Rob has a brother named Gaylord Schanilec (Midnight Paper Sales) who’s equally famous in the town of Stockholm, Wisconsin and to some extent, the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Gaylord’s work as a wood-engraver was profiled last week in a StarTribune article titled A bookmaker, unbound.

"He’s one of the two or three finest color wood-engravers ever. He’s really that good," said Robert Rulon-Miller, a rare book dealer in St. Paul who has followed Schanilec’s career for more than 30 years. "He’s a man of many parts: engraver, printer, bookbinder, editor, writer, natural philosopher, and he brings all this stuff together into his books."

Robbie and I went to see his work and hear him speak on Saturday at the Groveland Gallery. That exhibition is profiled here on the MN Monthly site.

This is the first time Schanilec is exhibiting his prints independently from his books. Schanilec explains:

“These engravings were made for books that I’ve printed in the past 25 years. They were made to be seen within reading distance, about a foot from the reader’s face. They were sewn into bindings and destined to darkness on a bookshelf, along with their texts, until the book is opened and a reader, in due course, finds them. Now, here they are, framed on the vast white plains of these walls – like icebergs in an ocean – but emitting, I hope, the warmth of the world from which they came.”

For more than a decade, Trailer Trash has taken the holiday spirit and put a spin on it that is decidedly their own, performing a series of holiday shows in the Twin Cities and Rochester.

The band played a couple of very well received shows in Northfield this year, and they are really excited to share their own special brand of Christmas cheer with us. Combining original songs for the season with some reworked holiday favorites, these “honky tonk heroes” will have you laughing, singing and dancing your little humbug off.

Left-Handed Entertainment is proud to present this one-of-a-kind holiday classic, and we hope to make it another traditional holiday event in Northfield.

We could not be doing this without the generous help of some local sponsors: Rob Schanilec at the Northfield Entertainment Guide, Jeff Johnson at KYMN Radio, John Thomas at Mr. JST Technology Consulting, Cate Vermeland Photography, Ross Currier at the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation, and of course, Griff Wigley here at Locally Grown Northfield.  We thank them for their support.

Tickets are $8.00 in advance or $10.00 at the door (A true bargain! Tickets for the sold-out show in Rochester were $17.50 and $22.50). You can order your tickets online at ATrashyLittleChristmas.com or by contacting either me, Rich Larson, at bgwg@charter.net or Jessica Paxton at Jessica@kymnradio.net.

Doors open at 6pm, and guests will be treated to a special holiday set by Matt Arthur & The Bratlanders at 7pm.

See you there!

If you do it too, he needs to hear from y’all by May 16.  Details here.

And FYI, the NEG is now on Facebook.

The editors at the NEG have done the tallying and we now have the results of the Northfield Entertainment Guide and Locally Grown readers’ poll of the

Best of Northfield 2010
(6-page PDF)

The official announcement was made today at 8:45 am when Mr. NEG, Rob Schanilec and I announced the winners on KYMN Radio 1080 with Jeff Johnson.

The Feb. 2011 issue of the Northfield Entertainment Guide includes the results and is now available throughout Northfield, and in Flash and PDF format on the NEG site.   Here’s the intro to the Best of 2010 section:

Here it is, loyal Entertainment Guide readers, the long-awaited results to Northfield’s Best of 2010! Our dedicated team of vote counters was wowed by the number of responses we received, but not surprised by the varieties of winners you found for each category.

It confirms our belief that Northfield is a talent-filled town with delights to be found around each and every corner. Though some categories were close, a winner shone through in each and we present them here, with the steady runners-up in italics just behind. Looking at the field of choices, one thing became quite clear to us: the true winner in this poll is the town of Northfield. Congratulations to everyone involved, and here’s to another year!

Rob asked for feedback about 6 weeks ago here on LG so you’ll notice some changes to the questions/categories this year. 

  Vote online here

Vote by filling out this online straw poll or by filling out a paper version (PDF) and dropping it off at or mailing it to By All Means Graphics at 17 Bridge Square.

The deadline for casting your ballot is Thursday, Jan. 20. Results will appear in the Feb. 2010 issue of the NEG and here on LoGro on Feb. 1.

Questions or suggestions? Attach a comment here.

Beth Mathewson and Jodie Chappuis are the proprietors of the recently-opened The Coffee House (Facebook page), formerly Java Live, located right next door to the Paradise Center for the Arts. See this Feb. Faribault Daily News article, Coffee lovers: The bean is back.

 
Across the street is The Cheese Cave, where Robbie and I had dinner with Rob Schanilec and Felicia Crosby a month ago before we attended the Willow Brae concert at the Paradise. Laura Paquette is the manager who served us. See this June 2009 Faribault Daily News article on the opening of the Cheese Cave.

The Feb. 2010 issue of the Northfield Entertainment Guide (PDF) includes the results and is now available throughout Northfield, and in Flash format on the NEG site.   Rob writes in the intro to the Best of 2009 section:

Here it is, loyal Entertainment Guide readers, the long-awaited results to Northfield’s Best of 2009! Our dedicated team of vote counters was wowed by the number of responses we received, but not surprised by the varieties of winners you found for each category. It confirms our belief that Northfield is a talent-filled town with delights to be found around each and every corner.

Though some categories were close, a winner shone through in each and we present them here, with the steady runners-up in italics just behind. Looking at the field of choices, one thing became quite clear to us: the true winner in this poll is the town of Northfield. Congratulations to everyone involved, and here’s to another year!

Vote by filling out this online straw poll or by filling out a paper version (PDF) and dropping it off at or mailing it to By All Means Graphics at 17 Bridge Square.

The deadline for casting your ballot is Thursday, Jan. 21. Results will appear in the Feb. 2010 issue of the NEG and here on LG on Feb. 1.

I stopped by Rob’s Bridge Square office at By All Means Graphics this morning to get the latest info. Lo, there are some changes this year so pay attention:

You’ll notice some new straw poll questions.  And some questions have been dropped.  And this year, there won’t be any ballot boxes around town at stores or other venues.

As for the year attached to the poll, Rob has changed his mind.

Back to your query last year – yes it now makes more sense to me to have this be a best of the preceding year tally.

So I’ve changed the dates (again!) on previous Best of Northfield-related blog posts to avoid confusion. See the Best of Northfield 2007 and 2008.

VOTING IS NOW OPEN!

Vote by filling out this online straw poll or by filling out a paper version (PDF) and dropping it off at or mailing it to By All Means Graphics at 17 Bridge Square.

The deadline for casting your ballot is Thursday, Jan. 21. Results will appear in the Feb. 2010 issue of the NEG and here on LG on Feb. 1.

Questions or suggestions? Attach a comment here.

Wikipidia has an entry on ice circles. Evidently, there are two different types. More photos here.

Update 12/25: Patrick Enders emailed me this photo of a single large ice circle at the foot of the dam that he took with his iPhone about 1-2 weeks ago. He says in a comment below that there were two of them.

Update 01/12: Another batch of ice circles has formed during the current cold snap:

Rob is co-chair of the event, as he was for the last big ball, the 2005 Sesquicentennial Governors Ball (photo album here, 2007 blog post summary here)

The event will feature music by the Bend in the River Big Band and information about ballroom dancing lessons will soon be leaking out.

Dan Freeman was at the party with his undertaker face and tuxedo on. It’s not too early to contact Dan about a tuxedo for the event.

And you can now purchase tickets online for the Beaux Arts Ball. Don’t wait too long, tho. Only 500 will be sold.

See the album of 21 photos, the large slideshow, or this small slideshow:

The October NEG is out and has a glossy cover for the first time. Slick!

Click play to watch. 39 seconds.