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By Griff Wigley, on February 2, 2012, 7:05 am
I got this press release from Mr. Left-Handed Entertainment, Rich Larson, who has purchased a Locally Grown membership so he can promote events like this. I’ve added links and images to it:
 February 1, 2012 – Northfield music favorites Meredith Fierke, Steve McKinstry and Dylan McKinstry will play a concert in tandem with Twin Cities legend-in-the-making Chris Koza for a night of intimate, acoustic, atmospheric pop-folk music at the Northfield Arts Guild on Friday, February 10 at 8pm.
 Fierke and the McKinstrys will be previewing material from their highly anticipated new album which will be released this spring. “This is by far the best music I’ve ever made,” says Fierke. “Steve and Dylan each bring something unique to the table, and together we’re creating something that I’m very excited about. I can’t wait for people to hear these songs.”
Fierke’s previous album, 2008’s The Procession, garnered so much attention that Minneapolis radio station Cities 97 placed her song Train’s Song on the prestigious Cities Sampler. Later that year, she was named Northfield’s best performing musician by the Northfield Entertainment Guide. The extra amount of time she and the McKinstrys have taken in recording their new album has created a lot of conversation amongst the Northfield music scene. “People have been wondering what they’re up to,” said local music promoter Rich Larson. “I’ve had a chance to hear most of the new album. The extra time and work really shows. Every song is a knock out. It’s going to be a real treat to hear this music in a great room like the one at the NAG.”
 The show at the NAG is the second of a month-long tour of small coffee houses and arts venues that Koza is making throughout Minnesota. This comes fast on the heels of a two month West Coast tour with his band Rogue Valley. “I love seeing road warrior performers like Chris,” said Larson. “The best time to catch a singer/songwriter is in the middle of a long touring cycle like the one he’s in right now. He’s had some opportunity to flesh out his music in front of a lot of different audiences, which is really the best way to develop a song. This is going to be a very good night of music.”
“The thing that really strikes me is the $10 ticket price,” said Jessica Paxton of KYMN Radio. “You’d pay $25-$30 for this exact show at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis or the Fitzgerald in St. Paul. And, frankly, the NAG is a far more intimate setting. For fans of good music, this isn’t bargain. It’s a steal.”
The Northfield Arts Guild is located at 304 Division Street South. Doors will open at 7:30, and the music will start at 8:00. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance at www.left-handedentertainment.com or at the door the night of the show. For more information, contact the Northfield Arts Guild at (507) 645-8877 or Rich Larson at (612)756-0490.
Related: see my blog post of photos of Meredith Fierke, Dylan McKinstry, and Steve McKinstry performing at the Carleton Weitz Center Theater last November.
By Griff Wigley, on February 1, 2012, 9:31 pm
By Griff Wigley, on January 31, 2012, 11:57 pm
I got wind of a rumor earlier this week that a new store is to open this month in the old Digs space. Guesses are welcome.
By Griff Wigley, on January 30, 2012, 1:30 pm
Explorer Will Steger had a commentary in last week’s Strib titled, Make America climate-literate. Here’s an excerpt:
 It wasn’t until 2002, when the Larsen B ice shelf disintegrated from western Antarctica — an ice shelf formed more than 12,000 years ago that my expedition team took a full month to ski across — that the facts of global warming prompted me to take action. In 2006, I decided to establish the Will Steger Foundation, where we support educators, students and the general public with science-based interdisciplinary resources on climate change, its implications and its solutions. Our goal is for educators and students to achieve climate literacy.
If the nation is to address climate change, it must begin with a public that is climate-literate. Starting with our educational system is critical. Teaching and understanding climate change is a process involving scientific inquiry and educational pedagogy; it is not about politics or partisanship. There is virtually unanimous scientific agreement about climate change. Yet due to both the inherent complexity of the topic and the social controversies surrounding it, confusion and doubt often persist. Climate change is now ultrapoliticized in the United States.
I’m curious to know what Northfield’s schools (district, charter, parochial) are doing in the classrooms on this ‘ultrapoliticized’ issue of climate change. Are our educators using materials like those available on the Steger Foundation’s education page, are they ducking the issue, or doing something in between?
Some personal background:
Continue reading Are Northfield schools helping to make students climate literate?
By Griff Wigley, on January 29, 2012, 6:13 am
The Northfield Enterprise Center is hosting a Coworking Incubator/Accelerator Community Brainstorming Session on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2-4 pm in the Archer House lower level conference room.
In related news, according to Megan Tsui, NEC’s executive director, "the EDA approved the NEC’s request for $20,000 in matching funds for a grant from SMIF (also $20,000)" for the "design and development of an Incubator/Accelerator (I/A) space in Northfield. The NEC will use a Co-working model with a membership structure to help make the project sustainable for the long-term." See pages 7-14 of last week’s EDA mtg packet.
And last Friday, "Councilwoman Rhonda Pownell and several NEC Board members took a tour of CoCo Minneapolis," according to this post on the NEC Facebook Wall.
If you’re new to coworking, see all the blog posts about it here.
By Griff Wigley, on January 28, 2012, 8:58 pm
By Griff Wigley, on January 27, 2012, 2:24 pm
Carleton professor Jeff Ondich is a GBM regular and this morning he stopped by my corner office to alert me to the ice circles forming below the Ames Mill dam. I blogged about ice circles back in 2009 but haven’t seen them since.
  
Jeff’s photos (left and center) of the ice circles with his smartphone turned out a lot better than those from my smartphone. However, he really does have zombie eyes from spending too much time in front of a computer. In addition to being a computer science professor, he owns a language software/app company in Dinkytown called Ultralingua; they also have word game app called Accio. Now if we could only convince him and his Twin Cities-based employees to relocated to Northfield. Hmmm.
By Griff Wigley, on January 26, 2012, 6:34 am
I tried to keep blogging while away the past 8 days but alas, my motivation gradually eroded due to the constant availability of sandy beaches, rum punches, and stunning sunsets.
  
Ahhh, Vieques.
By Griff Wigley, on January 24, 2012, 9:08 pm
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By Griff Wigley, on January 21, 2012, 11:46 pm
In Saturday’s Nfld News: Firefighters want to air concerns to Northfield council
 In a Dec. 28 letter, 27 of the department’s 32 firefighters asked that the City Council schedule a work session “to discuss improvement to the road map for the Fire Department, specifically the selection or election of the fire chief and appointment of officers and the new fire hall.”
Northfield Fire Chief Gerry Franek said last week that he believes a meeting with the council will alleviate some of the firefighters’ concerns. In meetings with the city’s administrator and public safety director, who oversees the Fire Department, several firefighters have voiced their unhappiness with proposed changes the city plans to make when choosing a fire chief…
The mayor also prefers to honor the established chain of command, and continue communicating through the city’ administrator, public safety director and fire chief.
I’m way behind on understanding all the issues with the Fire Department, going back to early last year when an OSHA inspection raised issues and a subsequent report by a consultant cited criticisms.
It’s an odd request for nearly an entire department (27 people) to want to meet directly with the City Council, seemingly without the involvement of their supervisor, in this case, Public Safety Director Mark Taylor. Imagine if all the public works employees made a similar request, going around their supervisor. Something’s amiss here and I don’t understand what it is.
By Griff Wigley, on January 20, 2012, 6:55 am
Yes, I’ve blogged this before, but it bears repeating since tonight is the night.
Our NCO/Northfield.org colleagues are having a big birthday partaaaaay tonight at the Grand Event Center.
 
See:
By Griff Wigley, on January 19, 2012, 5:49 am
In this week’s Nfld News: Redistrict? Council wants to eliminate wards
 A discussion about how Northfield should go about redistricting took a left turn Tuesday as the city council approved a proposal to do away with its four wards and elect all its councilors at-large… “I don’t think we have a need for wards at all,” said Patrick Ganey, who represents Ward Four. “I feel we could do a much better job with at-large representatives.”
Councilors Suzie Nakasian and Erica Zweifel said their positions as ward representatives foster relationships between council member and residents. Rhonda Pownell, who at one time suggested doing away with wards, said she’s since changed her mind, agreeing with Nakasian and Zweifel, saying that electing councilors only at-large eliminates the personal connection residents can have with their ward rep.
…
Having discussions about eliminating wards while considering redistricting irritated Nakasian, who said parallel discussions would be “prejudicial;” Zweifel added that they would “feel disingenuous.”
Ganey defended his proposal, saying that the time and energy needed to redivide the city into voting wards is too great and that the city isn’t large enough to have sections of town with similar issues. “I’d like to avoid the redistricting process,” he said.
Anyone know if Rossing, Buckheit or Imm weighed in on the issue with their rationale for supporting Ganey’s position?
I’m undecided about whether 1) wards for a city the size of Northfield make sense and 2) if this is a good time to consider the issue. See Northfield’s Ward and Precinct map (PDF) and chime in.
By Griff Wigley, on January 18, 2012, 12:05 am
 Like many newspapers around the state, the Northfield News regularly publishes articles via an arrangement with MPR News.
On Monday, the paper ran an MPR story titled More Minnesota lakes and rivers added to impaired list. The paper chose this photo (click to enlarge) to accompany the article.
I’ve lived in Minnesota my whole life and I’ll be damned if I can identify where this picturesque lake might be.
Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?
By Griff Wigley, on January 17, 2012, 12:01 am
 Northfielder Amy Seitz, CEO of the Exhibits Development Group, stopped by my office at the GBM last week to alert me that the Porsche 928 used in a Discovery Channel Mythbusters show about a year ago will be on display in Dundas this week.
The idea of the show was to test "the old claim that the Porsche 928 could go faster if driven backwards. To do so, they flipped a 928′s body to face the wrong direction."
The car is currently in Dennison, stored by the Clutchmen Car Club and on Thursday, Jan. 19, at 3 p.m. it will be transported to Car Time Auto Center in Dundas.
See:
Amy Seitz is pictured in the center of this 2006 photo with Terri Dixon and Carla Thomas at the Contented Cow.
By Griff Wigley, on January 16, 2012, 6:15 am
By Griff Wigley, on January 15, 2012, 8:15 am
By Griff Wigley, on January 14, 2012, 7:51 am
 A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a blog entry in the citizens widget on the right sidebar of Northfield.org‘s home page aggregator by someone named Quizzical mama.
A few clicks later led me to Northfielder Anne Sabo who, it turns out, is a former St. Olaf prof who now maintains three active blogs.
Northfield has a lot of bloggers but not many with more than one so I knew I needed to know more. We had coffee yesterday morning at GBM and we’re now exploring ways to collaborate.
Anne’s sites:
Anne Sabo home page
Quizzical mama
Love, Sex, and Family
New porn by women
By Griff Wigley, on January 13, 2012, 11:15 am
I got this email yesterday from Geoff Swanson, Assistant Director at St. Olaf’s Office of Student Activities. He showed up for the photo this morning at my corner GBM office where he used to work when he was a student.
 Hi Griff, I’m just sending a shameless plug for Second City’s performance here at St. Olaf tomorrow (Friday, the 13th) in the Lion’s Pause at St. Olaf. This is the show’s touring improv group and the event should be a riot.
Show starts at 8pm (doors at 7:45) and general admission to the public is $5 each. For more details people can contact myself or follow this link.
Description:
The Second City is always original, daring, and hilarious. Based in Chicago this comedy club’s alumni list is a veritable "Who’s Who" of comedy including Bill Murray, John & Jim Belushi, Steve Carell, George Wendt, Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, Joan Rivers, John Candy, Bonnie Hunt, Stephen Colbert, Chris Farley, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Jack McBrayer, Jason Sudeikis and so many more. Don’t miss what is sure to be a hilarious hour of improve-based sketch comedy as five of Second City’s touring comedians take the Pause Mane Stage!
See The Second City web site for more.
By Griff Wigley, on January 12, 2012, 5:59 am
Randy Jennings has a guest column in yesterday’s Nfld News titled What is economic development? Yawn? Nosiree. It is a benign title for a hard-hitting piece. (I assume the headline was crafted by the editorial staff at the paper, hence my use of the word ‘excoriates’ in the blog post title. It essentially means ‘kicks the ass of’ but you can look it up.)
It’s a well-written piece, so I encourage you to read the whole thing. But here are some excerpts:
With its takeover of the Economic Development Authority and the resignation of yet another member of the city’s professional staff, the city council has completed its dismantling of Northfield’s economic development, community development and city planning efforts…
Since then, the city council has new members with their own agendas and priorities. Community re-engineering ideas with clever names like “green steps,” “strong towns” and “complete streets” get attention. Job creation and tax base expansion do not…
Several current council members are actively opposed to commercial and industrial development. They spent more than a year angling to take control of the EDA without advancing a single idea about job creation or tax base expansion. They are instead funding specific organizations and activities that enhance their definitions of quality of life in Northfield. No impact on attracting jobs or expanding the tax base. Not economic development…
Perhaps the next election will serve as a referendum on what kind of a future Northfield would like to develop: more quality of life re-engineering, or more jobs and an expanded tax base…
I’m not well-informed on matters of economic development but I’m more supportive of the direction the current City Council has taken. Two large Northfield employers, Monster Games and Perkins Specialized Transportation Contracting, were featured in the Northfield Community Video project for which Randy was hired to be the Project Coordinator by the EDA. If you watch the videos that feature their owners (here and here), you’ll see that they attribute their location of their businesses in Northfield in large part to the very things that Randy criticizes in his column: Northfield’s vibrant downtown and overall quality of life.
So let’s talk Northfield economic development: the good, the bad, the ugly.
By Griff Wigley, on January 12, 2012, 5:09 am
 
Northfield Rotarian James Grabau stopped by my corner office at GBM earlier this week to show me the poster (PDF) for the Northfield Rotary Youth Exchange fundraiser “To India and Back” on February 25 at the Northfield Middle School. Tickets go fast for this event. You can order them now online. Got questions? Email Clarice Grabau.
By Griff Wigley, on January 11, 2012, 9:26 am
  
I’ve been a mentor since 2009 through Connected Kids, a program of Northfield Public Schools Community Services. It’s been a great experience for me and hopefully, Chad, my mentee. We still meet regularly.
I got this email from staffers Linda Oto and Cheryl Strike yesterday:
January is National Mentoring Month, and as part of the celebration Connected Kids is participating in I Am a Mentor Day via Facebook. The first-ever I Am A Mentor Day takes place via Facebook on January 11.
We’re asking mentors on Facebook to tell a story or anecdote about what it means to be a mentor or how being a mentor has impacted you.
See the Northfield Public Schools Community Services Facebook page and the national I Am a Mentor Day Facebook page.
Connected Kids, a program of Northfield Public Schools Community Services, currently supports 96 active matches and has served nearly 200 youth since its inception 7 years ago. Over that time, over 88 percent of youth have demonstrated improvement in academic performance and over 87 percent have improved attendance.
For more, see all my mentoring blog posts.
By Griff Wigley, on January 10, 2012, 7:00 am
This article has been at or near the top of the New York Times most emailed articles since it was published last week: How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body, adapted from a forthcoming book The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards, by William J. Broad:
 Black has come to believe that “the vast majority of people” should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm. Not just students but celebrated teachers too, Black said, injure themselves in droves because most have underlying physical weaknesses or problems that make serious injury all but inevitable.
Instead of doing yoga, “they need to be doing a specific range of motions for articulation, for organ condition,” he said, to strengthen weak parts of the body. “Yoga is for people in good physical condition. Or it can be used therapeutically. It’s controversial to say, but it really shouldn’t be used for a general class.”
Four years ago, I blogged about my back in a post titled Geezer report: how a trip to the Northfield Library ended my 20-year struggle with low back pain. I found relief in a book titled Back RX : a fifteen-minute-a-day Yoga-and Pilates-based program to end low back pain forever, by Vijay Vad. I still do the exercises three-times a week.
But even Dr. Vad has a warning about yoga and Pilates (excerpt from this web site):
 The paradox is that although yoga and Pilates are ultimately the best possible way to maximize back health, in the short run the vigorous twists, turns, and bends of advanced yoga and Pilates can actually cause back injuries.
It’s quite a catch-22: the very thing that can help you the most can very easily hurt you. Back Rx solves this problem with a carefully sequenced introduction of yoga- and Pilates-based movements and poses that will strengthen the back without traumatizing it.
I’ve heard horror stories from fellow Northfielders who’ve been injured at local yoga and Pilates classes. I’m not interested in ‘outing’ any local instructors or classes so if you comment on this blog post, please refrain from using names.
By Griff Wigley, on January 9, 2012, 6:32 am
By Griff Wigley, on January 8, 2012, 9:53 pm
  
As I walked in the Lower Arb this afternoon, it was hard to believe we’re heading into mid-January: runners in shorts; March-like mud; no snow anywhere. WTF. If it wasn’t for mountain biking, I would be really difficult to live with. I may have to start wintering in Valdez, Alaska, the snowiest city in the US, where they’ve gotten 270 inches thus far.
By Griff Wigley, on January 7, 2012, 11:57 pm
 In chatting yesterday with Brenton Balvin, I reminisced a bit about my life as a hockey rink rat from about 5 years old through high school. We had a pond near our house in Eagan and I pretty much lived there all winter. We built our own warming house, fully equipped with a pot-bellied stove. It was classic pick-up hockey, also known as pond or shinny hockey:
There are no formal rules or specific positions, and generally, there are no goaltenders. The goal areas at each end may be marked by nets, or simply by objects, such as blocks of snow, stones, etc. Bodychecking and lifting or “roofing/reefing/raising the puck” (shooting the puck or ball so it rises above the ice) are often forbidden because the players are not wearing protective equipment.
I went to grade school as St. Peter’s Catholic School in Mendota where we had enough hockey players to have intramural leagues. Raising the puck was allowed, and we had goalies, but bodychecking wasn’t common and I don’t remember any fights.
I went to high school at Nazareth Hall seminary in Aden Hills, MN where we could not only skate on Lake Johanna, but where we had full responsibility for maintaining the ice for two hockey rinks (with lights!). We had giant hoses for flooding and dozens of shovels for keeping the rinks snow-free. Although our class was small (I graduated in 1967 in a class of 33) we had enough good players to field a team that played some of the other teams in the Central Catholic Conference (St. Agnes, Hill, Benilde, Cretin, St. Thomas, St. Bernard’s, DeLasalle). We finished 4-5 my senior year. I loved it. Again, bodychecking was allowed but it was uncommon, especially along the boards since they were only hip high on the outdoor rinks. I don’t remember any fights.
By the time my three sons were old enough to skate here in Northfield (early 80s), I became unhappy with direction hockey was taking. Pick-up hockey was losing ground to organized hockey, even for the youngest kids. Parents were getting up early to haul their kids to the indoor arena and spending their weekends hauling their kids to games and tournaments around the state. I was disappointed to see how much time and money was required and secretly hoped the boys never got interested in playing. Thankfully, they didn’t.
 I quit watching (in person or on TV) pro hockey long ago because of the fighting. (Olympic hockey was an exception.) The recent four-part NY Times series on Derek Boogard, Punched Out: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer and the recent incidents of devastating injuries of high schoolers on bodychecks from behind have served to reinforce my beliefs that great sport hockey has gone bad.
But then when I consider the youngsters playing pond hockey with the oldsters on the pond by my house a couple weeks ago, I think, Maybe hockey can be saved. How? I have no idea.
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