilkus. First stop, we met in Northeast Minneapolis for some Southeast Asian food at Hai Hai restaurant, a culinary departure for all of us. It was great!
From there, we drove downtown for the local opening night performance of “Ain’t Too Proud,” the story of the Temptations, at the Orpheum Theater.
Quite a performance that tells the story of ups and downs the group went through in their somewhat complicated history.
It made for a very late night. Driving for an hour to get home after the show brought us in long after our usual bedtime. We are not usually on the road when it starts to get foggy and young raccoons might be trying to make their way across the pavement.
I fear there is one less raccoon alive this morning because I chose not to make any evasive maneuvers that might put ourselves and our vehicle at risk.
.
.
Cosmic Evening
Our experience last night was indeed cosmic in the colossal sense. Joined by our friends, Mike and Barb, we dined at the ever so fine Capital Grille before catching Neil deGrasse Tyson presenting his “Cosmic Perspective” at the State Theater.
Typically, I was rather lukewarm to the idea when Cyndie purchased tickets last fall. April seemed so forever away and why would I want to drive to downtown Minneapolis to sit and listen to an astrophysicist talk? Now I know why. Neil deGrasse Tyson is hilariously entertaining while expounding on mind-expanding perspectives from an astrophysicist perspective.
The icing on our cake of an evening was the fact that Cyndie included Barb and Mike in our plan and selected a fine dining establishment that shares a wall with the theater. We feasted like royalty and were lucky to be served by a sublime professional who guided our selections and timed our meal with impressive expertise, right down to slipping in a delectable coconut cream pie serving for dessert with just enough time to allow me to run a doggy bag of leftovers to the car in the parking ramp down the block.
Then, it was time for the show. From the moment Neil kicked off his shoes by the podium and addressed the crowd with his good-natured, approachable delivery, I felt myself becoming an instant fan, along with seemingly everyone else in the audience, if they weren’t already.
Almost every detail or relationship of the universe he highlighted was affirming in its scientific simplicity, even when it was equally mind-boggling in complexity. The molecules in the air we breathe and the water we drink have been on this planet for centuries upon centuries and passed through others for eons.
We are built out of the same elements as the stars of the universe. It isn’t our uniqueness that makes us special, it’s our ‘sameness’.
The hubris of thinking we are anything more than we actually are is laid bare by the multitude of examples presented from a cosmic perspective. For me, it resonates with my understanding that the more we come to know, the more we realize how little we actually know.
Neil’s sharp wit provided non-stop chuckles and frequent bursts of laughter throughout the delivery of interesting scientific details about our world and its place in the universe.
When the talk appeared to be going long, he put up a universal permission slip for us all to use, especially kids for whom it was a school night. He said to take out our phones and take a picture, so Cyndie did.
We just fill in our names and we have a ready made excuse for staying out too late.
I’m not sure it will hold much influence for our horses and Delilah if we don’t serve their morning meals at the expected hour, but it helps in our minds to feel justified in our exceptional evening.
It was truly cosmic.
.
.
Celebration Dinner
It was a small gathering last night, in terms of usual for a birthday event celebrated by Cyndie’s family. Our two kids and Cyndie’s parents met downtown in Minneapolis for a royal feast at the Melting Pot restaurant for Julian’s birthday dinner.
The fact that it was also Cyndie’s and my 38th wedding anniversary helped to bolster the celebration a couple of notches.
The multiple courses of fondue made for a long meal. I didn’t get around to snapping photos until we were working on dessert because I had been so focused on cooking my own food.
Fred had the best line of the night when he said to the waiter, “My compliments to the chef!”
There were so many flavors being mixed and mingled it was dizzying. Most of the time, I didn’t know what I was eating, but it all tasted mighty good. My entree was a combination of meats that included shrimp, pork, chicken, and beef with a variety of spices. Add in six versions of dipping sauces and the two different flavored cooking oils and I had a good excuse for struggling to identify each bite.
It felt wonderfully celebratory!
.
.
Relative Something 