The Pianoman at Christmas

Jamie Cullum is a joy to audiences and a gift to music. I have boasted about his #SongSociety where he encourages artists to live with their mistakes without apology as part of the creative process. He gives himself and musicians an hour to create a favorite cover track, and then record it live to share. It is genius what he comes up with.

Last year he came out with an incredible Holiday disc. The Pianoman at Christmas. All original tunes. The biggest track that made headway was the infectious Hang Your Lights. Because he is English and somewhere in the world where jazz and pop collide, most people are not aware of his work. Similar to Ed Sheeran, he is a cute elf-type that looks like something out of the Hobbit empire. As to new holiday classics, I have been noticing this to be a trend in Holiday music from a younger generation of artists. Instead of relying on old chestnuts which are great, but can only be reinvented a limited number of ways, I applaud them all and have found around 50% of them to be pretty darn good. But this holiday LP has not a clinker in the bunch.

What I found really revealing is this 18 minute #makingofvideo that he released. Here he takes time to show his process, the great musicians he collaborated with... But like a true storyteller, he lets us know the Why of each song. How it spoke to him and what he wants to share in the telling. So many layers and such great music. Please, if this guy is not on your radar look him up. And check out both these videos for some true Christmas Spirit!

The Muttcracker

Yes this is a real thing! And also one of the most heartwarming holiday tales you may read. Everyone who knows me, understands how much I put value on rescue animals and underdogs. Also, how much of my professional past was spent dancing. So, the melding of these two worlds in a holiday setting is fantastic to me.

Kelly Pratt and Ian Kreidich are professional photogs who began a relationship shooting the dancers of St Louis Ballet back in 2014. They are also husband and wife. In 2017 Kelly had a concept of bringing her love of dogs into a gentle collision with the dancers. The work has gone viral with a small but devoted following quite soon after. They admit that it takes more than a good eye & a quick shutter speed. Most of the dogs used come from Stray Rescue also in St Louis, so they are not working with trained animals. Some shoots require patience and some good responses from the dancers to capture just the right moment.

 

This season marks the 5th round of Muttcracker photographs (minus a year for the pandemic.) The idea is to feature a different dog up for Adoption during the countdown to the actual Nutcracker performances. Not to be preferential, they are now also including cute kittens as well. The couple has now also a coffee table book called Dancers and Dogs. And one can get a full glimpse of their catalog via their Instagram feed. Here they show a wide ranges of dancers from other companies. The dancers are beautiful and the pets eager & adorable.

Everyone should get a puppy for Christmas!

Dancers and Dogs Instagram page: 

 

Fashion Santa

In the holiday season, Santa Claus is a fixture. We have opened up our culture and are aware of how the folk tale plays out in other countries. St Nick, Klaus, Sinterklaas. Sometimes he leaves a lump of coal, other times treats in shoes, down a chimney..... many versions of the story.

But this is a new one for me. Instead of a jolly, chubby man with a bag; here is a hunky fashionista that looks like an Anderson Cooper daddy on Grindr. Paul Mason is a handsome devil that has taken a career as a male model and found a lane that was wide open as a knock-out Santa who peddles high end products. Gotta give the guy credit, he knows how to market himself well.

His main access is his Instagram feed with over 68K followers. Somehow, I am just stumbling on to him now. He has had campaigns for #Hyundai, #GrandMarnier, #AmericanCrew, bathtubs, grooming products and of course an array of clothes designers. He is even doing an East Coast tour for #RitzCarlton hotels. It looks his fan base now has called for his own line of sexy greeting cards! Paul is from Canada and appears to have a lovely wife around his age who also is a model. What a dashing couple.

Here are a handful of my favorite pics. But you really need to click on his Insta page link to see the full volume of his work. A great holiday diversion for us adults that still believe in Santa.

FashionSanta insta:

Daytons Holiday Shows of Yore

One of the holiday traditions that brought so many of us joy were the annual Holiday and Flower shows in the 8th floor auditorium of Dayton's. They were massive, opulent and rivaled the displays of Macy's, Gimble's and Barney's. They were not a simple Holiday tree with Santa waiting at the end with a lollipop. They were works of art and craftsmanship set up in a labyrinth maze of panoramas that were animated beyond belief. By adding lighting, sound and even a musical score composed each year - they were fantasy wonder worlds.

For all that waited in lines, it was not a distraction along the way, but an event that propelled the whole trip to downtown Minneapolis during the season. Adding in the Holidazzle parades of the 90s, it became a festive Day trip. Who can forget the majestic Skyroom with booths of white and the grand piano serenading as you grabbed your holiday buffet or the Oak Grill if you wanted upscale and hot pop overs? Hot cocoa and fresh crepes on the sidewalk as you waited in the cold outside for the nightly parade to start. Or if you were lucky enough to nab one of the few spots in the skyways overhead. There was also skating on the ice at Peavey Plaza with holiday concerts - although the ice was never prime because of the endless hordes of people using it - but you could get skates sharpened easily there. So many things to do. These must have been the glory days of Holidays in downtown Minneapolis.

Here are just a few snapshots that take me back. I do know that our traditions change, disappear or adjust as time moves us forward. I do love the new Holidazzle in Loring Park with the skating rink, the beverage hall and board games and of course the giant Yeti! I also love the European Market & holiday movie nights over at Union Depot. With the opening of the revived Dayton's marketplace, perhaps it will return in some form. At least we have SantaBears in the windows which is something that had been missing for years now. Support local.

Mill City blog post; Dayton Holiday show

Attached is a link to a recent Mill City Times blog post by Michael Rainville Jr that lists some of its history as well as a detailed list for each years theme from the beginning in 1963 until the final closure. 

Cinderella 1989

Dicken's Village 1967

Harry Potter 2000

The Polar Express 1988

Pinocchio 1991 - floor model

Fall Color Paintings

One of my favorite craft projects when I was younger were the rainbow crayon drawings. You would scribble in bright colors and then smudge the entire sheet in Black. By scratching away the colors with a needle or tip, you could then create panoramas in reverse silhouette. I found them fascinating.

These massive scale artworks follow that same concept. Much like sand art on the shore or chalk art on a sidewalk. They last only a brief amount of time until the elements of nature erase them like an Etch-a-Sketch.

These are nature works from Slovenia by a naturalist named Nikola Faller. It is a small town named Osijek. Using simple rakes and larger blowers. He works in urban parks and takes aerial images via a drone that reveal them as large mazes. I would guess their impact cannot be as appreciated from ground level. They are magical. It seems like a project that could take place as a community outing anywhere with a team of people and someone with a bit of artistic vision. Along our Mississippi or any of our large lake front parks.

the More Things Change .... the More they Stay the Same

I have to admit that I am stubbornly disappointed and saddened at the results of our Minneapolis 2021 elections. As much as we disagree, everyone would admit that this city has seen so much unrest and flux over the last 16 months. The world has literally shifted beneath us and we have all been searching for our own answers. And the Mantra since then is that we can never go back, we need to find out what our new normal is going to be. 

And yet, after all that, we as a community chose to stay exactly the same! With a handful of mayor candidates that came in all colors and backgrounds, we chose again to elect the dynamic white man back into office when 6 mos. ago he was practically being stoned in the streets. I am not saying he is evil or even a bad choice. But he is the status quo - or a lack of change. We are "okay" with this.

The monumental Police Ballot question has been a barometer of consequence since it was first raised a year ago. Our whole city had uprisings that burned acres. We all demanded change. But when it came down to it, fear won out and we again choose to keep our streets under the same authority even though everyone seems to align that it is not working. We are "okay" with this.

Even with a handful of City Council races in upsets, which include a few women, we seem to have gone with the white male quotient rather than make sweeping changes.

So where is this radical change that had been chanted for months now? I don't believe it can be said that the voters did not show up. I think it is the opposite; that they did show up, but when it came down to putting it in black & white, people chose fear. As much as we like to trumpet our Minneapolis Values of progressiveness and diversity, they are empty cries. Sure we have pretty parks and lakes, a few good theaters and some tasty eateries. But when it comes down to leading the way as a metropolitan area, we are just like everyone else. Des Moines, Madison, Sioux Falls - nice Midwestern towns that serves as a 2nd stop tourist destination when someone needs to visit family maybe. We are nowhere near a leader on urban progressiveness.

I had lots of conversations with neighbors and friends about all these topics. On both sides of the votes. There will be more years of trying to "work from within and make positive change." But that right was wasted in an election like this. It is all water cooler talk that sounds good in Mpls Monthly magazines, but does nothing to actually move the envelope further forward. We are left exactly right back where we started. No one really wins, we all just stay the same. And obviously for most of us, that is just fine. Sad. And pathetic.

 

 

Abandoned Places

After just watching a chilling Gothic thriller for the Halloween season, I am sharing this collage of photos.

It is actually an open page on Facebook. I don't actually follow it, but I do check in on it every few months to see what has been shared.

Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated with ruins. Part of it is the aesthetic of being able to see an original grandeur that has faded over time to the point that it shows only glimpses of what it used to be. But also the melancholy behind the image or place. My roving imagination wants to know what it was like when it was full of living moments with people, noise and in motion. In the country it was abandoned sheds where we would break the glass panes. In the city it was deserted alleys with scattered artifacts that betrayed their age. Rusted old cars, junkyards with broken toys, cobwebs in moldy basements. They are all stories waiting to be rediscovered.

During Halloween, these haunted places come back into fashion for a week or so. Even if fabricated and not true vintage. But they draw audiences and interest for those of us eager to find them. Here are a few that caught my eye. And a link to the page itself to share when you have some time.

Facebook: Abandoned Places